The Loooong Week Ending in a B-Day Show Me the Beef

With today being my 68th birthday culminating with our yearly visit to "One if By Land" (Barrow St. in the village) where I get my required annual dose of Beef Wellington, I feel I need to review the past week of intensive activity. Wait, let me get my cell phone calendar out, as I can't remember past Friday.

My fave table by the window

Much of the week, with the due date March 6 to get on the ballot, was focused on managing the MORE petition campaign along with fellow retiree Ellen Fox. The two of us took care of the petitions in the 2007 and 2010 ICE campaigns. Ira Goldfine and Vera Pavone had done the 2004 initial ICE campaign and Ira was a vet from the 70's NAC coalition campaigns when we ran full slates of 800 people so he taught me well. I will get into some details of the petition campaign next week.

Last Saturday we held a long-planned MORE event at CUNY (see videos on the MORE site) where we asked people who had finished to turn in their petitions and also sign batches we had prepared. While trying to manage that I was also filming the event and also working on a MORE commercial and it was a rainy day which always screws things up. That was one of the most hectic days of the week. But they were all hectic.

Sunday we went up to visit our friend Gene in the hospital at Mt. Sinai and as we often manage to do, find a restaurant to top off the day. We has to prep our house for the beginning of a massive reconstruction job on our damaged areaa starting on Monday so we had to get home.

Future kitchen and new bathroom

 So Monday early, Matt, our contractor, arrived with 2 young -- very young -- workers and I gulped - until he told me that Mateo is the son of Jose who had done an amazing job on our bathroom reconstruction in September. After they ripped out the storm-damaged dowstairs bathroom we saw turmite damaged wood and rotting ceiling floor boards above from leaks in the upstairs bathroom: instant decision -- rip that one out too to make it easier to do the work. Only problem is we can't claim Sandy damage to that one. Oh, well, easy come, easy go.

Future studio apt for when wife throws me out

My day times most of the rest of the week were taken with looking for plumbing supplies, toilet decisions, tiles, etc. I visit Loews and Home Depot every day and now know every plumbing supply place in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, my wife, who has become an internet bunny who can turn up info on everything was chained to the computer researching shower bodies. (Not bad for someone who has no idea how to turn on the computer.)

But in the midst of all this I had to focus on making sure most petitions were delivered by Thurdsday eve, a decision we made to give us time to make sure all was in place. Thus began a mad scramble to get "where we stand" info from an enormous number of people -- this was my end of the responsibility while Ellen handled the candidate info. So I was semi-panicky all week that if my plan didn't work we would not be on the ballot after all that work. And I drove everyone crazy, myself and my wife included.

And we are still sharing one car so she gets it in the day and I get it late afternoon. This has put a crimp in my ability to go to schools to put lit in boxes but the amazing beauty of the MORE campaign is that I don't really have to since so many people are doing it -- a revelation for me who had to shlep all over the city in the past elections.

Tues night I signed up to cover the Graphics Communications closing schools hearing on W. 49th St. and that was a surreal event where the audience was mostly Eva's Success People who were getting the building, a few teachers and most bizarrely the UFT district rep and school chapter leader who spoke with folders hiding their faces to make sure I didn't film them while not being all that worried that Eva's hired cameraman was doing the same. As I said, BIZARRE, but that's Unity Caucus irrationality for you.

Weds we were getting 3 deliveries: tiles, a frig and a freezer and I had promised to go to Murry Begtraum to film Julie's appearance -- and OMG how great did Julie do with a crowd of vet teachers under attack -- a group some people had predicted that such a relatively young teacher and an elementary special ed teacher to boot, might have trouble with. Julie never ceases to amaze me. But I will tell you just why I think she is so awesome another time. The must see video will be up in a day or two.

Thursday was the major petition delivery day and we set up meeting spot at COSI near Union Sq. And MOREs came from all over to drop off petitions. When the day started I wasn't sure where we stood but at the end of the day we were in good shape -- and a special thanks to someone I won't name here -- a non MORE member - who in one day, responding to my sense of panic - responded by getting us 80 sigs. When I got that news I was able to relax for the first time. If he reads this he knows that I owe him big time for making this effort. (But I won't wash his car).

Friday was the Bay Ridge Happy Hour organized by Kit Wainer and Mike Schirtzer and I got even MORE petitions back. Plus some bar food and a few bears. What a relaxing way to spend time with current and future MOREs. We need MORE parties and less meetings. (Next MORE meeting btw is next Sat, Mar 9, which I can't make due to all day robotics at Javits -- come on down to that too.)

Saturday was petition organizing day at Gloria's in Park Slope. And what a pleasure to see both my favorite Julies on one place. Julie and Jack dropped in to drop off petitions and my old partner in crime in ICE -- the always amazing Julie Woodward (the Under Assault blog), who had retired a few years ago, came down from upstate to help us. And I forgot the unique organizing skills she brings to the table. What might have taken us the entire afternoon was completed in a few hours. Boy have I missed her. Oh how to drag her back into this work!

Thanks to Julie W I was able to race home to get ready to head over to the Rockaway Theatre Co. postponed production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Howard Beach (due to the Ft. Tilden theater needing mucho reconstruction). We first hit our fave Italian restaurant - Ginos in Howard Beach. I was taping so got a good spot. The show was so amazingly well done with such talented people on every level of the producation I can't contain myself. I am going back next Friday and maybe Saturday too. I will try to put up some highlights. GO if you can. They are raising funds to restore the theater. My fave moment was seeing one of the wonderful young actresses, a middle school science teacher, see a bunch of former students who showed up to see her. I got a great pic but won't put it up yet -- will the DOE put her in a rubber room for hugging former students?

And here I am, waiting for my wife to return upon which we will go to yet another plumbing supply store, then head over to hang out with Gene who was released from the hospital yesterday and then on to my meeting with Mr. Beef Wellington.

Please Join Us on Monday, March 11th for a community screening of 180 Days Well Spent

Participatory Action Research Center for Education Organizing (PARCEO)

In memory of Linda Levine, educator, activist for justice in education, and remarkable human being

Please join

Participatory Action Research Center for Education Organizing,

together with Bloomingdale Family Program; Change the Stakes;

Graduate School of Education, Bank Street College of Education;

Metro Center at NYU; New York Collective of Radical Educators; New

York Performance Standards Consortium; Parent Leadership

Project; Public Science Project of the CUNY Graduate Center;

Teacher’s College Institute for Urban and Minority Education; and

Time Out from Testing,

for a community screening of

180 Days Well Spent

a collaboration between parents and educators about creating good schools for our children without high stakes tests

Monday, March 11, from 6 until 8 PM at Cafe Amrita, 301 W 110th Street (between Frederick Douglass and Manhattan Avenue)

Children are welcome!

A discussion will follow the twelve-minute film with:

Dani Gonzalez, parent organizer, and Marilyn Barnwell,

Bloomingdale Family Program, both in the video; Ann Cook,

New York Performance Standards Consortium, co-founder,

Urban Academy, & one of the video’s editors; and Flor

Donoso, Parent Leadership Project.

Light food provided. Cash bar.

Moderated by educator Edwin Mayorga 

Portelos v DOE Motion To Dismiss Denied

GAME ON! Portelos could also sue the UFT over poor representation. Note his suit against his Chapter leader, a New Action Caucus candidate in the last election, Richard Candia.

Federal Judge to DOE: MOTION TO DISMISS DENIED

For those of you who are following my crazy saga, you know I filed a Federal lawsuit (Portelos v DOE) last June. It is against the City, DOE, and Berta Dreyfus IS 49 Principal Linda Hill. They attempted to silence a parent, who is an educator, who has a backbone and is apparently thousand times savvier than them…the failed.

The city attempted to dismiss my case and my attorney  Bryan Glass, Esq., just sent me great news this morning; honorable Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf has denied that motion. In non legal words…Game On! 


We start deposing witnesses soon. We are starting with Principal Linda Hill, former SLT Chairperson Susanne Abramowitz, former UFT Chapter Leader Richard Candia and former NYC DOE HR Director Andrew Gordon. 

“As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.” the Greek Philosopher Diogenes

Read the full document here: Portelos v DOE MTD Denied

UFT Defends Its Charter Co-loco

Really, there is nothing left to say. For once even I am speechless. For now.

From Gotham Schools.

NEWS: In a twist, UFT gets attacked over its charter school co-location

The strength of the United Federation of Teachers’ opposition to contested co-locations is being tested.

The union has been so hostile to the city’s controversial space-sharing arrangements within school buildings — particularly those involving charter schools — that it sued the Department of Education to put a stop to them. And union organizers have regularly rallied around unpopular co-locations as a potent weapon to discredit Mayor Bloomberg’s education policies.
But in a twist of fate, the union’s own embattled UFT Charter middle school is now set to move into public space where it’s not welcome. Students, teachers and the administration at J.H.S. 292, a 750-student district middle school with a gifted and talented program and robust performing arts offerings, are vehemently against the plan and organizing to reverse it.
According to the city’s planning documents, J.H.S. 292 is using twice as much space as it needs and would give up 21 of its 50 full-size classrooms to the incoming charter school. The UFT Charter School’s elementary grades already operate in the building.

All together, the UFT Charter School would have 40 classrooms next year, 11 more than J.H.S. 292, even though the two schools would have around the same number of students, according to Gloria Williams Nandan, J.H.S. 292′s principal.

At a public hearing about the space-sharing plan Wednesday evening, Williams Nandan said the disparity struck her as not just unfair, but a little ironic as well.

“Come September, our teachers will lose their classrooms and there begins their dilemma, for when our teachers are kicked out of their classrooms, to whom will they turn?” she testified. “Their union? Oops, sorry, it’s their school that would have taken over their classrooms.”

Supporters for J.H.S. 292 packed the school’s auditorium for the hearing. Eighty people, most of whom opposed to the plan, signed up to speak. In between, there were performances from a marching band, African drummers, karate students, and pairs of dancers doing the waltz.

Students have even written business letters to Chancellor Dennis Walcott aligned to Common Core literacy standards.

“The assignment was to express our opinions about the recent proposal,” said Isabel Lewis, an eighth-grader, explaining her work. She wrote that she opposed the plan because she was concerned about overcrowding and student safety. “Due to the fact that we had already learned persuasive writing recently, they wanted us to use the techniques they taught us.”
Allowing charter schools to share space with district schools at no cost has been a signature education policy of the Bloomberg administration. The policy has allowed the city’s charter sector to expand quickly in a city with a tight — and pricey — real estate market. It also let the Department of Education fill space vacated as the Bloomberg administration phased out more than 150 low-performing schools, in a school closure push that the UFT has resolutely opposed.

Usually, the union would get behind a school with so much community support in pushing back against a co-location plan.

“Our objections have been to co-locations where there isn’t enough room and/or community opposition,” UFT spokesman Dick Riley emailed Gotham Schools in response to a question about UFT Charter School’s proposed co-location plans.

But in this case, it was the UFT that asked for the city make the move. As part of a plan to improve the academic performance of its middle grades, the union sought to move the school under the same roof as its elementary school, which has been coexisted peacefully with J.H.S. 292 since 2005. In fact, the move was an important condition on which state education officials renewed the struggling charter school’s right to operate this week.
“It’s like you have this house where you use up every square inch of space and then you have to give up half that space to a school that really doesn’t deserve it,” said Jennifer Barrett, who coordinates J.H.S. 292′s performing arts programs, which she believes could be most affected.
Barrett was among several people at the hearing who questioned whether the UFT Charter middle school should even be allowed to stay open because its students have struggled academically for years.

Supporters of the co-location plan said that since city had already pegged J.H.S. 292′s building as underused, it would just fill the space with students from another school if the UFT Charter’s middle grades did not move in. It would be better, they said, to build on an existing relationship.
“All of the same things they’re concerned about, we’re concerned about,” said Craig Taylor, a music teacher in the UFT’s charter elementary school. “We just hope that we can make this work.”

Above, watch a video of Michael Maiglow’s testimony at Wednesday’s public hearing. Maiglow, a social studies teacher at J.H.S. 292, was among 80 speakers who signed up to testify at the heated hearing about the city’s plans to place a union-run charter school in a district school building.

MORE Releases UFT Election Ad

Share this with the people in your school.




http://youtu.be/XusIasWTHrg

Thanks to Darren and Mollie who took a big chunk of time to do the work on this. D and M were 2 of the key people on our film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman (which if you haven't, you should see why Julie and Brian are superb for leading the MORE slate).

D and M's next task is to put our film up on you tube in sections which MOREs will show to the people in their schools -- really the most comprehensive response to the ed deform movement. They have really turned into pros.

One of the great things about MORE has been so many people taking on different tasks, freeing me to laze around. Really, this election campaign has required less of me than any of the 3 previous ones, with the key being, other than petitioning, I don't have to make many decisions. "Just tell me what to do," is my mantra. But Mike Schirtzer (MORE VEEP cand) do you have to do that every 10 minutes? Looking forward to out drinking him at today's Bay Ridge happy hour.

Here is the email sent out.

Spread the word about a positive alternative to the UFT leadership... Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

Why we need MORE from our union  Take a few seconds to share this video link far and wide on Facebook, Twitter and encourage your friends, family  and colleagues to do the same.  http://youtu.be/XusIasWTHrg

Copyright © 2013 MORE Caucus, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are excited about changing the UFT and signed up at a MORE meeting or our website, MORECaucusNYC.org. Our mailing address is: MORE Caucus New York New York, NY 10001 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

http://morecaucusnyc.org

VOTE FOR MORE this April in the UFT officer elections!

A diverse slate of educators from across the city will challenge their union's incumbent officers in April's UFT election. Gathered under the banner of MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators), these UFT members have pledged to build alliances with parents and communities in an effort to stem the city and state's ongoing attacks on New York City's public schools. MORE is a positive alternative to the current leadership of their union.

MORE was formed in 2012 by UFT members working in all five boroughs, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Through their experiences as teachers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, related service providers, secretaries, and parents MORE members became frustrated by the current direction of education reform.

MORE's UFT Presidential Candidate Julie Cavanagh sees the union as a vehicle for positive change. As Cavanagh explained, "A school should be the heartbeat of its community, a place for educators, students, and families to come together. Instead, the Mayor has turned schools into test-prep factories, and UFT officials, who have supported Mayoral Control, have gone along with him." MORE believes "Our working conditions are our students' learning conditions!" We need union leaders that fight for the schools our children deserve.

In addition to running in this spring's UFT elections, MORE organizes events ranging from educational forums and protests to social gatherings. For information about MORE visit www.morecaucus.org. www.facebook.com/MOREcaucusNYC www.twitter.com/MOREcaucusNYC

Two MORE Happy Hours Today and Two Next Friday

MORE HAPPY HOURS FRIDAY MARCH 1, 8; 

CAMILLE AND JAMES WILL BE AT QUEENS GET TOGETHER AND I WILL BE AT THE BAY RIDGE EVENT WITH MIKE SCHIRTZER AND KIT WAINER.

We Promise - food, fun, drinks, great conversation, and good times!

Are you:

ü  Nervous about a pending teacher evaluation deal?

ü  Wondering what a more democratic, member led union could look like?

ü  Sick of the onslaught of paperwork, Danielson, Common Core, Test Prep, Unfair Evaluations?

Come meet MORE's candidates. We will have election literature to distribute at your school

We are a new rank and file organized caucus of the UFT, we are running in the April ’13 elections as a positive alternative to the current leadership

All Teachers, Counselors, Paras, School Staff  and Friends are welcome.

Please bring all your friends and forward this email

Fri March 1st 4-7pm Bay Ridge Brooklyn 

Harp Bar

7710 3rd Ave (btwn 77th & 78th St)

https://www.facebook.com/events/532409363448887/

Fri March 1st 5-7pm Nassau/Queens 

Nancy's Restaurant

255-41 Jericho Turnpike (near Little Neck Parkway)

Floral Park

Fri, March 8^th4:30 – 6:30 Uptown Manhattan

Noche Mexicano

842 Amsterdam Ave at West 102nd St

Fri. March 8th 4-7pm Bronx

The Clock Bar

112 Lincoln Ave. btwn Bruckner Blvd and 134th St

https://www.facebook.com/events/380286228745924/

The Distributive Law, Redux

I rewrote the piece for The Wave to make it more Rockaway specific. Jeez, looking at the crap I blog aboug a week later makes me realize just how crappy it is in first draft. I really ought to read my stuff sometimes before hitting "send." It will be in the Mar. 1 or Mar. 8 edition of The Wave.

The Distributive Law
By Norm Scott

Some people ask why I am so pissed at the UFT’s Unity Caucus which has run the union since 1960. Among many reasons: if the UFT had taken an early stand against the assault on neighborhood schools by closing them down- at all levels, but in particular the high schools, there was a chance to have undermined the education deform “everyone needs choice more than one quality local school” leading to closing/opening/closing/multiple schools in a building. Attending the Sheepshead Bay HS closing hearing on Feb. 20 reinforced my reaction. I said this to the UFT Brooklyn Borough Rep as I handed him a leaflet with good talking points about how closing ANY school is bad policy. If the UFT had been able to look ahead -- like so many progressive people were able to do (The Wave from as far back as when Far Rock was closed) - well, that's spilt milk. The UFT prefers to forget history.

Out of schools on a regular basis for 8 years, I break into a cold sweat walking into one. The UFT election campaign forces me to visit schools to put MORE election materials in mailboxes, which the DOE allows us to do. I begin at the K-8 school on my corner: DENIED, despite showing the Assistant Principal a permission letter. “I’ll ask the chapter leader to do it," she said. I explain there are different caucuses in the union and the CL might not be interested, especially if a member of Unity Caucus. Then: "I'll have a school aide do it." I explain the DOE doesn't want employees being used which is why we have permission. Still NO. "I'll have Tweed give you a call and I'll be beck," using my best Arnold voice. And I will.

On to Beach Channel campus with 4 or 5 schools (I lose count). Roam through one of these institutions and get a picture of the failure of the Bloomberg “multiple-schools-in-one building” policy. At the metal detectors I run into a MORE supporter, one of 19 teachers left at Beach Channel. He does his mailboxes. Now to find the other schools. People don’t seem to know how many schools in the building or where they are. Islands in the stream. Loads of security people sitting in hallways – schools protecting themselves against the others? BCHS campus, a sprawling 3 story building, used to be chock full of activities all over the place, full of life, as all comprehensive high schools used to be. Now? The overall bustle seems missing, except for the pockets each school occupies. Every single person I meet is extremely cooperative and friendly and kids seem nice.

I talk to a secretary (each school has 1 or 2). We know many people in common and did the Sandy personal recap. When a school like BCHS had 10-12 secretaries there was a division of labor. Now in each school enormous work falls on a few, multiplied by 5 schools. Imagine: paying 4 or 5 principals, APs, secretaries with who knows how much duplication of work? Bloomberg a great business manager? Just as Ma Bell was broken up and recombined into basically two companies today, one day all these fragmented schools will start merging or absorbing each other. Makes good business sense. The Bloomberg era is about politics, no education, and in the long run, not about good business sense.

Then, on to the local 6-12 school across the street, competing on different grades with the high schools at BCHS and the K-8 school a mile away. One of the BCHS schools opened a few years ago, was flying high but suffers as the nearby 6-12 school draws some top students. Imagine: 4 or 5 high schools within 300 feet of each other. Of course this hard to get into 6-12 school can't take all kids, so there have to be other schools that will be forced to. Thus, the reinforcement of a dual school system – for both students and teachers – think of the different conditions teachers and students face in the schools with different populations just down the hall or across the street. How crazy is this?

Then off to another elementary school building with 2 elementary schools on different floors. Am I dreaming or in the midst of a nightmare? The former neighborhood school in that building was closed down -- twice in a 5 year period with mostly new teachers each time. I remember going there with leaflets in Jan. 2009 when the school was being closed/phased out for the second time. Really, someone ought to do a book. If there are any real investigative ed reporters left in town, an expose on this entire sham.

Rockaway could be the laboratory.

Norm slogs and blogs at ednotesonline.com.

Video: MORE Candidates at NYCORE - Cavanagh, Jones, Eterno, Fiorillo

Julie and Brian brought the social justice component of MORE, Camille the trade unionism and Michael synthesized them both.... comment after NYCORE/MORE event.

NYCORE is an important component of MORE. A group of mostly young teachers, many of whom do not feel connected to the UFT, this Feb. 22 event was a first official meeting of NYCORE and the top MORE candidates which consist of the long active ICE people like the Eternos and Fiorillo and the newer union activists like Cavanagh and Jones (though not new - he was part of TJC - Brian has taken on a much larger role in union politics).

It has not been a secret that there has been a sort of yin/yang inside MORE between the  trade unionism of older ICEers and the social justice aspect of the newer generation of teachers. Julie comes out of GEM, a sort of offshoot of ICE, so she stands somewhere in the middle. (And yesterday at Murry Bergtraum, she really nailed the synthesis -- video this weekend).

In the early days someone said if we could manage to put these 2 ideas together and attract people from both angles we are on to something. I have to say, this has not been an easy process at times -  as someone with a foot in each point of view -- and let me declare right here that even within ICE I was more in the social justice camp -- but things have moved forward internally as people who did not know each other begin to work together.

Thus, this event sponsored by NYCORE led by key NYCORE union activists who have done so much within NYCORE to create more of a balance between pedagogy and union was an important bridge building opportunity. As I've said, trying to build a new caucus out of different cultures is not easy under any circumstances but extremely difficult in the midst of an election campaign. Which was why I was opposed to running a year ago. I was wrong.

In fact, as people pointed out -- and I was skeptical -- the election will be used to build the caucus as the highest priority over just trolling for votes and then going away for 3 years. That is the biggest threat to Unity - -- not this election -- but what MORE does over the next 2 years.

I have been involved on the edge of NYCORE for a decade, the only ICE person who worked with them and found many misconceptions about NYCORE inside ICE and some initial reluctance given a view that there was not a sense of trade union consciousness and possibly a touch of ed deform "bad teaching is the problem". That has not turned out to be true and this event served to bridge some of that gap as the ICE crew saw that these young teachers are just as interested in tenure, protecting their rights, etc but without a union to back them up are not sure how to go about it.

I got there too late to catch Julie's statement but got the others and all of their responses to questions. Camille doesn't get out to as many events due to childcare and a very busy schedule so it was an absolute pleasure to hear her and enlightening for many of the audience.

Videos will play best and in larger format at you tube but I cut down the size for faster loading and included them here as a convenience.

MORE Candidates at NYCORE: Camille Eterno, UFT Treasurer 

http://youtu.be/gIUkY3BJUjY




Michael Fiorillo

http://youtu.be/dP2s7hj1IsM




Brian Jones

http://youtu.be/Azj72H_xMrM





Julie Cavanagh and Camille Eterno response during Q and A.

http://youtu.be/ogmvhv0TDF8




Jones and Fiorillo Respond on Q and A

http://youtu.be/Mvdp6o6Nwto

Fighting Eva at the Ramparts: Use Publicity to Affect Her Enrollment and Reduce Profitability

I get these emails all the time because the UFT is absent from this battle (except for some minor efforts). The other day from a parent in District 30 and now from a Harlem teacher. Eva is our best organizer as people looked to GEM and now MORE to assist them in the absence of the UFT from this fight.

Norm, do you have information to convey to me as to how to stop Eva Moskowitz from bringing her Harlem Success Academy into a school. The school is having a meeting tomorrow to with parents, staff and political officials to discuss how to stop this woman.

01: How can the school show and prove how unfair it is for Moskowitz to bring in over 500 of their students and displace about 80 students in a current school?

02: Can the Campaign for Fiscal Equity be used to be thwart Moskowitz's grab for all of the money that should go to the traditional public school kids?

03: What arguments can be presented to parents, staff, politicians and others to use against Moskowitz to galvanize support and belief that the school can be saved?

04: What successes have been used to stop Moskowitz?

My response was:

I have to tell you that no one has been able to stop her. The city is in her hand. The state is in her hand and the UFT is toothless -- they are the only ones with the power and money to do anything. Some parent groups are out there fighting. Until we can stop mayoral control (which the UFT supports) they can do anything they want.

I immediately contacted Brooke Parker, a WAGPOPS Williamsburg based parent activist who, given what looks like another Eva slam dunk, offers some hope based on educating as many people as possible. You can see some of those efforts with this post on Ed Notes the other day: Brooklyn Success Academy Parents Dropping Out.

Here is Brooke's comment:

Eva's won just about every fight she's fought. But here are some of the things we did that helped change local public opinion and impacted her enrollment of students in our district:

- Gather information about your area schools - how many K-5s do you have? What are their pops of Free lunch, Reduced lunch, ELL, etc.,

- Develop partnerships with your local activists from other fronts - environment, immigration, people of color, workers rights, etc., These issues are tied together.

- We had someone sign up for the Success Academy mailing list who pretended to be interested to spy and get us all kinds of information, including when they were holding information sessions. We had about 20 parents with their children stand outside a Success Academy "Meet the Principal" event passing out this flyer and flyers about neighborhood schools and warmly invited those parents to meet OUR principals and tour OUR schools. I'd never seen Eva & her crew sweat so hard.

- CONSTANTLY stress that these schools are NOT for your neighborhood kids - particularly the ELLs. Norm wrote about how their handbook wasn't even available in Spanish (though it might be now), but it still points out how ELL and working parents are unable to thrive in that environment. http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/04/success-academy-family-handbook-only.html

- The message we put out there is that our neighborhood schools are strong and we want our kids in class together.

I'm enclosing an example of a sheet we put together.

See text below and note that this is the work the UFT should be using its resources to doing instead of pouring good money after bad into its own co-located charter school. Note the GEM link -- again -- doing the work the UFT didn't.

Teachers Union's Own Charter School Gets Scathing Report

This is actually painful to read. Calling all Unity slugs who slavishly went along with Randi on this despite warnings from many of us. But history doesn't count to them.

Missing from this report is the co-location issue. The middle school is housed at IS 166K - George Gershwin -- which had its closing hearing last Thursday, a story that has not been connected by the press to the occupation by the UFT charter. (I was in the first grad class of IS 166 in 1959.)

Nice irony that James Merriman (with much glee I bet) is giving the UFT advice on how to fight this. And note how much money from the UFT treasury is being pumped into these schools along with even more money from the AFT. If the UFT fought SUNY supported charters like Success front and center does the UFT fear SUNY punish the UFT politically? Or does Suny think they have done too much to fight Eva and is punishing them?

Oh, the intrigue.

Teachers Union's Own Charter School Gets Scathing Report

http://www.schoolbook.org/2013/02/25/teachers-unions-own-charter-school-gets-scathing-report/

Feb. 25, 2013, 5:44 p.m.

By Beth Fertig

Poor student performance, troubled finances and even a few cases of corporal punishment were cited in a harsh new review of a charter school run by the United Federation of Teachers. The report was released by the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute whose trustees will decide on Tuesday whether the struggling Brooklyn school should be closed.

Ten charter schools authorized by SUNY are up for renewal; the U.F.T. Charter School was the only one that didn’t receive a green light to continue operating. The reviewers said they could not make a recommendation either way because the data “does not present a uniform case for renewal or non-renewal.”

The case is highly unusual. James Merriman, chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, said he could not recall another instance when SUNY’s reviewers didn’t offer a recommendation one way or another for a charter school with such a long track record.

The mixed review of the U.F.T. charter school presents an awkward situation for the union. Shelia Evans-Tranumn, the school’s executive director, issued a statement saying the union appreciates the SUNY Charter Institute’s analysis but that it took issue with some of the assertions by its reviewers.

The union opened the school in 2005 to demonstrate that unions and charters are not mutually exclusive. The school, located in East New York, Brooklyn, serves children in kindergarten through 12th grade at two campuses. In 2010, it was given a conditional, three-year renewal instead of a full five-year renewal because of its anemic test scores and other academic indicators. But a short-term renewal like that can only be granted once, and the union has been fighting to prove the school has improved and deserves a full five-year renewal.

The reviewers who visited the school’s two campuses last fall found “strong” performance on state exams in grades 3 and 4, and said they would have recommended a full renewal for the elementary school if it stood on its own. More than 60 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math last year. But that figure was cut in half among eighth graders. Reviewers labeled the academic outcomes in grades 6-8 as “poor,” adding that if this was a separate middle school it would not meet SUNY’s renewal criteria. They said they couldn’t make a recommendation for the high school because it hadn’t been around long enough to graduate any students.

Some of the other findings:

- The secondary campus has lacked stability with five principals in seven years. Teacher attrition had begun to improve, but there was “limited instructional coaching that is not targeted to improving individual teacher skills in a sustained and coherent manner.”

- School leaders reported that “staff had been counseled on appropriate interaction with students following approximately 10 corporal punishment incidents.” This followed a crackdown on discipline.

- The staff reported “chronic shortages of textbooks and unrepaired equipment.”

- The school never reported test results for standardized national exams in math and English for its high school students. After the school administered the tests in 2012, “the student test booklets were lost and the publisher never received them for scoring.” However, other high school data indicates the school is on track to meet its graduation goal.

- A review of board minutes found “numerous, apparently systemic, Open Meetings Law violations.”

- “The school is in poor fiscal condition” partly because of attrition. Many elementary students did not move on to the UFT’s middle and high school campus, which contributed to budget shortfalls. The school relied on interest-free bridge loans from the U.F.T. to support day to day operations. As of June, 2012 the school had $2.5 million in total liabilities versus total assets of $1.2 million.

- The school was in violation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, because it had a number of students who required more restrictive classroom settings than the school offered.

- The school “was in violation of state law requiring that school personnel (and certain contractors with direct access to students) be subject to a fingerprint-supported criminal background check prior to appointment at the school. At the time of the renewal inspection visit, the school was unable to produce evidence that five individuals were appropriately cleared for employment.”

- The school received a D on its last report card from the city, which covered only the elementary and middle grades. Just about a third of its students were reading at grade level overall.

The school’s executive director said some changes have been made since the reviewers visited last fall. Fingerprints for all staffers are now on file, she said, and “all substantiated incidents of inappropriate discipline – often involving verbal rather than physical confrontations – have resulted in further training for the staff involved.”

She also said some parents of a “small number of special needs children” decided to seek transfers to other schools that could meet their needs.

The three SUNY trustees considering the school’s renewal request at their 10 a.m. meeting on Tuesday could vote to keep the elementary school open while closing the upper grades. Or they could elect to close the entire school. The U.F.T. had planned to move the middle school grades to the same campus as the elementary pupils next fall. Both locations share buildings with regular city public schools.

“I think it’s pretty clear that in terms of the U.F.T. charter school itself, and any school that fails to meet any of its performance metrics, that it’s really hard to make a case for renewal,” said Merriman, of the city’s charter center.

“In the case of the U.F.T. charter school, that’s true of the middle school grades. But I think also it’s becoming increasingly clear that if you look at other renewal decisions – whether by SUNY or the New York City Department of Education and the state Board of Regents – it seems to me that the standard for renewal is becoming dangerously low.”

Merriman suggested that the U.F.T. might point to a charter school in Buffalo, and to the Sisulu-Walker charter in Harlem, for examples of schools that got full renewals with about the same performance as the union’s elementary charter school.

Beth Fertig is a senior reporter at WNYC. Follow her on Twitter @bethfertig

Media Member Raises Question Over UFT Capitulation of Collective Bargaining to Will of Cuomo as He Echoes Scott Walker

Hey Norm, Why isn't there more pushback from union folks over Cuomo directing NYSED to impose an eval system? Isn't that taking control of something that should be collectively bargained? ---- Reporter for a major media outlet

Well, some astute people in the press get what the UFT doesn't. My response was: you just wrote a MORE election ad.

What can one say? Well, I'll let the crew at MORE respond.

First a comment from Sean Ahern, who was one of the founders of ICE (the germ of idea was hatched while sitting on the beach on August 2003 day) followed by the entire MORE statement:

It’s one thing for the state to impose junk science evaluations on NYC teachers that violate the existing UFT contract, it’s quite another for the officers of the UFT to call this attack on working and learning conditions an “arbitration.”

Cuomo and King are engaged in union busting, privatizing and have picked up the club from Bloomberg to ensure that his successor will continue the corporate education reform policies.

The Unity Caucus leadership of the UFT is misrepresenting the true state of affairs in the hope that an apathetic membership will stay that way. Some “Unity.” Some “leadership.”

We need organizers and critical thinkers, not bureaucrats and sycophants, to defend public education and teacher unionism. We need honesty, not howling absurdities that mask the true state of affairs.

Is this too “radical” an alternative for the working teachers of NYC to demand from their leaders? Join with your fellow teachers and help create a new school based leadership and grassroots culture of democracy and activism in the UFT and in our school communities. Please consider joining the Movement of Rank and File Educators today. --- Sean Ahern

Mulgrew: “Impose Evals on Us”

A recent update from the UFT sent out to school Chapter Leaders reads:

Teacher eval impasse will go to binding arbitration if no agreement reached by May

“Given the city’s failure to meet the state-imposed Jan. 17 deadline, which cost our schools $240 million, the governor added an amendment to his budget submission on Thursday that empowers state Education Commissioner John King to act as a binding arbitrator to settle any elements of the agreement that have not been finalized in negotiations by May 29. In that event, after reviewing position papers and hearing oral arguments by both sides in May, Commissioner King will establish New York City’s new teacher evaluation plan by June 1.”

In this same email to chapter leaders, Dr. King was referred to as

“a lifelong educator who is serious about education, who has approved more than 700 evaluation plans across New York State”

Of course, teaching for three years, receiving public funds to run  charter schools and being an appointed bureaucrat does not meet our definition of ‘life-long educator’.  But of Dr. King’s work, UFT President Mulgrew has said

“We’ve seen the kinds of plans the state has approved and we are comfortable with them because they are about helping teachers help kids”.

The fact that there is no evidence that these plans have helped teachers to help students is a point that has been made time and again. In fact, with the increased testing that will be required, this plan can have only a negative impact on our students’ education.  But that this evaluation will be imposed notwithstanding our collective bargaining rights is a point that, while we’ve made in the past, we feel we must make here again.

To be clear, the assertion of the union’s leadership that the ultimate decision will be rendered by Dr. King (and that that is OK) is deplorable to the extreme. MORE has, in the past, described this move as “Surrendering Our Collective Bargaining Rights” and has been attacked by the Unity Caucus, the caucus of Michael Mulgrew and the current union leadership, for saying so. MORE knew very well that Unity’s response (that part of Collective Bargaining is the ability to turn to an arbitrator to settle disputes between labor and management) was without merit when applied to this scenario.

We knew this for two reasons: 1.The process of arbitration depends on relying on a fair and independent arbitrator (Dr. King, who is responsible for creating much of the current education policy in New York State, is anything but a fair an independent arbitrator) 2. Any responsible union, lead by people who care about the status of their members, would seek only a fair and independent arbitration process.

The bold arrogance revealed by UFT leadership of the Unity Caucus in this Chapter Leader update leaves even us a bit  taken aback. It  does, however, afford us the opportunity to examine exactly how Unity has sold out our collective bargaining rights by taking a closer look at exactly what a fair and independent arbitrator is and detailing how Dr. King is in a position to act as anything but a fair and independent arbitrator over this issue.

Most arbitration cases between the UFT and the Department of Education, binding or otherwise, are handled by the American Association of Arbitrators. That organization was founded in 1926 and is the nation’s leading organization for settling collective bargaining disputes between labor and management. Recent UFT cases arbitrated by the AAA include the 2012 UFT/CSA victory that stopped the mayor from closing twenty-four schools and excessing half of the staff from each of the those schools and the recent UFT SESIS victory which allowed special education teachers to be paid for the forced overtime incurred during the 2011 and 2012 academic year.

It is with good reason that the UFT has turned to this organization to settle disputes in the past, as the AAA sets a very high standard for exactly who can and cannot be an arbitrator. In order to become an arbitrator on the AAA’s Labor Panel, one must be on a list called the “Roster of Neutrals”. This roster only accepts applicants who meet a very high level of standards. Among those requirements are a list of basic qualifications. Let’s review those requirements and ask whether Dr. King meets the standard of being a fair and independent arbitrator.

1. Experience.  Applicants “must have a minimum of 10 years senior-level business or professional experience” and have “hands-on knowledge about Labor Relations”. Dr. King was twenty-eight years old ten years ago and was leading Roxbury Prep Charter School in Massachusetts  As this is a non-union charter school, it cannot be said that Dr. King developed a ‘hands-on knowledge’ of Labor Relations during this time and he cannot be considered to have developed ‘senior-level’ business experience. Yet the Unity Caucus premises that he does.

In addition, the AAA demands that its applicants have ”training and experience [specifically] in arbitration”. Dr. King, who attended the nation’s leading universities developed a vast amount of training in education and education policy over the course of his career, but not in labor related arbitration. Therefore, it can easily be concluded, by anyone except the Unity Caucus of the UFT, that Dr. King does not possess the training or the experience to be an arbitrator.

2. Neutrality In order to be an arbitrator, applicants must meet the AAA’s high standards of neutrality. These standards include “freedom from bias” and an ability to “evaluate legal principles”. Most specifically, arbitrators ”cannot be an active advocate for labor or for management.”  Doesn’t his current status as the Commissioner of Education, a leader in the education reform movement in New York State, and his past status as founder of the UncommonSchools  network of charter schools (a charter network that hires non-unionized teachers) clearly demonstrate that he is not free from bias? Our union leadership does not seem to think so.

Let’s take a moment to examine whether or not Dr. King is an “advocate for management“ with regard to this matter.  He was the Deputy Commissioner of Education when the system was negotiated and debated (and ultimately ratified) by the state’s legislature in 2010. He has written all of the regulations and guidelines around the creation and implementation of this system as it will exist in the state’s 694 school districts. He has had the singular power to approve or deny the teacher evaluation agreements that have been reached between school districts and their union. And let us not forget that Dr. King was the one who insisted that a teacher not be able to earn an effective rating on the new system unless his or her students perform well on standardized tests (a system that has led to the outcry of how forty (the amount that objective measures will be worth) will equal one-hundred percent of a teacher’s rating (see here)).

What kind of union would attempt to convince their membership that the very person who has been responsible for creating, revising, approving and implementing this new evaluation system can possibly be a fair and independent arbitrator in a labor dispute?

Only the leadership of our union. Only the Unity Caucus.

Leaders of the Unity Caucus, in their zeal to accuse the Movement Of Rank and File Educators of not understanding the basic principles of collective bargaining, have failed to admit that arbitration itself hinges on the training, the experience and the non-bias of the person who is acting as the arbitrator of an issue. Why have they hidden this obvious truth? Only two possibilities can explain: 1. They do not know what fair and independent arbitration is. 2. They simply do not care.

As troubling as this is, our examination has thus far centered around one type of arbitration; the grievance arbitration. There is a basic difference between agrievance arbitration (such as the ones mentioned above) and a contractualarbitration. Grievance arbitrations, which address alleged breaches of the contract, occur quite often. However what is before us, what the UFT Chapter Leader update identified as ‘binding arbitration’, is a contractual binding arbitration; a decision that will allow major parts of our contract to be altered. The UFT has stood firm in not allowing binding arbitration to determine its contract for decades.

But, of course, this is a different UFT.

The issues over which the Unity leadership is going to allow Dr. King to ‘arbitrate’ (a role he is clearly not qualified to fill) address a broad swath of present and future working conditions for teachers across the city.  For instance, Under what circumstances can a teacher be fired for incompetence? Who, if no future agreement can be reached, will decide how teachers are evaluated after this agreement sunsets in one, or two years?  These decisions, the Unity Caucus believes, would be better left to Dr. John King; Commissioner of NYSED, than to the collective bargaining process that has been established.

But, of course, truth is that the Unity leadership knows full well what a real arbitration process is. A much more accurate (and truthful) way of describing what is about to happen is to call it out for what it is: Imposing an agreement. This is how UFT spokesman Peter Kadushin identified it:

“The UFT would prefer a negotiated settlement with the Department of Education, but … is supportive of the state imposing one if an agreement cannot be reached.”

Perhaps Mr. Kadushin should be writing the Chapter Leader updates?

We do not want our union to surrender our rights of collective bargaining –not to SED, nor the courts nor the governor. Like teachers in Chicago and Seattle, we believe that educators have the power to organize and to fight. The Unity leadership may tergiversate over this issue until the cows come home. But we see their actions for what they are and the Movement of Rank and File Educators believe that teachers do not have to surrender. In fact, it is the last thing that we should do.

Brooklyn Success Academy Parents Dropping Out

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "When will we start talking to charter school paren...":

I am a former Brooklyn Success Academy parent. I can assure you that the attrition is quite high. We left midyear with 3 other students. There are 4 others who plan to leave at the end of the year. This particular first grade class started out with 26 children. Down to 22 mid year and when June comes it will be down to 18. These numbers and accurate and TRUE but you will never see any of this on reports because as soon as students leave they get replaced. SA bumps up kindergarten students to first grade and then brings in new kindergarten kids to fill in at the lower grades.