ICEers Pass the Info: Goldstein at Gotham, Fiorillo On Obama, Lawhead on Charters, North on New Orleans Privatization, JW Emails

Ok, so I all too often wax poetic about my ICE colleagues. But the fact that so many thoughtful, independent voices work with ICE is meaningful to me. That they have a wide range of interests and play a major role in sharing information is what differentiates ICE, more than a caucus bit an education tool.

Make sure to check out ICE HS Ex Bd candidate, Francis Lewis HS CL Arthur Goldstein's brilliant piece at Gotham Schools. http://gothamschools.org/2010/02/11/the-kids-nobody-wants/

ICE stalwart JW and Ex Bd candidate at-large sends outamazingly informative emails on a regular basis which I post on Norms Notes. Get on her list. See her last 3: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/


Michael Fiorillo, also an ICE candidate for HS EB always goes deep an dug up this interesting factoid: Check out Adolph Reed on Barack Obama, circa 1996 (!!)

"In Chicago we've gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation- hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous to repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program, the point where identity politics converges with old- fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics."

Best,
Michael Fiorillo


John Lawhead, Tilden HS CL and our third HS EB candidate along with Fiorillo and Goldstein attended last night's Cyprus Hills charter school hearing, spoke and took pics. See them at GEM.
John sends this one: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/11/charter_study

Study: Charter Schools Increasing Racial Segregation in Classrooms Encouraged by the Obama administration, efforts to expand the number of charter schools are being organized around the country. But concerns are being raised about the system. We speak to UCLA’s Civil Rights Project co-director Gary Orfield about a new study that suggests charter school growth is increasing classroom segregation. [includes rush transcript].


Lisa North, ICE-TJC candidate for one of the 11 UFT Officer positions, sends this along from Lance Hill at Tulane:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf

This is an excellent publication on privatization and government prepared by the Congressional Research Service. It's definition of privatization places charters and vouchers clearly in the privatization category. I think that it is crucial in the debate on school reform to not allow charter advocates to obscure their free market theory theoretical foundation with the use of the word "charters" (Fannie Mae was not a "charter" mortgage company--it is a privatized public service).

The author defines privatization as the use of the private sector in the provision of good or service. Private sector is defined as any non-government entity, including non-profits, religious organizations, and volunteer groups. The heart of the definition is that with the transfer of services comes, to some degree, a transfer of power, i.e. the public loses some measure of control over the service.

I find it very useful that the author, Kevin Korsar, lists the preconditions of free market benefits to prevail, such as that the consumer has to have full knowledge of the quality of the service or good in order to make rational choices. Rational consumer behavior is what brings about efficiency in the market; consumers use services that deliver the most for the least cost. Thus, when we transfer a government service to a private entity (and non-profits are private entities by his definition) we have to have complete transparency, e.g. school operators can't hide special funding that gives them a temporary advantage in the market--which drives out better operators and results in inferior products.

Even food consumers have that kind of transparency necessary for free markets to produce the best product for the least cost: every can of beans has to list it's nutritional qualities on the label so that consumers can make rational, informed decisions on which brand is the best buy. In contrast, charter schools are not bound by that kind of transparency; they don't have to advertise test scores, low school evaluations, accurate teacher-student ratios, etc.

Competition breeds marketing and, as the author points out, while government does only what the law permits and proscribes, private entities may do whatever the law does not forbid. While we are in the midst of a revolution in cognitive science and neuroscience that is making tremendous advances in our understanding of how humans learn, little of this has made its way into the charter reform movement. Free market forces favor marketing over science.

I also like his notion that only government has the common weal at interest (ideally). Private entities, be they profit or non-profit, are driven by narrower goals such as profits, organizational mission, and bureaucratic self-preservation (no one likes putting themselves out of a job, even if they are doing a bad job.)

The issue at stake in New Orleans is privatization, not "chartering." To properly evaluate the charter reforms, as well as the privatization of teacher recruitment (TFA), we need to know the underlying "process change theory." In this case, it is privatization. Understanding the underlying change theory will help us understand the potential benefits and dangers of the reform strategy and how best to measure it against alternative strategies. As we have seen locally, when we privatize teacher recruitment, we lose the government's mandate for equitable employment with respect to race and age.

That outcome was a predictable outcome of free market theory emphasis on lowering overhead costs. The exclusion of special education children from charter schools was also a predictable free market outcome of the tendency of private entities to reduce services to increase profits or to operate within a limited revenue stream. BESE's mandate forcing charters to enroll special education students reflects their understanding that they, as an elected body, had to compensate for the narrow goal focus of privatized groups.

"Which activities are essential to the state and should remain directly accountable to the elected representatives and which may be carried out by the private sector." That's the central question of the public education debate. Children are not municipal services, like garbage collection or parking- fine collections. Bad schooling affects children for a lifetime and can consign them to a life of despair. Education is ultimately a social service that affects the equitable allocation of future resources. To what degree can we safely surrender accountability to the public in this realm?

So, I would propose that in the public debate on charter schools, the following definition is the most useful:

Charter schools are publicly funded schools operated by private businesses or non-profit organizations.

Hence the debate in New Orleans, on both school operation and teacher recruitment, is a debate on the privatization of public services. If the experiment in New Orleans succeeds in bringing about excellent and equitable education, then privatization deserves the credit and the theory can be replicated elsewhere. If it fails to achieve better and equitable outcomes for the same inputs, then privatization, as a theory of educational reform, must be reconsidered.

Lance

SUPPORT THE BRONX AE SMITH HS FIGHT BACK!

From Angel Gonzalez (Please forward)

GEM fights against school closings period and opposes the privatization of our public schools via charters.

It is the responsibility of the DOE to fix, improve all schools to the highest caliber possible.

We want equal quality democratic public schooling and not private corporate run private charters that will be selective and exclusive

• of the poorest,
• the English language learners,
• special education needs,
• and those unfortunately subjected to other higher social needs (e.g. homelessness, disease).

To convert all public schools and all the charters is the ultimate goal of the corporate profiteers behind Bloomberg and our city government. They are

Wall St. Hedge Funds who seek to turn our students into profitable commodities.

These corporates (such as Waltons, Gates, Broad) will ensure profits in the long term

• by skimming over time on all educational services to our children (just as they have done with private prisons)
• by expelling those students not conforming to their arbitrary school criteria,
• & by downsizing the social wages (e.g. pensions, medical, salaries) & labor rights (e.g. grievance, seniority, organizing) of all their school employees.

School closings & the privatization with charters ARE setting the stage for these aggressive and unscrupulous charter venture capitalists.

We've got to fight citywide against this racist drive to privatize which primarily right now target our communities of color. The ultimate corporate DOE goal is to shut down all public schools and to charterize them all. This semester it's your neighboring school; then next year it WILL BE yours!

Many school workers will be displaced and will lose their union rights & privileges. The majority of charters exclude union and fight viciously to keep them non-union.

Many educators will be displaced into the ATR pool where they will not be guaranteed a permanent job placement. Bloomberg's goal is to ultimately displace this ATR pool to the unemployment lines. AND ....Unfortunately, our UFT is a compliant partner to this charter privatization Bush/Obama agenda!!

Thus, the UFT thus can not and will not put up an effective fight back strategy which requires militant bottom-up organizing at each school and citywide.

Sounds like a conspiracy??? Our research and the actions of the Education Departments of NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other US major cities attest to these corporate privatization schemes. Check our sources. Check our websites. Post your experiences and opinions at our websites. Don't wait for the Klein hatchet to be swung down on your school.

Organize aggressively at your schools NOW and join GEM's citywide fight back. Push the UFT but expect only feeble support and ineffective strategies.

NO TO ALL SCHOOL CLOSINGS! FIX OUR SCHOOLS! NO TO PRIVATIZATION WITH CHARTERS!

SHUT DOWN THE DOE THAT IS SUCCEEDING ONLY IN DESTROYING OUR KIDS AND PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Angel Gonzalez, GEM

From: Nathaniel Thayer Wight

Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:33 AM

To: Grassroots- Education

Subject: Update_Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education (CTE) High School

On January 26th the NYC Department of Education voted to phase out 19 public city schools. Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical HS was one of the original 20 schools to be voted on. As you may know, we were taking off the list (temporarily) in part due to "feedback from the community and the demand for an automotive program to continue to exist in the Bronx." Despite this, we're still in a troubled situation where the DoE plans to phase out our Building Trades program and "move two existing schools into the building and co-locate with Alfred E. Smith" (Bronx Haven High School and the New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries)

We welcome change, however, phasing-out our Building Trades Program in one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States and replacing it with a for-profit, fragmented charter school (see attached letter or this link) that doesn't offer endorsed diplomas or hands on training is unambiguously a mistake. Not having a plan that involves educating the economically disadvantaged South Bronx students in plumbing, carpentry, electrical, HVAC, and architecture is an educational injustice.

To learn more about our school and this situation, see these links:

Jan 21st New York Times article, click here

AES Shop Classes, Music Video, click here

AES Student Voices, click here

Important websites and dates, click here

We need your support. If interested and available, please consider attending our public hearing, PEP vote and/or simply submit a public comment (instructions below) in support of keeping our Building Trades Program open. Your support is much appreciated!

Nate

Nathaniel Thayer Wight

Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education High School

I. Please attend the Public Hearing and Panel for Educational Policy Vote

Public Hearing:

February 12th, 2010, Friday, 5:30pm

Alfred E. Smith CTE High School

333 East 151st Street, Bronx, NY, 10451

Those who wish to speak will be given 2 minutes to provide their input regarding why Building Trades shouldn't be shut down. Our ability to show how important the school is to the students, parents and community will be considered by the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) when they vote on February 24th. Your attendance would be very appreciated and invaluable.

The PEP Vote on phasing out of AES Building Trades:

February 24, 2010, Wednesday, 6:00pm

The High School of Fashion Industries

225 West 24 Street, Manhattan

II. Submit a public comment to Samuel Sloves (HS.Proposals@schools.nyc.gov, 718-935-4414). TYPE Alfred E. Smith CTE High School Building Trade in the subject line. Public comments will be accepted through Feb 22 (and through March 21 for 08X381, 84X395). Feel free to use any of the below reasons (also attached in letter format with links to sources, and available at this link):

1. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School offers endorsed diplomas that enable graduates to obtain Master Licenses from the NYC Department of Buildings. Once licensed, graduates can open their own contracting firms. New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries (AECI) does not offer endorsed diplomas and resulting employment opportunities.

2. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School accepts all students who apply; AECI only takes students via lottery selection.

3. At Alfred E. Smith 71% of the students come from such low-income families that qualify for the federal free lunch program; compared with 47% for AECI.

4. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School provides CTE opportunities for special needs students. Specifically, 20 percent of the AES’ student body has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).3 Smith is one of the last standing schools in this city that provides self-contained classes and integrated CTE shop classes for a large IEP population. Many of these IEP students have excelled in their respective trades and have gone on to secure employment, something they would not be able to achieve in a non-CTE school. At AECI only 9 percent of the student body has special needs.

5. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS partners with Edward J. Molloy for Initiative for Construction Skills that provides students the unique opportunity to enter NYC Unions upon graduation. Since 2001 Alfred E. Smith CTE HS has repeatedly helped place over 20 percent of each graduating class5 in high-level union jobs, including MTA, Metro North, Long Island Railroad, Smalls Electrical Construction Inc., and New York City School Construction Authority to name a few. Many others find professional jobs in Plumbing, Electrical, Carpentry, Auto Mechanics, HVAC as well as Pre Engineering.

6. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is associated with the following professional organizations: New York Electrical Contracting Association, New York Building Congress, New York Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, Building Trades Employers Association, Architectural Construction and Engineering (ACE) Mentoring program

7. The DOE has justified phasing out AES is due to poor graduation rates, however, Alfred E. Smith CTE High School's 4-year graduation rate increased from 37.4 percent in 20086 to 45.7 percent in 20097, representing a 22.2% increase.

8. The DOE claims the Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is not making progress, however, our overall Progress Score has increased from 37.3 percent in 2006-20078 to 52.4 percent in 2008-20099, representing a 40.5 percent overall increase.

9. Since the 2006-2007 school year, Alfred E. Smith CTE HS has shown a 93.1 percent increase in the area of School Environment, 60 percent increase in Student Performance, and 18 percent increase in Student Progress as per NYC Department of Education’s Statistic page online.

10. Only 44 percent of Black and Latino students in NYC public schools graduate within six years12. Student population at Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is over 95% African-American and Hispanic13, yet Alfred E. Smith CTE HS had a much higher graduation rate in 200814 for this same subgroup, even though AES students are required to take 55 credits (minimum) to graduate, 11 more than what NYC public high schools require. Many AES students take as many as 14 more credits, which represents more than one additional year of classes. AES students have to squeeze five years of classes into four years of work!

11. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is situated in The South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States. AES's certified Career and Technical Educational (CTE) programs allows economically disadvantaged students to get unparalleled hand-on instruction in the trades, thereby provide a way out of the poverty cycle. A majority of AES graduates find jobs upon graduation. Phasing out AES would be an act of giving up on the economically disadvantaged.

12. Alfred E. Smith CTE School’s 2009 Progress Score / Progress Grade (29.6) is only slightly below that of it's peer group average, suggesting that AES's students are progressing in a somewhat similar fashion as the average for the peer group.

13. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS provides free adult classes at night for the community; Smith is not only an educational facility for adolescents, but also for the community.

14. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS offers the training to put technical education to the test in regional and National competitions. Year after year Smith students practice what they've learned, compete, and consistently take home trophies from Skills USA and the National Automotive Technology Competition.

---

IS 302 Rallies in Cyprus Hills Feb. 11

CHARTER CO-LOCATION WILL STOP PROGRESS AT LOW-PERFORMING BROOKLYN SCHOOL ON THE RISE

Cypress Hills Advocates for Education: Low-performing I.S. 302 is on the rise and needs space to thrive. Charter school co-location will stop progress.

What: Several hundred parents from Cypress Hills and East New York, Brooklyn and City and State elected officials will gather at a press conference and DoE hearing to oppose the DoE’s proposal to co-locate a charter school, Achievement First, in I.S. 302.

I.S. 302 has hosted a K-8 school, PS89, for ten years, and that school will leave in September to move to its own building. I.S. 302 wants to use that space to reduce class size and expand its arts program. Over the past three years, I.S. 302 has gone from being one of the city’s lowest performing middle schools to a school on the rise:

Where: I.S. 302, 350 Linwood Street (between Atlantic and Liberty), Brooklyn

When: Thursday, February 11, 5pm press conference, 6pm DoE hearing

Who: Sponsored by Cypress Hills Advocates for Education

Media visuals: In press conference and public hearing, hundreds of parents and youth will present 1,000 petition postcards and testify about the direct effect that this co-location would have on student and school progress. Speakers will be available to speak to press in English and Spanish.

--
Julia Watt-Rosenfeld
Lead Education Organizer

Cypress Hills Advocates for Education

Future of Tomorrow

Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation

718-647-8100
917-572-1303
www.cypresshills.org

Slogans for Rally Girls Prep Expansion on Lower East Side Today

Hope some of you might drop by today's rally and hearings to try to protect some endangered Lower East Side schools from overcrowding by having charters foisted on them. (As their press release says, next time it could be you.) See blog post below this one.

Some slogans for home-made posters.

Save our neighborhood schools!

Whose schools? Our schools?

PS 188/94 united and growing together

NO more separate and unequal

All kids need room to grow

Don't starve our schools

We need MORE 6:1:1 Middle School seats

DOE Dictator on Education

OPP Office of Poor Planning

What is PC about GPCS?

Different is not less

Community= protects the most vulnerable

Robbing Pedro to pay Paula?

ELL’s and IEP students need schools too

188 – last LES community-based building on Ave D /Houston

Girls Prep Charter Invasion: The Battle for the Lower East Side Begins NOW

In case you didn't know, the same money is behind Girls Prep as is behind Pave in Red Hook with Spencer Robertson's wife being on the board. As is true with many charters, kids are bused in from outside the school zone. Graphics added by Ed Notes and are NOT part of the press release.

GEM and CAPE will be there to support our colleagues. Will you?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Councilwoman Mendez, PS94 (D75) PS/MS 188M To Protest New NYC DOE Girls Prep Charter Plans

- New DOE Proposal for Girls Prep Charter Middle School to Squeeze an additional 300 students into the PS 188M building at the Expense of District One Students-

- New Proposal Hurts PS 94M and PS/MS 188M -

- 4:30pm Protest, 5:00pm Press Briefing, and 6:00 Public Hearing will be on

Thursday, February 11 –

- Parents from District One Invited. Your School May Be Next!-

February 10, 2010, New York, NY – New York City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and the Parent Association Presidents of PS 94M and PS 188M today announced that they will speak out against New York City Department of Education’s revised plans to allow the Girls Preparatory School (“Girls Prep”) to expand. The new middle school will take more space inside the PS 188M building which Girls Prep currently shares with PS/MS 188M and PS 94M (a District 75 school). This plan does not address NYCDOE-identified shortage of space for District One’s Special Education students requiring 6:1:1 classrooms.

The 4:30pm protest and 5:00pm press briefing will precede the 6:00pm public hearing -- all scheduled for Thursday, February 11, 2010 at PS 188M to discuss this revised plan. People who wish to sign up for the hearing can do so from 5:30 - 6:30pm that evening.


City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, whose district includes the PS 188 building, said: “This plan causes a serious disruption to two schools that overwhelmingly serve low-income neighborhood youth. The expansion of a charter school should not come at the expense of any student, but especially those who face special challenges in a District 75 school.” She added, “I strongly disagree with the Department of Education’s (DOE’s) assessment that these buildings are underutilized. I fail to see how the additional classrooms necessary for Girls Prep to expand to include a middle school could be physically accommodated in PS 188. Nor can I support the sacrifice of educational quality and spacing needs at existing schools in order to make that happen.”

“PS/MS 188M, a K-8 school, and Girls Prep Charter Elementary School have developed a good relationship over the past few years. But we do not have space for another middle school with 300 students, said Yvonne Walker, PS/MS 188M Island School Co-PA President. She added, “Our school has very high numbers of special education students. Right now, we do not have space for the Individualized Education Programs (IEP)-mandated services like Speech & Language Therapy, Counseling and Occupational Therapy. Right now, our children eat in the Lobby. Right now, we do not have adequate gym space, and afterschool space. It’s frustrating for us as parents. PS/MS 188 was praised by Chancellor Klein in his Principal’s Weekly Memo as a high-needs school that not only earned an “A” on its Report Card, but has excellent arts and technology programs. Yet, the addition of a new Middle School in this building jeopardizes the programs that led to this success. What’s horrifying is the plan will put more people in the building than the Occupancy Certificate allows. For all these reasons, our parents are outraged at the DOE’s plan to add a Middle School with 300 students into our building.”

Jessica Santos, PA President and School Leadership Team Member of PS 94M – a District 75 school for children with special needs and whose children at the PS/MS 188 building are all autistic, said, “Our students are different but not less. Special education students deserve the same space and resources as their peers have in order to receive a proper education. We are against the new DOE plan to add 300 more Girls Prep Middle School students into our building especially at the cost of essential services and enrichment opportunities that are mandated on our children’s IEPs. These kids need the technology lab, sensory room and inclusion with general students in order to improve and strengthen their learning and social/emotional growth.”

For more information, please contact:

Jessica Santos for PS 94M, jessicaasantos@aol.com or (718) 664-7345

Yvonne Walker for PS/MS 188M, sheable1967@gmail.com or (917) 653-6755

Barbara Sherman for Rosie Mendez, bsherman@council.nyc.gov or (212) 677-1077

Additional Information

Written comments with respect to the NYCDOE revised proposed plan can be sent to D01Proposals@schools.nyc.gov. 52 Chambers Street Room 320 New York, NY 10007 Telephone: (212) 374-0209 Fax: (212) 374-5588. Oral comments can be left at (718) 935-4415.

Oh What a Tangled Web: Millot, Russo and Rotherham Battle As Millot Charges Arne with Conflict of Interest

I somehow am involved in a national blogging story that involves some pretty well known bloggers, with lots of intrigue tossed in and I'm probably in over my head.

The skinny is that Alexander Russo at TWIE pulled down a post by Marc Dean Millot charging Arne Duncan with conflict of interest after coming under pressure from Andrew Rotherham, one of the slugs of the ed deform movement. (Well, I don't like Andy because as I documented a few years ago he sent the attack dogs after the great blogger Eduwonkette. (I wrote about the day two years ago that I and Kette (Jennifer Jennings), who was anonymous at the time, sat in on an Aero session with Russo and Rotherham and the Times' Jenny Medina. See aeraplaning - don' need no stinkin' research))

Millot sent out a request for bloggers to host his response and Ed Notes was on the list. I responded and Ed Notes will be hosting part 2 of his report, though I warned Millot that we do not exactly exude the kind of classy research-based reporting he is used to. Well, he doesn't seem to mind a muckraking rag, though if he takes a close look he may run away screaming.

Now I should point out that Millot is a pro-market ed guy and has connections to Rand so we are not on the same page and our interests do not often intersect. But he's done some very interesting work on charters at TWIE and this can turn out to be an important story.

This will take a couple of posts over the next few days, but try to keep up because this story may go deep.

So, here goes:

Ken Libby at Schools Matter posted this on Friday

From Dean Millot over at ThisWeekInEducation (Three Data Points: Unconnected Dots, or Warning?)

I have now heard the same thing from three independent credible sources - the fix is in on the U.S. Department of Education's competitive grants, in particular Race to the Top (RTTT) and Investing in Innovation (I3). Secretary Duncan needs to head this off now, by admitting that he and his team have potential conflicts of interests with regard to their roles in grant making, recognizing that those conflicts are widely perceived by potential grantees, and explaining how grant decisions will be insulated from interference by the department's political appointees.
...

We do know that the Secretary benefited from a strong relationship with the new philanthropy in Chicago. We know that the Secretary is high on charter management organizations and the new teacher development programs that benefited from the new philanthropy. We know that RTTT czar Joanne Weiss was senior staff member at New Schools. We know that Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Jim Shelton was a senior program education officer at the Gates Foundation and NewSchools. We know that both managed investments in the organizations' Duncan favors.

Be sure to read the entire entry here - it's good and juicy.

(I clicked on the link and it didn't come up but then I found the URL on TWIE)

Read the rest of Libby's post here: Millot Asks About Conflict of Interest in Duncan's DOE


Below the above post was a comment from Millot:

Marc Dean Millot

At 1:45 Friday afternoon, I posted a brief commentary in This Week in Education, where I have been a guest columnist. "Three Data Points. Unconnected Dots or a Warning?" was one of many appearing in the edu-blogosphere over the last two week's expressing concerns over the lack of transparency in the Department of Education's implementation of the Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation discretionary grant programs. Within a few hours the commentary generated a modest amount of interest from some of our community's leading bloggers.

A little after 5 pm that day it was taken off the site by TWIE editor Alexander Russo. Russo informed me that he had been directed to do so by TWIEs sponsor, Scholastic as the result of a call from Andrew Rotherham to someone at the firm that Russo thought might be Rotherham's friend.

Over the weekend Russo struggled mightily to fix the problem. He emailed me, "Please be assured that this isn't really about you or the substance of your post." I agreed to sit tight till Monday. Sometime around 10:15 Monday evening I was fired by Russo or, to be more precise, he activated TypePad software on TWIE prohibiting me from publishing. The act was in breech of a six-month contract giving me "complete editorial control" over my columns as well as the princely sum of $200 a month.

I've been asked by my readers to explain what happened. I'm posting here because Kenneth Libby was the first. I intend to tell my story from start to finish. Yes, I have something at stake here. Yes, I intend to draw on materials that don't normally see the light of day - like emails and private conversations. But this situation is also an opportunity for readers to gain some insights into the personal side of Washington policy debates, the ways people with influence use it, the challenges faced by those who seek a commercial model for the new media, and the role of the blog in public discourse over education policy. These are worthy goals, rarely pursued.

I could go out and start my own blog, but I ran one for a year at edweek.org and prefer to be a columnist. I would be grateful for perhaps five days access to an edublog as a guest blogger. In return, I can only offer my best efforts to provide the facts, a good faith interpretation, and the full record in my possession for readers can come to their own conclusions.

Millot came out with part 1 of his story today at Schools Matter:

Millot: Sound Decision or Censorship at TWIE? (I)

Millot closes part 1 with:

The defense rests

Russo did not pull the post on substantive grounds. There are no substantive grounds. TWIE's editor pulled it because of Rotherham's influence over a colleague at Scholastic, and that Scholastic employee's order to Russo.

Next: the pressure-cooker Rotherham created for Russo. Watch for me at EdNotes.

Oh, joy. Ed Notes gets the dope on Rotherham.

Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.

The Millot, Russo, Rotherham Caper

I am truly thankful for your support. I am especially thankful because I know many of you do not share my views on markets in public education. What I think we share is a willingness to engage in debates on the merits and a sense of outrage that too many of those in power - political, financial, social, communications - are too willing to use it on their behalf whatever the merits.

I am a (moderate, North Shore Massachusetts, Rippon Society, small businessman,"crunchy") Republican, but I also read and have somewhere in storage somewhere my heavily marked up copy of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, alongside Clauswitz, Machiavelli, and Halperin. And I think that we might leverage this incident to bring more of a spotlight on RTTT, etc.

I dont want to say "no thank you (your'e not neccessary)" to anyone. You're all necessary. What I would like to do is be a guest blogger on each of your sites for one essay in the series I'm writing. Each essay would link back to the earlier posts and note the location of the next. I think there's much more punch to the message this way. And I would urge you to use my guest post as as place of departure for your own discussion of the issues.

Jim Horn offered his site first, so I propose to put the first essay on Schools Matter.

Going in order of offers, the second essay would be at Norm Scott's EdNotes.

The third, Tom Hoffman's Tuttle SVC.

The fourth at The Frustrated Teacher -

Doug Noon at Borderland says he's definitely interested, and if he wants, I'll close there with a review of this effort and reactions to it.

What I like here is that your blogs cover the nation: California (TFT), Rhode Island (Tuttle SVC), Alaska (Borderland), Massachusetts (Schools Matter), New York (EdNotes) and you are all educators engaged the policy debate - frustrated but doing you part to engage, exchange and rally. It may help get the message to more people, and demonstrates grassroots concern about transparency to any ed reporter looking for a story.

I promise not to betray your trust in offering me your blog as a platform. I intend to keep my remarks solidly ground in facts and the records I have. Because some may be in my sole possession, and If released selectively would open me to attack, I intend to release whatever I have that's relevant - starting with everything from the time I published the post to my last exchange with Alexander Russo today. Some is trivial, some is silly, some will undoubtably be used against me. But in the end its the right thing to do.

Tonite, I plan to explain why I wrote what I wrote. It covers the substantive issues - did I charge official with corruption whether my use of anonymous sources was ethical. This covers from roughly noon, to roughly 5 pm when Russo took the post down from TWIE. There were no communications during that time. I will end that post with Russo's Friday afternoon email informing me of his act.

After this, email communications are essential. Russo and I had one conversation on the phone Saturday, after that circumstances led us to communicate only be email. So I'll have a transcript of these communications in a file, and send that to you and some reporters.

The second post is about the sense of stress Russo expressed to me about Rotherham's pressure on Scholastic, and that Scholastic was putting on Russo. I believe Russo tried his best to walk the cat back, but came to see no good way out. His sense of the choices was to disavow me and keep the business he's worked hard to build or back me and lose the business. We exchanged a lot of views from many angles. I suggested alternatives that might let everyone get out of this without damage, I had no goal of hurting anyone, but I made it clear from the start that I would accept no solution that in the least suggested I was at fault. I set a deadline for resolution, extended it, and offered to extend it again if Alexander could see any reason. In the end Russo could not, made his choice, and our relationship deteriorated in the usual pathetic fashion. This is really a story about efforts to monetize blogsites, a classic tragedy.

The third post is about Rotherham's role in all this. Russo and I have independent and shared histories of intellectual rivalry and/or personal tense with the eduwonk, and some knowledge of his behind the curtain tactics against others. He has some motives to attack me, and Russo through me. So this about motive, means and opportunity. My situation offers a chance to get this problem into the sunlight of public discourse. Russo and I are hardly the first victims and Rotherhams hardly the first of his kind.

I'll write a fourth post of observations and conclusions. At this point, I'm not precisely sure what I'll say.

I cant forsee the reactions so I cant say much about the final post.

As far as I'm concerned you can draw as much as you want from this to give your readers a heads up.

Millot: Sound Decision or Censorship at TWIE? (I)

The Longest Day: A TV Show and the End of UFT Petitioning

You'd think that a retiree would barely notice a glorious snow day. But I am revelling in it almost as much as my former colleagues.

I had quite a busy day yesterday, with a morning trip to downtown Brooklyn to do a TV show, a trip back to Rockaway for lunch and then back to the city for what was originally supposed to be 3 events. Here's the skinny on the day, which ended with an embarrassing senior moment.

BCAT TV Show
I was asked to appear on Intersects, a Brooklyn cable access TV show (BCAT) hosted by Brian Vines with educator and commentator Joel Shatzky and Brooklyn PEP appointee Gbubemi Okotieuro, who teaches at Medgar Evers College. We had an invigorating half hour discussion about closing schools. Joel has the handle on the negative impact of high stakes tests and seems to agree with many of the points that the ed deform movement is about a political and not an educational agenda. Nigerian born Gbubemi, who made the motion at the Jan. 26 PEP to table the motion to close the schools pending further study, voted against closing the schools but still has hopes of getting BloomKlein to be reasonable. His recent activity on the PEP gives us hope he will join with Manhattan's Patrick Sullivan and the Bronx' Ana Santos in standing up to the Klein Klones.

It was a pleasure to meet Gbubemi in person and he has a great presence. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does on the PEP and he knows I'll be the first to jump on him if he stays too near the BloomKlein flame. Joel and I have been in touch a few times over the past few days and he has a lot to offer on many issues. He blogs at Huffington's Educating for Democracy blog.

The show airs - in Brooklyn only - on the following schedule:
PREMIERES
1st and 3rd Mondays of the month at 9:30pm- look for it on Monday Feb. 15

ENCORE PRESENTATIONS
Mondays and Thursdays at 1:30pm & 9:30pm; Wednesdays at 3pm & 11pm

CHANNELS
Time Warner Cable 56, Cablevision 69, RCN 84, Verizon 44

It will be in the internet a week after the premiere.


UFT Election Petitions DONE!!!!!

Yippeee! Yesterday afternoon ICE and TJC handed in our petitions to get on the ballot for the UFT elections (ballots go out March 7) - two days early. Not too shabby to get this annoyance out of the way.

We were delayed in getting started on the tv show, so my plan to go back to Rockaway to pick them up and head into the city put me on a very tight schedule. I ate a hurried lunch and headed back into the city with my backpack loaded up with petitions. I drive half way and take the subway the rest of the way. I shlepped my backpack into the train and plopped it down on an empty seat - covered with water. I had visions of thousands of petitions with runny ink but was saved by the toughness of the back pack.

My first stop was at Murray Bergtraum to pick one last batch of petitions and then down to the UFT.

Each of the two caucuses did the petitions their way, helping each other out when needed. ICE held petition signing parties in various schools and the response was wonderful. Thanks to the teaching and non-teaching (secties, paras, social workers, guidance, etc) at Francis Lewis, Murray Bergtraum, PS 193, Jamaica HS for hosting these parties and to all the UFT members at so many other schools that made the process fairly painless, though I don't think Ellen Fox of ICE, who did so much of the leg work, would agree.

This was the first time I was so involved in the process and what started out as an annoyance became an interesting exercise as I went to many schools to pick up and deliver.

I raced over from Bergtraum to meet Megan Behrent from TJC and Ellen in the back of the UFT lobby to bundle the massive stacks of petitions, which we then delivered to Ray Frankel, who is a UFT institution. (I think we used to deliver petitions to her in the 1970's.)

If you didn't know it, putting together a slate is the only way to really get involved in UFT elections. Carmen Applewhite is running as an individual for president and the petitioning (she needs 900 to get on the ballot) must be a nightmare. But the process does give her a chance to get the word out and I would bet that even if she doesn't have all the names the UFT might allow her to run - why not confuse people even more and she would probably draw some votes from ICE-TJC, though I also think her candidacy might mobilize some people to vote who otherwise would ignore the election. I always think - the more the merrier. In Chicago they have 6 caucuses running- but they have a runoff there if you don't get 50% of the vote.

Candidates are allowed to "buy" chapter leader lists for $10 and I had ordered a batch. Ray handed me piles of cards (1500) that were heavier than the petitions. I couldn't pawn any of them off on Megan or Ellen, so I ended up shlepping them home. (They will make good traction for my car in the snow.) Before she would give me the chapter leader cards I had to sign an agreement we would not use the information in any way other than for the election. Sure, and what will they do to us if we misuse the info? Do I have to cancel that plane we hired to write every single chapter leader's name over the skies of New York? This is a new wrinkle -the need for me to sign a document stating I would not use the CL list for purposes other than the election, which we never had to sign in the past. I intend to use the CL cards to clean up cat vomit. Think the UFT will sanction me for misuse?

This new wrinkle, was apparently aimed at Carmen Applewhite for some reason, who rumor has it, is - or was - a Unity Caucus member and her candidacy supposedly did not make them happy, though I don't understand why. Ellen Fox represented ICE-TJC at an election committee meeting- with New Action's slug Michael Shulman, who of course voted with the Unity hacks for this provision. Ellen was the only "no" vote.


After turning in the petitions, I intended to head up to a GEM meeting at CUNY, where I was supposed to meet Columbia journalism student Katie Simon for an interview. But an email came cancelling the GEM event. So I drifted up to J&R and perused 40 inch internet ready TVs and bought some headphones. I was real hungry and started looking for a pizza place but those chapter leader lists were weighing heavy in my back pack and I hit the subway home.

As I was walking to my car in Brooklyn ready to drive back to Rockaway, my phone rang.

It was Katie, looking for me at CUNY.

Oy!

The National Nature of the Attack on Public Ed

Before you read one word there are two must follow links:

Read LA Teacher Dennis Danziger's: Shut Up and Strike in which he says he ain't marchin' anymore - unless it's to strike

and Susan Ohanian's posting of this wonderful (and long - but it's a snow day so you have time) of Danny Weil's wonderful assault on Arne Duncan. Weill closes with:

Conclusion

It is the Obama administration that gave us Arne Duncan, but he was probably dropped in Obama's lap by the privatizers who realized the federal, state and local governments are broke. Enchanted with his paranoid schizophrenic behavior and policies, charmed by his athletic prowess and familiarity with Obama, they embraced him like the lap dog he is.

So now what do we see? Corporatized health care, corporartized education, corporatized war, corporatized social services, and corporatized surveillance and incarceration to name just a few of the increasingly privatized policies. The whole Obama administration is deranged and their behavior, both individually and socially, would put them right into the straightjacket with Arne, or at least in the 'day room'. But to get Arne the help he needs it will take organization and effort on the part of the American public that day by day sees the social and economic horror mouthed, applauded and implemented by the Obama administration and especially the chainsaw massacre of public schools and education promoted by Duncan.

This is why we must mobilize on March 4th to tell the maniacs who now own America and its institutions that we’ve had enough; that schizophrenic economic and social policies that favor the egocentric and pathological needs of a ruling class bent on turning America into a low-paid gulag is not acceptable. And we need to tell them loud and clear, for they don’t seem to be taking their medication, forcing us instead to accept their evil prescriptions and their corporate medicine for social life.

Enough is enough: Duncan must go. His statements betray his interests and his interests are not those of working people, they are aligned with the interests of the powerful elite bent on destroying America for private profit. The same elite who display the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia one can find in any medical journal. The inmates are now truly running the asylum. It is time to lock them up and get them the help they need.

---

Karen Horwitz, teacher activist and author of White Chalk Crime, responded to a comment I made about not putting all the emphasis on Joel Klein and even Michael Bloomberg:

Norm
Although NY does lead this nation on most things, even if we were able to pin the corruption on the NY gang, the rest of the nation has it in full swing and it would be back with a vengeance without mayoral control. Mayoral control only makes it easier, but is far from the only path for ravaging our schools.

Emphasizing Bloomberg makes it appear as a NY thing when it is national, diabolical epidemic that is positioned to totally undermine our democracy with its helpful companion, the latest Supreme Court decision.

After all when lousy schools produce brainless people, I can't say citizens since citizenship isn't taught either, the corporate money will easily influence them against their own interests. (Actually the decision is not all that significant since special interests have been doing this for years illegally; perhaps this decision is a blessing that will wake up more people to what is going on so they will unite against this calculated end of democracy.)

Although I appreciate and respect all the hard work activists put into exposing their own systems, it is important to keep all of this in context within the intentional destruction of our democracy that it promises to accomplish. You are so correct that Vallas was replaced with Duncan and Klein can be replaced with another White Chalk Criminal. This will keep happening until we the people rise up to protect our democracy, not just our schools.

Karen
I agree that this is a national attack on public schools and teacher unions and the focus on Bloomberg and Klein can be misleading at times. But the answer goes way beyond joining NAPTA. Last summer activists from 5 cities met in LA and formed a loose alliance. People went back to their local areas to build the movement. Some are getting together again in Detroit at the Labor Notes Troublemakers conf in April. Others are going to the tri-national meetings of 3 nations - Canada, Mexico and US in May and some are hooking up in Seattle at the AFT convention in July.

March 4 all of these cities and more are joining in a national day to save public education. Oakland teachers voted to strike that day. LA is in a state of flux. Chicago's CORE teachers caucus is challenging for union leadership. Detroit teachers who got the worst contract in history - which Randi helped broker and has praised - voted to recall their union leader, a Randi ally but he is refusing to go. In Washington Nathan Saunders is running for union president.

In NYC, things are in the early stages of organizing, galvanized by the massive closing of schools and the charter school invasion. Many groups are forming and some are coming together in various configurations to join with parents and even students. The Jan 21 rally at Bloomberg's house was a success and of course the massive outpouring on Jan. 26 opened a lot of eyes.

Stay tuned.

Norm

WAVE Editorial Calls for Investigation of Malcolm Smith

Flake, Smith - The crew in this piece are all up to their ears in charter schools. Below the editorial, see a list of powerful articles by Wave editor Howard Schwach. Or go to then Wave web site and search the archives (www.rockawave.com). If not for this corrupt political system, they all - and I include many Tweedies here - would be taken out with coats over their heads. Anyone have a teabag to lend me?

Published February 5, 2010 (www.rockawave.com)

It’s Time For An Investigation

There have been many disquieting stories about State Senator Malcolm Smith, who serves as both the Senate’s President and our representative to the legislative body.

Any one of the stories, taken alone, should be enough to spark a state ethics investigation. Taken together, they reveal a picture of greed and unethical behavior that surely should trigger an investigation. However, our state ethics laws are so skewered toward protecting the wrongdoers, that such an investigation is anything but certain.

Just two weeks ago, Smith’s earmark of $100,000 for the Peninsula Preparatory Academy, a charter school he founded and to which he maintains strong ties, came into question, as did his push to pass a state law that would allow double the number of charter schools in New York City.

Tied to those questions is the growing belief that Beach Channel High School is being closed primarily to clear the room for another Smith-founded charter school, this one a high school to accommodate his PPA students once they graduate from the middle school.

On the heels of those questions came allegations from a national group that recently filed a state ethics charge against Smith in connection with a non-profit organization that he and Congressman Gregory Meeks founded in 2001.

Two of the original board members for that non-profit were Smith’s wife and the wife of a former business partner, Darryl Green, who had been convicted in 2004 of stealing money from those who purchased his expertise about minority hiring. Green is also a partner with former Congressman Floyd Flake in the Aqueduct Entertainment Group, which was just awarded a multi-million dollar contract from the Senate and the Governor to run a gambling Racino at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Smith worked for Flake and remains a close friend. In addition, Smith, Meeks and City Councilman James Sanders Jr. brokered a deal that required the developer of a huge cargo facility on Rockaway Turnpike to provide $250,000 for community development in southeastern Queens. That money was given to the non-profit started by Smith and Meeks, reportedly on Smith’s “suggestion.” Records show the money going in, but little coming back to the community.

The Aqueduct deal also raises red flags because the Flake group was not the highest bidder. In fact, all three incidents raise red flags and indicate that an investigation is due and due soon.


More articles:
Senator Malcolm Smith’s Mentor Wins Aqueduct Racino Bid Paterson Pulls Winning Lever For Flake

WAVE Editor Howard on State Senator Malcolm Smith's Ties to For Profit Victory Charter School and its $750,000 Slice of Public Money

Howie Schwach: It's All About Charters And Breaking The UFT

The DOE says that Victory Schools is paid by PPA through fundraising, but I am willing to bet that Victory Schools is being paid by taxpayer dollars funded by Malcolm Smith and his cohorts in the State Senate.

Joel Klein is Not the Culprit!

The emphasis on Joel Klein as the culprit and not on Bloomberg (one of the biggest misleading roles the UFT has played) is dangerous in that Klein could disappear and nothing will change or things will get worse - he plays the role Paul Vallas played in Chicago from 1995 through 2001. Who replaced Vallas - the slicker and less offensive Arne Duncan who is leading the Obama attack on public schools.

The problem is mayoral control and the national attack on public education not Joel Klein. There is a version of Joel Klein in every big city under attack. Let's keep our eye on the prize.

Klein may be on the ropes due to the pounding he is beginning to take from the Black and Latino/a community (teachers' voices as critics don't count.)

Let's not be fooled if they pick what looks like a benign educator. They did that in LA where Ramon Cortines is doing exactly what Klein is doing here.

Sort of reminds me of how many people are getting fooled by Randi's hand picked successor whose differering style plays better but we will see as time goes by, with the same results. Unfortunately, he will be able to skate by through this UFT election cycle. Don't you love those cute "militant" UFT ads running at the cost of millions?

Michael Fiorillo on Duncan's Katrina statement

Michael has been one of the key people speaking out at forums and the UFT Delegate Assembly about the threat the public education and the role the UFT/AFT has played.

Teacher, historian, activist, and chapter leader Mike Fiorillo, who is running with ICE-TJC for one of the six HS seats on the Executive Board in the coming election, writes frequently about NYC schools and the state of our labor union.

His perspective on current school events is not only informative but essential reading.

The following paragraphs are in response to a post at GothamSchools after Sect'y of Education Arne Duncan remarked that Katrina was the "best thing" for the New Orleans school system.

This despicable statement by Duncan represents a common motif among Democrats and Republicans alike, and validates Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine thesis, namely, that ruling elites create or opportunistically use crises to implement policies that would otherwise be blocked. In the case of New Orleans, it’s the wholesale privatization of the school system, with the schools being turned over to large charter school chains. Teach For America — closely affiliated with KIPP — is the Human Resources Division and employment agency for this hostile takeover.

Obama, who received most of his campaign contributions from Finance, is the Trojan Horse brought in to bring this about; it’s Nixon Goes to China in reverse, with a purported “liberal” elected to do what a Republican never could get away with. It’s his job to impose the structural adjustment policies that the IMF has used to dominate developing countries undergoing debt crises over the past thirty years: shrinking the public sector, privatization of resources and public services (note that he just announced the privatization of the space program), elimination of subsidies that support domestic production and social welfare, etc.

Disregard Obama’s faux-populist rhetoric of recent weeks: it’s little more than a shift in his overall marketing campaign

Read more of what Michael has to say at the ICE UFT Election blog:

Michael Fiorillo on Duncan's Katrina statement


There's a reason why many of ICEers are excited at the prospect of having Michael Fiorillo (along with Francis Lewis HS CL Arthur Goldstein and Tilden CL John Lawhead plus 3 more from TJC) getting elected to the UFT Executive Board (ballots are sent out March 7). If you're not in a high school you won't see their names on the ballot (except as an AFT/NYSUT delegate) because these positions are the most likely to be in contention and we focused on getting well-known and articulate spokes people on the board to challenge the Unity/New Action nexus. It will still be a tough challenge as they have to get more high school votes than Unity and New Action combined. So if you are in a high school, make note and get your colleagues to vote the ICE-TJC slate - which is a vote for all 6 HS candidates. We will say a lot more about this but if you pick out candidates individually, you risk having your ballot invalidated if you also accidentally put a mark near a slate, something so many people did in 2007, two thousand ballots were invalidated.

Also be sure to read ICE-TJC presidential candidate James Eterno's piece on the elections at the ICE political blog: UFT Election: Victory won’t be Easy

The Battle for Fremont High

From an email:

Our education leaders have decided that one way to improve low performing schools is
to shut them down, and make everyone working their reapply for their jobs. Education Secretary Arne Duncan did this to 60 schools in Chicago, and has plans to put the 5000 lowest performing schools in the country into a process that could lead to reconstitution.


This week we hear from Chuck Olynyk, who allows us to witness this process as it unfolds. Things are heating up in LA.

Today is Day 152 of my time remaining at Fremont High School.


The workshop on "How To Transfer" really drove home how serious this situation at Fremont, which means other "loser" schools in LAUSD has become: ninety minutes on how to move out or be evicted from a place you dedicated the past sixteen years to. The library was packed, the facilitators bombarded with earnest questions. It's funny how we talk daily about doing it, about strategies like not reapplying, of signing petitions (or, more properly, pledges, I guess) not to do so, then the inevitable that comes with such gestures.


"I don't want to leave." Picture a whining voice in your ear. "I want to stay here..." Yeah, guess what? We all do (well, mostly). A number of us envisioned finishing out our careers here at the Mont, but Superintendent Cortines would have it otherwise in his grand publicity stunt. Yes, Dr. McKenna (III, in case you need to figure out which one) "encourages" us to all "reapply," if you were at Tuesday's meeting. Does it actually make sense to ask us all to reapply if having us all
together is such a bad thing for Fremont? Oh, wait, I remember... "Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's not logical." Yes, Mr. Balderas also is asking us to reapply. Can you blame him? What might look like a dream-come-true for a principal--hand-picking your faculty--is really a nightmare, with a bunch of us with experience saying, "Okay, pick a school for me, since I suck so bad and have no idea what I'm doing." My sister is an M.D. and she likens having the
majority of experienced people leaving to staffing a hospital with interns and medical students; sometimes experience matters.


"I'm not worried. I'm so good I know they have to hire me back. Only the bad teachers have to worry." Assuming you are re-hired, under what working conditions will that be? Dr. McKenna says that it's "a work in progress, subject to revision." So you want to sign on, while the "contract/compact" is under revision? If so, can I get you to sign a blank check for me? Won't you already be committed to working here and THEN you find out what the conditions are? What do plan to do then--leave? We need to know what the conditions are--and one of the
conditions is that WE stay. (I think I'm channeling Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen--"This is one time we're going all the way with the Army's starting line-up?" "Even Maggot?" "Even Maggot.")

If we are all being encouraged--no, begged--to remain, then we cannot be the problem. But if we are not the problem, then why the wholesale forced exodus, why the Trail of Tears, why the Stalinesque deportation to an educational Siberian gulag? Dr. McKenna, you need to stick to one
story. If we're being removed from Fremont because we have created a "culture of failure," then why are we being encouraged by you to reapply? Why has it become so important for us--teachers, counselors, clerical staff, food services, security, school police, custodial, and
assistant principals--to reapply?

--Chuck Olynyk

Note: This was written over the weekend. Today, an update from Chuck:

Lots going on at Fremont. Thursday is Parent Conference Night, so we've got networking with parents going on. Saturday, there is a neighborhood walk scheduled, with teachers going door to door. Tuesday will be a rally in from of the Mont after school. Thursday there will be another
meeting on our football field.

And the petition/pledge now has something like 120 out of 240 (more or less) faculty, who will not be reapplying.

More news on this battle can be found at the Save Fremont! web site.

What do you think? Would you reapply for YOUR job if your school was reconstituted?

Removal of Paul Robeson Principal a Sign of DOE Manipulation

The removal of Paul Robeson principal Ira Weston for alleged drinking and excessive absence is an indication that though the alternative to closing a school is leadership change, the fact that that option was not considered – until the schools' closing was announced, that is– is an indication of the real motives for closing Robeson: to give way to a brand new local charter school in the area. Lindsey Christ at NY1 reported that, "Sources in the department say Weston's performance as principal has been disappointing for years..."

DOE spokesperson David Cantor was quoted in the Daily News article: "If we thought a school could turn around simply through a leadership change, we would simply change the leadership."

Duhhhh, David! So if you really believe that (and who knows what they believe in Tweedy Land) then why not try a new leader first rather than close down an entire school?

See stories in the Daily News, and NY Post.