At Teachers Unite Sat. 11/13: Meet Reps from CORE in Chicago: The New Faces of Union Organizing!

Join many of the NYC progressive/real reformers on Saturday as they greet Jen Johnson and Al Ramirez from the heroic CORE who went from birth as a caucus 3 years ago to running Local 1 of the AFT. It is almost mind-blowing to think of it.

I met Al in the summer of 2009 in LA at a conference when CORE was still a molehill on the verge of growing into a mountain. CORE began in essence when Al and Jackson Potter started going to closing school hearings to video them. I also got to hang with Al in Seattle at the AFT convention in July and I'm really looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.

I also met Jen Johnson in Seattle and was very impressed - she was the CTU rep who did the negotiating with Unity on a major reso that Randi tried to suppress but they stood their ground and won some points. Here is the video of that debate with Jen speaking second after a Unity person who sounds real good but it's Unity, you know so what they say is not what you get. If you can stand her bragging about keeping schools open (GAG, GAG) watch it. If not move the slider to about the 5 minute mark to see Jen who is followed by CTU President Karen Lewis.

Ed Notes will be at the TU event covering. Hope to see you. RSVP to TU if you plan on coming:

Teachers Unite
What does teacher union organizing have to do with you?

Read about the amazing new movement happening in Chicago in this interview in Rethinking Schools, and join Teachers Unite to meet founders of Chicago's CORE (Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators)!

• November 13th
  11 a.m.
  
  Teachers College
  229 Thompson Hall
  Enter at 525 W. 120th St. btw Broadway and Amsterdam
  Bring Picture ID
  Suggested donation: $5-$10 sliding scale
  Presenters: Jen Johnson and Al Ramirez from CORE (Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators)
  
  
  What can we learn from Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators or CORE? 
  
  This new caucus won leadership of Chicago Teachers Union through grassroots organizing, and citywide mobilization. 
  
  Learn from CORE leaders some keys to their organizing success, and their vision for a new kind of teacher unionism.
  RSVP at info@teachersunite.net

How far will CEJ bend?

Last Update: Nov. 12, 12:30PM

That's the "Coalition for Educational Justice" for those not aware. CEJ is the group that got good vibes for leading the rally that closed down the Aug. 16 PEP meeting. (I'm in too much of a hurry to get you the links but you can find it by searching this blog's archives.) Now I'm getting bad CEJ vibes when I read this in the WSJ:

Cathie Black isn't expected to take the helm of the country's largest school system until next month, but the battle lines are already forming.

Ms. Black is garnering some leeway from critics of her predecessor even as she faces resistance from other key stakeholders in the city's sprawling educational bureaucracy.

Zakiyah Nasari, a parent and member of the organization Save Our Schools, says she is giving Ms. Black, the head of Hearst Magazines, the benefit of the doubt. The group—which has adamantly opposed many of the initiatives of Ms. Black's predecessor, Joel Klein—wants the Department of Education to roll back the use of state tests in school report cards and do more to help those students deemed not proficient, issues that the teachers union agrees with.

Ms. Nasari's organization, a coalition of community groups that has also fought school closures, was created after new state test scores showed that only 42% of city children are proficient in English and 54% proficient in math.

"We hope Ms. Black will be an ally to move forward and really open a dialogue and include us as key stakeholders in decisions," Ms. Nasari said. 

So, will CEJ join the growing "Stop Cathie from getting a waiver movement?" I'm doing an over under on that one. Though it is Rupert's WSJ and they have an interest in highlighting possible support for Black. Is this an attempt to create splits in the opposition to Black. Will CEJ jump?

Luis Reyes wrote to the listserve:

As a member of the SOS coalition, I know I was never asked, though the article implies that she speaks for the whole coalition. It also spells her name wrong, consistently.

NOTE: CEJ jumped back in April 2007 after the St. Vitas church outpouring of hatred toward BloomKlein (look it up in the Find box) - the only time BK blinked - but in essence CEJ and others led by Randi Sellout led them away from militant action, which after all is what the UFT does. People tell me the UFT funnels money to CEJ, a subsidiary of the Annenberg Inst. I can probably find out but I'll leave that to journalists. Muckrakers can just be lazy.

Hmmm. BloomBlack - BB or BlackBloom - BB or as one retiree emailed me "leaving the kids, teachers and schools Black and Bloom after they're gone."

On Cathie Black Out a da South Bronx

SBS predicts Murdoch/Klein (MurdKlein or MurKlein or MuKlein) love affair a month ago.

Those who write off South Bronx School blog as too rough and raunchy are missing a treat. If I tell you who turned me on to the blog you would be surprised: a well-known enormously respected figure as a defender of public education. SBS' radio show has been getting great guests - the last 2 weeks were Mona Davids and Leonie Haimson - and Diane Ravitch called in when Leonie was on. Despite all the other good stuff about her, Diane certainly supports her friends.

So while on the subway coming home tonight I got an email from that enormously respected figure who turned me on to SBS years ago who wrote:

"Did you see this?   The best thing written on the whole debacle."


Well, when I head over to SBS I often shield my eyes like you would when driving on a highway and seeing a 10 car pileup down the road. When I peeked through my fingers and hit a few links I saw the pic above. Here is the mainline post today and above it is SBS suggestions for people more qualified to be Chancellor than Cathie Black.

Amongst them:

Bill, the single cell Amoeba

My cat

My grandmother who has been dead for 23 years

Here is the main post today.

Teachers Are Not Ewoks And We Do Not Live On Coruscant

I was pulling into the parking lot at the White Castle on 149th St and Southern Blvd when I heard the news briefly over the radio. Some dude named Klein resigned a job to become Rupert Murdoch's best buddy and Mayor Bloomberg hired a black woman.

I immediately called the crack team at the SBSB cave. I relayed the information I had heard on the radio. Instantly, they fed said information into the technologically advanced SBSB computer looking for the answer to what I had just heard. After five minutes, the answer came through on the radio loud and clear. Besides, the SBSB computer spat out a card with a bunch of holes on it that no one was able to decipher. But not from the computer. Joel Klein resigned as chancellor of the NYC schools, he accepted a job as executive VP in charge of Chancellors Who Have Been Unceremoniously Asked For Their Resignations Immediately And That Have Their Best Buddies Find A Nothing Job For Them at News Corp., and some magazine chick by the name of Cathie Black of Hearst Magazines, and formerly of USA Today has become the new anointed one. Great someone who gave us the McPaper is now going to give us the McSchool

The only thing I am not surprised about is the Uncle Joel went to work for Rupert Murdoch. I was mocked by thousands last month for a post I had written concerning Ruppie and Uncle Joel. But the photo turned out to be pretty prophetic, eh?

So what to make of this? Before we start dancing around like the Ewoks, and the population on Coruscant had after Vader was killed and the Death Star exploded, know this. Mayor Palpatine is still amongst us. The Sith Lord always has an apprentice. We are not at Episode VI yet. No, we are halfway through Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. Count Dooku is gone, now Vader has taken its place. The fight must not end.

El presidente de UFT, Michale Mulgrew released this statement; “I look forward to working with Ms. Black. As a teacher, I will help in any way I can to help the children of New York.” Lame. Wrong answer. Again I turned to the Crack Team here at SBSB for them to formulate a better response than Mulgrew gave. After many hours, and several deliveries from Domino's later there was nothing. I then turned to be nine year old son, catching him during a commercial break of iCarly. In five seconds he came up with what Mulgrew should have said; "After eight years of a non educator running and ruining our schools in which there has been no positive affects on students learning, inflated graduation rates, the scapegoating of teachers, closing of schools, and several convoluted reorganizations, we call upon SED chief David Steiner to deny a waiver for Cathie Black, a woman who has had no experience whatsoever in education, to be chancellor of the NYC schools." Wow, imagine that from a nine year old.

This is not the time for us to roll out the welcome mat and bring cookies and milk. This is the time to start taking the offensive. I believe the deform movement is on the ropes. They have overreached and now the public is staring to see what they truly are. Klein was sacrificed. Mayor Mike has seen the albatross that Klein has become. How else can he be the Jewish Ross Perot in 2012 with Klein around his neck? The only thing that should be on the neck is the UFT's foot on the DOE's neck and we don't let up until we get back the right for students to be properly educated in this city and the respect each and every parent, as well as teachers deserve.

Real Reformers Will Stand Up at Tuesday's PEP

Here is a general call to come out to the PEP at Brooklyn Tech and support the Real Reformers. They might even have an extra RR red cape for you to wear.

     GEM is working to turn out folks for the PEP meeting next tuesday the 16th. We are planning on reviving the Real Reformers performance. Maybe not the whole thing, but at least the chorus. We think the capes and some singing at least will be an important presence. You are getting this email because either you were there last time or brought or sent folks (peter can you reach out the ISO folks who came)  or might want to come this time. Please let me know if you are down to join us this time. We are meeting at 4:30 on corner of Fort Greene Park and Elliott Place. 

And even if you are not going to perform, please come out, we need to start building for the huge fight to defend schools being closed.

Next Brick to Fall on Klein: Phony Grad Rates

And the audit says....

In the post mortems to Klein's demise, note how the credit for test score rises has disappeared. Not how the closing achievment gap issue also has begun to fade from the credit list. But he is still given credit for raising high school grad rates. On the Newshour yesterday someone from the Hechinger Inst (I bet they are not impartial) even said by all metrics Klein got rates up 20%.

Note how they ignore credit recovery, enormous pressure on principals to push teachers to pass kids who fog a mirror, and easier Regent tests as a way to juke the stats. And let's not forget those pushouts.

Rumors are floating around that another shoe is set to drop on Klein: these pushouts - or disappeared kids from the cohorts - a major way to juke those grad rates. Some kind of audits have been going on and the people at Tweed have been in a tizzy. I hear things are getting close to be made public. I don't know all the arcane jargon on discharge codes but some funny stuff is being uncovered and whatever they do say they uncover is just scratching the surface.

Could the imminent release of this info been the push needed to get Klein to go?

Steve Koss: The Cathleen Black story just gets weirder and weirder

LAST UPDATE: 9:30am

There's so much stuff coming in on the Cathie Black story that I can't keep up. Tony Avella, Robert Jackson and other pols are calling for a denial of the waiver she needs. Some forces in the Black community are rising up against Black. I'm assuming she will be at the PEP meeting Tuesday night at Brooklyn Tech (wow, she may have to leave Manhattan) specifically to see the Real Reformers with their red RR capes perform. Ed Notes will be there to take tape. Check the sidebar for some funny stuff and links to an online petition. Lots of these springing up. Check Leonie's NYCParent blog, Perdido, NYC Educator  and othere  on our blogroll for more.

 From Steve: 

Wow -- the latest story posted on the NY Times, titled "No Education Experience Needed to Run Schools? An Idea Is Taken to a New Level," (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/nyregion/11schools.html?hpw ) contains a fascinating new wrinkle on Cathleen Black's educational non-background.

Seems that her singular claim to education involvement was being on an advisory board of some sort for Harlem Village Academy. However, the Times is reporting that she not only just joined that group a few months ago and has yet to attend a meeting! Even so, guess who is chairman of that HVA Advisory Board? None other than Rupert Murdoch, Joel Klein's new boss!  The incestuousness in all this is positively stomach-turning.

So it now appears that Ms. Black's entire education background consists of having attended a mentor day in a Detroit school with Michelle Obama and having been "principal for a day" at an unidentified Bronx school.

The Times article also goes on to describe the waiver issue and Tony Avella's letter to Steiner about not granting the waiver. It als expresses concerns about Ms. Black's lack of qualifications. Three people are quoted as supporting her. Two of them are Merryl Tisch -- Chancellor of the State Board of Regents -- and Deborah Kenney -- chief executive of the HVA charter school network. The third person is nothing short of priceless -- the number one shill for big NYC corporations (as president of the Partnership for New York City, a sort of self-appointed chamber of commerce with very close ties to Bloomberg), the inimitable Kathryn Wylde.

Wow! The battle lines here could not possibly be clearer.

Steve Koss

Loretta Prisco added this:

Could it be that within the close to 100,000 professional DOE staff, hundreds more of university people in education in NYC alone, the Mayor couldn't locate one educator for Chancellor? If Klein taught classes of 32 children, he would’ve known why class size is important. If Klein taught, he would’ve known that his teaching couldn't - and shouldn't be measured by a test score. If Klein taught, he would’ve known that most beginning teachers are not as strong as when they have experience. If Klein taught, he would’ve known the importance of parent/community involvement. If Klein taught, he would’ve known the importance of having the trust and confidence of staff and parents. And so it will be with Cathleen Black – only a prettier smile and charming personality.

What is really frightening is the hold that Bloomberg will have on the media: Klein at Fox, Black from Hearst, Bloomberg from Bloomberg news. And who knows how many others are hidden away. He/she who controls the media from their Park Avenue addresses and the Sun Valley, Idaho conference of the publishing elite, controls the parameters of discussion, the public agenda, and policy making, and the ability to edit out all other opinions.

The End of a BloomKlein Era: Was He Pushed? Who Cares?

Posted to The Wave for publication, Friday. November 12, 2010
www.rockawave.com


By Norm Scott

Joel Klein is so accommodating. I was just about to sit down and write another inconsequential and undecipherable column as deadline approached when the phone rang. "Norm, it's Joel. I'm thinking of resigning. Am I too late to make your column? I'll hold off for two weeks if I missed your deadline." (That guy doesn't make a move without consulting me first.) Despite my overwhelming sadness, I told him it was fine to resign.

"What's your next move Joel? Why not try brain surgery? You know as much about that as you do about education." Joel went on and on about his options before dropping the Big One. "Rupert? Rupert who?" I said. "Oh, that Rupert. But you know nothing about business or effective management or inspiring people. I mean, Joel, you know I love ya, but frankly, in 8 years you have taken the NYC public school system down a hell hole."

"Yeah, I know. Test scores and grad rates and the achievement gap and all that crap. I hate to tell you this Joel, but it was all false by just about every piece of data we have. Ha, ha, ha, ha - I know you love it when I use the D word."

Joel hung up happy while I cried my eyes out. I must have been the only one who was sad as cell phones all over the city exploded with shouts of joy emanating from the ranks of NYC parents and teachers. He was so polarizing and despised by all, we had no better organizing force.

My biggest fears were that Bloomberg would appoint someone with heavy credentials, like a Black or a Latino/a with a PhD. An ed deformer in drag who would fool communities into thinking they were going to be represented. But not to worry. Bloomberg came through and picked a white businesswoman who ran magazines and worked for Hearst. Phew! What a relief. Cathie Black - which do you like better - BloomBlack or BlackBloom - will be just a new face with the same old agenda. Sort of an Arne Duncan, less polarizing type, which to my mind as an organizer of opposition to the ed deform agenda, is a negative.

Black has even less educational experience than Joel (he actually taught briefly in the 60's when so many men entered teaching to avoid the draft) and she also needs a waiver from the State Ed Department since she is not qualified to be left alone with a class of children. Calls have already begun to deny her a waiver. Good luck with that as Regents head Meryl Tisch and State Ed head David Steiner are in Bloomies' pocket. But go ahead and sign the petition just to make a point. [See note below]

There is lots of speculation out there about whether Joel was pushed or jumped on his own. One person wrote, The only theory I've heard so far, from a DOE employee, was he saw the thing was falling apart and got out while the money was good. But others say that even Bloomberg had enough. The NY Times said, One of the first concrete signs that Mr. Klein was not long for the job was the appointment of Sharon L. Greenberger as the Education Department’s chief operating officer in April — something that, according to the official, “was imposed over Joel’s objection.”

Leave it to Leonie Haimson to sum up Joel's eight years as quoted in the Times article:

“He is leaving us with a legacy of classroom overcrowding, communities fighting over co-located schools, kindergarten waiting lists, unreliable school grades based on bad data, substandard credit recovery programs and our children starved of art, music and science — all replaced with test prep,” said Leonie Haimson, the head of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group and a critic of Mr. Klein’s.

With the next Panel for Educational Policy meeting coming up at Brooklyn Tech on November 16, Joel's intemperate leaving leaves us with a feeling of loss since the Real Reformers (as opposed to the phony reformers Joel Klein led) planned to appear with their red capes stamped with the RR Real Reformer logo to perform their rap song, "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?" Well, the show will go on with a performance scheduled in front of the entrance to Tech at 5:30.


Klein leaves school closing mayhem
Joel isn't leaving without starting the ball rolling on the crop of 47 schools on the closing list that are coming under attack. Of course we know that Beach Channel is cooked, as is Jamaica HS, whose chapter leader James Eterno is still fighting mad. He posted an excerpt from his chapter newsletter on the ICE blog. Titled "Department Of Ed Starves Jamaica And Then Sends Reviewers To Criticize Us For Being Malnourished," Eterno says, "I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny." Of course the same analogy applies to Beach Channel.

I went to an early morning rally/demo at targeted John Dewey High School in Coney Island, a school once a jewel of the system that attracted students from all over the city. Dewey and the recently closed Lafayette HS bear similarities to the Far Rocakway/Beach Channel situation where one school is closed and the next school down the line becomes the target for starvation and closure, part of strategy of intentionally destroying large high schools –a falling domino effect of destruction. Expect John Adams HS in Ozone Park to be the next target. I made a short 4-minute video of the Dewey demo that in just a few days received 3000 hits. You can see a bunch of videos in addition to an advocacy toolkit for fighting back at the GEM blog. http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com/

How Odd
Well, I have become increasingly immersed in rehearsals at the Rockaway Theatre Company for my first acting performance as "Vinny the card player" in the upcoming production of "The Odd Couple." I even ride the subways muttering my lines. The other day, a young fellow sat down catty corner to me. On the surface he appeared a bit menacing so I nudged away a bit. I took out my playbook and started studying. I practically leaped out of my seat when he tapped me. "Are you in 'The Odd Couple,'" he asked? I told him I was an amateur and it was my first role. He broke out into the biggest smile, "It's 'The Odd Couple' man. That is wonderful." He seemed so happy for me. Turns out he is an actor who just moved to NY. I told him about the great work at the RTC and he should check it out. My stop came up and I had to get off but I'm sure we would have had a great chat. "Check it out. The play is at the great community theater at the RTC in Rockaway at Fort Tilden," I called as the door closed.

When Norm is not riding the subway trying out his lines on strangers, he blogs at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/. His email is normsco@gmail.com

Addendum
Check out the NY Times article and compare what Randi has to say with what Leonie said. I feel the same frustration with the weak-kneed UFT/AFT response to ed deform as I feel with Obama's similar cowering in front of the Republicans.

NO WAIVER letter:

Dear Commissioner David M. Steiner,

Today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his appointment of Cathie Black to replace Joel Klein as Chancellor of New York City Schools. Ms. Black, currently executive vice president of Hearst Magazines, lacks the required educational and professional qualifications for the position of Schools Chancellor as determined by state law. As a result, she will require a waiver from your office in order to accept the appointment.

The children, parents, and educational community of New York City deserve a leader with experience in education. Ms. Black's corporate experience may well qualify her for executive positions in business, but the education of our children and the training of our teachers is not corporate business. We urge you, as an educator, to:

~Deny the necessary waiver for Ms. Black's appointment

~Reaffirm the qualification requirements for NYC Schools Chancellor

This is the link: http://www.petitiononline.com/DenyWaiv/

Jeff Kaufman Asks the Question of the day: Which News is Better?

From Brooklyn HS UFT District Rep Charlie Turner:

HS Committee meeting canceled

Ladies and Gentlemen:
By now you may have heard that Klein has resigned. What great news!
Also, the high school committee meeting has been cancelled. Have a great holiday.

Bergtraum Chapter Leader John Elfrank-Dana on Joel Klein

I wasn't going to wait for Michael Mulgrew's take on Chancellor Klein's resignation. But, chose instead to give you the heads up and quote a friend and colleague (below) in the struggle to give our students what they really need- small class sizes and social work supports adequate to meet their needs. It appears the Mayor has chosen another shoe-maker, someone with no background as an educator to succeed Klein.

I have always said Klein was just the symptom; that the problem is the concentration of power in the executive (Mayor) along with a thinly veiled agenda to privatize schools via union busting and parent disenfranchisement. As a person with 3 children in suburban schools I know there's no way BloomKlein could have gotten away with what they have thus far where my kids go to school because the parents have great political clout. Our students are the victims of the corporate-privatizers tinkering with the educational system. Our profession has paid through the nose because of concessions our union has made with these corporate bureaucrats in contract rights giveaways who want to see a swift end to us as an organized labor force with rights.

While I must say the Chancellor on a few occasions has come through for Bergtraum on some relatively small matters (your new phone system, increased Internet capacity), we have been the victims of his misguided educational policies of dumping on large schools like ours of large numbers of high need student populations without providing the necessary supports. I have personally seen Bergtraum go from one of the most desirable schools in the city to one where nobody wants to be.

No folks, the fight is not over with the exiting of Klein. His successor will have the same marching orders from the corporate elites- crush the unions and privatize the schools. I hope the UFT leadership realizes this.

John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School

Resigning NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein Wants To Be The Yanks 5th Starter

Resigning NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein Wants To Be The Yanks 5th Starter

Posted by Jimmie Reese at 8:49 PM

Joel Klein resigns and Cathie Black, corporate giant, inherits NYC schools; Expect turbulence ahead...

Just Discovered: Joel Klein's Prior Baseball Experience

Posted by Jimmie Reese at 9:14 PM

Am I the Only One Sad to See Him Go (Other than Eva?), My Advice - Sell Your Newscorps Stock ASAP

Yes, run don't walk to sell your Newscorp stocks. Joel Klein is one of the most incompetent people on earth - don't you think he wasn't kicked out of Bertlesman and jumped into the Chancellorship to save face - and as a tech guru in the 90's I didn't think all that much of him at the Justice Dept - remember he had to hire David Boies to prosecute Microsoft and Bill Gates and though spin made it look like they won, they really didn't - the over decade ago version of phony reading scores and phony grad rates.

I hope none of the people at Newscorp ever give Joel the job of getting buses there on time to pick up their kids.

I'm not singing, "Ding, Dong"

NOT the new chancellor

Teacher and education activist cell phones were practically exploding with joy this afternoon as Joel Klein announced his resignation. I was practically in tears over the organizing potential we lost with his departure. The only thing we have to be thankful for is that Mayor Mike didn't appoint a PhD phony educator with credentials so he could say we have an educator in charge. And even worse would be if it was someone Black or Latino/a which might have just turned away some of the growing opposition to BloomKlein ----ooops! Crap, can't use that anymore.

But wait. Bloomie did appoint someone Black. Catherine Black. I just can't wait to go to those PEP meetings and flash my red Real Reformer cape at her.

Just a minute - phone's ringing.

What!!? What did you say? Oh!

Never mind.

Well, the real Cathie Black is my age and yet seems 20 years younger than me. Ahhh, the good life. Maybe it was putting her kids in boarding school. As one parent told a principal at Open School Night tonight:

"You know I was thinking about what you said about us having another Chancellor now who is not an educator.  I heard she  has never even  worked in our schools and that her own kids went to boarding school.  So I figure, not only doesn't she not know OUR kids-she doesn't even know her own kids!"

Well, clearly the appointment of Cathleen Black bodes no good for the NYC schools but watch all the calls to give her a chance to blah, blah, blah. And that is not good for building the anti ed deform movement.

Hey, someone just suggested at ICE Mail that we oppose granting Black a waiver since she is unqualified. How about the UFT showing some balls? We may just put that up as a reso at the DA next week.

And then there is this from some mag:

Ms. Black, who was demoted this summer at Hearst, said that she was “very excited about this incredible opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our young people.”

Wait a minute. Demoted? Like Joel Klein was chased out of Bertelsman and into our lives? Oy!

Here is some stuff from the NYCEd Listserve. Lots more floating around.

First, the good news. The NY Times is now reporting that Joel Klein has resigned as Chancellor of NYC schools in order to take a position at (drum roll please)........

Rupert Murdoch's NEWS CORPORATION!!!!

That's right, Joel Klein is going exactly where he belongs, to work for Rupert Murdoch where he can lie and dissemble and spin to his heart's content along with all the other liars and spinners. Joel will fit right in with O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, and the rest of that disreputable crew. I can hardly imagine a better, more fitting place for him. If you can believe this, he stated that his EVP position responsibility would be to develop "strategy to put them [i.e., News Corporation] in the education marketplace." Heaven help us.

Now for the potentially bad news (only time will tell). Joel's replacement has apparently already been named, without any public input, of course. Her name is Cathleen Black. She's the former publisher of USA Today and chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, 66 years old and with zero experience in education. She is, however, according to Mike Bloomberg, a "superstar manager." Sounds great. I'm sure she just loves children and wants them all to have the best of all possible futures in this best of all possible worlds (my apologies to Voltaire). I'm sure we'll be hearing and learning more about Ms. Black in the near future.

Amazing that the lives of over one million children and their families are directly affected by these individuals, yet they have no say whatsoever, even through their elected representatives, as to who is given this job.

Steve Koss

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

Assemblyman Perry Reacts to Mayor’s Chancellor Appointment

 “A quick review of what is known about the background of Mayor Bloomberg’s announced choice, raises a lot of questions as to the direction, and the real agenda for our public education system.  It is of concern that the newly appointed chancellor appears to have no significant educational background, as required by NYS Education Law.  Furthermore, she was raised in a private school system, and subsequently raised her children in a private school system, it is very difficult to believe that a person who has such a strong history steeped in private education, will be able to appreciate the diverse and difficult challenge of running the NYC Public School System.  Under NYS Education Law, Ms. Black, will not be able to officially assume the position without a waiver by the NYS Board of Regents and just a quick glimpse at her profile raises significant questions as to how such a waiver might be justified.”

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

Well my bet is she already has the waiver. Tisch and Steiner should be embarrassed by this. How elite can the elite be?
Did she publish at Scholastic? maybe that's the credential that got her the waiver?

This is the time for a revolt folks. This is the time to be talking to every legislator and every member of the Board of Regents. This is the time for members of school communities to band together and reject this blatant power grab by the leading elite.

has anyone heard from Scott Stringer? Anthony Weiner? Bill De Blasio? I am not asking about Quinn as she was probably part of the deal.

 

__._,_.___

 NOTE: LISTEN TO SOUTH BRONX RADIO TONIGHT AT 9 WITH MAGNIFICENT MONA AS GUEST. (Scroll sidebar for link.)

Paul Moore from Miami just sent in this joyous message:

The Business Roundtable's unholy scheme to destroy the public schools hatched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1989 is now in full-scale collapse along with the global capitalist economy. The oligarchs and their henchmen and hatchet women are defeated. But the fight is only beginning because Gates, Broad, Bloomberg and the Waltons are replaced by a more powerful and vicious enemy of working people--the banks.

By way of a victory lap, this was written a month ago today.

One chancellor down, one to go.

New York City Chancellor Joel Klink*, I sincerely want you to enjoy your warm fuzzy delusions about "Waiting For Superman" because they may not last very long. I mean, did you hear what happened to Michelle Rhee? She's plays a "chancellor" just like you right? And she was one of the stars of your movie right?

Changing Education Paradigms - Animated

 Sir Ken Robinson- worth the time - his speech completely animated through RSA Animate. Check out more of their videos. http://www.thersa.org/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

HOT RUMOR: KLEIN TO RESIGN TODAY

 Subject: BREAKING NEWS: Schools Chancellor Klein Set to Step Down Today, Sources Say
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is preparing to leave office, according to multiple sources who tell NBCNewYork.com Klein's resignation could be announced as early as Tuesday afternoon. 

Complete details from NBC New York:http://click1.nbclocal.com/hwqjdwbvqslzgvgbzshdvzmvppzdlsrqcgsrscvcmchchq_apskmtmsbdk.html

DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED: Eterno Slams Klein and DOE Over Jamaica HS

I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny. - James Eterno

NOTE: COME TO THE Panel for Educational Policy AT BROOKLYN TECH ON TUESDAY, NOV. 16 to tell Joel Klein to his face what you think of his closing schools policies

 - JOIN THE REAL REFORMERS AT 5:30- (Rehearsal at 4:30) - LOOK FOR MORE DETAILS AT ED NOTES AND GEM BLOGS.

James hits the bullseye in this excerpt from his chapter newsletter posted on the ICE blog.
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/

TAKE THE JAMAICA CHALLENGE

by James Eterno, Jamaica HS chapter leader

This post is extracted from Jamaica's weekly Chapter Newsletter and it is strictly my opinion. The story concerns Jamaica but is applicable to any school that is struggling and is reviewed by the DOE and State in the process.

DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED

 

Jamaica High School has been denied resources by the Department of Education over the last few years since we started downsizing but that does not stop DOE officials from coming to our school to tell us how we need to improve.

 

I ask any school in the world to take the Jamaica challenge: Cut 30% of the teaching staff (student enrollment drop is less than half of that) and take away roughly half of the school’s space, raise class sizes beyond what the union contract calls for in scores of classes, replace an excellent Programmer and Guidance Coordinator with assistant principals who are untrained in these areas and must still also do their previous jobs, while continuing to permit unlicensed non-secretaries to perform secretarial duties. 

 

Then, place new schools in the corners of the building and equip those schools with up to date technology and provide their teachers with lower class sizes and a beautiful makeover for their parts of the building while students and staff of the old school that includes many at risk pupils are shoved into the middle of the building in obsolete rooms. Do all of this to the old school and then ask it to raise the graduation rate and promotion rate. Even set up the lunch schedule to favor the new schools. Their kids eat lunch during normal lunch hours between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. while the old school’s kids are eating lunch starting at 10:00 a.m. or after 1:00 p.m.

We at Jamaica challenge any school to thrive under these teaching and learning conditions. A Quality Review or Joint Intervention Team visit under these circumstances is a setup for failure. Separate and unequal schools are unfair and it is time for the DOE to be held accountable for mismanaging the education of our kids.

Last week Jamaica had a Quality Review-Joint Intervention Team (city-state) visit and it was a farce on a major scale. (I do not know the score we received on the QR.) I will say that the state people were quite professional in their review. From all reports they were very personable and listened to what we had to say. They did not call in the Chapter Leader for a formal discussion but we did exchange some pleasantries. It was the two quality reviewers from the city that interviewed me in one of the most bizarre interactions I have ever experienced.

I was trying to explain to these officials what we do in the Advanced Placement United States History class and how we have revived the program in the last three years and now have pupils scoring the top grades of 5 and 4 on the rigorous examination. We built up the program without the supports other schools have. The male quality reviewer cut me off in mid sentence and told me how we have an English Advanced Placement class that has 34 students in it and this is educationally unsound. He seemed to be criticizing me for this situation. I told him that I couldn’t agree more that it was unwise to have 34 in a college level class in a high school but that in actuality the class had 37 and as Chapter Leader I grieved it and 82 other oversize classes at Jamaica this fall. He would not even admit that we have oversize classes. I said the principal and DOE lawyer used the half class exception to justify them. 

 

At this point, the two reviewers looked at me like I was from Mars and would not talk about the half class size exception.

What stunned me was that they seemed to be trying to put me on the spot for the oversize classes. Were they kidding? We were truly coming from two different worlds. I mentioned the Quality Review from two years back that said we need new technology but we have lost so much funding that we can barely afford a piece of chalk in this school while the new schools in the building have modern equipment and lower class sizes. I said the education in this building is separate and unequal and our kids deserve an equal education.

I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny.

THE DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD FOR JAMAICA

There is no way around the conclusion that we believe strong forces from outside would like to destroy Jamaica High School. We clearly are being set up to fail by the Department of Education and our union’s response has not exactly been tough.

I read yesterday’s NY Post article about Jamaica High School giving away credits very closely. Even by adding over 1,000 credits to student transcripts, we still couldn’t get enough points on the DOE Progress Report for this year to get a C grade. That is hard to believe. Of course when administration took those credits away our grade became a lower D but I am still forced to conclude that they would have found a way to give us a D even if all of our students graduated in a week. 

 

Isn’t it strange how Jamaica for at least two years in a row didn’t receive any credit on our progress report in a category called Additional Points even though our internal review shows that we have moved along English Language Learners who are obtaining Regents Diplomas? Where are our points? If DOE reviewed us fairly, they would have to admit we are performing miracles on a daily basis even with all of the obstacles they have placed in our way.

 

It looks like the DOE also undercounted our graduation rate just like they did last year. Therefore, it’s déjà vu or Ground Hog Day as we repeat the same scenario as last year. We must admit that many of us are tired of fighting with an employer that in my opinion does not play fair. However, we learned from last year’s experience and now is the time to wage another battle to keep going by exposing the truth. Hopefully, this blog piece will get the ball rolling.

 

As for the extra credit probe of jamaica High School for adding questionable credits to student transcripts that the NY Post is reporting on, I agree with Leonie Haimson that principals are cutting corners all over because of pressure to boost promotion and graduation rates.

 

High stakes decisions based on student progress are ridiculous when the school plays only a small part in determing student performance. Outside factors are far more important according to scholarly research and common sense. Hopefully, there will be a time when sanity returns to our schools.

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

Another Queens chapter leader with another brilliant piece.

(How come all these smart people have been opposed to the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership? Please show me anything comparable to these posts by the geniuses who run our union.)

Arthur Goldstein at HufPo: No Leeches Left Behind

If I were a doctor, and Bill Gates suggested the use of bloodletting to improve medicine, I'd be skeptical. Still, Gates has all that money, so he must know something. He gives it away freely, and asks only that everyone follow the programs he starts (and pay to sustain them in perpetuity once his seed money runs out). Oh, and that institutions that don't meet his expectations be closed and replaced by others that more closely follow his methods.
Bloodletting is of no medical value, so it's understandably unpopular with modern medical practitioners. On the other hand, "value-added" evaluations, or judging teachers by scores of their students, is also highly questionable. Day by day, it appears as dubious as bloodletting.

MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-goldstein/no-leeches-left-behind_b_780026.html

OPEN EMAIL: Violation of General Municipal Law & Open Meetings Law by NYC DOE Authorized Charter Schools [2nd Request]

Charter school parent Magnificent Mona Davids has been on the case. Today the Daily News reported that Evil Moskowitz wrote her uncle Joel a letter telling him to order the public schools to allow taping of meetings (which I agree with) so that her expensive video crews (using money taken from the mouths of public school kids) can chronicle events for possibly another bullshit Waiting for Superman type film. Mona wrote Uncle Joel a letter asking him to make sure we can tape charter school meetings (oh, what fun). It was her second letter after the first one 3 weeks ago went unanswered. Sorry, Mona, Joel is just not your uncle. Mona commented:

In today's Daily News (see below), there is an article that reports you sent out a notice to all Community Education Councils at Eva Moskowitz's request informing them that their meetings are subject to Open Meetings Law and can be videotaped and recorded.  I would like to know why you have complied with Ms. Moskowitz's request but have not complied with my request for the same notification but to charter leaders and their boards.  I would hate to think that Ms. Moskowitz's request is more important than my request.  It makes me feel like a second class citizen.  Is a charter school leader more important than a charter parent?

Check Norms Notes for Mona's letter: 

OPEN EMAIL: Violation of General Municipal Law & Open Meetings Law by NYC DOE Authorized Charter Schools [2nd Request]

So the DOE finally did respond this morning - nothing like a little bit of embarrassing bad pub to get them off their asses:

Dear Ms. Davids,

We have received your email communication and we are working on crafting communication to our charters regarding requirements for Open Meeting Laws.

Aaron Listhaus
Chief Academic Officer | Charter Schools Office
NYC Department of Education| Room 413
Phone: 212.374.6883 | Fax: 212.374.5581 

 Mona tossed this back:

Charters are touted for their accountability. Where's the accountability in ensuring they follow the law?

It's beginning to seem like charters are above the law with their enablers being the authorizers who are supposed oversee them. Fiscal mismanagement - that's okay; corruption - that's okay; violating your charter - that's okay; violating Ed Law - that's okay; violating IDEA - that's okay; not serving Special Needs and ELL's - that's okay; violating Title 1 - that's okay; violating the charter schools act - that's okay; violating charter parents' civil rights - that's okay; abusing children - that's okay; nepotism - that's okay; ultimately destroying communities - that's okay...

It's not just DoE authorized charters violating the law but also Regents and SUNY CSI authorized charters as well. Charters funded with public money but privately managed are apparently above the law and not accountable to the public.

This is very wrong and not what charters were originally envisioned to become.

DOE progress reports: The Insane Elephant in the Room

Posted to NYCEdNews Listserve by Seung Ok, a former teacher at Maxwell, one of the 19 schools on the infamous closing list last year.

Why is the media not scrutinizing the immense flaw in the DOE's methodology of its progress reports? In what other field of practice, do we keep increasing the standard of any measure of evaluation - and calling that valid?

The DOE every year, increases the "cut" score for determining the letter grade for each school's evaluation. So what would have been an A two years ago is now a C.

Really? To see the farcical nature of this system - let's just imagine hospitals were rated in this manner. So in one year, a hospital can be rated as a top notch hospital, but two years later be rated as a dangerous C, even though the raw scores may have improved?

In baseball, a good batting average is around .300 - which means that a batter manages a hit only 3 times out of 10. We can imagine Bloomberg taking over the Yankees and incrementally increasing that measure to .350, .400., .450,... every year until Alex Rodriguez is out of a job.

Legally speaking, a driver is DWAI, when the blood alcohol content is 0.05 % or higher. Leave it up to Bloomberg, and in a few years, you won't be able to eat that slice of grandma's rum cake before leaving Christmas dinner.

In Bloomberg's world, millions of more cars would fail their yearly inspection, a fever of 98.7 would require antibiotics, and if you happen to skip your vitamin C for the day your t-cell count would require you to be on AIDS medication.

The only rationale the DOE incessantly brings up is the idea of "competition" - that schools need to be evaluated based on how other schools perform. The only problem is - competition is not what's being evaluated here. Schools are not competing with each other, they are competing against a one-size-fits-all cut score - that's ever increasing.

An evaluation system of physicians currently being developed is running into similar problems. They are noticing that physicians in poorer areas have patients with longer recovery times and more complications. Of course, we know that patients with less access to health care will have more acute conditions before seeking treatment.

If Bloomberg were in charge of evaluating military doctor's in Iraq and Afghanistan - he'd fire every army surgeon for having terrible rates of limb loss during operations. Boston general would get an A (this year at least) and military units ...an F.

So, here's the danger. In a world where Bloombergs of the world threaten a professional's ability to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads, massive cheating ensues and real progress ceases - more doctor's will fudge their medical reports, more batters will take steroids, and anti-biotic resistant bacteria will take over.....oh. So much for the business model.

Seung Ok

___________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

Message from the Trenches: A Little Bit of Personal History on School Organizing - Part I

Last revised Sunday, Nov. 7, 7PM

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," or any version of the Santayana quote you like:

The word is out: with Unity Caucus controlling 3/4 of the schools in NYC, you can't build a force within the UFT unless you can organize at the school level. Duh! I've been trying to do that since 1970. And obviously have failed. I wish the pundits had dropped me a line to tell me what I was doing wrong.

What I try to tell my colleagues today is that each school community is unique and there are no blueprints you can use to define a theory of school level organizing.

I thought if I put out a bit of history someone out there might see the flaws, correct them and do it right this time. This is far from close to being comprehensive - there is enough material for a book. A very long book. I'm going to do this in 2 parts. Part 1 is based on my school experiences from 1970-1997 and part 2 on the founding of Ed Notes, ICE and GEM from 1997-today.

Part I: 1970's-1997

The 1970's
I became an activist in the union and in the community early in my 4th year of teaching. I was working in Williamsburg in District 14. I'll spare you all the details but one overriding fact was that a UFT chapter leader won the election for District rep around 1970 and became the major political power broker in the district, even hand-picking superintendents, principals, AP's and controlling a massive patronage machine. Want to be a teacher? school secretary? para? aide? A job was available if you played ball politically.

Some people tell me about fear in the schools today. But you should have seen how afraid people were then to buck this machine, which remained dominant through the death of the District Rep in the 90's - he had made himself Superintendent by then - and in fact elements of that 40 year old machine still operate today and control a number of schools. (So much for BloomKlein's dismantling of the old system.)


District organizing
In the fall of 1970 I was regularly appointed and in a new school and heard of a group of teachers based in a nearby middle school called Another View in District 14. We put out a newsletter that dealt with citywide and local educational issues and even touched on national issues (like tracking) almost every month and tried to get it into other schools. We attended school board meetings and challenged the local power structure while also building links to community activists. You know, we had just come out of the 60's. We were doing both school-wide and district organizing and attracted a following, but also a lot of enmity. Sixties type radicals in a very conservative district dominated by north Williamsburg/Greenpoint with only about 5% of the kids in the district, mostly white while the rest of the under represented district was Black and Latino.


UFT Chapter organizing
We also became active in our school UFT chapters, which were almost all run by Unity Caucus members or sympathizers. The District Rep made sure the chapter leadership was a conduit to eventually becoming a supervisor and at one point I believe most of the principals on the district were former CLs.

They were not exactly friendly to our organizing efforts over the rest of the 70's and one by one our people left the district or were nudged out until there were only two of us left - Loretta Prisco was the other one and she was moved around like a chess piece until she had a baby and left too.

Another View goes citywide
Eventually, Another View met up with people from other districts through various actions and we became a city-wide group called the Coalition of NYC School Workers, reaching the height of activity in the 1975 UFT strike over the massive budget cuts and 15,000 layoffs. We were very active at the Delegate Assembly and ran in UFT elections in various coalitions with other groups (Teachers Action Caucus and New Directions who eventually merged to form the current New Action) through the 80's.

Battling at the school, level and citywide levels
No one in the schools wanted to be a delegate- until one of us ran. I had some fierce election battles with some people telling me - "I personally want you to be at the Delegate Assembly but if you lose I can tell Mario (the district rep) that I voted against you and that might help me be an AP one day." I always won but sometimes it was close. At least in my school the admins in the 70's were not part of the machine and on my side - which didn't help their careers and in some cases actually killed their chances of becoming principal.

What I learned over the years was that Mario, though in Unity Caucus, was considered a rogue by the central union because he used to tell them to go fuck themselves - he even said that to Sandy Feldman I heard. (In later years he and I would find some peace and used to have laughs over the "wars." Believe me, there's a major book in Mario stories but most of his crew are dead, including Ken Shrednick one of my good friends who died last March, or won't talk.)


The District "Makes" my new principal
There were always hints that there were certain, let's say "influences" in the district. It was no accident that when someone became a principal they were referred to as "made" as they went out to celebrate at a well-known "connected" restaurant, whose owner actually was "elected" to the school board.  Really, it was like working in the middle of a novel.

Things changed for me when the District machine forced the old principal and AP out and put in their own, a fairly young woman with little teaching experience who was "connected" though her hubbie. (One time on a Saturday night we were eating out at a restaurant when she walked in accompanied by 15 men - she was the only female - an Irishwoman in a sea of Italian men.) Can you say: Leadership Academy early prototype?

That was in late 1978 and now I was faced with a hostile admin for the first time and the wars began. I won't go into details now but we fought on and off for 20 years. My friends used to tell me I should start my car by remote control.

The new principal
Let me say this one thing - the daughter of a fireman, she never tried to take someone's job. But she knew how to exercise the power of a principal - not by force as much as using her political power. She was a political animal and active in Democratic Party politics in Queens.

She instituted a high stakes testing program with test prep all the time (which drove me out of the self-contained classroom in 1985) and really was innovative in terms of a Joel Klein type mentality. There is no little irony that she was forced out by Kleinites in 2003.

After I left the school in 1997 we actually became sort of pals - she once called Randi Weingarten a whore for selling out the UFT members because she (the principal) had a theoretical pro union sensitivity though not when faced with reality in the school. She used to slip me $20 for Ed Notes. In retrospect, she was an amazing woman who pushed her way into a strictly defined "man only" world in District 14 - they used to laugh at her but she was brazen and fearless. I didn't realize 'till later that she tapped into the mostly women staff feminist identity and some of them attributed anti-fem motives to  men like me who were opposed to her.

And one more thing- no matter what happened in the classroom, she backed the teacher all the way, even when sometime she shouldn't have. But on the negative side she as no educator and we had the same kind of test-driven distorted curriculum you see today.


The CL was a Unity guy light and he fought her too - until she chopped his music program in the early 80's and threw him back in the classroom. He stopped fighting.

The 1980's

I basically missed the 80's as an activist. Bought a house in 1979 and fixing it up became a preoccupation and then went back go school for an MA in computer science starting in '83 and didn't really emerge from that process until the late 80's - with 2 years off mixed in for study.

The 1990's

By 1994 it was clear that there was practically no union functioning in the school. The Unity chapter leader at times tried to fight the principal but he had become a part-time CL and even though we had a bunch of people who wouldn't take any crap I felt there was a need for a strong chapter to stand up to the principal so individuals who wanted to fight for their rights would have strong backing. So with much trepidation I took on the job of chapter leader for the 1994-95 school year with the primary aim of organizing an effective chapter.

It is not enough to say the principal wasn't pleased. She was horrified. She had not been paying attention to the election in June 1994 as she was busy manipulating the PTA election and in fact there wasn't even an election since the Unity guy withdrew when I accepted the nomination. She went nuts, even sending the AP around to gather signatures from UFT members calling for a new election. That over 20 of my colleagues signed the petition was a sign I had a hell of a lot of organizing to do. The election committee duly certified the election and we went off for the summer.

[Section newly added]

[I didn't walk into the position cold but had spent some serious time thinking about how a UFT chapter should be run. One error was not gathering a group of supporters around me in advance. My decision to actually run came just as time was running out. Frankly, I was scared to death to take on this responsibility so I never did poll people. That left me weakened for the initial attacks that came but on the other hand it didn't give the principal a chance to organize against me. ]

Nuts and bolts of chapter organizing
Of course the wars began as soon as we came back in September 1994 and she refused to speak to me for that entire month - until I sent her a message that unless she held a consultation meeting as required by the contract I would file a grievance.

Up to that point these meetings if they took place at all were between the principal and chapter leaders.
I codified these meetings and invited the entire staff to attend at least one a year. I had a sort of cabinet - an exec bd with reps from all areas of the school. I really worked to get some of the younger teachers involved. The 2 most responsive were pals and the principal purposely split them up by giving them different lunch hours. But in one of those twists, a kindergarten teacher left and she had to move one of them back to K and the 2 of them ended up as next door neighbors. What guts these young ladies had.

Chapter meetings and the newsletter
The key instruments of organizing my chapter were: establishing as democratic an institution as possible by giving the most voice to as many people as feasible, the newsletter and focusing on holding productive UFT meetings, which I moved from a split lunch period to a regular once a month on a Friday before school. I got food paid for from my chapter leader stipend and the meetings became breakfast and were well-attended.

We issued DA and District and Consultation meeting reports in advance of the meetings and used the meetings to talk mostly about in-school matters. The old CL used to give long-winded reports and brought in UFT officials as guests. I refused to let the UFT send a guest to these meetings (until the district rep insisted he had to come to debate me on the 1995 contract, which in the first vote was rejected.) For important pension or safety issues I invited UFT people to come for the double lunch hour devoted solely to that issue. Thus, the important chapter meetings were left to us to debate important points.

I added a treasurer who kept strict books. (We arranged for a soda machine which the chapter controlled and used the profits to buy an air conditioner for the teachers room.)

The newsletter became a major instrument. I reported on everything (I had a little Apple laptop and was the only CL in the union to be using it at the time). The consultation meetings was "ours" - the chapter -  with our agendas though I would ask the principal if there was anything she wanted on the agenda. Though she hated them she also got to like the give and take as we went back and forth in front of an audience - we were both performers. I reported on these meetings to the chapter. Once when I asked for paras to be relieved from lunch duty, she said, "fuck the paras." I told her I would leave that out of  the minutes - and she owed me one. The people watching almost fell over with stifled laughter.

Every meeting was advertised numerous times - stuffed boxes and attached to bathroom doors and near the office. Constant reminders to busy people who often forgot. I felt that getting as many of them in one place once a month was a key organizing tool and hitting them with as much info as they could take would keep them informed between meetings.

I won't go into any more details other than to say that I put in an intense 3 years focused on building a democratic chapter that involved as many people as possible. I have to say that if I were not a cluster teacher but still in a self-contained class, this would have been an impossible job. While I developed tremendous skills in being chapter leader, my teaching suffered in many ways. But as a computer teacher I had some options that other teachers don't have. (More about this some other time.)

Working with parents
I didn't just focus on the chapter, I also used the fact that in my 25 years in the school I had built up an excellent relationship with many parents. The PTA presidents were always friendly but were in the pocket of the principal (relatives became aides and paras and their kids were always in the top class). I don't blame them. But many other parents on the PTA exec bd were openly in support of me because they hated the principal. At one graduation they secretly chipped in and bought me a plaque and had it presented to me without telling the principal at graduation ceremonies while she stood there and seethed. It is still one of my proudest possessions.


When the election came up in 1996 (there were 2 year terms) she barely put up a fight and I was re-elected overwhelmingly or ran unopposed (can't remember). In the 96-97 school year I put out out almost 50 newsletters and used them to control the debate in the school.

I went to monthly chapter leader meetings and though the district rep tried to control me, some of what I was doing began to infect some other chapter leaders. My principal friends told me my principal would go to district meetings and say she had the chapter leader from hell. An honor, of sorts. But a few other principals were complaining I was having a "bad" influence on their own CLs.

Then I took a sabbatical in 97-98. I asked 2 people to become co-chairs in my absence, though I continued to attend DAs. The Principal's lackeys were calling for an election but the procedure is to appoint a temp until you come back and I intended to run again in 98. I was very involved in the early fall but the principal used my absence to dismantle my computer program which I had spent 8 years building. I had had enough.

A district job
I was offered a district job computer job to begin in the fall of 98, which I always maintained was a way to keep me from challenging the District Rep in the next election or to cut my influence with other CLs. By bringing me inside the tent it was easy to control me. Expecting to retire in 2 years (I actually worked 4) it wasn't a difficult choice to make.

I saw almost all of my school organizing efforts end the minute I left.

I won a lot of battles but the principal won the war.

THE BIG LESSON
I tried to do too much myself. Not enough people were involved to make it sustainable when I left. It also takes a stable faculty and a longer period of time.


When my new boss stopped by the school to tell her the news that he was hiring, my principal said, "My car was stolen today but this makes up for it."

Ironically, I continued to cover my school out of the district over the next 4 years. I would get a big hug from her every time I came with invitations into her office to chat about district gossip. I think we were both relieved.

{ADDENDUM-

The issues

Since I posted this I was asked what were the issues. I had my agenda and other people in the school had theirs and I tried to represent as many of the points of view as possible. I was interested in how the principal was wasting enormous sums of money on test practice and how she was spending the budget generally and trying to get her to comply with the contract wherever she was going around it.

Coming soon Part 2: 1997-2010

How the chapter leadership brought me back to central union issues, the chapter newsletter evolved into Delegate Assembly Notes and then Education Notes, trying to work with Unity, then becoming a critic and organizing a new opposition group and more.

Stuy student uncovers SAT score "secret"

Great story from Steve Koss on how to beat the SAT writing test: Volume

If you haven't seen this story, it's a gem, and well worth watching. A 14-year-old Stuyvesant HS student named Milo Beckman has taken the SAT twice and was disturbed when his Writing score on the second test was higher than on the first, even though he felt it was a weaker piece of writing that included (as he later confirmed for himself) a factual error that he himself termed a lie. The one thing that made his second Writing exam essay different was its longer length, which got him to thinking.

He managed to recruit other Stuy students to his inquiry and got from 115 of them their SAT Writing scores and the number of lines in their essays (he asked them to note this information when they took the exam). Sure enough, there was an exceedingly high correlation between number of lines in the essay and its score, so high that the probability of its being random was effectively zero. He cross-checked this finding by getting line counts and essay scores for two or more sittings of the SAT from the same students and found that, in NO cases did their scores for the longer essay fall below that of their shorter one.

An MIT professor has found similar results, claiming that he can predict 90% of the SAT Writing essay scores merely by their line counts. The College Board, of course, disputes these findings with at least a partially plausible counterargument.

To me, this is a perfect example of what education should be about, whether its math, science, social studies, or anything else. It's about questioning, about critical inquiry and creative yet intellectually sound exploration. About thinking not just outside the box, but about the box itself. What makes this story so great is the Milo did exactly that, and he did it by starting with his own direct experience, doubting the very efficacy of his own SAT Writing scores rather than just happily accepting the higher grade that he felt in his heart was somehow not valid.

So where in all of Joel Klein's vaunted education reforms, and in those of the rest of the ed deformers, does this sort of critical thinking and self-reflection and constructive exploration and analysis get taught, or at least cultivated? How does getting a 4 on an inane standardized exam translate into creative perception, critical introspection, and lateral thinking? Yet aren't these the skills we most admire in the true innovators and entrepreneurs, the ones who may or may not be perfect whiz-kids when it comes to their multiplication tables but who question or see what the rest of us fail to do? 

The Milo Beckman story was presented on ABC and can be found at the following HuffPost link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/05/milo-beckman-new-york-tee_n_779722.html

Be sure to watch the video clip -- it's worth the three minutes just to see a NYC public school student who knows how to think, gather data, and analyze it.

Steve Koss

Jane Addams Teacher Chronicles How NYCDOE Destroyed School With Poison Pill

Glenn Tepper gave this testimony at the GEM Oct. 26 meeting on school closings.

With this narrative, I bear witness to how, within the span of a decade, a school can go from being so good as to be a finalist in the national New American High School competition, to being named by the New York State Education Department as one of the “Persistently Lowest Achieving” schools in the entire state.

I worked for 36 years, teaching English at Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers in the South Bronx for the last 21 of those years.  I immersed myself in the life of the school, and had the opportunity to serve as conflict resolution specialist, coordinator of student activities, recruiter, teacher mentor, chair of the school-based management team, professional developer, dean, and HIV/AIDS resource provider, and I was a member of my union’s chapter committee.

Addams is a CTE — Careers and Technical Education — school, what used to be called a Vocational High School.  By state decree, the students all must qualify for the same Regents diploma as students in every other high school in the state.

So how does a school lose so much, so fast?  By a series of deliberate decisions and acts — poison pills— by the New York City Department of Education, to cause the school to fail.

In the Brave New World of the NYC school system, all high schools are in competition with one another for students, especially competent students. As long as a school had something unique to offer, it could compete.  Addams had certification programs for Nurse Assistant and for Cosmetology, and one of the first Virtual Enterprise business programs in the city.  The school also had Advanced Placement, Honors, and remedial programs.  For a decade, I served as the school's recruiter.  Every school year during October, November, and May, I sought out prospective applicants, at high school fairs, and by going to the middle and junior high schools, speaking to students, speaking to their parents — during school, after school, sometimes nights and weekends.

Addams would attract students from throughout the city, looking for a safe school, a school that had a documented track record of graduating its students, prepared for both college and the workplace.

But then the DoE unleveled the playing field, putting Addams at a severe disadvantage.

Addams was a medium-size school.  Under the influence of big money from the Gates Foundation and others, new little schools were created, in the borough and throughout the city, offering programs very similar to those offered at Addams.

The DoE organized so-called “small high school” recruiting events, to which Addams was not invited.

Enticed by real appealing-sounding, yet somewhat misleading names of some of these new schools, and promised the sun, the moon, and the stars, prospective students and their parents were lured into applying to these schools, over Addams.

Then the application process was changed.  Under the former process, half of our students were those who actually indicated a high preference, listing us #1 or #2 on their applications, and the other half were randomly assigned to the school.  It worked.  We had a critical mass of students who were glad to be Addams students, and their enthusiasm rubbed off on many of the others.

But under the new application rules, most of our students turned out to have not chosen to attend Addams; they had been rejected by their schools of choice.  For the last several school years, the DoE has admitted ever-smaller incoming 9^th grade classes to Addams, causing the school’s enrollment to drop.  However, while other so-called “traditional” schools were closing and/or being reorganized, Addams became a de facto dumping ground — the DoE’s place for low-performing, difficult, students.

Down the road, the Addams staff is going wind up as ATRs— day-to-day substitutes at other schools, maybe a different school every day.  Many of them are never going to find permanent jobs with the DoE— Some have licenses that no other school will need, like Cosmetology, and Stenography, and Typing.  And there is nothing the union can — or will be able to — do about that.  In hindsight, these Addams people should have gone for recertification when they had the chance and the time.  

Because for years Addams had a loyal staff in both the academic and the career license areas, many of these veteran teachers will find that they are either too old, or too experienced, or too high up the salary scale, to be attractive to other schools.  One former colleague, with over twenty-five years with the DoE, has resigned herself to spending the last years of her career as an ATR.

The school will probably hang on as a dumping ground for three to five more years, with smaller and smaller enrollments and fewer and fewer staff on board.

And eventually, the DoE, in its infinite wisdom, will install three — or four, or five — new smaller schools where there once was one. Yet, neither individually nor collectively will these schools have the diverse experienced staff and the wide-ranging resources and programs that were the benchmarks of Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers.

-Glenn Tepper

 Retired, 2009

Brainy Women

Hanging out with the Mama Grizzlies, NYC version.

I was 20 minutes late for the meeting yesterday (Friday afternoon). When the hostess opened the door she proclaimed to the four other women in the room behind her "Finally, a man is here".

"Norm is in heaven," one of them proclaimed, "he just loves to be in a room full of women."

Guilty. You don't spend 30 years in an elementary school without getting used to being surrounded by women. And loving it.

"Who needs men?" I replied.

Well, it is not secret that I hang out mostly with women. But not just any women. Brainy women - BW's with incredible mental toughness. Women who create a look of panic on his face when Joel Klein sees them coming in his direction.

When you are involved with education issues there is a pretty good bet there will be a lot of activist women involved. Now, I know some say that I have not gone into total retirement from activism precisely because of that reason, the biggest accuser being my wife.

Gail Collin's The Grizzly Manifesto column in today's Times got me to thinking about our own NYC Real Reformer version of those Sarah Palin so-called Mama Grizzlies, some of the most amazing women I have met. Four of them at this meeting are parent activists with 10 children between them. The teacher activist is childless. We were joined later by 2 more men.

But as I said, "Who needs men?"

Well, for the next 3 hours my head swiveled back and forth as if I were watching a tennis match with some of the smartest people I know lobbing one great idea after another, with a few smashes down the line. The ed deformers better get out their helmets. I basically sat there silently, drinking beer and eating just about everything the hostess put out.
 
Then, when the meeting ended around 8pm, two of the women and I walked over to the apartment of another Brainy Women activist who was home with her year old. My neck was aching as the three BW's continued swatting away.

Really, who needs men?

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AFTER BURN

Just to let you know I am not such a nerd that I am solely turned on by women's gray matter, in terms of these particular 6 ladies, the B in BW has an additional meaning besides "brainy."

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

John Dewey HS in Brooklyn, NY Initiates Fight Back Fridays

Threatened with being closed down after being fed a poison pill by the NYCDOE of having the very programs that have attracted generations of students eliminated, an influx of students from other large high schools in Brooklyn and budget cuts, the John Dewey school community has implemented a Fight Back Friday series of before school rallies on Stillwell Avenue beginning at 7:15. If you are in the neighborhood stop by or honk as you drive by.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3tXGAxCOs

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Join the Grassroots Education Movement and the Real Reformers at the November 16 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech at 5:30 as they perform the rap song "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up!" in front of the school as a prelude to the meeting.

Value-Minus for Bill Gates

David Pogue writes on tech in Thursday's NY Times:

With the money Microsoft has spent on failed efforts to design hardware, you could finance a trip to Mars. Its failures make up quite a flop parade: WebTV. Spot Watch. Ultimate TV. Ultra Mobile PC. Tablet PC. Smart Display. Portable Media Center. Zune. Kin phone. If this were ancient Greece, you’d wonder what Microsoft had done to annoy the gods.

And then there's this: Office for Mac Isn’t an Improvement

Office 2011 for Mac, the first new version of Microsoft's software suite in several years, is disappointing.

So, isn't this the same guy who is telling everyone how to run the nation's schools? He looks familiar. I think I ran into him hanging out with Randi in Seattle at the AFT convention.