UP YOURS: Are Charter Schools so unregulated, or 'private', they are exempt from providing students with their constitutional rights?

Hello Boston Globe. UP (Yours) IS the mainstream charter movement.

Charter crooks abound. I don't mean stealing in the classic sense but creating an entire industry feeding at the public teat. Here is a follow up to my earlier post (just read Inside Colocation and seethe) on the usual outrages by Success Academy schools, something we will wait til hell freezes over for the NY Times to cover. Before I get to Lisa Donlan's pointing out how the lead shield put around charters protects them from accountability, Boston based EduShyster today reports on the end of the love affair between the Boston Globe and UP (Yours) Academy charter.

It’s time now for another installment of EduShyster’s favorite telenovela: “Nos Encanta Los Escuelos Charteros.” This long-running series features the Boston Globe in the role of love-besotted suitor, intent on showing its love for local charter schools through cartas de amor, otherwise known as news articles. When we last tuned in, the Globe’s mad luv for local miracle school UP Academy, appeared to have hit a rough patch. EduShyster can now officially confirm that the Globe and UP Academy are done, splitsville, broken up.

What went so wrong?
The Globe went public about the split last week, airing UP’s dirty laundry all over the Metro section...

Edushyster exposes the sleazy connection between a mayoral aide and UP:

With the Mayor all but out of commission since October, and his powerful aide Michael Kinneavy presumed to be running the show, it might strike the more conspiracy-minded among us as a bit rich that Mr. Kinneavy sits on the board of UP Academy, which stands to benefit directly and most profitably from the legislation. (UP keeps a cool 15% commission each year for miracle-izing the formerly public schools in its growing orbit). I believe that this is what is known as a conflicto de intereses.

Apparently, the Boston Globe, which had lavished loving praises on Up, felt spurned since it had been fed charter pablum and bought it hook, line and sinker. I guess hearing this kind of crap made them take notice...

by the time you factor in 20% annual student turnover AND the multiple categories of students shunted off to enclaves of non-excellence, it turns out that this former-public-school-turned-miracle-charter isn’t so miraculous after all. And that’s not all. The Globe acknowledged what EduShyster reported late last year, 

-----

But the true tabloid take-a-way was the Globe’s recounting of a young student with behavioral problems being driven to a nearby public school by UP administrators and dropped off, still wearing her UP Academy uniform. 

Did you get that? I’ll let the Globe break it down for you again for emphasis:
Ultimately, of the pupils eligible to apply at the Gavin, 84 percent enrolled at UP Academy last fall. But as the year progressed, 44 of those former Gavin pupils left. A few of those students landed at the McCormack Middle School in Dorchester. The pupils generally had discipline problems, and UP Academy drove one girl there while she was wearing her school uniform, said Paul Mahoney, dean of students at the McCormack.

Actually, the real Boston Globe take-away from this sleazy affair? Not that there is an inherent fatal flaw in the charter movement...

Last week, a Globe editorial took a swipe at Mayor Menino, warning that his love legislation to UP Academy and other in-district charter schools actually undermines the “mainstream charter movement.”  

Hello Boston Globe. UP (Yours) IS THE MAINSTREAM CHARTER MOVEMENT. 

This ties into this great work done NYC Lower East Side Parent activist Lisa Donlan.

Charter schools can call themselves public all they want (and have the term sprinkled into state law) but the courts will need to determine soon just how "public" charter schools are, in fact. 

 Are they so unregulated, or 'private', that they even are exempt from providing students with their constitutional rights, as the quote below might indicate?

The District’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education in August proposed rules that would govern discipline policies at all public schools, including charters. They called for minimizing suspension and expulsion of children 13 and younger and outlined due process rights for students. Charter leaders mounted a vigorous opposition, saying the federal law that established D.C. charters frees them from such local mandates.

If so, this would give a whole new meaning to separate and unequal!

Lisa
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/02/judges-look-at-whether-charter-schools-are-public/

 
Charter schools are publicly funded but increasingly people are asking whether many of them more resemble private schools. 

Here’s a different look at this notion from Julian Vasquez Heilig, an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor of Educational Policy and Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. A version of this appeared on his Education and Public Policy blog.

By Julian Vasquez Heilig

The common refrain is that charter schools are public schools. Critics, such as Diane Ravitch, have said that charter schools accept public money but act private. I have levied a variety of critiques at charters despite the fact that I was an instructor at an Aspire charter school in California and that I currently sit on UT-Austin’s charter school board. See CI’s full thread on charter schools here.

At the recent UCEA convention in Denver, I had the pleasure of presenting in a conference session about charters schools and equity. At the conference I was blown away how judges are treating charters schools as private schools and the implication that these choices have for student who attend those schools. I have excerpted below from a law journal article authored by Preston C. Green III, Erica Frankenberg, Steven L. Nelson, and Julie Rowland.

Citation: Green, P., Frankenberg, E., Nelson, S., & Rowland, J. (2012). Charter schools, students of color and the state action doctrine: Are the rights of students of color sufficiently protected? Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, 18(2), 254-275.

A recent federal appellate court decision suggests that students of color should also be concerned about the legal protections that charter schools might provide to students.¹⁸Because state authorizing statutes consistently define charter schools as “public schools,”¹⁹ it would appear that charter school students are entitled to constitutional protections.²⁰ Students attending public schools have challenged deprivations of federal constitutional and statutory rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which establishes a cause of action for deprivations of federal constitutional and statutory rights “under the color of state law.”²¹ Students have sought damage awards pursuant to § 1983; “actions for injunctive or declaratory relief are [also] a major portion of the case law.”²² However, in 2010, the Ninth Circuit concluded in Caviness v. Horizon Learning Center²³ that a private, nonprofit corporation running an Arizona charter school was not a state actor under § 1983.²⁴ The Ninth Circuit specifically rejected the assertion that charter schools were state actors because they were defined as “public schools” under the state statute.²⁵

Although the Caviness case was an employment case, it is important to recognize that a similar analysis could lead to the conclusion that charter schools are not state actors with respect to student constitutional issues. Students attending public schools are guaranteed constitutional protections.¹⁵⁶ There are constitutional safeguards for student expression.¹⁵⁷Public school students are protected from unreasonable search and seizure.¹⁵⁸ The Constitution also requires public schools to provide procedural due process safeguards when suspending or expelling students.¹⁵⁹ Of the seven states in the Ninth Circuit with legislation authorizing charter schools,¹⁶⁰ only Oregon guarantees that all federal rights apply to charter schools.¹⁶¹ With the exception of Oregon, state legislatures do not compel charter schools to follow constitutional guidelines with respect to due process. California and Idaho merely require potential charter school operators to disclose their disciplinary policies in their initial charter application.¹⁶² Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, and Nevada do not even demand that charter schools disclose their disciplinary policies at the time of application.¹⁶³

Students of color attending charter schools should be concerned about the potential lack of constitutional due process protection. Studies of data at the national, state, district, and building levels have consistently found that students of color are suspended at two to three times the rate of other students.¹⁸⁰ African-American students should be especially concerned about the possible lack of due process protection.¹⁸¹ According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, in the 1970s African-Americans were two times more likely than white students to be suspended from school.¹⁸² By 2002, the risk of suspension for African-Americans increased to nearly three times that of white students.¹⁸³ Further, a study of office discipline referrals in 364 elementary and middle schools during the 2005-06 school year found that African-American students were more than two times as likely to be referred to the office for disciplinary issues as white students.¹⁸⁴ The same study found that African-American students were also four times more likely to be sent to the principal’s office than white students.¹⁸⁵

Because of their foci on autonomy and accountability, supporters of charter schools have argued that they are the perfect vehicle for addressing the educational needs of students of color. This article points out, however, that charter schools may not be state actors under federal law with respect to student rights. Consequently, students of color may be unwittingly surrendering protections guaranteed under the Constitution in order to enroll in charter schools.

I have already discussed how charters can wield contracts to exclude students from schoolhere. In conclusion, Professor Green commented via email:

The key takeaway about Caviness is that it’s unclear whether the constitutional rights of kids are protected in charter schools. In a NEPC brief, Julie Mead and I point out that charter school statutes can address this confusion by clearly stipulating that children are guaranteed the same rights in charter schools as they would receive in traditional public schools… there are important implications for African-American males with respect to Due Process, suspensions, and expulsions.

Join MORE at Co-Location Hearings in Prep for Jan. 16 PEP

Want to get your dander up? I'm reposting all the stuff from the great Inside Colocation blog about Success Academy outrages in just one of the schools they occupy. Note the Citizens of the World co-loco hearing is Eva's husband's charter chain which will behave no differently.

Below is a list of hearings and MOREs are trying to get to as many as possible. If you have time come to one or at the very least join MORE at the Jan. 16 PEP meeting at Fashion Industries HS. If you get up to speak, just read some of the stuff below.

Date	District	Meeting type	Original school	Co-locating school
Jan 8	District 4	Co-location	PS 38 232 E 103rd St, Manhattan	Harlem Prep Charter co-located with PS 38
Jan 9	District 15	Temporary Co-location	IS 136 and Sunset Park Preparatory 4004 4th Ave, Brooklyn	"New School 15KTBD" co-locating
Jan 10	District 17	Co-location	PS 221 791 Empire Boulevard, Brooklyn	Citizens of the World Charter co-located with PS 221
Jan 16		PEP	6:00PM at  the High School of Fashion Industries located at 225 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

Hearings already passed, status to be decided at the Jan. 16 PEP:

*PS 126, 175 W 166^th St. , Bronx , NY  (grade truncation: losing the 6^th grade)

*The High School for Environmental Studies, 850 10^th Avenue , New York , NY (Consolidation of Independence High School with HS for Environmental Studies)

*Re-siting of Innovation Diploma Plus to Building M233, 601 W 183^rd Street , New York , NY ; IDP is being moved away from a site with four other schools (145 W 84th Street). 601 W 183 currently hosts MS 346 Community Health Academy of the Heights, a grade 6 to 12 school.

Inside Colocation

The public school where I've been teaching for the last 8 years has been targeted for a "colocation" with a corporate-model charter school. Most people, including me, don't know what a colocation looks like, though we've heard bleak stories. I've started this blog to document it as best I can.

4th Jan 2013

Success Academy has a “zero noise tolerance” policy in their hallways, which they expect our students and staff to honor. They requested that the playground be locked after school hours so our students can’t play basketball and handball, which they claim disrupts their teachers’ planning time. Meanwhile, every day (weather permitting), Success Academy students congregate in the courtyard you see here and sing and loudly play. Their songs and shouts interrupt math and science classes in the many rooms that overlook the courtyard. Our middle and high school students regularly complain that it is extremely hard to focus with the noise from outside.

3rd Jan 2013

The charter school recently demanded a custodian to lock all of the basement exits after school. Students from the upstairs public schools were still at events on campus and to leave school they had to climb over a fence, causing an obvious problem. For safety reasons, you can’t have exits locked. At the building council meeting, Success Academy proposed to use the exits only for emergencies. This proposal was voted down. However, they went ahead and put up the signs you see above! And they continue to advocate for our exits being locked.

6th Dec 2012 | 2 notes

The lights in the back are the old fluorescents that most DOE schools were equipped with for years, and are deemed unsafe for prolonged exposure. As each strip dies out, it gets replaced with the new lights you see in the front. It’s typical to see classrooms with a combination of old and new lights. The weekend before school opened this September, the charter school laid out $400,000 for a haz-mat team to install all new lights in their classrooms. The lights installed in Success were all taken from storage where they were scheduled to be installed in other schools over the coming months.

24th Oct 2012 | 1 note

AC update! When our high school was located in the basement, each room had one to two working ACs. We moved upstairs to rooms without ACs that were unbearably hot all through September. While most of the second floor is not properly wired for ACs, some rooms are wired and ready. So why weren’t our old ACs simply moved upstairs? When the charter school’s contractors removed the basement ACs, they let the units fall to the ground. Every AC but one is broken! To replace all of the broken ACs will cost $100,000, and SA is unwilling to pay up.

18th Oct 2012 | 2 notes

Success Academy, like our school, has carpeting at its entrance. These carpets get vacuumed by our custodial staff, who uses their equipment to clean all the schools housed in the building. However, the industrial vacuum that custodial uses is not functioning. SA purchased a new vacuum cleaner and a carpet shampooer which our custodians must use to regularly clean Success’ carpet. However, despite custodial’s request, SA will not allow the custodians to bring this vacuum upstairs. As a result, our school’s carpets are being swept each day with a broom. 

14th Oct 2012 | 1 note

For weeks, several teachers in Global Studies and International Studies have been unable to connect to the internet. Two teachers said that the computer network repairman came by to address the problem and discovered that wires had been cut in the server room to make room for Success Academy, who needs to connect on a different SSID than the rest of the schools, as the Department of Education does not allow them to share the DOE internet connection. I haven’t been able to verify this one way or another. Another teacher pointed out that these holes were drilled through the gym to run Success Academy’s internet wires into our building’s server, which they were not supposed to connect to. The problems do seem to be resolved, but only after a litany of complaints against S.A.

MORE: Why Does UFT Commercial Channel E4E Anti-Union Ad?

Why is our own union leadership beginning to sound so much like an anti-union education reform group? 

MORE Release: No Deal for Teachers or Students

6 Jan
 

Here’s the text of the video that the Unity Caucus of the UFT is airing on local television stations about the new teacher evaluation system:

Across the country — from Los Angeles to Newark to Washington — many districts have successfully negotiated new evaluation measures. There is simply no reason New York cannot do the same for its teachers. There is simply no reason that a city that has been at the leading edge on so many other things can’t lead on this.

It’s time…to put politics aside and agree to a fair evaluation system that gives teachers the support they need to help kids succeed. That’s the way to move our schools and our city forward.

In truth, only the second paragraph comes from the UFT video. The first? It’s part of a recent piece in the NY Daily News written by a member of Educator4Excellence, an astroturf ed reform group funded by hedge fund billionaires and Bill Gates. This same group has called for the end of seniority rights, tenure, and the current salary structure.

Why is our own union leadership beginning to sound so much like an anti-union education reform group? It’s difficult to say, but one thing is clear–the evaluation deal that is currently being pushed on our members is no deal for teachers and students.

Let’s look at what the “deal” entails:

Hamburg, NY, Another Holdout from NYSED Extortion on Ed Evals

Yes Commissioner King, “the clock is ticking”- on my children’s education.  How many years of their schooling will be ruined by the high-stakes testing mania that results from the policies you advocate?  Who benefits? Not the children....  Chris Cerrone, who I had the pleasure of hanging with at SOS in DC last August. Oh, those one dollar margaritas.

UFT members,

My district, Hamburg, is in the same situation as you folks- no APPR agreement yet. 

Since my school is the only one left in Western New York without an agreement, we have been inundated with NYSED propaganda.
Please give this a read:
http://atthechalkface.com/2013/01/06/education-propagandists-do-it-for-the-children/

Regards, Chris Cerrone
http://nystoptesting.com/

http://atthechalkface.com/author/nystoptesting/

http://twitter.com/#!/Stoptesting15

Education propagandists: Do it for the children

January 6, 2013 by Chris Cerrone

In New York, school districts across the state have been scrambling to complete and revise their agreements to a new teacher evaluation system.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a wannabe Presidential Candidate, has used the now common carrot and stick approach to education policy by threatening to withhold a district’s state aid increase for this year unless a new teacher evaluation plan is approved by January 17th.  Of the approximately seven hundred districts in New York, only nine have not submitted their plans as of January 2nd.  A press release about the evaluation deadline which appeared on NYSED’s website and made print and television media reports contains so much nonsense that it shows the ignorance of state education officials or just proves the leaders have clear anti-teacher motives.

“Teacher evaluations are vital to help identify struggling teachers and provide them with the professional development they need.  And they help identify excellent teachers who can serve as mentors and role models. These plans are a critical tool to ensure all of our kids have a high quality teacher at the front of the classroom.  ~Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch

Yes, Ms. Tisch, we need quality educators in every classroom but the evaluation plan you support will not accomplish that goal.  The random invalid results that will occur because of the emphasis on test scores will not determine who is a quality educator.  Many districts around the state(and country) have tremendous models of teacher evaluation that contribute to maintaining high-quality educators in our classrooms, but you ignore those facts and perpetuate the myth of widespread teacher incompetence. The growth and VAM models that the New York plans emphasize are prone to wild swings from year to year and will not produce accurate determinations of teacher effectiveness.

“It is urgent that those districts that have not submitted evaluation plans or need to resubmit plans do so immediately.  Our students are waiting.” ~Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch

“Our students are waiting“? Seriously? Our students want more test prep and high-stakes tests?  The madness of test preparation may reach a new level now that educators are being directly judged by assessment results.  When the “ed deformers” try to spew their nonsense, they resort to saying “it is for the children”.

“This is not just about the increase in aid.  It’s about helping students.  APPR plans focus on effective teaching.  The plans will help principals and teachers improve their practice and help students graduate ready for college and careers.  But the clock is ticking.”  ~State Education Commissioner John B. King, Jr.

Does Commissioner King base this statement on any research? How exactly do the vague results teachers receive from state assessment help improve their practice? If I had a dime for every time I hear oft repeated mantra of”college and career ready” we could fund schools properly.  The sad irony is the policy of using high-stakes tests to evaluate our teachers will not prepare our children for either post graduate goal.

Commissioner King says it is not just about the state aid, but that is why most districts approved the plans.  Many schools reluctantly approved their evaluation plans for fear of losing money in an era of scarce funding. Some districts that have complied with the evaluation plan are holding out hope that the ridiculous evaluation policies coming from Albany would fall apart in short order. Failure is possible, but I would not count on the current ed reformers backing down even when proven wrong. The profit and power motives are too high for the use of high-stakes assessment to end easily.   Testing companies are making millions and the anti-union forces are using the new evaluation systems to chip away at teacher rights.

Yes Commissioner King, “the clock is ticking”- on my children’s education.  How many years of their schooling will be ruined by the high-stakes testing mania that results from the policies you advocate?  Who benefits? Not the children.

Follow the author on twitter at http://twitter.com/Stoptesting15

NYC and DC Charters Expel Students at Higher Rates Than Public Schools --

Wait a min -- pub schls can't expel kids.

Holy shit. Even the NY Post is reporting this:

Here it says in NYS, “charter schools set their own suspension rules and don't report expulsion data -- although experts believe thousands of difficult students are dumped every year to public schools.”
This is repeated here: http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1000359-vanishing-students-at-harlem-success
 
Harlem Success also has a high suspension rate -- 15 percent in the 2009-10 school year. (The state report cards do not list expulsions.)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/charters_nix_of_kids_jXEEhJtQx9eQiGUiD3vInN

Charters 'nix 23%' of kids

MORE Memo: Was the SESIS Decision a Victory?

A great sign for MORE Media, led by its intrepid leader Mike Schirtzer, is the newly constituted MORE Response Team with the 4 bloggers of the Apocalypse leading the way to help put together the MORE statement on SESIS.

Read a great post at DOENUTS that pretty much says what I would.

How, exactly, is winning the right to force teachers into overtime a good thing? Because that happened with this 'victory'....the arbitration process went on for two long years before it was finally "resolved". How exactly is it a victory if I get to abuse you for two long years without being stopped?

Actually, I wouldn't call for 20,000 teachers to march but give me 5000 teachers, parents and special ed kids marching and that changes the game. I also would at least explore job actions -- let the UFT be creative -- look at the Chicago crew and how they are constantly on the offensive.

And, YES, I want my pound of flesh.
A pet peeve over the last 40 years has been the UFT's cavaliere, "Do what they say and file a grievance." So I have to eat the crap and even if I win there is no loss for the supervisor who knowingly violated the contract figured a) most likely I would lose and 2) even if I won nothing happens to them for violating the contract. That was why the groups I was with in the 70s called for penalties for administrators when you win.

I also take issue with the non-proactive use of legal mechanisms that slowly wind their way through the system. This is a fight that should have been taken to the public as doing harm to kids given that teachers had little time to manage this broken system incompetently implemented. I would gladly have congratulated the UFT for spending millions of dollars on commercials.

The MORE statement below, while congratulating the union leaders on winning the money, goes further into what I would classify as a social justice angle by framing the issue more broadly than the focus on money. Look at the impact on teachers and kids.

Yes, the right thing should be that workers get paid overtime for this labor, however, money was never the issue. It was the forced labor that we had to do on our own time IN ADDITION TO the other tasks we have always done largely after school hours including lesson planning and IEP writing (which takes more time on SESIS then on prior paper IEP's). If we gain additional workers to do the data entry tasks required by SESIS, that would be a victory because it would allow more time for intervention and counseling with students.

Here is the MORE statement with a link

MORE congratulates the UFT for the financial compensation they’ve earned our Special Education colleagues across the city. The SESIS case is another example of UFT leadership pursuing the same bureaucratic, top-down strategy it always pursues. Sometimes that strategy yields small victories. Nonetheless, because of this strategy the UFT is losing the war on several fronts.

First, the UFT did not involve rank and file members in this effort any more than it normally does. It issued surveys and asked chapter leaders to report abuses to district representatives. The UFT compiled the survey data and used it as evidence in the arbitration case. Members were not organized to respond collectively or actively in any way. There were no membership meetings, no mobilizations, no involvement of members in strategy discussions. The UFT strategy was purely legalistic and involved only the grievance department, some officers, and some lawyers. And this time they won  an arbitration case. Can we expect more cases against the DOE: Teachers are currently being evaluated with the Danielson Rubric, educators are being compelled to spend hours upon hours writing curriculum in the form of Common Core Units of Study and are grading on Acuity well into the night, high school teachers are being forced to change schools during Regents Week, creating traveling and childcare hazards for our colleagues all across the city.

Many special education workers including Related Service Providers, SETSS Teachers, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Guidance Counselors have been forced to do excessive amounts of Data Entry work. This is certainly not in our contract.

Continue reading at MORE blog →

Other blogs on this issue:

James and Jeff at ICE: WILL SESIS VICTORY BE A TURNAROUND MOMENT FOR DOE/UFT?

[For those who want to know how the ICE blog can congratulate the UFT while I disagree, we are all free agents -- note the word "Independent".]

Chaz (Why My Union Is Important)  where I left a few comments regarding the social justice angle. My tactical take is that if teachers only scream about not getting paid it feeds into the ed deform attack on teachers and unions and public education (see, our charter school teachers will stay up all night doing this for no money -- when in fact my sources say all too many charter schools just ignore IEP type work knowing there is no penalty) and gun-shy passive UFT.

If I were running things I would have held rallies with teachers, parents and kids and do what they did in Chicago -- demand more people to do the work as the MORE response points out --- it is not about money for us but about the kids.

Now I know this offends traditional unionists but we live in a different world now where the very institutions teachers work in and the unions are under severe assault. And our "products" are not widgets or cars so let's now compare ourselves to auto workers. Teacher unions need to unlock the door to parent activism.

In fact, MORE is working with some parents to establish some kind of kindred parent group. And at a recent meeting with 5 MOREs every single one of them have kids under the age of 4 -- except me, unless you count Bernie and Penny --- YES, teachers are parents too. Wish I took a picture.

All of these MOREs are going to send their kids to a public school and that is a theme MORE will develop over time.

I Love the Sound of Vichy in the Morning

As one who has tried to brand the UFT/AFT leadership as having a Vichy mentality, this was a fun read from Naked Capitalism sent over by Michael Fiorillo. This piece on how Obama is selling out the middle class to the wealthy refers to the Obama apologists, which includes the UFT/AFT in this way:

With the Vichy Left now trying to soften up the public for Social Security and Medicare “reform,” it’s particularly important to keep an accurate scorecard on what has already gone down.

Here is more:

Yes, Virginia, The Rich Did Very Well With the Fiscal Cliff Deal

The Real News Network has conducted a series of interviews on the fiscal cliff deal, and the two most recent are worthwhile in and of themselves, and are also good tools for persuading those who fallen for the idea that Obama got a good deal to reexamine their view. With the Vichy Left now trying to soften up the public for Social Security and Medicare “reform,” it’s particularly important to keep an accurate scorecard on what has already gone down.

The newest chat, with economist James Henry, focuses on how the deal on estate taxes allows the rich to pass on wealth to their children, allowing inequality to persist across generations. And he reminds us that a lot of Congressmen are rich enough that this provision will benefit their families.

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/yes-virginia-the-rich-did-very-well-with-the-fiscal-cliff-deal.html#BftMCK4F8xwsGMjX.99

Change the Stakes, My Favorite Meeting

On a late Friday afternoon once a month, 15-20 parents, principals, teachers --- public and college level, gather to plan strategies and tactics in the war against high stakes testing. With the testing season about to begin and more and more parents talking about opting out, today's  meeting was the kickoff of what should prove to be an active period right through June.

The idea of shlepping to the city on a day I took hot yoga in the morning and a long afternoon nap was not appetizing but if there is one meeting I try not to miss it is this one. Why? Because I don't know of many, or any, true parent teacher partnership groups and having regular contact with parents in a setting like this is important. We had 4 new people show up today, one a PTA president in Harlem who immediately felt comfortable enough to take an active role.

Brian Jones, Pedro Noguera, Shael Polokow-Suransky at CTS sponsored event

Under tonight's leadership of Diana Zavala, a parent and former NYC teacher (and MORE member), we tried something different by breaking into groups based on topics. I decided to work with the common core group given that MORE needs to address this issue and hasn't gotten to it so far. One of the benefits of this cross fertilizing of smallish orgs (there were at least 4 MORE members there, including two elementary school exectutive board candidates) is that each group can carve up the work. MORE can support and adopt some of the positions coming out of CTS.

Check out the change the stakes website run by Diana.

The next meeting is Friday, Feb. 1 at CUNY, 34th St and 5th Ave, rm 5414 or 5409.

Sandy Dairies: What Were We Thinking, Part 2: Living in the middle of an ocean

Read Part 1.

By Norm Scott

I last left you at around 4:30 on October 29 as the waters from the ocean three and a half blocks away started coming up the bay block I live on. Knowing high tide was around 9 PM, this was not a good sign. The earlier morning tide had the waters over the curb and lapping at my garage door where I had placed two rows, of what turned out to be, paltry, 12 bright yellow sand bags we had laboriously filled the day before.

Seeing a neighbor, who in the morning had said we would be on our porches toasting bloody marys during the storm, leave in a hurry around 4PM certainly didn’t give me confidence. I went down to a basement so full of stuff there was almost no path to walk to see what I could get off the floor. I raised a few things – putting tools on a table -- but every ounce of space seemed filled and I gave up fairly quickly. Oh, I did take my deceased aunt’s ratty mink coat and stole out of the closet and hang them from the rafters. (The next morning they would look like soggy, dead rats.) Then I went up to the ground level garage/laundry room/bathroom/den, an area which was used mostly for storage. Again, barely space to move. I grabbed an expensive video camera but in the rush forgot the audio equipment.

So what can one add at this point about the next ten hours that everyone in Rockaway experienced as some of the seminal moments of their lives? I don’t remember which came first, the beginning of about 10 blackouts – return to power, blackout, etc. or the sound of the water coming in. We ran downstairs to the garage that is at the entrance to our house (we have a split level) and saw the water coming in around the sand bags. We grabbed some towels – sure, go ahead, laugh. Then we heard the water coming into the den through the back door, which is about a foot below ground level. And I mean gushing. My wife had placed barriers against the basement door to keep the water out of the den – I don’t know what we were thinking about where water would come from. I guess I had a vision of 3 or 4 feet of water seeping in my basement.

Who thought the first entry into the living area would be through the ground level living space? As the water gushed into the den and the power went out for good, my wife suggested I get the ice chest and the bags of ice I had put in the small freezer. Good thinking on her part as we ended up spending 3 weeks eating out of that ice chest. I saw the ice chest floating by, along with a pair of boots which I grabbed and tossed upstairs. There was no time to grab much else. I ran back upstairs and dried off. Did I shut the power off in the control panel in the garage? Too late.

As we watched the water rise incredibly quickly – I think is was only 7PM – my wife suggested I go back down down by this time thigh high water to try to pry the basement door open to let the water flow down there. (Have another laugh on me.)

I can’t believe how little idea we had about all this. Of course with the amount of water pressing against it the door wouldn’t budge (though in the morning I would find it pushed wide open from the push of all the water in the basement rushing out into the den). So I was locked out of my basement --- one of the lucky breaks of the night given what happened to so many people. The water was too high to get the basement door open. Best that I didn’t see it or even worse, given what happened to others, venture down there to see what else I could have saved ¬– the chop saw or the mink coat? Being locked out was one of many lucky happenstances for us that night.
This was about 6:30PM.

We knew we had to get to high tide at 9PM and at least we had some portable radios working to give us news. From the earlier morning high tide where we saw the water totally recede back to the ocean gave me some confidence we could ride this out. Even if the water reached our main living area, about 5 feet high, we could always get to the bedrooms another 5 feet up. (One of the defining issue for people in terms of post storm home livability was whether water got to this level and that turned out to vary by inches).

We had 3 locations to watch the water come up from– front window, back window and the door to the den where we could see it rise one step at a time. And up it came from all 3 directions. I looked in wonder as the waters rose, led by the slimy looking foam. When it reached deck height with chairs floating the house was standing in the middle of the ocean, like watching a monsoon movie taking place in south Asia. When water reached above the hood level of the car parked in the driveway across the street I knew both of our cars were probably cooked.

All sorts of stuff was floating. Benches – heavy benches – beams, heavy pots with plants, garbage cans, sections of fence. Our big patio bench with a heavy pot on it floated 20 feet away and landed upright to a perfectly located section of the garden – as if the ocean were a landscape architect. By 8PM the water was two steps away from our main floor and we started moving things upstairs and placing towels by the 3 doors where we expected the water to come from. But we knew we could ride this out and did not I think our lives were threatened. Until I smelled the smoke.
---------------

I'm a happy woman. I'm a happy woman, tra-la, tra-la, tra-la.

I heard this song wafting down to the basement through the fumes of the mold spray. Ahhh, such joy from my wife after 41 years of marriage. Could it be the effects of the raw ginseng roots I've been munching on? Alas, no. My wife had just ordered a replacement washer/dryer for the one month old ones we lost in Sandy and was told they were finally in stock and would be delivered this week.

I'm a happy man. I'm a happy man, tra-la, tra-la, tra-la.

No more traipsing to Brooklyn to sit in Laundromats or going begging at the homes of friends. And being able to take hot yoga without having the wet clothes tossed outside on the deck by you know who. Tra-la.

Ed Deformer Biddle Muddles While Randi Fiddles

Declared Weingarten on Twitter: “retirees do not sway local elections”.

Really, Randi should think twice before she tweets. Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for digging this up from dropout nation's RiShawn Biddle, my new fave ed deformer for the material he provides us, in this follow-up piece to his attack on Randi when she called for more teacher voice (which means SHE gets to talk and no one else). Here is the Ed Notes link (Irony: Randi's Call for Teacher Voices to Be Heard...) to the first piece where Biddle while going after Randi does an assault on Karen Lewis, the real enemy of ed deformers.

Clueless - or propagandist - Biddle and Randi ought to walk off into the sunset together. Even a blind squirrel finds a chestnut once in a while. At least he got the impact of the retirees in UFT elections right (he ought to check them out at a Delegate Assembly) though he misses by a mile in attributing their voting patterns to support for the UFT's so-called resistance to Bloomberg.

What a lame explanation as to why retirees vote in so much higher percentage than working teachers -- they want to prop up the union in its resistance to Bloomberg reform -- like they haven't voted this way since Bloomberg was poor.

Biddle, mentions E4E and MORE in the same paragrah. Read my last piece E4E Mauled in Chapter Election by ICE Candidate to see how inconsequential E4E is. But Biddle has the E4E horse in the race.

I'm trying to decide on the funniest parts of Biddle's piece. I choose this:

Yet the growing legion of groups representing younger, more reform-minded teachers such Educators 4 Excellence (which is working within AFT affiliates to push for a reform [SELLOUT] agenda) — along with the complaints from more-radical elements of the traditionalist ranks such as Norm Scott (a longtime critic of Weingarten and Mulgrew) and Movement of Rank-and-File Educators  – offer a different reason for why voter participation is so low: Apathy and discontent, especially among younger teachers, over how the AFT local (and the national union itself) ignores their concerns.

RiShawn should check out how many teachers (over a thousand) have signed the MORE petition both online and in their schools for a membership vote on any eval agreement, which the UFT leadership and I bet E4E oppose because they both know it would be turned down.

Hey, RiShawn, attend an E4E closed bund where there is no debate and only people who sign a pledge of fealty are allowed to attend and compare with the totally open MORE events where all are invited to participate and other than me and a few others you will not find a room full of baby boomers. More funnies from RiShawn.

After all, unlike participation in Movement of Rank-and-File Educators or Educators 4 Excellence, AFT membership isn’t voluntary; even those teachers who don’t want to join the union are still  forced to pay dues in the form of so-called agency fees). Simply put, it may be time for teachers of all philosophies to move away from the AFT (as well as the NEA) and embrace a different form of professional representation. [Hmmm. what could that be? Bet the word "union" is not included.]

As you would expect, more-radical traditionalists, most of which are Baby Boomers, are frustrated with Mulgrew’s willingness to occasionally [Biddle MUST check out the 05 contract but that was Randi, right, as if MulGarten are not a tag team] give in to Bloomberg on some issues, and with Weingarten’s longstanding efforts to triangulate the school reform movement (which began during her tenure as head of the New York City local). Looking toward the union’s elections this coming April, they are backing challengers to Mulgrew who will embrace the more-pugnacious approach of Chicago affiliate boss Karen Lewis. At the same time, the traditionalists also have truly legitimate concerns about the lack of input they have in shaping the AFT affiliate’s direction. From where they sit, Mulgrew (and Weingarten) have not been any more willing to listen to them than the school reformers they mutually oppose [Sorry Biddle, Randi doesn't oppose school reformers, she's one of them hiding in the closet]. And this lack of democracy has been seen in Unity’s successful efforts to squelch rival, more-progressive factions within AFT politics at the Big Apple level, including New Action (now a de-facto affiliate of Unity) [New Action is not progressive but regressive] , and Independent Coalition of Educators (which unsuccessfully challenged Mulgrew back in 2010), as well as Unity’s threats to anyone within its caucus who dares to disagree with its agenda. [Well he got that right.]
For younger teachers, who now make up the majority of AFT affiliate members, their issues with Mulgrew are different [BULLSHIT - see above ICE defeat E4E] , and yet similar to those of their more-radical traditionalist counterparts. They are frustrated with the AFT’s continued embrace of an obsolete industrial union-style model that values seniority over professionalism.. [MORE BULLSHIT - TAKE A POLL OF YOUNGER TEACHERS WHO ARE STAYING IN THE PROFESSION AND ASK NUMBER ONE CONCERN: GETTING TENURE].

By the way, seniority = professionalism. TFA= amateur dabblers. In fact Randi has done cartwheels to overturn seniority. Again -- see 2005 contract.

Here it is in full glory below
When Retirees Count Most (or More on Randi Weingarten and Listening to Teachers)

January 2, 2013

by RiShawn Biddle

MORE Press Release on Cuomo's report

UFT Presidential candidate Julie Cavanagh said, "We hoped the Commission would place a greater emphasis on giving schools and teachers the tools they need to truly put children first. This would mean lowering class sizes,  accepting parents as stakeholders in public education, listening to the perspective of career educators, and equitable funding for our schools. Unfortunately, it is precisely these issues the Commission has largely ignored."--- MORE press release

I'm sure the UFT leaders also had something to say. Ho-hum

 

MORE on Governor Cuomo’s Education Commission Report

 

Excerpts

The Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) is pleased that Governor 

It is unfortunate to note, however, that the report released today says nothing about lowering class size. It says nothing about ensuring that a fair amount of funding reaches New York City's classrooms. The report is silent on the need to provide fair funding for urban districts in general, where the overwhelming majority of impoverished students live.  

Further, its recommendations regarding technology and teacher recruitment and retention are untested and unsupported. These are, essentially, corporate-minded reforms that we believe are not in the best interest of our children, our schools and our profession.

Rather than experimenting with other people's children and tax dollars, education funding should be spent on what we know works: small class sizes and supporting and retaining experienced educators.  

Read full presser

More commentary:
perdidostreetschool
NYC Parents blog 

E4E Mauled in Chapter Election by ICE Candidate and at Raging Horse

Here is an E4E story Gotham won't report. I forgot to tell you the story of how one of the most extreme ICEers -- a 23 year hard-bitten militant anti-Unity candidate --- a guy who makes me look like a pussycat and even scares me -- defeated an E4Eer in a chapter election in a small high school in the Bronx this past fall, an indication of the outrage of so many teachers. When I heard the news I said, "Holy shit," at the idea that in a school with younger teachers this guy would get their votes. So much for E4E having any traction in the schools. Even young teachers view them as a 5th Column. 

I pointed out the other day that E4E is not only a shill for BloomCott, Gates,  and other corp deformers, but also for the Moskowitz charter machine (E4E at Dec PEP Exposes Ties to Eva and Success).

E4Eer and friends frolicking at the PEP

Patrick Walsh, a chapter leader in Harlem -- and a candidate on the MORE elementary Exec Bd slate -- mauled E4E on his raging horse blog where he refers to the pathetic rally E4E held not long ago on a Sunday afternoon -- their first and last rally apparently, given they cannot control who can attend like they do at their bund meetings. Sieg Sydney.

Educator 4 Excellence and the Strings They Pull

January 3, 2013

Once again the farce that calls itself Educators for Excellence, a minuscule organization existing solely to implement the will of its hubristic and anti-democratic billionaire backers, most prominently Bill Gates and the hedge fund gang that calls itself Democrats for Education Reform, have managed to land yet another editorial in a major New York paper, this time the New York Daily News.

There is, of course, no sane reason that as microscopic an organization as is E4E would be treated with such respect and prominence other than the fact that the same people who have ponied up over two million dollars for the two year old propaganda group paid other people to make   some serious phone calls to the honchos at the DN and the heroes of the “Liberal Media” found it advantageous to do their bidding. Hence, another editorial for E4E.
It is more than ironic that these people have the gall to speak of merit.

The editorial, like Educators 4 Excellence itself, is pathetic.   And, like all the times I have actually encountered this deceptive little group, I was almost initially disarmed by pathos.  The last time was a few weeks back at a tiny and tinny E4E rally for the same cause in which head shill Evan Stone, with characteristic humility, bellowed idiotically into a microphone to his 30 or so followers, “ I am not satisfactory!  I am excellent!” with all the energy and passion of a lonely salamander.

For a moment I could not help but pity the poor fool who was trying so hard to please his ultra-wealthy employers who have removed him from the hard work of teaching so as to allow him to play dummy to their ventriloquist.     What else can one feel but pathos?

For a moment, anyway.

Read More

Back to Brooklyn College with Julie and Jack

Recently Julie Cavanagh (and Jack) and I were invited by professor Charisa Kiyô Smith as GEMers to speak to a class at Brooklyn College that had watched our movie in class the week before.  She wanted us to talk about activism. She described the class, Children and The Law, this way:

90% of my students are either already paras or teacher's aides, or seek to go into teaching full time. They would like to learn about becoming more involved in combating some of the destructive politics around education in this city. My students are frustrated at the purported lack of resources for traditional public schools, as well as the over-vigilance on certain aspects of performance and testing...

This was back in November. (I started to write about it but never finished.) I guess I assumed after seeing our film and being connected to the schools they would be receptive to our anti-charter message. Boy was I wrong. We actually did not find a sense of this activism, but rather a pro-charter point of view.

I learned a hell of a lot in this return to my alma mata - twice over -- undergrad - BA History, 66 and MA computer science c. 87. (Actually, almost a 3rd degree if I had completed those 2 missing papers for my abandoned MA in history c. 68.)

I dug up a 25 year old Brooklyn College sweatshirt that I could still squeeze into for this occasion. It didn't seem to impress anyone.

The most vocal students - some were parents - were pro-charter and trashed their local public schools. Rather than merely defend a position critical of charters was non-public, privately managed entities feeding off public money we were able to engage in a rich discussion of the nuances of why we stand where we do while also supporting the choices they are making for their children. We made sure to point out that the deterioration in their local public school was intentional given the fact that the people running the system want to make privatized charters the favored choice.

We fully understand that if a local public school was truly awful we have no right to tell parents to go in and fight, especially since they have been so marginalized. But we did talk about the unregulated aspect of charters, their marginalizing certain children by counseling them out -- which to some of these parents was a good thing. My insight here was that when we tracked in public schools the less poor of the poor and more highly motivated had a ready made sorting mechanism and were able to get their kids into the top classes and thus segregated from the worst trouble makers.

Under Tweed, they supposedly ended tracking which mixed classes but also has driven these former top class parents right into the arms of charters, which has become the new sorting mechanism, replacing the top class.

I know we talk about how charters often don't allow PTAs and also marginalize parents but I've been witness to how public school principals often do the same, and in fact often control the PTAs to their benefit. (I knew of many PTA presidents in poor communities who ended up with jobs for themselves or family members in the good old days of local patronage --- of course under Bloomberg the corruption is at a much higher level.)

What we said, and this seemed to resonate, was that in the long run, the attack is on the very concept of a neighborhood school and that at some point there would be mostly charters of one or more large chains controlled by outsiders offering little choice.

I came across this Nancy Flanagan tweet that touches on how choice eventually equals less choice:

@nancyflanagan

Irony of “school choice movement:” parents get far less “choice” than promised, many struggle to even find a school. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/21/the-future-of-d-c-public-schools/ …

This was not an easy concept to get across in the limited time we spent answering questions though we tried to point to New Orleans as a model of charterizing/privatizing turning into less choice.

But we found this mini-debate extremely clarifying for us and how we need to refine our message.

E4E at Dec PEP Exposes Ties to Eva and Success

When I got on the speakers' line at the Dec. 20 PEP at 5PM, low and behold there were a bunch of E4E staffers and other E4E slugs already on line in front of me. Was E4E going to use the occasion to push their anti-UFT agenda calling for giving up the fight for a fair evaluation agreement?

Not at all. In fact they were there as placeholders so Eva's crew could get to speak. These are the people calling on the UFT to give up the rights of teachers by signing on to an evaluation agreement based on junk science. And of course they support handing over entire public school buildings to Eva's growing real estate empire.

Here are the real people at the PEP.