PS 123 Rally Update...and more

The protest/rally for 6:30 AM this morning is still on. For background read our report from the other day: Separate and Unequal Schools in NYC: Rally at PS 123 on First Day of School but the 3:30 follow-up event may not happen. I've got some family obligations today so I will be somewhat out of touch but Angel Gonzalez is back from organizing GEM branches throughout Italy and will be there to take some video and hang out afterwards. Angel doesn't Tweet or Twitter (that vegan diet, you know) so we will have to get updates later in the day. I am going to the Met game tonight - unfortunately - so will be out of the loop. Maybe they'll post updates from Angel on the scoreboard.

If you've been following the story here and at the GEM blog all summer, you are aware of the aggressive nature with which Eva (now officially being dubbed 'Evil') Moskowitz' people run roughshod over people. I don't have time to gather all the resources in this post but just do a search for PS 123 and PS 241.

GEM has been working with other groups to try to bring all the schools wanting to resist the invasion by charter schools into their buildings together. One of the focal points has been Moskowitz' Harlem Success Academy schools such as those at PS 241 and 123. If you read one piece, read this one from "Shocked in Harlem," a teacher at PS 241 about the impossible chaos of trying to get ready for the new school year in a school invaded by Moskowitz. SHOCKED IN HARLEM AT EVA MOSKOWITZ, HSA EXCESS

Teachers at PS 123 faced the same chaos, with halls loaded with stuff moved out by Harlem Success. Check out some of the videos I posted in the sidebar for more on this issue from early July when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer toured the school (mayoral candidate Tony Avella also came up that day).

Were Teachers at PS 123 Told to Go Home?

Supposedly the UFT district rep told teachers to go home yesterday after teachers were trying to move things around to get ready for the first day of school today. Rumor is that a teacher got hurt and had to go to the emergency room. UFT president Mulgrew was called. One would expect him to be there today. But with the UFT having taken over space in two charter schools themselves in East NY, Brooklyn, they cannot claim any moral high ground and can only expect the massive HSA publicity machine to attack them with the consequent fawning NYC ed press quoting them widely.

Brooklyn Charter Invasion Resistance

Meanwhile, things are beginning to heat up in Brooklyn where CAPE (Concerned Educators for Public Education) is organizing around the charter school issue. Some GEMers will be going to a meeting with them this week and we will report on the activities over there. See their press release from our post in July.

I'll add updates to this post as they come in.

Report from PS 160 in Coop City

Here are some comments from parents at PS 160x

GEM you were right. Equality Charter School lied about only being at PS160 for 2 years. They said it at all the hearings and the DOE said they will only be there for 2 years. Now the Equality principal told the Co-op City Times yesterday, September 5,

"School administrators have been told by the DOE that there is a probability that the school will be moved to a new location within the next few years as the student body expands by one grade each year."

They LIED. You were right. They lied about leaving in two years. They're not ever gonna leave. They're gonna push out 160 students and take over. Their classrooms were also painted and their entire section refurbished!!! Please tell the parents. The truth is out. We need you to come back to our school and fight with us against privatization and pushing our children out of their own schools.

Which led to this response:

Anonymous, I like your enthusiasm. I am one of the parents who spoke out about this charter school being housed at PS 160. I must say that this upcoming school year will be a challenging one at PS 160. My advice to you as a parent is that if you see anything that you feel in your heart is not right report it to the Parent coordinator or the Principal immediately. It is our responsibility as parents to look out for our children. When there is an announcement about the PTA meetings and things of that nature, please attend. This will be the only way to stay informed and fight for your child/children’s education. Furthermore, just to speak about the article in the newspaper. What I want to know is how they are going to handle their students who are late or truant? The Prinicpal mentioned that the students who arrive after 9:00am will enter thru the front of the building. We as parents of PS 160 children age 5-11 years old...must demand that the Equality School Administrators send an "official employee" and not another "responsible student" to come down to the main lobby where Mrs. Cox will be seated and pick up the “late” student and make sure that they get placed in their respective class room. Their students must not be allowed to "freely" room the halls of our two floors. We must think to be PRO-ACTIVE and not be Reactive.

No school is safe

Here is a partial list of public schools being invaded:

PS 15K, PS 38M, IS 45M, PS 123M, PS 150K, PS 160X, PS 175M, PS 185M, PS 188M, PS 194M, IS 195M, PS 241M, PS 242M, PS 375M, PS 385X, HS 695M and many more.

Which schools will be next?

Principal gets around hiring freeze on ATRs

Changing the subject....but not really, since the ATR, rubber room, closing schools, charter school issues all connect to the free market neoliberal agenda....I received this note from a teacher at a large high school:

They found a way to hire teachers other than ATRs in my school. I don't want to post it on my blog, but others need to be aware this is going on. There is no hiring freeze on special education. They are getting the new teachers double certification and hiring them for the special ed department and then farming them out to math to teach. If this is going on in my school, it is going on throughout the city. One ATR in my school has been given a full program for a person on leave, but the school will not hire her full time.

Teacher Letter on New Yorker's Biased Aricle on Rubber Rooms

Laura Castro does a pretty good job here exposing the biased New Yorker articles on the rubber room and ATRs. Paul Simms wrote a biased follow-up commentary on Steve Brill's original article, which Ed Notes critiqued , Laura mentions the point about the ease with which the rubber room could be emptied if Klein only hired enough arbitrators, something the biased press doesn't raise and if they do, they accept Klein's "union obstructionism" argument. "Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union" Laura asks? It's more than a wedge. Klein loves the runner rooms, which are his creation, intentionally, so he could get articles like Brill's to create outrage . He'd rather spend that money as an investment in anti-teacher PR. And it works like a charm. Of course the fact that many people in rubber rooms are exonerated or are there for reasons such an argument with the principal gets buried in the avalanche. The union, afraid of attacks - and they get attacked anyway for doing little - does not make even close to as good as stand as Laura does.

Dear Editors,

Paul Simms article "The Rubber Room" in this week's New Yorker zeroes in on what appears to be an Achilles heal for the teachers' union, but fails to ask important questions. It thereby exhibits disturbing bias. For example, if the "rubber room" is a disgrace, why doesn't the city spend additional money hiring arbitrators, so cases don't wait years to be concluded? And why not give rubber room teachers desk jobs as in other cities? Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union? Simms never asks. (Not until the last page, in fact, do we hear that the 600 teachers accused of incompetence or malfeasance are in a system of 87,300 teachers - the largest school system in the country.)

The salient issue here is not the so-called rubber room, however, or even the union, but that the article pushes the overall Bloomberg/Klien agenda without consulting progressive educators for a different perspective. Simms appears to scoff at Democratic lawmakers in Albany for not renewing mayoral control of the schools more quickly, and apparently accepts without question the Bloomberg administration line on student achievement and improved graduation rates. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that there have been serious concerns that mayoral control has left parents out of the educational equation. Nor does the article mention testimony by Ann Cook (Performance Assessment Standards Consortium) at the mayoral control hearings in Albany that, alarmingly, students of color have been dropping out of public school at a higher rate under Bloomberg/Klein.

Simms' article concludes by touting Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's decision to deprive states of stimulus money if their schools do not attach teachers' pay to their students' standardized test scores, and laments that New York may loose money on this account. Yet the article never questions the popular dogma that continual testing of children is the answer to good education. (If standardized testing is really so conducive to learning, why is it, one wonders, that students in New York's elite private schools, whose graduates grace the halls of Ivy League colleges, don't take city or state tests – not even the Regents??)

I hope that The New Yorker will balance this article with one that probes the issues of education from a more progressive point of view. This would include investigating the issue of standardized testing by interviewing some of the country's leading progressive educators – like Linda Darling Hammond, reputedly on Obama's short list for Secretary of Education, or Ann Cook of New York's own Performance Assessment Standards Consortium. As an educator, I challenge The New Yorker to bring to light some of the successful alternatives to standardized testing right here in New York's schools and to ask whether the educational dogmas de jour adhered to by Bloomberg/Klein, and even Duncan, really serve our children.

Sincerely,

Laura Castro

Brooklyn, NY 11218

Separate and Unequal Schools in NYC: Rally at PS 123 on First Day of School

This the first in a series, with a focus on the tactics of Eva Moskowitz and her Harlem Success Academy machine.

Join our Protest!
Eva Moskowitz and Her Charter School Must Go!
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
6:30am in the Morning! (and at 3:30PM)
West 141st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (8th Avenue)
For more information please contact William Hargraves (718) 812-1102.

Click to enlarge. Pdf available on request.


Here is an email from Mark Torres of the Coalition for Public Education:

Support on the struggle being waged by students, parents, staff, administrators and community of P.S. 123 in Harlem. they have been fighting theft of space and many other injustices perpetrated by Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship.

The P.S. 123 community has worked hard, for over a year, to reach out and resolve problems forced upon them by the charter school invasion of their building. However, Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship have not resolved any problems and are only concerned about pushing more and more private charter schools into public school buildings.

P.S. 123 is now ready to stand up for all public schools in our city and they need our help.

Please support P.S. 123 and defend our public school system.

Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT, Perfect Together

I'm just getting to the issue of that study on teacher evaluation being sponsored by Bill Gates in partnership with the UFT. At the bottom of it all is the neoliberal agenda.

We're certainly not surprised that they are in bed together. Bringing business practices to the classroom is part of the neoliberal agenda. And coming up with a way to measure teachers - for the purpose of weeding out certain types, like the ones who teach humanism and democratic principles instead od test prep - is a basic tenet. Neoliberals see democracy as an alien concept. Thus schools need dictators. As do unions.

We've been connecting the UFT to the neoliberals for a generation, especially since Al Shanker signed onto it in the mid-70's when the budget cuts hit deeply into the ranks, followed by his jumping on board the Business Roundtable's "independent" study, A Nation at Risk.

Unity Caucus is trying to play this as somehow being good for teachers. "Let's have a seat at the table." Just like the UFT/AFT had at the origins of NCLB. Nice job.

James Eterno put up an informal poll on the ICE blog, How Should Teachers be Evaluated?

There have been 25 comments so far. A Unity flack is wondering why James doesn't sign up. "Try it before you criticize Unity all the time." These cloying games by Unity ignore the basic fact: They are the enemy. Of course Ed Notes and ICE and so many other teacher blogs see through the games they play.

Unity flacks and the leadership play the bait and switch game as cover for the real agenda. New UFT President Michael Mulgrew responded to a teacher:

Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. [The full letter from the teacher and his full response is below.]

Does anyone think the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership represents what happens inside a classroom?

Mulgrew's original letter to teachers claimed the study was "being conducted by independent third-party researchers." Sure. Just like The New Teacher Project's attacks on ATRs were viewed by the NY Times as "independent" studies. I'll bet someone has a dog in the race. And I bet there's some Gates money going to flow to some elements at the UFT. I mean, where could Gates buy a better partner to peddle his junk?

Mulgrew also said:
we all recognize that the work of teachers must be measured in ways that are fair and valid. Nationally, current measures of teaching rarely take into account the full range of what teachers do (no single measure really can), or the context in which they teach. The Measures of Effective Teaching project, on the other hand, begins right in the classroom and will explore an array of teacher measures: video observations, surveys, and student growth. It will compare these measures to each other, and to nationally recognized standards, and it will look at their inter-relatedness. It will be informed by actual teacher practice.

Measured, Mike? What if we measured the performance of the UFT leadership over the past decade? What the UFT is covering for here is the concept that we need ways to measure teachers quantitatively. A major plank of the neoliberal agenda to privatize education is to quantify students and teachers. Do we see this occurring with other jobs? Police/fire/ lawyers/ doctors/politicians? Imagine saying that we will never bring down crime rates until we improve the performance of the cops? Or cut the number of fires unless we get higher quality firemen? Or win a war without better soldiers? Why not set up charter police stations and alternative military? Wouldn't the war go better if there was some competition? Shouldn't Afgans have some choice in the army they get to come into their villages? Shouldn't they be able to chose from competing organizations as to which missile get to kill their children? Come on, they need choice.

Here are a few words from the introduction to a book sent to me by former teacher Louis Bedrock: Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools by Kenneth J. Saltman:

In education, neoliberalism has taken hold with tremendous force, remaking educational common sense and pushing forward the privatization and deregulation agendas....the shift to business language and logic can be understood through the extent to which neoliberal ideals have succeeded in taking over educational debates...

The "TINA" thesis (There is No Alternative to the Market) that has come to dominate politics throughout much of the world has infected educational thought as omnipresent market terms such as accountability, choice, efficiency, competition, monopoly, and performance [outcomes] frame educational debates. Nebulous terms borrowed from the business world, such as achievement, excellence, and best practices, conceal ongoing struggles over competing values, visions, and ideological debates. (Achieve what? Excel at what? Best practices for whom? And says who?)

The only questions left on reform agendas appear to be how to best enforce knowledge and curriculum conducive to individual upward mobility within the economy [education only has the goal of preparing for jobs, not as productive citizens in a democratic society - something neoliberals really abhor] and national economic competition as it contributes to a corporately managed model of globalization as perceived from the perspective of business.

This dominant...view of education is propagated by.. Thomas Friedman...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...[add Broad and a horde of others.]

Saltman bases his book on Naomi Klein's "Disaster Capitalism" but focuses on education as he lays out the nuts and bolts of it in his intro and then zooms in on 3 examples: New Orleans, Iraq and Chicago. I will post more as I read more.

Now, I've said it time and again that the only force capable of organizing resistance to these attacks are the teacher unions. And they've punted.

Why does the UFT go along with the people who have been aiming the blame darts at the very people the UFT is supposed to represent? There are a few explanations, which we'll get into another time in depth. But for now I will list two reasons: 1) the UFT basically agrees with neoliberalism and 2) what I often refer to as the "Vichy mentality" - if we don't cooperate with the Nazis they will destroy all of France, especially Paris, so we cooperate with the idea of preserving what we can." I am not equating this to cooperating with Nazis, but as a way of thinking the UFT engages in. For a while they called it the New Unionism - we'll cooperate with management - or Randi's favorite word, "collaboration." Pretty interesting since collaborators in WWII got their hair sheared off - or worse.

Here is the letter from teacher (T) to Randi, who forwarded it to Mulgrew, followed by Mulgrew's response, followed by an excellent post by Marjorie Stamberg.

Randi

I was wondering why the UFT is collaborating with the Bill Gates foundation in collecting data on how to establish an effective teacher. Over the past few years all in the name of educational reform, Bill Gates has undermined public education by opening up charter schools, he even went as far as opening up charter schools in public school spaces essentially taking over the school and displacing public school teachers. So with the growing number of schools being closed and then reorganized and ATR and senior teachers being harassed, it's no wonder why a growing number of teachers are becoming disenfranchised and only see our union as a dues collecting machine.

T

There are many good reasons but I have referred your email to the new President, Michael Mulgrew. -Randi

Mulgrew response:

Thank you for sending your concerns. As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack. The research project that we are entering into is one that starts and ends inside of the classroom. Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

Thanks again,
Michael

Marjorie Stamberg lays out the position many of us are taking:
Greasing the skids: UFT participation in a teacher evaluation studyMarjorie Stamberg to ICE-Mail listserve:

Any "teacher measurement project" funded by the Gates foundation should start ringing alarm bells. What on earth is the UFT doing participating in this "study," as UFT president Mike Mulgrew just announced?

The UFT's "participation" reminds me of the" time-motion" study guy coming to the factory assembly line, and you're asked to help him out as he measures arm movements and clocks your bathroom breaks so they can use it for speed-up. No way.

What makes an effective teacher? We do not accept the premise that individually evaluating teachers' "techniques" is relevant to improving education. The whole emphasis on "teacher evaluation", tied to students' test scores, is part of the corporatization of American education.

The UFT Teachers Center is an excellent resource that works with teachers to be more effective in the classroom. They do some excellent PD, workshops, cooperative modeling and team-teaching. This is NOT what the Gates foundation study is about.

We need good professional development, and we are committed to teachers' lifelong learning, and use of the most modern technology and methodology in the classroom. But that is very different from what is going on here.

The education "business" aims to "cut costs" in the classroom. Beginning in the 1980s, nationwide the education budget as a percentage of the GNP was sharply reduced. These corporate chiefs wanted to get more bang for their buck. This means attacks on teacher tenure, getting rid of senior teachers to drive salaries down to the level of teaching fellows. It means, not "spending time" in the classroom on enrichment activities, on general topics, reading, discussion that goes anywhere except how to pass standardized tests so kids can be useful for the employers. Now, it means the proliferation of charter schools which by getting rid of union contracts sharply increase teacher time, and regulated salary increases.

How do you "measure" a good science teacher? I've seen superb science teachers teaching high school kids in the Bronx, without a science lab, without the most minimal equipment, standing up on a chair in the hallway and dropping a ball to demonstrate gravity! If you want to measure what makes a good science teacher, how about giving him or her a decent science lab and then comparing the results before and after? If you want to help kids learn, have decent equipment in every high school, smart boards in every classroom, give every student access to computers that don't belong in a junkyards.

Coming from Mike Mulgrew, as with Randi, this offer to "collaborate" on a "teacher measurement" paid survey is typical of how they now operate. Instead of just saying "no", and opposing something outright, they cooperate with it and try to "make the best of a bad situation." Then we're stuck with the bad situation, and they say, "Well, it could have been worse."

The same thing happened when seniority transfers was given up in 2005. Instead of holding on, they traded it for a raise and the result ...... up to 2,000 teachers now in the Absent Teacher Reserve.

The answer is a union leadership that demands massive new investment in school facilities, training, and resources. Can't do it because of the economic crisis? Wrong, this is exactly when they ought to be investing. They find trillions to "rescue" the banks. Right now, a quarter of NYC schools don't have gyms, and 70 percent don't meet state requirements for hours of physical education' Of all schools in the Bronx, 22 percent don't have outdoor physical education activities at all?

Where are the art and music teachers? In the ATR pool or on the unemployment line.

Related
The Labor Notes article on organizing charters in Chicago posted on Norms Notes.

The Truth About Charters Brochure and Brian Jones Debates Charters

I can't what I love best about this exceptional trifold brochure being distributed by the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM). The design. The content laid out in such a clear way. Or the fact it was written and designed by a 4th year Teach for America alum. We have thousands of copies and will send you a batch. Or get the pdf. Just fold each page and put back to back and run it through a copy machine and Voila, you have something to give to all your pro charter school friends. Send an email to Gemnyc@gmail.com.

Click to enlarge.








Jones vs. Merriman


From the GEM blog

GEM member Brian Jones was on the Laura Flanders show Thursday debating James Merriman IV, the new CEO of the NYC Center for Charter School Excellence. Brian is just a teacher, not a CEO, but he more than holds his own.

VIEW the PROGRAM HERE.

For a flowery press release on Merriman's appointment, view here.
Also included, a voice from New Orleans.

DON'T MISS THIS AS BRIAN LAYS IT ALL OUT - GIVEN THE SHORT TIME PERIOD HE HAS.

Charter Schools: Tracking is Alive and Well

Most people think of tracking satellites in space.
The use of the term "tracking" in education has shifted over the years. Now it means tracking student progress. In the old days it meant putting students from their earliest years onto a track based on some factors of perceived intelligence.

Under the BloomKlein administration, setting up classes based on tracking was supposed to be eliminated and classes grouped heterogeneously. Teachers are supposed to use differentiated instruction to meet the needs of a diverse group of kids. But at some point, the kids at the top suffer to varying degrees. People have gotten around these in many ways. Talented and gifted and specialized performance based schools have created pockets of very workable schools. When I was mentoring teaching fellows I covered one such middle school in Bushwick that gathered all the top kids in District 32 - and beyond- and I was amazed at how well that school worked. Reminded me of the junior high I went to as a kid - JHS 166 - Gershwin- not being partly occupied by the UFT MS charter school. I'll get back to the charter issue in a minute.

I taught in a completely tracked system where classes were grouped homogeneously by reading scores. Even in a poor almost 100% free lunch school with a relatively small population where we had 2 or 3 classes on a grade, there were major differences between the top class and the bottom class in terms of family stability, poverty- more poor, or less, behavior and other factors.

The one exception was the year I filed a grievance when it was my turn to get the top class and my principal declared my grade only as heterogeneous, which was a farce because she totally believed in severe tracking. The real issue was not just political (I was an leading union advocate) but that she hated my teaching style which ignored test prep all the time and I took too many trips. We had a very good year and the kids did very well - and yes, I took them on many trips.

The most active parents used their influence to make sure their kids were in the top classes and many teachers sold their souls to the principal to get these classes every year, in violation of the contract which called for rotation. (We had one guy who would drive miles out of the way to take the principal home.) The principals catered to these showcase classes, which were pushed hard exotically when they got to the graduating grade so they could get into one of the favored middle schools, instead of the locally zoned dump.

Sound familiar? That is exactly what is happening with the charter school movement and the element of creaming. Those very same parents who made sure their kids were in the top class and who pulled strings to get to the special middle school (many districts seemed to have them) are the ones today rushing to charters. In other words, the old system of top, in some cases called "eagle" classes, were the equivalent of today's charters, as they segregated the better performing students from the rest.

Thus. we are heading for a dual school system where kids are segregated, not by race, but by their level of performance. Ironically, these systems are used around the world where kids are tested out of the academic program, sometimes as early as elementary school and then tracked into the working class.

Accountable Talk has some interesting thoughts on tracking where he commits what is today considered a big no-n0 by making predictions on his kids, even though all teachers fully understand the reality. One very good teacher I know spent over a year in the rubber room for making a casual comment like this to a spy for the principal. (Suddenly a kid made a charge the teacher called him an idiot and said black kids can't learn, whereas what was said was, "You didn't get it and if you don't pay attention you will never learn.") Luckily AC is anonymous.

AC talks about the farce of measuring teachers when they get top, middle and bottom classes. Of course the answers from the data munchers is "value added" where the starting and ending grade of your students are looked at and you are expected to bring each one up by one year. Thus if you have an 8th grader reading at mid-4th, he should be at mid 5th grade level after one year with you. Of course, the fact that he learned at half the rate of the so-called average kid is not relevant. It is always the teachers' fault.

AC says:
I already know where my students will end up on next year's exams!

How do I know? Am I some kind of genius? Of course, but that's not how. It's just a little bit of data from ARIS mixed with a lot of experience. Here's how it breaks down:

• In my top class, only two of my future students failed to make their AYP last year. They are readers and achievers, and when I work with them this year, they will continue to be so.
• In my middle class, it's more a mixed bag. Only ten failed to make AYP, but at least ten others made it by a hair's breadth. These students need to be worked hard and motivated to make real progress. I'll do that, and some will have great years while others have to dragged kicking and screaming to get them to read.
• In my bottom class, no one made their AYP. That's right--NO ONE. That's not a surprise to me, as that is what makes them a bottom class. They have very limited skills. Most have progressed about half a year for every year they have been in school so far, and it will be a miracle if I can get more than a handful to make a year's progress now.

Read it in full at:
Mr. Chips vs. Buffalo Chips

Also check out this post on tracking from new blogger Teaching and Politics:
Heterogeneity vs Tracking - Is the pendulum swinging back?


NOTE: Things have been slow on the ed notes output end due to too many meetings (heading off for a 10am now - and there are 2 of them to choose from ) and getting used to my brand new MAC Pro laptop, which I love so much, my wife has to drag it out of my hands when I fall asleep.

To all of you all still teaching in the NYC schools, have a great Labor Day weekend and good luck going back. Try to join in some of the organizing activities this year around GEM and ICE and the upcoming UFT elections. There's plenty of positions available (800) if you want to run against Unity.

So???? Does anyone on this list think the school grades have any meaning or value?

This question was put to NYC Education Listserve.

The entire concept of school grades has been ridiculous from Day 1. I even find progressive ed reformers falling into the trap of giving them legitimacy by saying things like, "My school got an A." I gently remind them that the grades are invalid whether they are good for your school and bad for others.

But leave it to parent leader Lisa (Donlan) to respond in full.

How could they?

As per usual this gang can't shoot straight.

Even when they start with a good idea, or perhaps good intentions, it gets twisted around in the educrat mill to meet some other list of politically expedient needs.

The result is often a counter intuitive, miss the mark, harmful sham.

Like the large scale up of small schools, or the Stalinist imposition of child centered pedagogy, or the unfettering school decision making from bureaucracy, this is but one more example.

Thus, even a simple dash board style "report card" of schools to inform parents of their ever increasing "choices" for schools that have themselves been pitted against each other in an environment of competition, for students and their funding dollars, gets botched.

Never a simple tool, the report cards have been a black box of metrics and statistics that most people can not begin to understand, never mind evaluate.

The result in the "marketplace" has been confusion, derision, skepticism.

So no- I can not imagine any one can believe in these letter grades that:

• are based largely ( 85%) on test scores that themselves are more than suspect;
• that measure "progress" on increasingly meaningless test scores so that schools that start out way behind and teach to the test end up with better grades than more competent, popular schools that communities know serve them and their children well,
• 
  
• fluctuate wildly from year to year at individual schools (just as the test scores do) and the metrics are modified to accommodate some external need
• contradict other standards and measure such as NYS SINI and SURR or Federal Blue Ribbon Status, flat NAEP score and declining SAT's or increasing college remediation rates, etc.
• are largely ignored when they do not support the real estate grab to accommodate the ever expanding parallel charter system.

Just to name a few of the reasons the report cards are a huge waste of money, time , energy resources and attention that could be better used to PUT CHILDREN (and learning) FIRST!

Lisa Donlan
CEC One

Related:
Leonie Haimson's "The absurd, silly, ridiculous school grades"

On Bloomberg's Plane: Randi in Select Company

Randi caught a ride from the Hamptons with Bloomberg, his girlfriend Diana Taylor, and top aid Kevin Sheekey. Think they were talking contract? One proposal is for ATRs who do not get a job to wipe bird gunk off Bloomberg's planes.



The great David B strikes again. Click to enlarge - check book titles.

And see Gary Babad's GBN News Report.

Was it the Bird? Was it the Plane? No, it was Super-Mayor!

LA's charter school giveaway

http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/31/la-charter-school-giveaway

Analysis: Sarah Knopp

Sarah Knopp, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles, looks at the looming threat of privatization--and the potential for resistance among teachers, parents and students.

August 31, 2009

IN A progressive city, with a progressive mayor and one of the most progressive teachers' unions in the country, the floodgates were opened August 25 to private control over education.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board voted 6-1 to authorize opening up over 250 schools to bids by charter schools and other outside entities.

Many of these schools have been "program improvement" schools for three or more years--that is, schools that are failing under the test score criteria set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Fifty others, though, are brand-new, shiny, multimillion-dollar complexes, built with public bond money in the largest public works program any city has undertaken since the 1970s.

These new schools have state-of-the-art facilities--all the best science labs, art rooms, cafeterias and common space. They stand in stark contrast to the crumbling and often-poisoned schools that most LAUSD students attend.

Now, these newly constructed, publicly funded buildings could be turned over to private operators--though the original bond offering that voters approved said nothing of the sort.

The schools haven't been turned over yet--under the terms of the school board's resolution, the board and the superintendent will consider competing proposals for each of the schools and make a decision in the future.

But the direction is obvious. As Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, the sole dissenting vote on the board, pointed out incredulously, "This motion means that Los Angeles Unified School District has to bid for control of our own schools!"

The board member who raised the motion, Yolie Flores Aguilar, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's ally on the board, painted the proposal as matter of "choice" and "competition." Ironically, though, students, parents and teachers won't get to vote for the "choices" that will be presented for the schools starting this winter.

Some progressive organizations and individual teachers have argued that we can make our own proposals for running the schools that have been opened up to bidding. But there is no mechanism for communities or teachers to ensure that their opinions will get taken into account. And the charter school operators have big advantages--including pockets full of private-sector cash--to push their ready-made plans.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHY WOULD a school board vote to give up control of its own schools, including 50 brand-new buildings? The process of passing the resolution revealed another motive: breaking the power of teachers' and other employees' unions.

School board member Steve Zimmer raised an amendment to the resolution that existing employees' unions would have to be the sole representatives of employees in the new schools. But this amendment was watered down to say that existing unions would only represent workers in schools that remained under the control of LAUSD.

So the amendment did nothing to counter the clear threat to unions at the schools opened up to bidding. As has happened in other cities where charter schools got a foothold, the union could be forced out altogether, employees could be fired en masse or required to reapply for their jobs, and collective bargaining agreements might have to be renegotiated with a hostile employer.

Zimmer, who just began his term on the board this year after being elected with the overwhelming support of the teachers' union, voted for the proposal. Despite his claim to oppose privatization, his strategy for dealing with the motion was to support it and try to amend it.

That strategy failed, as the amendment on workers' representation illustrated. Another amendment proposed by Zimmer--that parents, teachers and high school students should have to vote for a reform proposal at individual schools--was also watered down to the point of meaninglessness, by making the vote by parents, teachers and students "advisory."

The worst part of this story is that it didn't have to go down this way. I was part of the effort to organize opposition to the giveaway proposal. In the two weeks before the motion was raised in the board, LAUSD held "town hall" meetings all over the city to hear community input about improving existing schools and visions for the 50 new schools.

Activists from our Progressive Educators for Action (PEAC) caucus in the LA teachers union attended the town hall meetings to talk to parents about the motion, the issues at stake, and the possibilities for building coalitions for progressive school reform. In one of the town halls in the predominantly Latino suburb Maywood, 37 of the 40 speakers spoke against privatization of the schools.

Opposition in this particular neighborhood can be attributed to well-organized parent and community groups, such as Maywood Unidos, which have fought not only to make Maywood a sanctuary city for immigrants, but also for community access to schools. At a brand-new school built in the neighborhood, Maywood Academy, only 40 percent of the students last year were actually from Maywood. Students who lived right across the street couldn't get access.

Similarly, a self-organized group of parents at Garfield High School has been fighting against a takeover of their school by the charter schools operator Green Dot. And the community organization ACORN organized opposition to the privatization resolution.

In contrast to these groups, other organizations claiming to represent "the community" supported the motion. For example, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inner City Struggle and Community Coalition all took positions in favor of the proposal, probably hoping that they will be able to gain full or partial control over some of the new schools.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

OUTSIDE THE school board meeting, both supporters and opponents of the motion held rallies.

Green Dot, which has been funded with millions of dollars from the Eli Broad Foundation, supports a "parent organization" called Parent Revolution that held a demonstration, complete with Mayor Villaraigosa speaking. Over 1,000 people attended, wearing pre-printed blue shirts.

Some of the attendees reported that they had been offered $10 or community service hours to attend the rally. But among attendees, there were certainly parents who sincerely want to fight for school reform and believe this proposal will help them to do it.

Our union, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), wrote an open letter to these parents explaining our opposition to key aspects of the motion, and many of us spent time talking to parents. Among those whose genuine concern is for social justice for their children, there is huge potential for building alliances when we point out that the only way to get real reform is for parents, teachers and students to unite and fight for more resources and democracy.

With this goal in mind, PEAC activists have set out to formulate a vision for reform that we can build with parents and students. This vision includes the basic principles of access, equity, excellence, public management, local control, sustainability and commitment to collective bargaining rights.

UTLA has also formed a "reform committee." Inside this committee, debates exist about some of the pilot school and innovation division projects already existing in LAUSD. At some schools, special agreements with the mayor, extra resources, more local control over budgets and curriculum, and special partnerships with community organizations have been traded for thinned-down union contracts. The jury is still out on whether these schools are really providing more "innovation" and local control.

Though the union as a whole did not commit fully to the kind of alliances with parents that we should have in the first round of this fight, the potential to organize around the issue of equal access to excellent education is very strong.

If we attempt to include parents and students in the fight for access for all to quality public schools, we could stop the mayor and his charter school allies from privatizing our schools, and fight to shape those schools according to the visions of parents, teachers and students. We now have to counter their agenda with ours, school by school.

The Washington Teacher: Are You Ready For Performance Based Excessing Of DC Teachers ?

A must read on my blog about the WTU contract proposal. I even have excerpts thanks to an informant. I hope you will read it and respond on my blog. Thanks,

Candi Peterson

Are You Ready For Performance Based Excessing Of DC Teachers ?

I have been anxiously awaiting the inside details of the status of our DC Teacher contract proposal as I am sure you have. On this past Saturday at the WTU Building Representative training at the AFT office- WTU president George Parker stated he still does not have a contract proposal to deliver to DC teachers despite his letter to union members that we were awaiting a feasibility study by the Rhee administration. So it seems according to Parker that now there are sticking points which in his words could lead to an impasse. I think we have heard this before and it is unclear what games Parker and Rhee are really playing. I thought the issue was determining whether there was the money to fund the most recent contract proposal. Now Parker states that it's more than that.



Read the entire story at:

Visit: http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/

UPDATED: Report on KIPP charter school hearing

Here are some pictures of IS 195 materials piled in boys' locker room


Two GEMers attended the so-called hearing on the KIPP charter high school, which Ed Notes reported on in this report: KIPP High School Charter School Public Hearing 4 Days Before School Due to Open.

You can join GEM in the battle for public eduation by attending a meeting and plugging in to activities.

Here is the GEM report of the hearing, also posted at the GEM blog.

A farcical forum on a new KIPP charter school slated to be place in IS 195 in Harlem took place on Thursday. A KIPP middle school has existed in the building for a number of years, slowly eating up space, forcing teachers to re-locate classrooms, even in the middle of the year.

The proposal is for KIPP STAR to place a 9th grade, with 45 students from throughout the city, into the building, supposedly for only one year.

Teachers at IS 195 literally found out about the new KIPP STAR High School last week! [Ed Note: We have known about the KIPP STAR HS since the spring.] They discovered piles of school/teacher materials dumped into the boys and girls locker rooms. Unbelievably, KIPP generously offered to pay for the materials to be placed into a storage space. Presumably, teachers would be able to pick up these materials during their lunch breaks?

About 15-20 IS 195 teachers showed up to the hearing, in addition to someone whoa few ACORN people came, a DOE representative, a UFT representative, and 2 GEM'ers came. One woman from SUNY came, only to "listen" and report back to the SUNY board. Nobody from KIPP STAR charter school bothered to show up. Nobody argued in favor of the charter school being there.

I know the 195 teachers saw Norm's blog the night before and came because of that. Teachers from IS 195 made comments to the effect that they expect the DOE to eventually attempt to completely phase out IS 195. Teachers at 195 stated that they assumed the high school would be staying for more than one year, not a bad assumption given the track record of charters in other places.

As with other schools, this is not a "failing" school, even by the D.O.E.'s skewed standards. Many teachers there had been in the building for 10, 15 or more years (in one case, 31 years!), and pointed to the improvements that they have seen in the school. Teachers also raised concerns that placing a high school within a middle school setting would not be good.

Finally, the hearing itself was decried as a farce by everyone there. As work had already begun on the KIPP STAR rooms and with only days left before the school year begins, how could they really be getting input from the community? Certainly, there was little effort put forward in advertising this hearing, as teachers at IS 195 only found out about it at 8 a.m. the morning before, and parents and community members were not made aware of the hearing.

GEM representatives announced the upcoming "Truth About Charter Schools Forum" this coming Wednesday and got contact info from a bunch of teachers.

The drop in SAT scores makes perfect sense...

.....if you give credence to the widespread anecdotal rumors that bogus "credit recovery" scams are in full force and/or that schools which grade their own students' Regents exams inflate scores.

From a comment on the post "SAT scores are down but AP's are up, in the city and state".

http://gothamschools.org/2009/08/25/sat-scores-are-down-but-aps-are-up-in-the-city-and-state/


Author: Dee Alpert

The drop in SAT scores makes perfect sense if you give credence to the widespread anecdotal rumors that bogus "credit recovery" scams are in full force and/or that schools which grade their own students' Regents exams inflate scores.

NYC DOE's press spin, i.e., that scores are lower because more black and Hispanic kids are taking the SAT tests, is nothing short of reprehensible. The increase in black and Hispanic kids' graduation rates in NYC - if they are to be believed - appears to be the result of a perverse kind of social promotion.

They get promoted all right, with meaningless diplomas in hand, right out of school entirely. But what, pray tell, is the purpose of increasing minority students' graduation rates if their underlying skills haven't been upgraded in sync?

So now the Tweed spinmeisters crow because they're giving the current generation of minority NYC high school graduates, who can mostly only get hired low-paying jobs as custodians, janitors, waiters and hairdressers because they really can't read or do math very well, high school diplomas that will make nice wallpaper on the inside of their work lockers, but do precious little else for them?

What a colossal fraud! And what a miserable thing to do to these nice black and Hispanic kids who have summoned the motivation and gumption to take the SATs in the first place.

No wonder the NYC DOE has ceased its practice of publishing individual high schools' SAT scores. Seems like a lot of them may really be Potemkin Villages.

Let's all push for more economic stimulus money for the CUNY community colleges' remedial programs.


See all comments on this post here:

http://gothamschools.org/2009/08/25/sat-scores-are-down-but-aps-are-up-in-the-city-and-state/#comments

Related:
Gotham's Elizabeth Green's article (and charts) on the SAT scores.

Other News to be posted later.
Report on the Coalition for Public Education founding convention
Report from the KIPP high school hearing at IS 195 in Harlem this past Thursday.

Have you ever seen a water bridge over a river?......

This came in a recent email. Sort of a high line with water and boats.



Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe!

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering!

This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe East and West Germany as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.

The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.

Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?

Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

How Charters Game the Special Ed System

When we were at the 5 city conference in LA a few weeks ago, we heard an excellent presentation from our colleagues in Washington DC, one of the heaviest hit cities by charter schools. Candi Peterson told us of the number of charter schools that make sure NOT to have a special ed teacher on the staff so they can tell parents with kids with IEPs they will not be able to serve their child adequately and wouldn't they be better off in a public school?

Can't you see the future?

Read Lisa Donlan's post on the NYC Education Listserve in response to charges the DOE was allowing private interests access to ATS private information on parents and students to recruit them for their programs and schools and you can see the future is here and now.

The office of Charter Schools justifies their attempt to pull kids out of DoE schools and into Charters as a way to equalize the demographics in those two separate education tracks.

This is a rhetorical justification that the reality does not bear out.

The reason charters do not serve students with additional learning needs, such as ELL, ED or any needs beyond SETTS is NOT because the students did not know they are an option.

This is not a marketing problem- it is a pedagogical or philosophical one.

To whit- in District One (Lower East Side of Manhattan) the average special ed population in district elementary schools is around 15% - these are students in CTT or self contained classes or are students in D75 who are mainstreamed in gen ed programs. In our Middle schools this district average jumps to 21%.

Yet the charters located in District school buildings - which serve some 11% of our district students - DO NOT OFFER ONE SINGLE CTT or SELF CONTAINED CLASS.

How is sending those kids brochures, letters, or post cards going to close that service gap?

If your child has an IEP that spells out the learning environment and services he or she needs, and your local charter schools does not offer said services what are you going to do?

Look elsewhere to enroll your child.

Charter schools, which use public tax dollars and public school buildings can afford to provide lots of nice extras- like small class size, enrichment classes, longer days, etc. in part because they do not need to serve the neediest of our children.

This nation is rushing towards a system of separate and unequal schools where, among other segregating practices, the families of our most vulnerable kids understand that they NEED NOT APPLY to charters.

Lisa Donlan
CEC One

The Coalition for Public Education Founding Convention Sat. Aug. 29

Ed Notes will be there giving out GEM's "Truth About Charter Schools" and ICE's Contract Demands. Look for reports over the weekend.


The struggle against Mayoral Control of NYC Schools continues. Come Saturday and get involved with this newly formed coalition of parents, educations, students and community activists!

---

The Coalition for Public Education/ Parent, Educator and Student Power! Telephone (212) 561-7368 For Immediate Press Release: Contact: Jitu Weusi (718) 773-2252 (718) 857-1427 Sam Anderson: (917) 671-8207 The Coalition for Public Education will host a Founding Day Convention on Saturday, August 29, 2009 at DC 37 Headquarters. DC 37 is located at 125 Barclay Street in lower Manhattan near the Westside Highway. In attendance at the Convention will be the following public officials partaking in a panel discussion on the current trends in public education and the recent debate on mayoral control of the school governance system in New York. The elected officials confirmed for the convention are: Senator Eric Adams Senator Bill Perkins City Councilman Charles Barron City Councilman Robert Jackson TV Personality Camille Yarbrough NYS Assemblywoman Inez Barron NYS Assemblyman Nelson Castro NYS Assemblyman Alan Maisel NYC Mayoral Candidate Tony Avella NYC Candidate for Public Advocate Norman Siegel WBAI Radio Personality Basir Mchawi During the Convention members of the Coalition for Public Education will facilitate four Caucuses identified below engaging convention participants in a discussions pertaining to public concerns regarding parental rights, youth advocacy, labor issues of educators/school staff and community concerns about neighborhood school control. Parent Caucus-facilitated by Muba Yarofulani, Anne Kjellzer and Brenda Walker Youth Caucus-facilitated by Abu Muhammad and Rodney Deas Educator/School Staff Caucus-facilitated by Linda Williams, Mark Torres, Lilly Taylor and Nicola DeMarco Community Caucus-facilitated by Jitu Weusi, Mark Rodriguez and Roy Burrowes ##############################################################################

Are you a Chapter Leader, Delegate, or someone who is interested in helping mobilize school staff?

I was at session 4 of Teacher Unite's 4 day teacher activist course today. This was the one session I missed the last time around in May and with Megan Behrent (TJC and ISO) facilitating, it was excellent. Megan explained the philosophy behind current union leadership in the UFT/AFT and in most other unions as the so-called service model of unionism, where the union provides the minimum service to members. This is in contrast to an organizing union that builds a firm base of active rank and file support instead of the passivity leaders, whose major goal is to hold onto power, crave.

Megan explained that since the NYC fiscal crisis of the mid 70's, followed by Regan's dismantling of the air traffic controllers in the early 80's, with only tepid union response in both cases, unions in this country have been on the run as their only strategy is based on the idea that if they are to win anything at all (mostly salary and little in the way of working conditions) it will only be by giving back concessions.

Remember: the UFT was built based on militancy and strikes in the late 50's and early 60's, the roots of their success. New contracts not only had more money, but contained aspects of better working conditions.

All that changed around the early 80's (connection to air traffic controller wipe out?) when Al Shanker started sounding like a partner with the very people hammering teachers.

Three fairly new chapter leaders and at least two delegates attended and they said this was better than any training the union does. Sally should just run the darn thing for the UFT. But then again that would activate the rank and file chapter leaders into viewing themselves as organizers rather than the UFT view of them as disseminators of whatever propaganda that supports the UFT narrow view of the relationship between the leadership and the members.

There were some good lines about UFT officials. "Two 60 year old white guys talking at us and putting on a show with little interest in hearing what we had to say." "My district rep mostly talks at us at district meetings and disseminated material. There is no dialogue.

Ahhh! District reps. The overseers of the plantation. The key people in keeping things and people in line to make sure no militant movement gets started in the teaching ranks. There to deflect and give people who want action busy work so they will eventually get tired and give up.

The people at the course today said they had their eyes opened as we workshopped their school, principal and their own role as chapter leader with suggestions and actions. "The union never does this," was a common refrain.

That is why if you are a chapter leader or delegate or even someone just interested in organizing your chapter, these Teachers Unite monthly sessions are for you.


RANK AND FILE TEACHERS UNITE!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. (starting promptly!)

Brecht Forum
451 West St. between Bank and Bethune Streets

Are you a Chapter Leader, Delegate, or someone who is interested in helping mobilize school staff?

Join Teachers Unite's third monthly meeting where teachers committed to social justice and human rights share their school stories, organizing strategies, and visions for a UFT that fights for what we believe in.

*SPECIAL CALL: Do you work in a school where the teachers and principal work well together? Wondering what the role of the union could and should be in your small, progressive school? We need your voices too!*

At the September meeting we will:

1. Share best practices for chapter organizing.

2. Talk about the kind of positions we'd like to see the UFT stand for (for those of you wondering: "What's the union got to do with social justice?")

Please let us know if you're coming through: sally@teachersunite.net

Directions:
A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave, walk down 8th Ave. to Bethune,
turn right, walk west to the River, turn left.

1, 2, 3 or 9 to 14th Street & 7th Ave, get off at south end of station, walk west on 12th Street to 8th Ave. left to Bethune, turn right, walk west to the River, turn left.
--
212-675-4790
http://www.teachersunite.net

Think Teachers Unite is doing great work? We need your support! Please visit http://www.teachersunite.net/sign up to become a member or http://www.teachersunite.net/node/339 to make a donation.

SHOCKED IN HARLEM AT EVA MOSKOWITZ, HSA EXCESS

A teacher at PS 241 sends an anguished outcry as the Eva Moskowitz blitzkrieg runs over another Harlem School just as school is about to open.

Ed Notes has been reporting summer at the battles at PS 123 in Harlem (search the blog for PS 123 and check out all our videos).

PS 241 had a different story. It was supposed to be a failed school and be closed, with the entire building being handed over to Eva Moskowitz. But that would leave that area of Harlem without a zoned school. What's a law to these gangsters? But the UFT sued and Klein was forced to keep the school open. But he cut out the PS 241 middle school and sent a letter to parents basically telling them they were crazy to send their kids to the school. (Similar to this letter – Klein Letter to PS 150 Brownsville Parents, the other similar school in the suit.)

The Moskowitz attack dogs came out in force attacking the UFT for trying to keep "failing" schools open. Then low and behold, PS 241 gets a good grade of B on the DOE's own stupid grading system - since we laugh at that system, we don't like to credit schools with "success" or "failure" based on Leibman's folly. But, hey, they wanted to close it based on a grade.

So, the summer passes and just as school opens, we get the letter to follow today from people at PS 241.
Check all the Ed Notes sources below which includes a previous letter from April.

Aug 26, 2009
Opening of School at Harlem's PS 241 Hindered by Moskowitz Harlem Success Charter School Moving In

by SHOCKED IN HARLEM

News from PS 241- one of the schools embattled in early spring 2009 to save themselves from "Phasing Out" and being replaced with Harlem Success.

While news of the lawsuit pushed the DOE to back off and give us another "chance", it did not stop Harlem Success from being given the green light to move into the building anyway and target our students to fill their spots.

Our parents received heavy mailings, phone calls, and personal visits, as Harlem Success employees stood outside the school building at every dismissal accosting parents and cajoling them into signing up for HS. Staff members were told by parents just how persuasive and persistent Moskowitz's team was and wondered if they really had a choice. All the while DOE and Moskowitz/HS staffers were in and out of our building, offices, classrooms- sizing up what they wanted and making plans to get their way.

Her people even walked in and out of classrooms- DURING lessons (without asking our permission) and hovered daily after school in certain rooms (my office in particular as she practically drooled over where she would put her desk, etc. ) It was offensive, disrespectful, and inappropriate! But, DOE once again, gave M her free reign- at the expense of the two other schools already housed there (Opportunity Charter School has been in the building since 2006-2007 as well, chipping away more and more space each year.)

We acknowledge that our enrollment is dropping- certainly partly in due to the myriad of Charter Schools in the area sending their beautiful full-color brochures and promising longer hours (daycare!) and sometime monetary rewards as well for students to transfer out of the public schools. Add a well-funded, pushy Harlem Success Academy to the mix and we do not stand a chance!

Our funding has been cut so that we can not provide much in the way of after-school programs, so when they offer an opportunity to attend their school which starts at 7:00 and ends at 4:30- what parent would decline?

And now, we have had to give up so much space to HSA. Mind you they were caught in the spring time stacking their enrollment numbers to nearly impossible numbers so as to gain more space than needed. Our principal called them on this and M had to admit she had less than previously stated. Who knows what else she lied about. The DOE blindly accepted- seemingly happy to shove PS 241 out of the way?

Our Middle School students will be relegated to several classrooms in the basement, our principal has given up her office (adjacent to the main office) to a first grade classroom, we have lost our Art Studio, our elementary school science lab, our teachers lounge, parent room, offices for pull-out instruction, and now must share the gym, school yard and cafeteria with two schools. One can only wonder what time lunch will be served?

Recess will go on forever with the screams and laughter that permeates the classrooms and disturb the learning environment (the school yard is situated in a courtyard fashion) – no problem when it was only for an hour a day- but now?

Moskowitz is trying to smooth out the wrinkles by purchasing our silence and complacency. She has offered the following: new cafeteria tables, new gymnasium, new auditorium.

If these were so sorely needed, shouldn't our own DOE have made arrangements??? Don't our students deserve things too!

They have completely renovated the wing HSA took over: air conditioners (our students did not have any), new walls, new doors, smart boards in every room, beautiful cubbies placed in the hallway so as to leave more room for who knows what kind of furniture and other goodies that have an overabundance of money to purchase.

They also have staff members manning the hallways providing the much needed security to keep our students and staff members (and those of Opportunity Charter School) out.

This is just what I know about- I am sure there is much, much more!

I know our cafeteria staff and custodial staff members will be working longer hours (extended meal prep and serving, longer hours for custodial staff as their school day is longer and their teachers stay until 9-10 in the evening and request to come in over the weekend as well.)

Who pays for this? DOE, not HSA!

The last item I will mention- due to HSA moving in - our entire school has had to be shifted from one wing (separate building) to another and redistributed over four floors with several classes isolated either in the basement or on the third floor with the other Charter school.

Every classroom had to be moved. Every classroom teacher spent countless hours packing up during the last week of school– not just into closets,etc. as usual, but into packing boxes that could only hold a specified number of pounds. Boxes were supplied by DOE but ran short early on.

Teachers were overwhelmed with trying to teach and supervise their students while also ensure that no item was left behind. No teachers were compensated for this extra work- not in time or money. No movers were brought in until the teachers did all the packing. The movers simply moved boxes from one room to another.

Our custodial staff still had to clean up and move all the boxes themselves in order to do do. It is a MESS! Now, as we get set to return to school we are invited in to come next week- one week early, to start unpacking and setting up our classrooms.

The principal has tried- to no avail- to get DOE funding to compensate us for the amount of time it will take to start over this year. We know many teachers chose to come in early on their own - but this is not the normal new classroom set up! With everyone doing their best- boxes are still everywhere. Furniture is an issue as elementary classes will now be housed in previously middle school rooms. It will take a monumental effort an everyone's part to get classrooms up and running. However- teachers must volunteer their own time to do this. No help will be available to move boxes- many of which are stacked high- and remember what is in a classroom and imagine the weight in some of these boxes.

How can this be allowed?

How can DOE make us move and do nothing but provide one-time movers with no time, support, or understanding of what it will take to give our students warm, inviting classrooms to come back to on Sept. 9?

Forget what will be a stark and painful difference between the HSA classrooms that many of their friends, siblings and neighbors will be sitting in around the corner?

I am, and will probably remain,

SHOCKED IN HARLEM!

Some previous posts on PS 241

From teachers at PS 241 in Harlem (back in April):

April, 2009

Good Morning All-
As some off you may have heard- DOE will not be closing the school down- they have been put off by the lawsuit! This is not a true victory however.
Please read the letter being sent to the parents carefully.
Parents are still being bullied to send their students to other schools.
Harlem Success Academy will still be placed in our building.
Middle school will be phased out.
Where will there be room for HSA? We would only lose our grade 6 students. We will be attempting to get back all of our parents who were forced to apply elsewhere- but how will they all be housed? Sharing facilities with 3 schools- how? We already do not have use of our gym- and struggle to share the other common areas with another charter school in the building. We will lose classrooms, we will lose our art room, we will have to figure out lunch and breakfast times and children will be eating at all kinds of hours.
PS 242 [another Harlem school]- has shown that three buildings cannot live peacefully and successfully in one facility without children suffering. Also- DOE says that if students come back to the school- and if 241 progresses well (by what standards and whose say so) we will stay open- otherwise we will still be closed. That means with HSA already in the building- they can take over. They will still have a way to rezone illegally in the future.
This must stop. This is not a victory- they have only shifted that battle.

More from Ed Notes

Civil War in Harlem Over Charter Schools

Destroying the Public School System in Harlem

Tweed Undermines Law Suit "Win" on Zoned Schools

Klein Letter to PS 150 Brownsville Parents

Letter to Klein from O'Donnell and Nolan re PS 241

Harlem Public Schools Outscore KAPPA, Schools Threatened With Closure Make Top 10 List