Striking Back at Sharpton/Klein/Bloomberg

AT LAST.
Community groups in the black community making a stand against mayoral control and the Al Sharpton/Joel Klein/Bloomberg unholy alliance. And stories are emerging about just how much money was funneled to Sharpton to buy him off. Word is he is very nervous about these protests and behind the scenes has been trying to make some deals. Once Sharpton is exposed within the community, his little cushy deals and exploitations could come crashing down. Don't let him off the hook. Our own emerging Save the Public Schools group is reaching out to these groups and we will talk about it at today's meeting. One day, who knows, we may actually hold a rally that may be smaller than the one the UFT held recently, but with much wider impact as we take on the true purposes of charter schools, something the UFT wouldn't touch because of its own involvement with charters.

If you're free Friday afternoon, or happen to be sick and take a day off, sign up- lunch is free and it's a duty free lunch at that. Other than booing, that is.


EDUCATION DEMOCRACY ACTION ALERT !!!!

ORDERLY CHALLENGE!!!

AGAINST MAYORAL CONTROL and Collaborators at the National Action Network--NYC Department Of Miseducation Conference—Luncheon Panel


FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009 11am

The Sheraton Hotel

811 7th Ave. (West 53rd St. And 7th Ave)

This convention, sponsored by the mis-named ‘Education Equality Project’ and the National Action Network, is orchestrated by Klein/Bloomberg/Sharpton.

The panel-luncheon spotlights Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg, Rev. Al Sharpton and others. They intend to keep the myth going that NYC is an educational “Miracle” under Mayoral Control rather than the DISASTER it actually is.

THE Panel AND THE LUNCH are FREE. But REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED FOR ATTENDANCE

WE MUST BE PRESENT IN NUMBERS AT THIS CONFERENCE. PLEASE SIGN UP TO ATTEND AND JOIN US. – at: http://www.edequality.org/AttendTheConvention

A NEWLY-CONSTITUTED GROUP CALLED NO TO MAYORAL CONTROL COALITION (NTMCC) - which BNYEE (Black New Yorkers for Edudation Excellence) and the New York Coalition for Neighborhood School Control (NYCNSC) are part of - IS PLANNING TO ATTEND ON FRIDAY TO HEAR THE PANEL BELOW AND EAT LUNCH TOGETHER.

IF YOU INTEND TO JOIN US, MEET IN THE LOBBY OF THE SHERATON AT 10:30. LET’S SIT AS A GROUP.

ATTEMPTS ARE BEING MADE TO INCLUDE A PARENT AND AN EDUCATOR ON THE PANEL BECAUSE AS PLANNED RIGHT NOW, THE PANEL ONLY CONTAINS THOSE IN SUPPORT OF THE BLOOMBERG/KLEIN TEAM.

WE KNOW THIS IS SHORT NOTICE BUT IT IS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO SEND A POWERFUL MESSAGE OF DISAPPROVAL ABOUT NYC’S EXPERIMENT WITH MAYORAL CONTROL -- where among numerous outrages of the past 7 years there are such educational fatalities as a 52% high school dropout rate!!! See the Fact Sheet below for more details of the “miraculous” bloomberg-klein regime.

AFTER YOU REGISTERED FOR THE CONVENTION PLEASE let BNYEE and/or NYCNSC know.

***********************

The Mis-education Mayor

In two terms NYC mayor, Bloomberg has made one of the most segregated and unequal public school systems, even WORSE. Through centralized Mayoral Control, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein (Bloomberg-Klein) restructured the Public Schools into a mayor-chancellor-school principal educational dictatorship.

BLOOMBERG-Klein has…

1. …trapped most Black and Latina/o (B&L) students in a 21st century system of educational apartheid. You should know that in NYC:

· Many B&L students are ‘tracked” to dropout before 9th grade

· Less than 50% of B&L 9th graders graduate

· Less than 30% of B&L students graduate with regents diplomas

· B&L students in “gifted” programs have been reduced by more than half.

· B&L students comprise 72% of the school population, yet constitute less than 17% of the students in the specialized-test high schools

· B&L students are about 13 times LESS LIKELY than Asian & White (A&W) students to attend a specialized-test high school

2. …increased the suspension and criminalization of Black and Latina/o students in their schools; accelerating the genocidal school-to-prison pipeline.

3. …dismantled the district “School Boards” and disempowered the Community Education Councils (CECs) as well as the school leadership teams (SLTs).

4. …thoroughly disenfranchised parents and community residents from their human right to shape public school policy.

5. …systematically “disappeared” Black teachers & administrators (student role models) into “rubber rooms” or completely out of DoE.

6. …aggressively recruited and funded a large majority of new, untrained white college graduates to teach predominantly B&L students.

7. …silenced the UFT leadership and the CSEA leadership.

8. …squandered billions of taxpayer dollars in contracts, and millions in jobs to Wall Street cronies to maintain a racist system. Yet NYC DoE eliminated ALL Black and Latina/o public school vendors by requiring a minimum of $5 million in sales to do business.

9. …failed to comply with state and federal legislation requiring the (teaching and) learning of Black History by all students.

10. …refused to allocate the Campaign For Fiscal Equity (CFE) Funds equitably.

11. …deceived many parents by portraying NYC’s generally mediocre group of charters as an honest path to educational equity. Since less than 1-in-25 students can even attend a charter, Bloomberg-Klein’s disinformation has simply served to confuse some parents and weaken solidarity on the powerful demand: “Educational excellence for ALL.”

Two Terms have been too many! He CAN’T have Three!!!

Bulletin Boards 'R US

The following interchange on bulletin boards either affirms the need for extensive teacher contracts or makes the point that no matter what they say, or don't say, they are often irrelevant. I always found that there was much fuzzy language that could be exploited by admins. At one point the UFT was able to get away with stuff. But under BloomKlein, principals have received training and advice in how to go around the contract and chapters have been devastated.

Take the ironclad language of a guaranteed duty-free lunch period. This has been violated constantly through "lunch 'n learn" meetings. The UFT response: make believe it isn't happening. Note Woodlass' advice includes the proviso of whether the UFT would back such a grievance on bulletin boards. My bet is it won't or only do so tepidly because the UFT strategy has been to hope there are places where the contract is being followed and a loss on the grievance would open up the door. Not a winning or aggressive long-term strategy. But what else can we expect from them?

Posted to ICE-Mail:
Hi Group,

What exactly is the story with bulletin boards and the UFT contract?

My admin says ( in *writing*): "Bulletin boards in the hallways and cafeteria must display current ( name of school) themes and be updated by the second Friday of each month."

Note the word "must". A slew of other specifics follows.

OTOH, the Know Your Rights section of the UFT website contains the following:

Bulletin Boards
If you are required to do classroom or hall bulletin boards, their format is up to you. In a right won recently, your principal cannot dictate how they look or discipline you for their format.

I told my supervisor of the apparent contradiction; she said she was not aware that the contract spoke to this issue. Actually, I can't find in in the contract either, but it IS most definitely on the UFT website as quoted.

May seem minor but is NOT. These out-of-classroom ex-teachers OBSESS about bulletin boards. Form AND content; to the most *minute* detail. It is a HUGE distraction from real teaching.

So who's right? Me or the admins?

Thanks.

Woodlass reply:

Bulletin boards are mentioned in the contract in Art. 21.A.6, below.
But notice it says the FORMAT, not the CONTENT.

The way I see it is this:

The only way to resolve this ambiguity (if you see it as ambiguous, it may be really concrete and NOT grievable at all) is if the union backs you at Step II (which is up to you to convince your DR to go for it), and then hope it gets it to the arbitrators. They don't pick up every Step I and take it all the way. I try not to file a grievance unless I know they're going to back it at Step II. Step II we always lose, but if it gets to Step II and loses, you might be able to convince union to take it to Step III, which is then arbitration. There are only limited slots for arbitration, so I don't know they'll go the whole way with you.

ARTICLE TWENTY-ONE: DUE PROCESS AND REVIEW PROCEDURES
A. Teacher Files
Official teacher files in a school shall be maintained under the following circumstances:
6. The following issues shall not be the basis for discipline of pedagogues: a) the format of bulletin boards; b) the arrangement of classroom furniture; and c) the exact duration of lesson units.


Thanks, Woodlass. We're not at the grievance point yet. Apparently this is a "right recently won" ( the UFT website) and it is likely that the admins are not up to date.

OTOH, if they lose the authority to micromanage bulletin boards I'll be damned if I know what they'd come-up with nest.

They have to do *something*. Or appear as though they are.

I'll make the rounds with the aforementioned 21 A6, and see what kind of reaction it elicits.

I'll keep you posted. ( BTW, yes.... too bad "format" is not defined; hard to distinguish sometimes from "content".)

Thanks again.

Public Schools in District 14 under assault

Norm,

Yesterday my daughter received a letter and an application soliciting her to apply to Williamsburg Charter HS. She is a sophomore at another high school. I have no idea how they got her address! She never applied there as a freshman. Then today letters were sent home to parents about the D14 CEC meeting. A charter school person is the slated guest. A new charter school is going into PS 297. These charters are desperate to recruit. There are small charter schools all over the district.

Don't forget to check the side panel for updates and other important information.

Fusing the Human Atom

Trying to both report on ed events in NYC and being part of them as an organizer surely gets confusing. I don't operate on any high-minded principals or with much of a plan, which is a good insight into the disorganized nature of my life. Instinct and the inability to say "NO" seem to be the driving force. I'm just as happy to sit in the backyard and read. Or make videos of just about anything that moves. Or doesn't move. (How about still life videos as an art form?)

I guess the one operative principal has been in the belief in releasing the latent energy inherent in not the splitting, but the uniting of the human atom. People fusion.

I was thinking about the enormous energy released when the atom is split and the analogy to the energy generated when masses of people become politically active. I have always believed if a mass movement of politically conscious teachers became active in alliances with parent and community groups and took this alliance beyond education into other unions (many parents are union members too, or would like to be) the energy released would be enormous, creating a sort of atomic social movement by bringing people together. Would the BloomKlein education deformers have gotten away with all their crap if such a movement existed?

A true union would be doing this but with the UFT AWOL, the only way for this to happen is to do it ourselves. This is where I part ways with some of my colleagues in ICE and other critical voices within the UFT. I think they spend too much time addressing the structures set up by the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership, time that would be better spend organizing in their own schools and beyond. But I seem to be in the minority. And there is a point to be made to use the union structures to pressure the leadership. My issue is I have no faith in the leadership to do anything but mislead.

This leads me to the "Save Public Education" conference we helped organize this past Saturday and the building of a coalition to fight back against the education deformers. We looked at it as a beginning of building a grass roots movement, not as a one-time event. The break-out sessions worked on future strategies and we're holding an organizing meeting (see side panel) tomorrow to follow up.

About 80 people came out on a rainy Saturday, mostly teachers, but some parents and representatives of community groups, like Time Out From Testing and students like Global Kids (two of them spoke and were extremely impressive.) Pretty interesting. Just as interesting was the organizing efforts behind it.

My experience as a teacher/activist certainly worked for me. In the 1970's I was part of a group that met almost every week and we were enormously active. While teaching was tiring, I walked out of these meetings energized for both my job and the other activities. So many teachers feel isolated in their schools, the boost they get from meeting with like-minded people has a positive effect on them on the job and in dealing with the political mind field school politics can so often turn out to be.

Now I know that things are very different today, as the DOE has turned schools into sweat shops and teachers are exhausted. But I've also seen the way teachers we've been meeting with feel as a result of these meetings. And it seems to be a good thing.

Over the long term, the number of people involved in active organizing, call it a core, is the key to creating change. I realized the importance of an active core after the last UFT general election in 2007 and was resolved not to do that again unless a core of committed activists emerged. it doesn't have to consist of an enormous number of people because the energy released in the human fusion process is enormous. But countering the massive Unity machine requires such a core. Thus, after that election, my attention shifted towards working to build a core. I knew we wouldn't get anywhere without tapping into the new teacher social activist group and trying to bring the older, union conscious people together with them.

With Teachers Unite aiming at reaching the newer teacher crowd and creating a higher level of union consciousness along with a social justice viewpoint (register for the 4 week course at the TU website) and the increasing interest of some members of NYCoRE in the union, there was a natural affinity to merge some of the work we were doing in ICE and Education Notes. Thus, for the first time, various scattered forces began to come together, like circling rocks in a pre-planet stage beginning to coalesce in a very loose manner. I would say it's still in the Saturn ring stage, but the conference was a sign that some rocks are sticking.


That the March 28 conference was well-organized and actually worked like we planned is somewhat astounding. I generally expect things to go wrong all the time, sort of like sitting on a cliff waiting to be pushed off. But having people like Angel Gonzalez and Sam Coleman pulling things together taught me a great deal about how to get things done. You know, that old dog thing was operating here.

I won't get into all the details of the conference at this time. I spoke on ATRs and seniority and being forced to organize my thoughts coherently into a 6 minute presentation was very valuable. I will post something soon. Sam did a great job on the high stakes testing issue and Michael Fiorillo nailed the grand unification theory of the attack on public ed in his usual brilliant way – hey Michael, how about a written account? TAGNYC and some rubber room people were also involved as well as other independents. (Read Pissed Off Teacher's report on the conference.)

As interesting as the event itself was the process behind it. Process over product is way more important I believe. Think of the way the ed deformers take the opposite, bottom line approach which is so ruinous to education. So let's look at the process.

We started with an ICE ATR committee in January focused on just that issue. I remember John Lawhead taking it beyond that at an ICE meeting, fusing the concept of high stakes testing and the emerging closing schools issue. John's points unlocked the narrow view I held and allowed a broadening concept to emerge. This group started to meet regularly and put out a few leaflets and we made contacts with people at closing schools, along with people active in the Ad-hoc ATR group that did such a good job organizing the November ATR rally (see the part 1 and 2 of the video I did showing the UFT selling out the rally The Video the UFT Doesn't Want You To See: The ATR Rally).

At the same time, we've been involved with the Justice Not Just Tests subgroup of NYCoRE and we've been passing around a petition to stop the use of teacher data reports and the misuse of tests. We've also been doing work on the merit pay issue. We got 200 signatures at the March UFT Delegate Assembly (see pics in the previous post to this), with even some Unity Caucus people signing it.

It seemed a natural step to merge the work of the ICE ATR committee, which renamed itself ASC-ICE (ATR/School Closing) and we started holding joint meetings.

Concurrently, Angel Gonzalez and I took a labor study course given through NYCoRE and we worked closely with the organizers of the study group, giving a presentation on the union at the culminating event a few weeks ago to a group of mostly young teachers. Since this was on a Friday night, a bunch of us went out to a bar afterwards, where fusion really works over a few beers. (I was over 2 times older than most of them, so I was pretty well fused.)

Some of the work of that group became incorporated into the committee planning the conference. A few teachers connected to ISO and TJC also became involved in the planning committee.


Beside being able to pull off a successful event, it is just as important for the core to keep coalescing and there's no better place to let gravity work than in a bar.

Thus, after a long day of conferencing, ten of us retired to a local bar Saturday to do some coalescing. That this is not a pre-planned group but anyone who felt like going makes things very open ended. No matter how many meetings you attend together, the socializing after is often more important in building bonds and trust. Unfortunately, this bar charged $7 a beer and food was expensive, so we did some quick bonding and trust building and headed off for the rest of the weekend, only to gather again tomorrow afternoon at CUNY to plan the next steps. Ahhh, there's nothing like some good old Core knowledge.

The only thing that bummed us out was that a bunch of our compadres in NYQueer held another conference the same day, which went pretty well I hear. (Organizing to Create Safer Schools for LGBTQ Youth)

Next time we will double check our calendars. So much organizing to do, so few troops.

Emerging coalition to defend public education: The Grass Has to Have Roots

The coalition of ICE and NYCORE had a very successful conference this past Saturday. The energy and turnout were great. To keep the momentum up we are having a followup meeting to continue planning events and actions around the issues of testing/school closings/ATRs and Charter schools.

This is a great chance to get involved, there will be lots of new people and lots of new energy. We are connecting to parent and community groups and hoping to get lots of teachers involved in the struggle.

The grass has to have roots!

WHAT: Emerging coalition to defend public education meeting!

WHERE: CUNY grad center, room 5409 (bring photo id)
N,Q,R,W,B,D, F,V to 34th street. Grad. Center is on 5th ave.
between 34th and 35th street.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 1st, 5:00-7:00

Who: Everyone interested in defending public education from the falsely labeled education "reformers" and their corporate, for profit, agenda!

Pics of Protest

Our High stakes testing petitioning at UFT DA last week
Have you circulated the Justice Not Just Tests petition in your school calling on the UFT to take a stand against teacher data reports and the testocracy?
(More photos)















Protest at PS 153 Washington Height, NYC (More photos)


Don't forget to check the side panel for updates and other important information.
TODAY: PROTEST BUDGET CUTS AT GOV PATTERSON OFFICE, 5:30

Duncan Appoints 7-Year Old as Top Aid

The pendulum in the country has swung too far to adults – Arne Duncan

Ed Notes Foundation to Fund Microsoft Reform

The Ed Notes multi-billion dollar foundation has announced a software reform movement with the aim of getting Bill Gates' Microsoft corporation to produce software that won't cause your computer to want to pack its bags and head off to Australia.


"Since Microsoft resists the expansion of competitive operating systems, browsers and other software that would lead to higher quality products and Microsoft monopolists resist measuring and rewarding effectiveness, this is a long overdue reform effort," said Ed Notes spokes animal Pinky, the cat.


Ed Notes spokes animal, Pinky

"In fact evidence shows no connection between the quality of Microsoft software and most of the measures used to determine the pay of its employees, who appear to be compensated by the length of computer code they write, rather than how well it works. The quality and superiority of software from companies like Apple -- these all are mostly irrelevant to the market place, with Microsoft using ruthless tactics like sending blue screens of death that have been one of the leading causes of computer suicides."

New measures of measuring the effectiveness of Microsoft's software engineers will be implemented. One purpose of measurement would be to deploy the best software writers to the neediest departments of Microsoft, and pay them accordingly; another, to fire the worst. "But the main point," Pinky said, "is that effective software engineering can be taught: The biggest part is taking the people who want to be good -- and helping them."

See Norms Notes Bill Gates is as Ignorant as Bill Maher

Related: The Bill Gates Joke Page

Voices of Brownsville: The Rally at PS 150

Parents and teachers rallied at PS 150 in Brownsville Brooklyn on March 18, 2009 to protest the closing of the school and its replacement by two charter schools. Here are some of the people from the school community who spoke. There will be a follow-up edited version, A Tale of the Two Rallies - the scary Harlem Success event later that night and this home-grown event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-z4FavNfUI

"Shut Down Tweed" Says Charles Barron

Parents and teachers rallied at PS 150 in Brownsville Brooklyn on March 18, 2009 to protest the closing of the school and its replacement by two charter schools. NYC City Councilman Charles Barron spoke at the rally. The strategy of Tweed to divide the community is causing a push back. Later that evening we went up to the Harlem Success rally, a slick event I chronicled on my previous video. After I put up some more speeches from PS 150, I will do a short juxtaposition of the contrasting rallies, the PS 150 pro and slick Harlem Success anti-public education rally.

You want to build some charter schools, then go buy your own building.
Parental choice? Let me tell you, you don't choose the charter school, the charter school chooses you.
They're lucky we're rallying in Brownsville. The next rally, we should go down and take over the Tweed building and let them know we're not going to stay in the neighborhood.
They turned our schools into test taking mills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8aBdcJfLD0

Jay Mathews: KIPPer Minister of Information

UPDATED Graphic:
Photoshopped by David Bellel

Jim Horn at Schools Matter reports:

When he is not shilling for Kaplan's dominance in the child testing industry (Kaplan being that part of the Washington Post Company that pays more than half of the company's profits), Jay Mathews functions as the chief propagandist for the mind and body control camps of KIPP...

Mathews's recent book, Work Hard Be Nice, celebrates the excellent education adventures of KIPP's infantilized bully founders, Davey Levin and Mikey Feinberg, whose bare-knuckled pedagogy is presented as the innocent over-exuberance of two irrepressible young uber-educators. The moral lapses, ethical breaches, and illegal acts by the terrible twosome (at least the acts that have been publicly exposed) are given the Mathews treatment, which is to say a Cliff Notes version of reality done up in etherized prose.

More at:

KIPP Information Minister Continues to Ignore Abuses and Ethical Meltdown

Matt Taibbi on The Big Takeover

Select quotes from Taibbi's scathing piece in Rolling Stone

...this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror.

The Democrats, tired of getting slaughtered in the fundraising arena by Republicans, decided to throw off their old reliance on unions and interest groups and become more "business-friendly."

Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers.

the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

Illustration by Victor Juhasz

A MUST READ
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/

Related: Naomi Klein's Nov. 08 piece, The New Trough

Ravitch Savages BloomKlein - Again

Check out our NYC parent blog: video of the March 26 downtown forum on Demystifying Mayoral control; including

• Paul Hovitz on the incompetence of Tweed
Paul Hovitz on the incompetence of Tweed

• State and city laws routinely flouted by this administration.
State and city laws routinely flouted by this administration

• Demystifying Mayoral control: Diane Ravitch on mayoral autocracy...

Demystifying Mayoral control: Diane Ravitch on mayoral autocracy

And don’t miss:
• Announcing a new Mayoral control troll in town! Heeeere's Abby Sugrue of secretly funded pro Bloomberg Learn NY revealed Announcing the new Mayoral control troll in town!

All the above if you missed the individual links at:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

thanks to David Bellel as always….

Leonie Haimson

Credit Recovery and Drive-By Diplomas in NYC

Teachers have been screaming about credit recovery and the drive-by diplomas that result as a cheap BloomKlein tactic to pump grad rates. See Jamaica HS CL James Eterno testimony last week on the ICE blog. ICE Members Testify at State Assembly Education Committee Hearing in Brooklyn

This winter, Jamaica High School has followed other schools by starting something called “Credit Recovery.” A pupil who has failed a class can make up an entire course by showing up for three mornings for three hours during winter or spring break. The academic standards have fallen so much that teachers now joke that vehicles better roll up their windows when they pass by our school or they will have a “drive by diploma” thrown in their car. We understand why the SAT scores are down. Standards are virtually nonexistent. Kids are smart. They know this. We know we are not alone and that what is happening at Jamaica is occurring in many other buildings. We are told by administration that if the graduation and promotion numbers don’t improve, the DOE will shut down our school and get rid of us.

Below is a fascinating discussion between Leonie Haimson and David Bloomfield who heads the principals' academy at Brooklyn College, a NYC parent and major critic of BloomKlein, though he does support the concept of mayoral control.

Leonie Haimson writes:

Thanks so much, David; this is truly fascinating stuff.

I’m not sure who Mr. Marino means by “They have tried to stop this action but as I see it, it is still occurring. “ If this refers to DOE, I would doubt its veracity.

In extended questioning at the Brooklyn Assembly hearings last week, Eric Nadelstern passionately defended the current practice of credit recovery and also claimed this it was a long-standing policy of the NYC schools, even before the current administration came into office.

As he was seated with Marcia Lyles, Chris Cerf, Deputy Mayor Walcott, Jim Liebman, and the entire top brass of DOE except for Klein, and Michael Best was seated just behind him (the chief counsel of DOE) and none of them contradicted his remarks, one can only conclude that the DOE very much supports the current policy, whatever they may have stated to SED to the contrary.

Indeed, this comment from SED is reminiscent of their recent statement to the press about the class size increases in NYC schools this year:

"Although the New York City Department of Education made measurable progress in the first year of their Contract for Excellence, we required them to take corrective actions this year. Both the State and City are working together to fully understand this new class size information and decide what further actions are needed to address this situation."

Either the state is more naïve than one would think possible, or another interpretation is in order.

About the following statement in Marino’s email that you reproduce below: “NYC DOE did publish a statement from the Office of School Improvement that Credit Recovery was not acceptable for students to earn credit other than the way I mentioned.”

Could you possibly ask Mr. Marino if he could forward you a copy of this statement, and ask him where and how it was published by DOE?

I have not seen it in the Principals weekly or otherwise. I wonder how it was circulated.

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

From David Bloomfield
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nyceducationnews] credit recovery

I thought people might be interested in a post by a NYS Education Department official about credit recovery, posted on the Long Island School Leadership's listserv for aspiring administrators:

As an Education Associate for the New York State Education Department there is no such item in the Commissioner Regulations as 'CREDIT RECOVERY' and this is a misconception. The only way a student can earn credit for failed courses is that the student have the 180 seat time in the course and go to a summer session for 5-6 weeks and then take the appropriate test at the end of the summer course. Anything less, is a violation of the commissioner's regulations and a school can be sanctioned for this. Hope this is clear to you!

Peacefully,
Sal Marino

Mr. Marino went on to state, in response to whether "component retesting" is possible to allow students to pass a course (i.e., if they flunk the course, could they would only then have to "pass" the parts of the course that they failed in order to receive credit):

The answer to your question is no! If the course let say is Integrated Algebra and the student fails different topics of the course and has a failing average of the course, then he has to repeat the course. I think your thinking of component retesting. That is totally different from course elements. If a student has the seat time in a course and fails the regents exam twice with a grade of between 48 and 55 then they can take the component retest in specific topics and if they get enough credit on this test the scale score is added to the regents grade to help them pass the regents, but not the course. They can pass the course without passing the regents exam. I hope I have made this clear. I also believe that this may be the last year for component retesting.

The good news (though don't hold your breath) is that Mr. Marino states, in response to my question about whether SED will make the DOE crack down on the practice and track credits obtained in this way, he stated:

At the present time the NYC DOE did publish a statement from the Office of School Improvement that Credit Recovery was not acceptable for students to earn credit other than the way I mentioned. They have tried to stop this action but as I see it, it is still occurring. At the present time the legal department of the state and city are working on something, for students to recover credits but it has not been published. Yes you may pass on the information I sent as a reply and I hope others will read this and see that there is no such item as credit recovery in the commissioner's regulations!!
Sal Marino

-David

PRESS RELEASE: DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION: COUNTER THE EDUCATION DEFORMERS

Conference/Strategy Session on fighting testing/school closings/ATR

WHEN: SATURDAY MARCH 28 FROM 12-3 PM.

WHERE: JOHN JAY COLLEGE, RM 1311 NORTH HALL BUILDING, 445 W 59TH ST
A,C,D,B, 1 TRAINS TO 59TH ST

Will charter schools and small elite schools drain away the highest performing students, leaving the public schools and the teachers in them to be branded as failures because they are working with the students who need the most help but are denied the resources to do an effective job? Have we seen the end of the zoned neighborhood schools in poor urban school systems? As school after school is closed, often for nefarious reasons, will we end up with a corps of teachers forced to move from school to school teaching in subject areas for which they were not trained in what is fast becoming a dead end career? And a corps of children and parents shut out of their own neighborhood schools?

We see this conference as a first step in building a coalition of teachers, parents and students to plan campaigns to take back public education from the privateers.


Angel Gonzalez, Sam Coleman and Norm Scott, three of the organizers of the "Stop the School Closings/Defend Public Education" Conference at John Jay College on March 28 appeared on WBAI radio Thurs. Mar 26. at around 7:40. Education At The Crossroads WBAI - 99.50 fm with Basir Mchawi http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/090326_190001eatcrossr.MP3

See the video ad produced by Education Notes for the March 28 conference to save public schools at John Jay College in NYC, is a prime example of the manipulation of the community by charter school advocates. Harlem Success, led by Eva Moskowitz has pushed its way into public school spaces with the support of the NYC Department of Education. The push by Bloomberg and Klein to support charter schools is a prime example of their failure to solve the problems that exist in public schools. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

The CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY:
THE INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY OF EDUCATORS AND
THE NEW YORK COALITION OF RADICAL EDUCATORS

Endorsers: ATRs-School Closings Committee of ICE/UFT, Justice Not Just Tests (JNJT), Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico – Support Committee of NY, Teachers for a Just Contract - TJC/UFT, Teacher Advocacy Group NYC – TAGNYC, Teachers Unite, People Power Coalition, Center for Immigrant Families

Conact:
Norm Scott: normsco@gmail.com, norscot@aol.com, 917-992-3734
Angel Gonzalez: asc-ice@gmail.com, 718-601-4901
Sam Coleman: sam_p_coleman@yahoo.com

An ATR Writes

(Another reason to attend the Mar. 28 conference at John Jay College on closed schools, atrs, high stakes testing and other pressing issues.)

3/27/09

Why can't Article 17 be utilized. Also, why is it that special education teachers with no general ed background are being forced to teach general ed classes and the UFT is doing nothing about it. Special Ed Teachers and General Ed teachers are not the same. I am a special ed teacher and it is not fair to me that for ten years I taught in my license with 12 students. Now I am being forced to teach 20 - 30 students at a time as well as other content area subjects that I am not trained in like gym, science, music, drama etc. This is not what I signed up for and I agree the DOE will not stop what they are doing until we (Teachers) get this out to the media. We have to expose what is being done to us because the UFT is not going to do it.

Why is the UFT turning a deaf ear to teachers complaints. Guidance Counselors that were displaced are placed in their titles, ESL Teachers are placed in their titles as well as speech teachers but why not special ed teachers. I have addressed this before with the UFT with no response.


See Marjorie Stamberg's report of the Mar. 23 UFT Exec. Bd meeting is at Norms' Notes. Attempts have been made and are still being made to create pressure on Micahel Mendel who has been placed in charge of the atr issue.

ATR Issue Brought to UFT Executive Board

Derrick Townsend assistant principal at PS 154 in the Bronx has been reassigned

Report from an Ed Notes stringer at PS 154x
(Become a stringer for ed notes reporting on your school)

It has been learned that Derrick Townsend the assistant principal that assaulted a 9 year old last month and left bruises on her arm and leg has been reassigned to the Teacher Reassignment Center otherwise known as the "Rubber Room."

This action was taken immediately after a swarm of investigators descended upon PS 154 this week and were looking into Derrick Townsend for having allegedly dragged the girl up to 20 feet when she refused to stop crying and come with him.

The investigation is ongoing as is the investigation into Principal Linda Amill-Irizarry's alleged cover-up of the assault.

A criminal complaint against Derrick Townsend have been filed with the NYPD and the investigation is ongoing.

We have seen countless teachers sent to rubber rooms over trivialities. I heard from a friend today who was totally cleared after spending 6 months in the rubber room, sent there by an abusive principal on trumped up charges from a kid who said she made a racial slur. The principal left the system and gets off scot free (there are still teachers from the school in the rubber room after years).

Our reporter touches on an important point. The principal protected the AP and he was allowed to remain in the school despite the fact that people have been reporting the actions of the AP for many months. It was only after the story came out in the press that the incident was addressed by the DOE. Klein was sent letters about Townsend months ago. Leaving a supervisor accused of these acts in the building for months amounts to criminal behavior. I've often said Klein would one day be led out of Tweed with his coat over his head. Now's as good a time as any.

Why We Need to Defend Public Education? The Harlem Success Pro-Charter School Rally

This ad produced by Education Notes for the March 28 conference to save public schools at John Jay College in NYC, is a prime example of the manipulation of the community by charter school advocates. The Harlem Success Schools led by Eva Moskowitz has pushed its way into public school spaces with the support of the NYC Department of Education. The push by Bloomberg and Klein to support charter schools is an admission of their failure to solve the problems that exist in public schools.

PRINCIPAL PROBED IN BIZARRE BUDDHIST 'HATE CHANTS'

If we really want to improve teacher quality to the extent that one day - maybe in the 23rd century - we would be able to take a few billion off the corporate bailout packages to produce enough quality teachers to reduce class size, Buddhist chanting seems as good a way to accomplish this as any discovered so far. All we need is a value-added measurement as to the effectiveness of the chants.

NY Post

Organizing to Create Safer Schools for LGBTQ Youth

Ed Notes has been urging people to attend the conference to save public schools this Saturday at John Jay College.

I wanted to alert you to another conference on the same day. "Organizing to Create Safer Schools for LGBTQ Youth" is an important event that our colleagues at NYQueer (NYCoRE) have planned in conjunction with other groups. This event, the third in a series, was planned before ours, but with the pressure of closing schools and the vacation coming up, we had few dates available.

Check out the flyer. I posted the schedule on Norm's Notes

Organizing To Create Safer Schools for LGBTQ Youth Saturday, March 28th 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

ICE/NYCORE Conference Organizers on WBAI Thurs. Eve

Angel Gonzalez, Sam Coleman and Norm Scott, organizers of the "Stop the School Closings/Defend Public Education" Conference at John Jay College on March 28 will speak on WBAI radio Thurs. Mar 26. at around 7:15.

Education At The Crossroads (show starts at 7pm)
WBAI - 99.50 fm with Basir MChawi

Whither the UFT and a GEM of an Idea

Imagine if every school in the NYC turned into non-unionized charter schools? What would become of the UFT/Unity Caucus machine as it hemorrhaged dues? Well, they have a simple plan. Just organize charter schools into the union.

Not so simple kemosabe. From Gotham Schools - a suggestion that all New York teachers should be able to decertify the union. Of course, these are the two much talked about KIPP schools (KIPP Academy Charter School in the Bronx and the KIPP Infinity Charter School in Manhattan) as the KIPP empire strikes back for the UFT daring to try to organize a Brooklyn KIPP school, efforts that may be floundering.

On the surface, one would think the massive, dues soaked UFT holds all the cards. Many of us lined up as internal critics think not.

Any charter school teacher who takes a peek at the most sophisticated teacher blogs will see what's in store for them as the level of hostility directed at the UFT leaderships is barely a smidgen less than that aimed at BloomKlein. So why would they step into the muck of the UFT?

Many of the union missteps occur because of the fundamental lack of democracy, the complete top-down management and the gap between the leadership and the members. With an absolute almost 50 year lock on control, including the buying off of New Action, the former opposition party, there is no hope of reform. Some people may be fooled into believing changes are coming because they think Randi Weingarten is walking into the sunset of the AFT, but that is not a sure bet and whatever happens, there will be no loosening of the reigns because Unity has built such a tight, foolproof structure.

Over the years, I have heard many opposition voices raised in frustration calling for starting a de-certification campaign in the public schools to create a real threat to the UFT leadership and force them into reform. Imagine if another union did come in and try that? At one time in the 70's the NEA actually tried to put its foot in the door – they took about 20 opposition people out to eat at Gaylord's, a fancy Indian restaurant. We had a nice expensive meal at their expense and said, "No thanks!"

I've been against these efforts, taking the position that if UFT internal critics cannot grow enough to organize an effective force, then bringing in another union would replace the old boss with the new boss.

Thus, it was gratifying to see all sorts of groups and people involved in the UFT informally gather for lunch at the Labor Notes Troublemakers School this past Saturday.

Members of ICE (Independent Community of Educators,) NYCORE (NY Collective of Radical Educators,) TJC (Teachers for a Just Contract,) ISO (International Socialists,) Teachers Unite and independents joined Puerto Rico's teachers union president Rafael Feliciano in a conversation about democratic unions (the FMPR is one) educating members on the issues and organizing and mobilizing them into a force that can counter the collaboration of the UFT by building a grass roots movement that could not be stifled by the union institutions.

Thus, while the lock on power would remain in the hands of people at the top, the rank and file teachers in the schools they have abandoned could start to move in a more militant direction.

If such a movement actually occurs, it may transcend caucuses like ICE and TJC and pay less attention to the rigged institutions of UFT power like the Delegate Assembly and certainly the total Unity dominated Executive Board (81 members out of 89 with the other 8 handed to New Action through Unity endorsement.)

Meanwhile, today is the March Delegate Assembly and we will all still be there to do our thing.
We will be joining Justice Not Just Tests in getting petitions on high stakes testing – the root of all evil – signed.

A resolution on closing schools – the 3rd time the UFT will take a position calling for a moratorium on closing schools – had a provision calling for a mass meeting of teachers from every announced closing school. The UFT leadership took it out. They will take potshots at rallies at individual schools to allow teachers to vent, but will not take concerted action to stop them. Why? Because the UFT believes in the policy of closing schools even though it creates ATRs - over 1700 and counting.

We will be handing out our flyer for this Saturday's conference at John Jay College (starting at 12 pm) which we hope will turn out to be a first strike in building a Grassroots Educators Movement - GEM. (Angel Gonzalez came up with the idea this morning, not bad for one of us oldies but goodies.)

Consider attending or encouraging someone from your school to attend, in particular if you are in a closing or soon to be closed school. If the UFT won't get people together, we will.

COMING SOON: VIDEO I TOOK AT THE HARLEM SUCCESS CHARTER SCHOOL RALLY LAST WEEK. THAT ALONE SHOULD GET YOU TO GIVE UP YOUR SATURDAY

Related:
This Saturday! Education Notes Joins the fightback to save public education -