Still Fighting for Single Payer: National Nurses United Press Release

Obama can't beat me in a debate arguing single payer on health care. But he never seemed interested in trying.

In my blog last night (Why Is Being Mandated to Pay Auto Insurance Not a Tax?) I mentioned that I had 2 debates in the gym with anti-Obamacare(ites) (one of them a para in the UFT) and left them thinking. In fact just about anytime I have this debate I feel points in favor of single payer win out. [Check out this web site for the full SP case].

So people on the left are pissed at Obama for not using his bully pulpit to argue more strongly the benefits of SP, instead using his pulpit to go after teachers. How ironic that the US ranks 37th in the world in health care but all we hear from Obama/Duncan is how low we supposedly rank in education.

I do understand the political realities -- as expressed in the NY Times Week Review section yesterday by Ross Douthat arguing that Obama had to make deals with the insurance and drug industries to keep them from throwing their power against Obamacare -- and it worked. Both got their pound of flesh. Douthat argued that both FDR and LBJ did the same thing.

I beg to differ. Yes, LBJ and FDR ultimately did deals but they did use their bully pulpit to argue the strong case and then used that as a starting point rather than surrendering at the first sight of opposition. Obama could have made powerful arguments (certainly more than me) for single payer and then offer compromises off that.

And where are the unions on this? Here, National Nurses United makes a strong statement for single payer and calls on labor to keep up the fight. Don't forget that the long-term effects of Obamacare will reduce the Cadillac plans many union members have to dust and reduce medicare too. So as you will read below, the fight is just beginning.

Court Ruling Does Not End Healthcare Crisis Or the Need to Continue the
Campaign for Reform

The Supreme Court decision should not be seen as the end of the efforts by health care activists for a permanent fix of our broken healthcare system, said the nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses today.

To achieve that end, the 175,000-member National Nurses United pledged to step up a campaign for a reform that is not based on extending the grip of a failed private insurance system, but “on a universal program based on patient need, not on profits or ability to pay. That’s Medicare for all,” said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. “It is not time to stop, but a reminder to begin that effort anew.”

“Nurses experience the crisis our patients continue to endure every day. That’s the reason we will continue to work for reform that is universal, that doesn’t bankrupt families or leave patients in the often cruel hands of merciless insurance companies,” said NNU Co-president Karen Higgins, RN. Stepping up the fight for Medicare for all is even more critical in the
midst of the still persistent economic crisis,” added NNU Co-president Deborah Burger, RN, noting that nurses have seen broad declines in health status among patients related to loss of jobs, homes, and health coverage. NNU has been holding free health screenings and hosting town halls on the ongoing healthcare crisis over the past two weeks – and hearing daily
reminders of the ongoing plight of many patients.

In addition, NNU will be joining with Michael Moore to host a national town hall later this summer. “The continuing fiscal crisis at all levels of government and the anemic economic recovery remind us that rising healthcare costs and shifting costs to workers burden our society, cause much of these fiscal problems, and limit the opportunities for working people. Only real cost control through a national health program can solve this crisis. Improved Medicare meets that challenge,” said Ross.

“Medicare is far more effective than the broken private system in controlling costs and the waste that goes to insurance paperwork and profits, and it is universally popular, even among those who bitterly opposed the Obama law,” said Higgins. “Let’s open it up to everyone, no one should have to wait to be 65 to be guaranteed healthcare.”

The Affordable Care Act still leaves some 27 million people without health coverage, does little to constrain rising out of pocket health care costs, or to stop the all too routine denials of needed medical care by insurance companies because they don’t want to pay for it.
* * * * *
Excerpts from Paul Krugman's "The Real Winners"
New York Times
Published: June 28, 2012

So the law that the Supreme Court upheld is an act of human decency that is also fiscally responsible. It’s not perfect, by a long shot — it is, after all, originally a Republican plan, devised long ago as a way to forestall the obvious alternative of extending _Medicare_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) to cover everyone. As a result, it’s an awkward hybrid
of public and private insurance that isn’t the way anyone would have designed a system from scratch. And there will be a long struggle to make it better, just as there was for _Social Security_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) . (Bring back the public option!) But it’s still a big step
toward a better — and by that I mean morally better — society.

The full Krugman piece is here.
* * * * *

LABOR CAMPAIGN FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE STATEMENT ON SUPREME COURT RULING'

Excerpts
(reprinted from Campaign's website)

The jury is still out on what effect this decision will have on the actual healthcare that Americans will receive under the ACA as well as its effects on the long-term prospects of the fight to make healthcare a right for everyone in America. Certainly, a more sober assessment of the healthcare realities faced by most working Americans and their families would show that we are a long way from President Obama’s aspirational vision.

Coming at the end of a Supreme Court session that was especially cruel to the labor movement, it is perhaps to be expected that there would be some celebration at what was widely seen as a defeat of labor's worst enemies. But this must not detract us from the urgency to prepare for a renewed assault on employer-provided healthcare benefits.

At a recent strategy meeting of the LCSP Steering Committee and Advisory Board, we heard from union leaders from around the country who are seeing the writing on the wall. Public employee benefits are under the gun in nearly every jurisdiction. Union Benefit Funds, often the gold standard in employer-funded healthcare, are facing threats to their very survival as ACA regulations impose new mandates while new state insurance exchanges potentially draw off their youngest and healthiest participants. And the 2018
"Cadillac Tax" is beginning to look more and more like a "Chevy Tax" as continued
healthcare inflation will trigger this penalty on the hard won benefits of millions more union members than originally predicted.

What Happens Next?

The Affordable Care Act is now indisputably the law of the land. This will create new conditions and new challenges. Many millions will undoubtedly benefit from increased access to healthcare and regulation of the private insurance industry.

Many millions more will find out that the right to buy health insurance is not the same thing as the right to healthcare. States will be required to set up healthcare exchanges by 2014 and state-level innovation—including state single-payer reforms—will be barred until at least 2017 (although President Obama did re-affirm his support for efforts to move that date up to
2014).

Certain things won't change, however. Healthcare will still be treated as a commodity and a profit center rather than as a human right. Millions will continue to be denied access to basic healthcare. Costs will continue to rise two, three, even four times faster than our wages while quality deteriorates. Employer provided healthcare will continue to go the way of defined benefit pensions and healthcare fights will continue to be the biggest cause of strikes, lockouts and union busting.

The labor movement has no choice but to fight on for healthcare justice. And we in the Labor Campaign for Single Payer vow to re-dedicate ourselves to this fight to remove healthcare from the bargaining table and make it a right for everyone in America. We believe that it is labor's historic responsibility to lead this effort and we will not rest until it fulfills this mission.
* * * * *

The Price of Health Care
By ROSS DOUTHAT

Why Is Being Mandated to Pay Auto Insurance Not a Tax?

When both the left and the right think the Supreme Court was wrong on Obamacare I don't know whether I'm coming or going ------

I line up with Reality-Based Educator in most ways. Certainly on the single payer -- extend Medicare to all position on health care (See his comment below this post at NYC Educator.)

Before going on, your homework is to check this LINK: http://www.counterpunch.org/20...
 
I have been most influenced by my wife who spent 35 years working in hospitals on the admin/billing end. She dealt with all the blood-sucking insurance companies and had the most respect for the government people at Medicare who were the most responsive and competent and caring to try to do the right thing. OK, so it's just anecdotal but don't expect me to bother doing any real research other than talk to her.

Anyway, she has been a confirmed single-payer advocate. But as she pointed out when I sent her RBE's comments, we weren't getting that so she was rooting for SCOTUS to back Obamacare. In fact, I've rarely seen her so engaged in a political outcome as this one. (I was fairly ho-hum in comparison.)

I am caught between RBE and my wife but as a hard head lean toward RBE -- except that coming down as anti-Obamacare lines me up with Republican slime.

Then at the gym yesterday I got into 2 discussions with anti-Obamacare people, one a UFT member and the other a right leaning businessman who hates Obama with a passion -- he opened the discussion by saying, "I hear Obama is moving to Egypt to join his brothers." In both discussions I brought up the car insurance issue - I know the response is that it is states not feds -- but the concept is sure the same as a mandate.

Apparently the UFT member didn't know that at 65 he will be tossed out of his health care program and MANDATED into medicare, a truism since, oh, the mid-60s. So why not just extend that to all? Expensive -- yes. But as my wife points out less expensive than the other options. And as my wife always says, if they got the fraud out of the system it would be real manageable. Imagine if hey hired people like my wife who knows the system inside and out to be bounty hunters -- offer them a % for finding fraud. I could buy that pink Cadillac.

I asked the right winger who is in his 70s if he was unhappy with medicare. Not. Then I brought up the deals about keeping us from buying drugs in Canada. Know what he said? Exactly what the UFT member said to me a few minutes before --- Canada doesn't regulate their drugs as effectively as the FDA -- you know, that awful fed govt agency. He read an article. I asked if he checked to see if any of the drug companies were behind that article (bet they were.). He smiled and wandered off --- finding it easier to work out than argue with me.

Here is RBE's comment followed by a response by NYC Educator:

Yesterday's SCOTUS ruling was a loss, in my opinion.  The federal gov't now has the legal right to force everybody to buy crappy private insurance - no matter how little money you have or whether you'll actually be able to use it once you pay for the premiums.  You don't buy the crappy, expensive insurance, you get penalized via the IRS.  Yesterday's ruling also enshrines the private insurance monopoly.  Say goodbye to ever getting single payer. And finally, those of us with health insurance provided by our employers will soon be dropped from these plans, as the Obama plan rewards companies that drop employer-provided health insurance and penalizes companies that do provide it.

Here's a good quote on Obamacare:

"What this bill does is not only permit the commercial insurance industry to remain in place, but it actually expands and cements their position as the lynchpin of health care reform. And these companies they profit by denying health care, not providing health care. And they will be able to charge whatever they like. So if they're regulated in some way and it cuts into their profits, all they have to do is just raise their premiums. And they'll do that. Not only does it keep them in place, but it pours about 500 billion dollars of public money into these companies over 10 years. And it mandates that people buy these companies' products for whatever they charge. Now that's a recipe for the growth in health care costs, not only to continue, but to skyrocket, to grow even faster. "

Marcia Angell, Harvard Medical School, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine

And here's another:
"The real losers in the latest Supreme Court decision, however, are the people of the United States. Not those who will be  required to go out and buy some over-priced, minimal coverage, rip-off insurance plan offered by the private insurance industry, or to pay a  “tax” to the IRS for not doing so, but everyone. This is because the  Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable. It does little or nothing to control health care costs, which are destined
to continue to gobble up an ever increasing amount of the total US Gross Domestic Product as well as of corporate profits and families’ incomes.

The new federal version of Romneycare simply prolongs the day when the US finally does what it should have done decades ago, should have  done during the first Clinton administration, and should have done at the start of the Obama administration: namely expanding Medicare to  cover all Americans.

Instead of going for this option when he had broad and enthusiastic support as the newly elected president, Obama deliberately shut out all discussion of the Canadian-style approach to national health coverage — a national program of government insurance for all, with doctors’ rates and hospital charges negotiated by the government — and instead devised a
scheme that leaves the whole payment system in the hands of the private insurance industry, and effectively lets doctors and hospitals charge what they can get away with.
Obama did this because he was a huge recipient of money from all sectors of the health care industry — the insurance companies, the hospital companies, the American Medical Association, the big pharmaceutical firms, and the medical supply firms.

ObamaRomneyCare is at its core an enrichment scheme for nearly all elements of the Medical Industrial Complex, with the possible exception of the lowly family practice physician, nurses, and hospital workers."


LINK: http://www.counterpunch.org/20...

NYC Educator

It also insures my daughter and all children of insured families to age 26, and I have read it provides subsidies for some. Tax is minimal, like one percent, and I believe a program like this can be improved. I agree with much of what you wrote, however. Much of the negativity presented already exists, so you're right, that does not represent improvement.

Turn Around This

...city officials have also argued that turnaround is also the fastest way to help the schools improve because it would allow them to shake up their teaching staffs overnight....  Gotham Schools

And there it is, the entire idea behind the ed deform national agenda. Place the blame on the teachers for every failure while avoiding responsibility. Thus the myth of the bad teacher.

What even some teachers failure to understand -- and the union itself fails to point out (intentionally I might say) is that the overall idea is to reduce teacher union contracts to ashes so that ultimately the average pay will drop drastically (remember that salaries are the highest costs of education) and teachers can be squeezed into sweat shop work places and with no protections or other options (all schools in the urban areas ultimately to be standardized) either leave or continue working. And by making it a snap to become a teacher, the revolving door is a win-win for them. And NO PENSIONS since no one will ever reach pension age. And think of the productivity. More classes, more hours, less pay -- except for a few getting lots of money in some kind of merit system so they can hold the carrot in front of the poor rabbits.

So why have the teacher unions signed onto so much of this plan by supporting the concept of charters and turn-arounds, the essence of which are replacing teachers and until recently closing schools? But don't worry about the oligarchs running our unions -- they will do just fine while the members sink. I'll leave dealing with that to a follow-up later which will link back to this blog but note this for a start from this blog:

Yesterday, Randi Weingarten proposed a Bar Exam for potential teachers.  Ignoring the different needs of each region she proposed a national standard for teacher readiness. yet another one size fits all approach. Feeding the naysayers, here proposal implies that yes, perhaps the one size fits all approach just might work.

In other words, Randi is joining the deformers in the teacher blame game, agreeing in essence with ed deformers assault on teacher training programs. But what would a teacher union leader who had no formal training and taught semi-full time for 6 months know about that?

And this from RBE:

How Will The UFT Pull Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory?

I want to share an email that came in this morning from a teacher who is at one of the schools rescued the other day -- rescued temporarily as so many bloggers are pointing out. This teacher gets it.

Here is an article from GothamSchools that suggests why Bloomberg went with the "turnaround" strategy rather than phase out.

http://gothamschools.org/2012/04/24/unraveling-three-and-a-half-months-of-turnaround-twists-part-i/

Here is an excerpt that gets to the heart of the matter:

But city officials have also argued that turnaround is also the fastest way to help the schools improve because it would allow them to shake up their teaching staffs overnight. Here’s what we reported when Bloomberg vowed to go through with the turnaround plans even after the city made progress on teacher evaluation negotiations:

Bloomberg said the aggressive overhaul strategy was necessary because no teachers would be removed from schools because of low scores on the new evaluations for at least a year and a half.

“It would be unconscionable for us to sit around for two years and do nothing, so we’re going to use the 18-D process,” he said, referring to a clause in the city’s contract with the teachers union that the city says allows turnaround’s rehiring process.

What a waste of time and energy this has all been. Instead of being able to concentrate on being an effective teacher and receiving help from the start, the entire school community has had to deal with years of threats from the DOE and the NYSED. We never received help, only threats and attacks. Not once did we have meaningful PD sessions in the past three years. Not once. If [my school] was such a lousy school, where was the help from the DOE? In fact, the faculty and staff had been trying to figure out how to move forward on our own. Pleas for help to the DOE went unanswered. We, in our particular case, were stuck with a weak and ineffective principal who could not figure out how to deal with any of the threats against our school community. He never called faculty meetings because he was too afraid to even face us. So we rose to the occasion and tried to fend for ourselves. We called in Pedro Noguera and other advisers on our own to try and move forward. Noguera, to his credit, met with us on numerous occasions. We formed our own committees to address our needs without the administration helping us. Fight Back protests arose out of this effort and were meant to inform the DOE and the community of our successes. Teachers formed action committees with the help of the Alumni Association and came up with strategies to strengthen our school. Never any help from TWEED. I can only imagine what it may be like to be able to go to work and think only about being an effective teacher in my school as compared to being an effective teacher who also has to always fight and struggle for what is right.

=======

The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Leonie Has questions about turnaround, phase out and next steps

 Leonie Haimson sent this to her listserve. If anyone has answers leave a comment and I'll forward them. Or email me.
 --------------------
NYT story on the mediator’s decision below. I have so many questions about this whole matter still, which I would like people on the list to answer if they can.

The turnaround plans of course made no sense in the first place to me but then most of what DOE does make little sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/06/29/city-loses-arbitration-on-staffing-for-24-turnaround-schools/

First, Al Baker, the new guy on the NYT education beat, writes:

The decision was a victory for the United Federation of Teachers and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. They argued that the plans to recast the 24 schools, known as turnaround schools, ran afoul of contracts and contrasted with more deliberative ways that city schools are usually phased out.

1. BUT is a phase –out really “more deliberative” or better in any sense?
Or is it worse, meaning ALL the teachers at the phase-out school can ultimately be excessed, and ALL the students in schools like Robeson and Jamaica suffer the damaging effects as the school is phased-out, including fewer services and classes year to year as the death-watch continues?

Also, as the “new” schools put in place of the phase out school exclude the sort of high-needs students in the original school, making the supposed “improvement” hard to judge – these same sort of at-risk kids are sent to other schools nearby, which then causes them to struggle and ultimately be shut down. Isn’t it better to keep the same kids in the building at least? If this strategy was merely an attack on the union in the first place, why didn’t DOE use the phase-out model for these schools? Is this still a possibility for the admin now?

2. Which leads me to this question: why did the DOE choose this version of “turnaround” rather than their usual “phase-out” – b/c of the fed funds in the SIG grants cannot be applied to phase-out schools? But Walcott said that even if they didn’t get SIG money they were intent on doing this anyway.

3. Or was the DOE prevented from choosing this model in the first place, because these 33 schools – now 24 schools -- many of them in Queens and at 100% utilization or more, are so vastly overcrowded and there are so few other large high schools left, the phase out model simply wouldn’t work? b/c as enrollment is reduced in these buildings at much lower levels, as the old school phases out and the new ones phase in (with enrollment capped at lower levels) there would be nowhere for the students who would have attended the original schools to go?

Also, Baker writes this:

The plans have included replacing all the principals, screening the existing staff and rehiring no more than 50 percent of it.

Yet nearly from the beginning, Walcott and those in charge of this process at DOE have said there would be NO 50% quota for firing or rehiring. King’s decision last week in which he said he would allow the granting of the SIG money only if at least 50% of the staff was replaced seems to contradict the DOE assertions.

So why did DOE insist otherwise? Was it b/c of the union contract that said at least 50% of the staff must be kept on? And if the idea was really to attack the union, what’s stopping the DOE from doing phase-out now? The idea as expressed above that this would cause even more chaos?

READ THE NYT ARTICLE BELOW

Bloomberg Reversal of Fortune: Union Wins on Closing Schools Suit

Implications will be deep. Back later as blogs reverberate.

http://www.uft.org/press-releases/doe-closures-24-schools-violate-union-contracts-says-arbitrator

DOE “closures” of 24 schools violate union contracts, says arbitrator

June 29, 2012

The Department of Education has tried to “close” 24 schools and immediately re-open them under new names. An independent arbitrator has found that, for purposes of our contracts, the “new” schools that the DOE claims it is creating this way are in reality not new schools.
As such, the DOE’s attempts to remove half the personnel in these schools are a violation of the school district’s contracts with the unions.
Based on this decision, the current staff in these schools has the opportunity to remain there for the next school year, though those who have found new positions elsewhere are free to go to those new jobs if they choose.
This decision is focused on the narrow issue of whether or not the mayor’s “new” schools are really new. The larger issue, however, is that the centerpiece of the DOE’s school improvement strategy — closing struggling schools — does not work. Parents, students and teachers need the DOE to come up with strategies to fix struggling schools rather than giving up on them.

Also see:
Http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/06/29/schools-closings-blocked-by-arbitrator/

Celebrate Sweatshop Free Upper West Side

Join us at the 1-Year Anniversary Celebration of the Upper West Side community campaign to create a neighborhood that upholds ethical business practices. 

I was told about this event by a friend. My parents were both ILGW - my mom was an operator starting in 1920 and working until I was born and my dad was a presser through the early 1980's. This is more about sweatshop restaurants than the classic version of sweatshops but I am looking forward to checking it out.

1-Year Anniversary Celebration June 29, Friday, 6-10pm 214 W. 97th St 214 W. 97th St (between Amsterdam & Broadway) Food & Drink, Music & Dancing *program starts at 7pm Join us at the 1-Year Anniversary Celebration of the Upper West Side community campaign to create a neighborhood that upholds ethical business practices.  Come celebrate our victories and accomplishments, including Tomo Sushi, Shun Lee Palace, U Like Garden, Land Thai, V&T Pizzeria, as well as the Saigon Grill Boycott, the city-wide launch of the Domino's Pizza Boycott, and 60 small businesses that pledged to be "sweatshop free." Please RSVP to sweatshopfreeny@gmail.com  or call 212-358-0295      Please consider donating to support the community's efforts! Click on the link below or make out a check to National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, memo: Sweatshop Free, and send to P.O. Box 130293, NY, NY    Co-Hosted by the Justice Will Be Served Campaign: Chinese Staff & Workers' Association, National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, 318 Restaurant Workers' Union

Forward this email

MORE Endorses National Resolution on High Stakes Testing

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), a caucus within the UFT, has endorsed the National Resolution/ on High Stakes Testing.

Of all the attacks and issues affecting educators, some might be surprised that the high stakes testing issue is causing a level of activism amongst the broadest swath of teachers. Why? Well, that is the issue affecting most teachers, even those not under direct personal attack. This is especially true of elementary school teachers, the group often considered the least militant group of teachers. Just the other day 2 teachers showed up to a Change the Stakes meeting pretty much out of the blue, fed up at how their teaching has been purloined. I should remind people that Ed Notes was taking these positions from the very beginning in 1996-7 and that was one of the issues that attracted people who eventually formed ICE in 2003. We were the only caucus to take on that issue and continued to do so through the 2004, 07, 10 UFT elections. NYCORE also took on this issue and that was one of the points that brought ICE and them together, the foundation of GEM. You'll note that our movie goes beyond a simple critique of Waiting for Superman but takes the testing issue head on.

 

So I am pleased to see that the new caucus, MORE, which combines elements of all the activist groups out there, has taken this position.

 

See letter in support of the field test boycott, and MORE positions on testing at morecaucusnyc.org. The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing is online at http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/
 

 See below for a variety of related issues:

Why I Voted to Authorize the Chicago Teachers' Strike

...among CTU members who voted, 98 percent said "yes" to strike authorization: That's 23,780 yes to 482 no.

A preschool teacher in the Chicago Public Schools explains why she and thousands of her fellow teachers voted "yes" to authorizing a strike. 

By Lara Lindh AlterNet June 22, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/education/155980/why_i_voted_to_authorize_the_chicago_teachers%27_strike

Earlier this month, members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted by a nearly 90 percent majority to give the union authorization to call a strike. Actually, around 8.5 percent of the union membership didn't vote, so they were counted as "no" votes. So among CTU members who voted, 98 percent said "yes" to strike authorization: That's 23,780 yes to 482 no. The overwhelming support for strike authorization seemed to confuse the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Jean-Claude Brizard, who likes to assure us that he loves and respects teachers as he destroys our schools and degrades our union. But the vote didn't come as a surprise to me.

Here's why I voted, along with the vast majority my brothers and sisters in the CTU, an enthusiastic "yes" to strike authorization.

Reason No. 1: As has happened to me every spring since 2008, I was warned by my boss in March that my preschool teaching position was threatened for the following school year due to budget cuts. As I have done every spring since 2008, I spent countless hours readying my resume and my teaching portfolio, combing the want ads, and annoying my colleagues looking for another job for this coming fall. With a son, a mortgage, very little savings and a job that I love and would grieve to loose, I tried to muster the enthusiasm necessary to hunt for another job while simultaneously remaining the kind of "super-teacher" that we're expected to be in order to maintain an evaluation rating that would allow us to be hired by another principal. In May, I was informed my job was safe, but my assistant teacher's wasn't. Due to budget cuts, she's being replaced with a cheaper, part-time version.

Reason No. 2: May is supposed to be a wonderful month for preschool teachers: We ready our student's yearlong work portfolios and bask in the glow of their progress and reminisce about how far we've come. We go on field trips and have culminating projects that we enjoy sharing with our students and families. We look forward to summer break. We begin to say goodbye to the little people we've nurtured and loved and taught for the proceeding nine months. This May, I spent the entire month, as I have for the past three years, conducting a standardized test on my 4- and 5- year-old students to determine their "kindergarten readiness." It used to be that by virtue of turning 5 years old, you were deemed "kindergarten ready." Those days are over. In the name of accountability (which always seems to mean accountability for those with the least say-so), we have turned our schools into test-taking factories, with no child too young to be tested.

Reason No. 3: The day before the strike vote, my school clerk stopped me in the hallway. He had an emergency letter from Jean-Claude Brizard that we had to distribute to parents informing them of why the strike vote was wrong thing for teachers to do and insulting our collective intelligence by claiming that our leadership hadn't informed us of what was at stake in our contract negotiations. The attempt by Brizard to turn parents against teachers was expected, his condescending tone familiar, but what was unheard-of was that the letter was translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Polish and Arabic. As a teacher of English Language Learners, I was dumbfounded. We can never--I repeat, NEVER!-- get materials or information translated into our students' home languages without doing it ourselves. Was this the proverbial final straw? No, I had already made up my mind to vote "yes" because I want dignity, respect and resources for what I do and for the students I teach. But it did underline to me that if they can so easily find the resources to drag us down, then they can be forced to find the resources to build up public education.

Reason No. 4: The $5.2 million in TIF money the city council just handed to billionairess CPS board member and infamous union buster Penny Pritzker to build another Hyatt Hotel for her empire. Resources not there? Yeah, right. I voted "yes" because I have self-respect, and I was always taught (and teach) that when you stand up for yourself against bullies and liars, others will stand up with you. Well, the teachers are standing up. Will you join us?

[Lara Lindh is a Preschool for All teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.]

And so it will be Lara, as Mike Klonsky reports:

'Parents will walk picket lines...'

“There’s a huge disconnect between what the board thinks kids deserve and what parents think kids deserve. Good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. If teachers go on strike, many, many hundreds of parents will be on the picket line with them.” -- Erica Clark,  Parents 4 Teachers

Quick Hits: Late Night Roundup

Testing expert Fred Smith on mainstream radio with John Gambling. 

He's a much better guest than the regular appearances of Bloomberg.

Fred really gets in his points in a very effective way and Gambling seems suitably impressed.

    http://wor710.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5916466

Read Fred on Schoolbook: NYS Exam Problem Is Worse than reported - "looming debacle" for state and Pearson – Schoolbook http://goo.gl/2675l
Fred is our stalwart from GEM's- Change the Stakes high stakes testing committee.

===============

'Parents will walk picket lines...'

Mike Klonsky reports:

“There’s a huge disconnect between what the board thinks kids deserve and what parents think kids deserve. Good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. If teachers go on strike, many, many hundreds of parents will be on the picket line with them.” -- Erica Clark,  Parents 4 Teachers

Parents 4 Teachers helped translate our film into Spanish for Chicago parents.

===============
 
Should Arne Duncan be charged with murder in Chicago violence outbreak? Get CSI on the case.
I posted on this a while ago (Is Arne Duncan Guilty of Murder?)

Blogger NYC Eye has such a good post on this I'm reposting it:

Is 38 % Chicago Murder Spike a Duncan Legacy? UPDATE

Activists have long charged that the murder increase in recent years was the direct result of the closing of schools and sending students across gang boundaries because of school closures.

See latest front page article by Monica Davey in the New York Times about the murder rate increase. "Rate of Killings Rises 38 Percent in Chicago in 2012"

Big Education APE reminds us to go back two years in the Chicago Tribune:

[Bill] Gates also invested $90 million in one of the largest implementations of the turnaround strategy—Chicago’s Renaissance 2010. Ren10 gave Chicago public schools CEO Arne Duncan a national name and ticket to Washington; he took along the reform strategy. Shortly after he arrived, studies showing weak results for Ren10 began circulating, but the Chicago Tribune still caused a stir on January 17, 2010, with an article entitled “Daley School Plan Fails to Make Grade.”

Six years after Mayor Richard Daley launched a bold initiative to close down and remake failing schools, Renaissance 2010 has done little to improve the educational performance of the city's school system, according to a Tribune analysis of 2009 state test data.

…The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010—that displaced students ended up mostly in other low performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn't lived up to its promise by this, its target year.

Read also the blog contribution by Yana Kunichoff at ChicagoNow.com, from March 2, 2012: "Are overlaps between school closings and youth violence a coincidence?"

Just blocks from Carter's Barbershop in North Lawndale where The Chicago Reporter sets up camp for its weekly radio show are two schools on the turnaround and closure list voted on by the Chicago Board of Education last month.

Thomas Herzl Elementary School, at 3711 W. Douglas Blvd., is slated for turnaround next year, and Julia Lathrop Elementary School, at 1440 S. Christiana Ave., will be closed.

These schools aren't too different from most of the 17 schools on Chicago Public School's list of low-performing schools slated for an overhaul: They're heavily low-income, and most students are of one race. At Herzl, for example, 97.9 percent of the students come from households reporting income below the poverty line, and 98.3 percent are black.

But there's another unifying, and telling, factor to all the schools on the closure and turnaround list: They are situated in majority black and brown neighborhoods in the city. Check out this map by Vocalo's Sarah Lu to see the divide. [ed.: click to zoom in.]

Meanwhile, these same neighborhoods see record amounts of youth violence. Twenty-two communities on Chicago's South, Southwest and West sides--where the school turnarounds and closures are based--saw nearly 80 percent of the city's youth homicides, according to a recent Reporter investigation.

Coincidence? Research and reporting on the subject says probably not. Since 2005, thousands of students have been sent to schools outside their neighborhoods following school closures under Renaissance 2010, the education reform program launched by former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

[ed. note: Renaissance 2010 was launched by Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer, Arne Duncan.] 

Charles Barron didn't lose the race, PUBLIC Education lost today

"Mr. Jeffries did indeed push the charter school issue in his first interview with reporters after accepting the Democratic nomination, saying that he hopes to “use the tax code if need be” to support parents’ decision to send their children to religious or other private schools. He also said he supports charter schools."

Only 5% turned out to vote and clearly the numbers show that even if the UFT supported Barron it would not have made a difference. The UFT was "neutral" but there was a semi-glowing article in the NY Teacher favoring Jeffries. But as Mona points out this trend is a hit for public ed and teacher unions.

From Mona Davids:

Jeffries won the election.  Check out the first thing he says and then repeats.  Here's two excerpts:

"Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries trounced Councilman Charles Barron in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Congress — and promptly said that his main priorities would be helping homeowners at risk of foreclosure and, more controversially, using public money to support parochial and other private schools."

"Mr. Jeffries did indeed push the charter school issue in his first interview with reporters after accepting the Democratic nomination, saying that he hopes to “use the tax code if need be” to support parents’ decision to send their children to religious or other private schools. He also said he supports charter schools."

Charles Barron didn't lose the race.  PUBLIC Education lost today. 

Remember to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Working Families Party, community based organizations, education advocacy groups and all the unions that endorsed Jeffries for their great assistance in bringing vouchers to NYS!

Yes, I'm disgusted.

Read the article below:

From MORE: Why we oppose the release of test-based teacher evaluations

In the fall, MORE will be launching a petition campaign calling for the right for teachers to vote on the evaluation deal, and for escalating protests against the testing profiteers.

If you like what you've read,  please consider joining MORE.

Why we oppose the release of test-based teacher evaluations by morecaucusnyc

Please help copy and distribute a hard copy of the this statement to your coworkers

As students and teachers finish up the school year in sweltering heat, legislators in Albany closed their legislative session by passing a new law regarding the public release of teachers' performance evaluations. In reaction to the horrific episode in February, where teachers had erroneous ratings based on flawed data splashed across the pages of the New York City press, legislators extended a protection given to some other civil servants that would prevent work evaluations from being released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Widely heralded as a victory for teachers both by the teacher union leadership and the antiunion press, this legislative move actually helps to usher in a new destructive era of standardized testing for our public school students. First of all, the legislation mandates that school districts must provide "conspicuous notice" to advise parents of their right to know their children's teachers' evaluation results.  While the UFT claims that parents have always had this right, it was a very rare administrator that ever released teacher' performance information to parents.  Now, Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to call every parent in New York City to make them aware that they can access this information.

This will create a poisonous environment within schools, creating suspicion and dividing parents and teachers who are natural allies in the struggle for better schools for our students.

No More Standardized Testing!

Furthermore, the publicity surrounding the deal ignores the overall framework in which it is occurring, where teacher evaluations will soon be based in part on scores students receive on standardized tests. In a year where students have endured hours of expanded "field testing," error-filled exams, and nonsense questions about talking pineapples, we are now moving to an era where teachers livelihoods will be determined by growth and value-added models based on tests, which are unstable metrics that have been shown to vary wildly.

Fortunately, there is a new voice in opposition to the politics of collusion on the part of union leaders that has brought us to this point. The recently formed Movement of Rank and File Educators (morecaucusnyc.org) in New York City is the social justice caucus of the UFT and force advocating within the union opposing "any teacher evaluations based on standardized tests." MORE has supported the boycott of parents of the Pearson field tests and taken a strong position against the evaluation framework agreed to by our union leadership in February, and endorsed the national resolution against standardized testingwhich has been ratified by hundreds of organizations around the country (although not the UFT leadership).

In the fall, MORE will be launching a petition campaign calling for the right for teachers to vote on the evaluation deal, and for escalating protests against the testing profiteers.

If you like what you've read,  please consider joining MORE.

Video of SUNY Charter Giveaway to Eva Moskowitz

Noah Gotbaum asks essential questions. Then note the section as I tried to follow 3 members of the SUNY Charter School Committee into the elevator as they met with Success Academy's Jenny Sedlis who asked for a private meeting, followed by some brief comments by Noah outside.

Newly appointed chairman Joseph Belluck allowed the community to speak at the meeting, apparently something that has not happened before. This was so embarrassing to Eva Moskowitz -- allowing public comment that exposes her scam -- her agent Jenny asked for a private post meeting meeting with Belluck -- maybe to whip him into line for the next time.

He presented himself as a fair guy, but even if he is that won't last long as the rest of the committee is loaded with pro-charter people, as much of SUNY is. 


http://youtu.be/pWsWKaVSnsM





More video later --- Fios is being installed today so I may be down for some hours.

In the meantime, Leonie posted:

Thanks to the hard work of David Bellel, the SUNY Charter webcast from yesterday is now archived.

Sadly, as originally webcast, the sight and sound is not great and it doesn’t start until after Brooke Parker of WAGPOPs has given most of her brilliant presentation. But the best we have so far until Norm posts his video of what transpired yesterday.

part 1: https://vimeo.com/44691118

part 2: https://vimeo.com/44716357

part 3:  https://vimeo.com/44696000

 And this:

See below; the only mention I have found in media today of Eva’s victory yesterday of getting SUNY to approve 6 new schools to add to her empire & to grab even more space from public school buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn (where even Walcott admits there is no room for them ) while her management fee is raised to 15% -- enabling her to divert even more taxpayer funds to lobbying, PR and her political operations where she can further expand her influence (not to mention her already inflated salary).

Meanwhile SUNY charter committee was told by the head of the SUNY charter institute at the meeting yesterday the fairy tale that they should go along with this, because the schools’ independent board “asked” to be able to give more money to Eva’s CMO, as though the members of the board weren’t handpicked by Eva.  And after all, these schools have a surplus of $24 million – so why not?

Finally, in an interesting sleight of hand, the SUNY charter committee gave over the authority to approve the fee increase to the Charter Institute, because the new chair of the committee, Joe Belluck, said he wasn’t ready to decide on this issue but obviously wasn’t ready to delay the vote while he informed himself on the issue more thoroughly. 

The full SUNY board gives all the authority over charter matters to the SUNY charter committee, which then leaves the decision-making up to the Charter Institute, where the staff continues to behave as they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Charter Inc. 

And when it comes to the most controversial issue of co-locations, Rossi tells the committee that they have no legal jurisdiction (even though the law says SUNY has to hold hearings on the subject of whether the space is “appropriate”) and that the siting of schools is merely the responsibility of DOE.

Talk about passing the buck!

Hopefully Powell will stay on the story; the NYT badly needs a critical eye on our schools now that Winerip has been taken off education and the other NYT ed reporters are all new to the beat and thus vulnerable to be taken in by DOE and the massively funded and staffed corporate reform PR spin.

Go leave a comment!

In East Harlem School Building, Uneasy Neighbors - NYTimes.com - http://goo.gl/X8udw

 

An Upstairs-Downstairs Divide at a Public School Building in East Harlem

By MICHAEL POWELL

Published: June 25, 2012 6 Comments

Karen Melendez-Hutt once presided over a fine success story. Early last decade, she became principal of Public School 30 in East Harlem, a school on the critical care list.

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Scores had spiraled downward. Families felt trapped. The end appeared in sight.
She won grants to pull in counselors, and tutored children at lunchtime, during recess, on Saturdays. Test scores rose. The school earned A’s on progress reports. Then her staff proposed to renovate the playground, a vast expanse of asphalt fissured.
The Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, gave $180,000 in 2010 for the renovation.
“I called the Department of Education and said: ‘Isn’t this great? We got this money!’ ” she recalled.
An official cut her off: “There’s a lot more money than that coming,” he said. “But Eva Moskowitz has got it.”
In retrospect, this was the moment the center of power — and money — began to shift decisively in this public school building.
Eva S. Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman, is chief executive of Success Academy Charter Schools. One of her handsomely financed schools, Harlem Success Academy 2 Charter School, occupied the upper floor of the same building as P.S. 30. Another school, devoted to students with disabilities, also inhabits this building on East 128th Street.
Ms. Moskowitz, as Type A and politically connected as any charter operator in the city, had convinced the City Council to allocate $875,000 to renovate the same playground. Although the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, says this money was intended for the playground for all three schools, Harlem Success Academy 2 quickly took ownership.
“They made it clear they’d already hired an architect and they’d plan it,” Ms. Melendez-Hutt recalls. “I said, ‘No, no, no, for once you have to learn to play with others.’ ”
Ms. Moskowitz is a brigadier in the charter school wars that could define the next mayoral election. Armies mass on either side. The teachers’ union, parent groups and the organization New York Communities for Change oppose charter expansion. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has sent a trusted aide, Micah C. Lasher, to work with the hedge-fund-backed group StudentsFirstNY to push expansion.
Ms. Moskowitz embraces life in wartime. She yearns not only to compete, but also to drive the teachers’ union and some public schools into the East River. In e-mails several years ago to the chancellor at the time, Joel I. Klein, obtained by the columnist Juan Gonzalez of The Daily News, Ms. Moskowitz made clear her views. “We need,” she wrote, “to quickly and decisively distinguish the good guys from the bad.”
To this end, she has formed a network of charters that, with strict discipline and unrelenting emphasis on high test scores, have posted impressive results.
On Monday, the trustees of the State University of New York — which oversees charter schools — gave Ms. Moskowitz permission to open six new schools. And the trustees increased her network management fee to 15 percent, from 10 percent, which will infuse her quickly expanding empire with millions of dollars.
Her pell-mell success exacts a toll. Teachers’ hours are brutal, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with evenings devoted to marking homework. Teacher turnover at Harlem Success Academy 2 approached 40 percent last year. Ms. Moskowitz drives herself no less manically. She lists her salary as $379,478 and pegs her typical workweek at 70 hours.
Say this for Ms. Moskowitz: Many students in poor neighborhoods have for years lacked quality schools; charters perhaps offer useful competition.
She glories in comparing her schools with hapless public school cousins. “The nice thing about co-location is that you can put the schools under a microscope,” she says.
Ms. Melendez-Hutt retired two years ago, and P.S. 30 has gone into a slide. It received a D grade last year, a fact that Ms. Moskowitz’s staff noted in e-mails and phone calls. The staff also sent a comparison of test scores, and it contrasted Success Academy’s wood cubbies and carpeted classrooms with the dingier halls of the neighbor.
In essence, I had an immersion in the same hard sell parents are given. Only nuance was missing. P.S. 30 students are distinctly poorer, and a far higher proportion receive special education. Its veteran staff members themselves outfitted a fine library with sofas and chairs.
Then there’s that playground. A handsome soccer field with artificial turf dominates the yard, as Ms. Moskowitz desired. P.S. 30 obtained one of its four desired basketball courts, which occupies a corner near the door.
“It was a very long, drawn-out process,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “It’s all about the art of compromise.”
No doubt.
E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt

This Summer: Join GEM's Change the Stakes Committee and Fight High Stakes Testing

Change the Stakes was one of principal organizers of Pearson Protest

NEXT MEETING JULY 13:
 
From GEM parent activist Janine Sopp:


You may not know about Change the Stakes, a committee of GEM working to end the devastating use of high stakes testing.  We have been busy for almost a year now and have felt as though we are part of the movement that is shifting the dialog, even if in small ways, around issues of testing.  We are certainly part of a national movement.
 
Please visit our website, sign our petition, "Like" us on Facebook and join our open forum.

• www.changethestakes.com

If you support a parent's right to opt out of testing, please sign and share this link to the petition demanding a non punitive opt out program in NY:

• http://signon.org/sign/give-new-york-state-parents.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=322644

Visit our facebook page and help spread the word, post relevant articles and comment if you wish:

• https://www.facebook.com/changethestakes

• Request to join:  changethestakes-open-forum@googlegroups.com

We encourage you to spread the word about all of the above and consider joining us at
our next CTS meeting on July 13!  We look forward to expanding our outreach as we
begin organizing for the 2012-2013 school year ahead.
Have a wonderful summer,

Janine & Kya
CTS Campaign, GEM