UFT Used $250K COPE Money to Support Gambling

The United Federation of Teachers deposited $250,000 in the account from two of its political action funds.... Capital NY

Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for this.

Oh what fun. Having COPE money spent not on fighting ed deform but promoting gambling. I didn't know Paul Egan liked the dice so much. I took a shot in a recent Wave column at my City Councilman, Republican Erich Ulrich, for promoting casinos and asked how much he got from them.

By the way, people trying to leave COPE often are ignored. The right way is to never leave but get a change in contribution application and write in a nickel. Now I am generally in favor of COPE -- if we had a democratically run member-driven union instead of a slush fund for the leadership to use as it sees fit.

Tear down that wall, Mr. Mulgrew.

ALBANY—Gambling companies account for the vast majority of the $2.075 million raised by a pro-casino PAC, campaign disclosures show.

As we reported on Thursday, owners of the race-track slot parlors in Yonkers and Tioga contributed to the effort, as did track-casinos in Saratoga Springs ($250,000) and the Aqueduct site in Queens ($500,000). Other contributors include the Pequot tribe ($100,000), which runs the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut and is interested in developing a new resort at the old Grossinger's site, as well as the real estate investment trust that developed New Roc City in Westchester County. The United Federation of Teachers deposited $250,000 in the account from two of its political action funds.

The PAC has so far spent $360,000 on digital advertising, mail advertising and production of a pair of ads released Thursday.

Here is a comment on the ICE listserve:

Who's feelin' lucky this morning?

Two to one odds  if you raised a delegates' card to bring up this "investment" during the question period you'd be treated like you don't know the first thing about "growing the economy" or the critical need to "bring prosperity" to upstate New York.

Why does our union need to ingratiate itself to another elite club with a scheme to create more winners and losers (and mostly losers)?  Because it's really not our union anymore.  It's a racket with rich friends.

 

Portelos Chapter Leader Recall Attempt Fails - Again

I heard teachers looking to recall me were disrupting lessons today to remind educators to vote. Remember not voting, was a vote in my favor. Disrupting lessons? I’m not happy.... I’m here. You have my email and my number. I am still your chapter leader.....

Francesco Portelos

Well, there goes the case the DOE is trying to prove. That Portelos is a loner. And dangerous. And feared and shunned by the staff he used to work with. So in a school with an abusive principal and a few of her henchslugs who spew real fear and loathing, they still can't manage to uproot this guy from his basis of support.

I can't wait to see those slugs testify. (Next hearing date: Tues., Oct. 29, 10AM.)

http://protectportelos.org/todays-recall-election-result/#lightbox/0/

The third attempt recall me as UFT Chapter Leader failed as well. I’m not happy though. I’m not doing a “nanny-nanny-poo-poo I’m still the chapter leader” post here. I’m not happy, because there is a group that is not willing to work with us at IS 49. I have emailed them and called and asked that we all work together, but that is not what they seem to want.

I heard teachers looking to recall me were disrupting lessons today to remind educators to vote. Remember not voting, was a vote in my favor. Disrupting lessons? I’m not happy.

In any case, let’s move Forward…shall we? We have a lot of work to do and a big rally on Monday to oppose the co-location of Eagle Academy in our school. Stop the Co-Location info.
I’m here. You have my email and my number. I am still your chapter leader.
Should anyone at IS 49 want to go for a fourth attempt, let me make it a little easier.
Download this attachment, print, fill out and sign it. Otherwise assist the rest of us or get out of our way. www.is49uft.org

MORE's Paul Hogan in The Riverdale Press: Common sense, not Common Core

It is dangerously easy for education administrators to lose sight of the needs of the students they are supposed to serve when one’s daily reality never involves firsthand work with students.

The Common Core in District 75 is an abstraction for some who see the world of education only in terms of theory. 

However, Common Core is an added distraction and superfluous obstacle for those professionals in the trenches who are serious about bettering the lives of the young people in their charge. 

Those individuals have enough obstacles to deal with.     ...  Paul Hogan, Riverdale Press

 

Paul  Hogan is a member of the United Teacher’s Federation caucus of the Movement of Rank and File Educators.  He is a retired public school teacher who taught for 27 years in District 75.

I learned some educational jargon bullshit from reading Paul's piece.

By Paul Hogan

Posted 10/17/13

The article in the Oct. 3, edition of The Press entitled “Special ed teachers find new curriculum a challenge,” throws a welcome light on a profoundly troubling aspect of the Common Core curriculum: Its oafish insistence that the educational needs and characteristics of all children are essentially identical.

District 75 is devoted specifically to the education of students with severe and profound disabilities. Still, Deputy Superintendent Barbara Joseph appears to defend the extension of Common Core to classrooms throughout the district. 

Dismissing the concerns of classroom teachers that Common Core is a poor match for children with severe disabilities, Ms. Joseph says, “You have to be able to do backward designing. You have to be able to unpack that standard. You have to meet the student at their functional level.” 

Full article.

Obama, in P-Tech Visit, Walks on Bones of Dead School And Pushed Out Students in P-Tech Visit

Robeson, which had a capacity of 1,000 students, Siegel said, found itself with 1,500 in 2005. "That's when we started having a lot of incidents, gang issues, things that didn't come into the building before that," Siegel said. "This is the story of all the schools that got closed down. We had the lowest dropout rates in the city, kids didn't leave, but it wasn't balanced. what it became was over 30 percent high-needs students, and no institution can survive that sudden change."... When P-Tech moved into the building, the two schools shared a cafeteria. Robeson students found themselves eating lunch at 2 p.m. The students lost access to parts of the building. The remaining Robeson students, Siegel said, are mostly "overage, unaccredited kids.".... Huffington Post

What better vision of neo-liberal Obama than his visit to a school loaded with resources co-located into the building of a school starved of resources to the point of being closed? Sometimes it is all about real estate.

One Sure Thing: Most Robeson Kids Not Wanted in P-Tech. Our film opens with Robeson kids protesting at the PEP with the cry: DOE Doesn't Care About Us. Amen.

Huffington Post (excerpts): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/obama-p-tech_n_4160548.html

Bloomberg's time as mayor have been defined by school turnover. While charter schools have received the most attention, Bloomberg created 654 new schools -- of which only 173 were charters -- and shuttered 164 schools for low academic performance. Many of them are small schools. (A recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of 101 such small schools found their students 7 percent more likely to attend college than peers in big public schools.) Many of the new schools have moved into buildings being vacated by doomed schools as they're phased out, a process city school officials call "co-location."

Bloomberg's drive to shut down big campuses generated raucous public hearings and school walkouts. De Blasio, who will likely succeed Bloomberg, called for a moratorium on closures and co-locations.
 
The school closings also are unpopular with some school communities. "The whole closing of schools is musical chairs," said Stefanie Siegel, who left Robeson in 2012 after teaching there for almost a quarter-century. "It does a lot of damage to community."

Robeson opened in the 1980s in partnership with Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street firm where Bloomberg started his career. As Siegel described it, the firm's promises were similar to IBM's for P-Tech.

But in 2002, Bloomberg and his schools chancellor Joel Klein started the small schools movement. Many big high schools were disbanded, and students who didn't attend the new schools shifted to the remaining big schools.

Robeson, which had a capacity of 1,000 students, Siegel said, found itself with 1,500 in 2005. "That's when we started having a lot of incidents, gang issues, things that didn't come into the building before that," Siegel said. "This is the story of all the schools that got closed down. We had the lowest dropout rates in the city, kids didn't leave, but it wasn't balanced. what it became was over 30 percent high-needs students, and no institution can survive that sudden change." A longtime basketball coach faced allegations of a long-term affair with a former student, and killed himself. A few abrupt changes of principals followed.

Scores dropped, and the city school governance panel -- whose members are mostly appointed by Bloomberg -- decided the school should be closed. A lawsuit filed by the United Federation of Teachers union stalled the closure for a year, allowing teachers and students fighting to save Robeson time to improve graduation rates.
But again in 2011, Robeson wound up on the city's closure list. “Roughly half of the kids who come to this school will graduate,” Deputy Chancellor John White -- who now oversees education in Louisiana -- said at a hearing, as reported by the GothamSchools blog. “Our goal is to change the outcome for kids.”
Lizabeth Cooper, a 2012 Robeson alumna who advocated for the school and now studies at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, said her school was full of energy until it was slated for closure.
"Everything that was, wasn't anymore," Cooper said. "If you yell at someone, the prettiest person in the world, 'You're ugly, you're ugly, you're ugly,' at some point they're going to think they're ugly. That's what the media did to my school -- they drained it, and they turned it into crap, and that's what my school became."
When P-Tech moved into the building, the two schools shared a cafeteria. Robeson students found themselves eating lunch at 2 p.m. The students lost access to parts of the building. The remaining Robeson students, Siegel said, are mostly "overage, unaccredited kids."
The Robeson students are "second-class citizens," said Justin Wedes, an Occupy Wall Street activist who worked with Robeson. "They're stuck on a sinking ship." From 5 to 15 students regularly attend, he said.

====
Co-Loco Stories

A proposed South Bronx co-location was also criticized at a hearing for being divisive. (DNAInfo)

Students say they don't want a co-location at embattled Long Island City High School. (DNAInfo)

LONG ISLAND CITY — Critics came out in full force Wednesday night to a public hearing on the city's plan to co-locate a new school at Long Island City High School — which they say will threaten the progress the struggling school has made recently.

Students rallied before the hearing, holding signs that read "Don't Slice or Dice LIC," and a bevy of students and elected officials testified in opposition to the plan, which the Department of Education's Panel for Educational Policy is set to vote on next Wednesday.

Opponents say the plan would threaten the progress the school has made recently, saying LIC has a new effective principal and is back on track after several years of struggling — and a co-location would only set them back.

"It's clear that the students don't want this change, the parents don't want this change, the teachers don't want this change, the elected officials don’t want this change," Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas said at Wednesday's hearing.

The DOE has proposed co-locating a new Career and Technical Education high school in the building at 14-30 Broadway, which would open in September of 2014.

The new school would share the space with LIC's students as well as with one site of P.S. 993 Queens, a District 75 special needs school that is also in the building.

The proposal would mean reducing enrollment at LIC High School over the course of four years beginning next September in order to make room for the new school, which would be phased in with a new grade each year.

LIC would lose 420-460 students by the 2017-2018 school year, according to the DOE, bringing its enrollment that year to just under 2,000 kids.

The DOE says the enrollment reduction would allow for the new school option in the building as well as to "provide an opportunity for LIC to concentrate on a smaller cohort of students," according to the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposal.

The city points to the struggling school's performance over the years, including overall "C" grades on its last three progress reports and decreasing enrollment numbers.

But critics of the plan say LIC drew fewer students in recent years in part because of a tumultuous period caused by the city's attempt to close the school in 2012. 

"The city wants to take apart Long Island City High School," Rachel Paster, head of the Community Education Council for District 30, said in her testimony Wednesday night.

"They’ve tried it before and it didn’t work. it kind of seems like payback," she said.

Paster said LIC offers a number of important opportunities to the diverse Queens neighborhood it serves, including 26 Advanced Placement classes, advanced Regents courses, plus special programs and extracurricular activities.

"To try and co-locate a school that would reduce those offerings is absurd," Paster said.

MORE Weekly Update #72: Petition vs. Evals, Parent Anti-test Revolt, PEP Protest, and MORE!

Protest Colocations at the PEP on October 30th! 

View this email in your browser

Weekly Update #72

October 24, 2013

Join MORE Today

The campaign for a moratorium on test-based evaluations continues!   Please make sure you have collected signatures on our petition from your colleagues. Print a copy here.   Sign and share the electronic version of the petition as well. Petitions can be returned before November 13th (scan and email to to more@morecaucusnyc.org or snail mail to 305 E 140th #5A, Bx, NY, 10454).  Support the Parent Test Boycott! 80% of families at Castlebridge elementary opted out of K-2 exams imposed by the new eval system. Sign a petition in support of them.  Read more from the Daily News, Real News Network, and Diane Ravitch. The latest from MORECaucusNYC.org... Media Lapdogs: DOE & the “Bad Teacher” Witch Hunt There they go again. The newspapers are filling their pages with stories about “bad teachers”.... It’s all part of this mayoral administration’s continued push to transform the profession of teaching into an ‘at-will’ job, so that it can fire as many of us as it would like. Read more... Carry out the UFT Resolution on Diversity! One of the defining features of mayoral control in NYC under Bloomberg has been a sharp decline in the hiring of Black and Latino educators since 2002. Read more... When “Advance” Really Hit Home: The Very Human Cost of High Stakes Testing My students did not take the news about the Performance Assessment well. In fact, it was kind of a wrenching experience- their faces could not have been more pained if I had run over their dogs. Read more... Please help out with this action. Click here for quarter sheet flyers to distribute to your colleagues. Outraged that teachers are evaluated on tests for subjects they don't even teach?   City-wide Chapter Organizing Happy Hour!   Share reports about how the new teacher evaluation system is being implemented and plan resistance to this unfair and fraudulent method of evaluating teachers. Friday, November 1st, 5pm The Ginger Man Bar: 11 E. 36th St (btw 5th & Madison) Any train to Herald Sq. or 6 to 33rd. Read more about the event and download a flyer by clicking above.  Join an ongoing support group of educators dealing with supervisory harassment by emailing DTOE+subscribe@googlegroups.com  Our Schools are Not for Sale! - Watch an 8 minute mini-documentary about the fight to defend public education in Philadelphia against massive budget cuts. MORE Newsletter Sign up to help distribute MORE's newsletter, "MORE Stuff in Your Mailbox," to your colleagues. Reply to this email if you can pick up copies or would like to help distribute it, or pick up copies at our general meeting. And read the newsletter online: morecaucusnyc.org/newsletter

Make Sure You Are On Our Listservs! Click below to join:  News (announcements/articles) Discussion (debate/back-and-forth) Chapter Leader (discussion for chapter activists) NEXT GENERAL MEETING Sat., Nov. 16th, 12-3pm 224 West 29th St 14th fl. (btwn 7th and 8th ave) COMMITTEES: Chapter Organizing Committee chapters@morecaucusnyc.org Happy Hour Fri., Nov. 1st, 5pm The Ginger Man Bar 11 E. 36th St (btw 5th & Madison). High Stake Testing Committee testing@morecaucusnyc.org Sat., Nov 2nd, 2pm Location TBA Steering Committee steering@morecaucusnyc.org Phone Meeting Mon. Nov. 4th, 8PM Reply for details Meeting minutes here Newsletter Committee news@morecaucusnyc.org Tue., Nov. 5th, 5PM Karavas Place 162 W 4th St @ 6th Ave Membership Committee membership@morecaucusnyc.org Media Committee media@morecaucusnyc.org Contract Committee contract@morecaucusnyc.org STAYING IN TOUCH:  Comments? Suggestions? Email update@morecacusnyc.org with items for future updates

Rise and Don't Shine, Kick Some Ass Instead, October 25, 2013

Things to do: Plan on going to the PEP on Weds. Night (Oct 30) to join in the funeral for closed and co-located schools. (More to come later).

Rise and Don't Shine, Kick Ass Instead may become a new feature in Ed Notes. Let everyone else do the writing and I just comment. Actually I prefer "Don't Rise But Stay in Bed with the covers over your head instead." Catchy, got a beat. (Speaking of covers over head, someone just sent me this you tube of Norman.)

So I spent the day yesterday visiting Home Depot shlepping giant shrubs that barely fit in my car plus more lumber for the trellis project I've been working on for months and I'm still not finished planting. Oh my aching lumbar. My wife, on the other hand, spent the day at the Rachel Ray (who she hates but her friends got tickets) cooking show, called me to pick them up at the Sheepshead Bay station at 5, rested for an hour and then went off to her book club meeting. Since I'm usually the one that's out I had no idea what to do. So I ordered Chinese, went upstairs to lay down to watch the World Series and promptly fell asleep around 9:30. The point of all this drivel is that I woke up this morning to see a slew of email, blog posts and more that is worth sharing. But if I did each one individually I'd have to post 10 times today -- and I have to leave around 4 for the Change the Stakes General Meeting
(today is my wife's Mahjong day, a day so sacrosanct that a meteor hitting the earth wouldn't interrupt it).

So here are the gleamings of stuff you should check out - if you don't have a life - that came in since I fell asleep last night -- and I'm just grazing the surface. Gotta run and plant more back-breaking stuff, so read on.

Breaking 
Just read on Ravitch (nothing gets past her) L.A. Supt. Greasy John Deasy to resign.  He can't take the head so he's getting out of the kitchen in February. How interesting that the union election takes place in January and one of our pals, Alex Caputo-Pearl, is running for president. I hope Deasy's resignation is a sign that Alex will win. This would be a big win for real reformers of both unions and education. See my article on the election and send some money: Ed Notes Online: Alex Caputo-Pearl Running for President of LA ...
But Diane just posted an update:

Although the Internet and my email box was ablaze within announcements that Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy had announced his resignation, and that it was reported by the Los Angeles Times, the resignation was less certain and more conditional by this morning. Did he resign or just threaten to resign or just suggest that he might resign? Or was it part of a negotiation?

Alex -- go get him. (Deasy and fellow scum targeted Alex for his political activity in his school and he is no longer there.)
 
Quick Hits

Portelos
Today is the Portelos recall election at IS 49SI. Meaning 1/3 had to sign they wanted him recalled and 2/3 have to vote today to recall him. If they do he will run again. He has all the delicious details here. And his open hearing resumes Oct. 29, .

Bloomberg's small schools sham study
Gotham breathlessly posts links to tainted studies showing small schools graduate higher numbers who go to college. I left comments about the kids who were shut out of these small schools - and also how about how many have been considered "failures" (I never call any school a failure but am using Bloomberg's own words). Ravitch savages:

“Smaller Is Better” When You Exclude OTC Kids

A new study hails the success of Mayor Bloomberg's small schools initiative. The mayor closed hundreds of schools and opened hundreds of schools. This study follows soon after the release of a study by the Annenberg Institute of School Reform showing the Bloomberg small schools excluded large numbers of the "over the counter" students, the late arrivals who often have the highest needs, such as new immigrants. These students were diverted away from the mayor's signature schools and sent to struggling schools that were slated for closure. They were tossed aside. Collateral damage. That's one way of creating a success story: keep out the kids with the highest needs. Fund researchers. Declare victory. Forget about the OTC kids.

James Eterno at ICE published the de Blasio letter to Walcott on co-locos: ICEUFT Blog IS THERE ROOM FOR OPTIMISM UNDER DE BLASIO? - Many of us who work in public education feel a strong sense of gloom and doom because of what is happening in the schools and in the country overall these ...


MORE Blog:
New York State Allies for Public Education Reaffirms Call for NYS Commissioner of Education John King’s Resignation Despite Rescheduled Meetings - 

“Let’s Get Rid of Step and Lane” Says NEA President
 Another nugget from the other side of the fence from Mike Antonucci at EIA. RBE at Perdido Street School does the Van Roekel takedown. NEA President Says Get Rid Of Step And Lane Increases For Teachers

The Daily Howler howls daily at Amanda Ripley
 I've been trying to follow this assault on Ripley's book which was well received by deformers. He has posted about 10 times on her and I can't keep up with it all. But these posts would make a good companion piece to the Ravitch book. Here is his latest: Raising Minnesota: Ripley responds!


-------
From a pal on the West Coast:

Broad, Fisher (major KIPP funder) donated to illegal "dark money" operation

This San Francisco Chronicle article reports on a penalty imposed on an illegal operation that funneled $15 million in money from secret donors to campaigns on two November 2012 ballot measures.  One of them was No on 30 -- 30 was a tax increase sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown to boost funding for schools and other infrastructure. The other was Yes on 32 -- 32 was a far-right measure that would have severely curtailed labor unions' political activities. Both of those measures went the opposite way despite the right-wing money: 30 (tax hike) won, and 32 (curtailing labor) lost. The Chronicle reports that the Fisher family (of the Gap) donated $9 million to be funneled as "dark money." The second link reports that Eli Broad also donated $500,000.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Secret-donors-on-ballot-measures-lead-to-record-4924283.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/gap-california-dark-money_n_4159516.html

Note that despite stated support for schools, both Fisher and Broad secretly donated to a campaign opposing a tax increase that primarily benefits California schools. 

 --------
NEW Caucus which captured a majority of EX Bd seats and lost the presidency by 9 votes seems to be having an impact in Newark:

NEW Caucus will not share notes to the Executive Board meeting that took place yesterday.

The NTU leadership has pledged that they will publish the official notes quickly.  We are 

deferring to them, and will share the official version with you all as soon as they are released.

For now, we will simply say that we are cautiously optimistic that change is slowly happening,

and that we are beginning to affect the change we have worked for so long and hard.  More to

follow when the notes are released.

Thanks to all the members who came out to see YOUR NTU E-Board conduct business!

Below are some interesting articles you may have missed:

1)  Brief article about the recent report detailing persistent segregation in New Jersey's schools.

http://new.njs.agora.com/stories/13/10/14/fine-print-reports-detail-racial-segregation-in-new-jersey-public-schools/

2)  Another on how even private schools are now getting in on the charter school act in Newark.

http://new.njs.agora.com/stories/13/10/16/two-private-schools-in-newark-ask-to-nj-to-let-them-become-public-charters/

3)  Article about Bayonne teachers, who have been marching (in the hundreds) EVERY Friday recently to

show their solidarity and win a new contract.  

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2013/10/over_300_bayonne_teachers_are_set_to_march_to_city_hall_on_friday.html

4)  Great article by a teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota (who we met in Chicago this summer) about how

teachers there are opening negotiations to the public, and shedding light on all the shady things their

board of education is doing.  This is the exact opposite of how most unions (including our own) have

conducted contract negotiations in the past.  

http://www.labornotes.org/2013/10/bringing-community-bargaining-table

5)  Finally, we saved the best for last.  Jersey Jazzman's scathing critique of the Star-Ledger endorsement

of Christie.  Are you as angry as the Jazzman?  We hope so!  We are too!  Now let's turn our anger

into productive energy, and organize for change!

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/10/star-ledger-christie-stinks-but-we-hate.html

----------

A Story About Michelle Rhee That No One Will Print

I've had this one around for months re: John Merrow's complaints about the protection of Michelle Rhee by the press. Then he gave up the ghost and seems to have flipped flopped once again with a recent attack on Ravitch and pushing his film showing the New Orleans miracle. [SEE GARY TODAY: 

Gary Rubinstein's Blog The Latest New Orleans Miracle - 

Anytime there is a press release from the Louisiana Department of Education, I know I have some work to do] 

 Here's Merrow:

Michelle Rhee lobbies across the country for greater test-based accountability and changes in teacher tenure rules.  She often appears on television and in newspapers, commenting on a great range of education issues.  Easily America’s best-known education activist, she is always introduced as the former Chancellor of the public schools in Washington, DC, the woman who took on a corrupt and failing system and shook it up. The rest of the story is rarely mentioned.
The op-ed below has been rejected^[1] by four newspapers, three of them national publications. One editor’s rejection note said that Michelle Rhee was not a national story.

A Story About Michelle Rhee That No One Will Print

 I watched the Today show and they were horrified at a school aide who taped a kid's mouth. They didn't think of their ed buddy Rhee who did the same thing.

The Worm Turns on TFA as New Gen Students Begin to Reject Their Destructive Agenda

Just as TFA was the hot thing on campus such a short time ago, the counter revolution begins as student groups spring up around the nation exposing what is behind the curtain of an ed deform front which attempts to use recruits as a political force for ed deform.

Students who want to not only teach but do it in a context of social justice work where they join the battle against poverty and for resources both in and out of school for their students are rejecting the "no excuses, make do with what you have" TFA message.

Diane Ravitch posted a sample from a senior Harvard student.

Sandra Korn, Harvard ’14, Says No to TFA Sandra Korn, class of 2014 at Harvard, was invited to join TFA. She said no. She explains why here.

Now we do know more than a few TFA alums who are committed to the social justice work and have and are working with MORE. They used TFA to get a quick route into teaching but many of them also had been studying education so they were not totally unprepared to teach. And even if they weren't I can live with people who want to teach and not use TFA as a springboard.

Supplements from Susan Ohanian:
Teach for America rises as political powerhouse
Stephanie Simon
Politico
2013-10-21
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1712

Teach for America is more than a service organization. It's a political powerhouse.

The debt deal's gift to Teach For America (yes, TFA)
Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2013-10-16
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1710

Politicos hail Teach for America recruits as 'highly qualified' while declaring experienced teachers add no value to their students' school experience.

Video from Jaisal Noor: Parents Organize Boycott To End Standardized Testing of 4-year-olds

Jaisal Noor does a great job in following up on this story (Parents Lead Massive Opt-Out of Kindergarten Tests in Washington Hts (District 6) as he features Dao Tran, whose partner is Peter Lamphere. They send their child to the Castle Hill K-2 school.

New York School believed to be first to reject testing in grades K-2, principal and 90% of parents support boycott and hope it helps spark nationwide movement -

Here's the link: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10911

Teacher Union Shores Up Support for John King And Reaffirms Backing for Common Core

Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, also expressed support for the Common Core, along with the teacher evaluations, diverging only on one point. “The testing, right now, is not ready for prime time,” she said. .. Epoch Times

 Clearly a heavily scripted event, designed to signal AFT attempts to shore the collapsing support for King, the SED and the Regents. More proof, as if any were needed, that the UFT/AFT has joined with the so-called reformers to co-manage the implementation of the standards, which will ultimately require far more testing. Needless to say, Ms. Weingarten said nothing about that. It was also fitting that this little love-fest was held at the Harvard Club, since that august institution has been so active in making teachers and students lives miserable. Another footnote to Weingarten's disgraceful legacy.... Michael Fiorillo

A request came in this morning to the MORE listserve for MORE to take a strong position on the Common Core with an explanation as to why oppose it. MORE has been so focused on the eval issue CC has slipped through the cracks. There is so much anti-CC stuff out there a book could be written. If any of the readers want to chip in on some points leave a comment or send me an email. I'll collate the ideas and work something up for MORE to use.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/327696-heads-of-teachers-union-state-education-department-agree-on-common-core/?photo=2

Reposted With Great Graphic: Change the Stakes General Meeting, Friday, October 25

I'm reposting with the great graphic above from Diana Zavala (Feedblitz subscribers who are inundated with Ed Notes posts will NOT be happy). 

Members of CTS (mostly parents) played a significant role in this week's opt-out story out of Castle Hill School in Washington Hts (Parents Lead Massive Opt-Out of Kindergarten Tests in Washington Hts (District 6) and have been active on a number of fronts (Change the Stakes: New York City Public School Parents Deserve to be Heard by Education Commissioner John King)

There will also be a report on plans for the Oct. 30 PEP which will include a funeral for the schools closed and co-located by Bloomberg. 

PLEASE JOIN US AT OUR MONTHLY OPEN MEETING 

Change the Stakes General Meeting
Friday, October 25

5:30 - 7.30 pm

When:  Fri, October 25, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Where:  CUNY Graduate Center located on 365 5th Avenue Room 5489. Bring Photo ID for building entry

Agenda for Oct 25:

1. Introductions
2. Discussion:  How are students experiencing assessment this year? Begin with a

report from Dao from Castle Bridge, K-2 testing boycott,

 

                       

after which

,

 teachers will discuss the teacher evaluation and

present relevant literature. 

3. Report back:

• Governance,  Promotions, CEC initiative: Discuss talking points and do role play for crafting effective communications.

• Open up to group for additional issues that others feel are relevant at this time.

4. Committee working:

• Review committee descriptions and invite members to join committees.

• Committee report backs on current and upcoming initiatives.  
• Committee break out groups.

Readings: Plutocrats, Toddler Testing, Looting Pension Funds

I had these lurking on my browser for sharing. A short selection followed by the link. I haven't read all of them but worth checking out if you have time. I'm back from the Dewey co-loco hearing (Some video tomorrow). Giving up on the World Series and going to bed while listening to Bill Mazur tributes on WFAN (I listened to him every eve at 6 in the 60s  - what a mensch).

Looting the Pension Funds

http://m.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926

What few people knew at the time was that Raimondo's "tool kit" wasn't just meant for local consumption. The dynamic young Rhodes scholar was allowing her state to be used as a test case for the rest of the country, at the behest of powerful out-of-state financiers with dreams of pushing pension reform down the throats of taxpayers and public workers from coast to coast. One of her key supporters was billionaire former Enron executive John Arnold – a dickishly ubiquitous young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation's Koch brothers, and who for years had been funding a nationwide campaign to slash benefits for public workers.
Nor did anyone know that part of Raimondo's strategy for saving money involved handing more than $1 billion – 14 percent of the state fund – to hedge funds, including a trio of well-known New York-based funds: Dan Loeb's Third Point Capital was given $66 million, Ken Garschina's Mason Capital got $64 million and $70 million went to Paul Singer's Elliott Management. The funds now stood collectively to be paid tens of millions in fees every single year by the already overburdened taxpayers of her ostensibly flat-broke state. Felicitously, Loeb, Garschina and Singer serve on the board of the Manhattan Institute, a prominent conservative think tank with a history of supporting benefit-slashing reforms. The institute named Raimondo its 2011 "Urban Innovator" of the year.
The state's workers, in other words, were being forced to subsidize their own political disenfranchisement, coughing up at least $200 million to members of a group that had supported anti-labor laws.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz2iS966ncv
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Plutocrats at Work: How Big Philanthropy Undermines Democracy

The Case of Public Education
For a dozen years, big philanthropy has been funding a massive crusade to remake public education for low-income and minority children in the image of the private sector. If schools were run like businesses competing in the market—so the argument goes—the achievement gap that separates poor and minority students from middle-class and affluent students would disappear. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation have taken the lead, but other mega-foundations have joined in to underwrite the self-proclaimed “education reform movement.” Some of them are the Laura and John Arnold, Anschutz, Annie E. Casey, Michael and Susan Dell, William and Flora Hewlett, and Joyce foundations.
Each year big philanthropy channels about $1 billion to “ed reform.” This might look like a drop in the bucket compared to the $525 billion or so that taxpayers spend on K–12 education annually. But discretionary spending—spending beyond what covers ordinary running costs—is where policy is shaped and changed. The mega-foundations use their grants as leverage: they give money to grantees who agree to adopt the foundations’ pet policies. Resource-starved states and school districts feel compelled to say yes to millions of dollars even when many strings are attached or they consider the policies unwise. They are often in desperate straits.
Most critiques of big philanthropy’s current role in public education focus on the poor quality of the reforms and their negative effects on schooling—on who controls schools, how classroom time is spent, how learning is measured, and how teachers and principals are evaluated. The harsh criticism is justified. But to examine the effect of big philanthropy’s ed-reform work on democracy and civil society requires a different focus. Have the voices of “stakeholders”—students, their parents and families, educators, and citizens who support public education—been strengthened or weakened? Has their involvement in public decision-making increased or decreased? Has their grassroots activity been encouraged or stifled? Are politicians more or less responsive to them? Is the press more or less free to inform them? According to these measures, big philanthropy’s involvement has undoubtedly undermined democracy and civil society.
The best way to show this is to describe how mega-foundations actually operate on the ground and how the public has responded. What follows are reports on a surreptitious campaign to generate support for a foundation’s teaching reforms, a project to create bogus grassroots activity to increase the number of privately managed charter schools, the effort to exert influence by making grant money contingent on a specific person remaining in a specific public office, and the practice of paying the salaries of public officials hired to implement ed reforms.
[more topics]
You Can’t Fool All of the People All of the Time
The Parent Trigger Trap
Dissent
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/plutocrats-at-work-how-big-philanthropy-undermines-democracy

 

OK - this is satire tho in today's world anything is possible.

Russ on Reading

http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-americas-toddlers-college-and.html

Are America's Toddlers College and Career Ready?

In a move that surprises very few in the education field, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) has decided to develop a college and career readiness test for toddlers. To be called the Toddler Intelligence Test (TIT), the development of the TIT is being overseen by a division of PARCC, the Toddler Assessment Team (TAT). A group of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers and former tennis stars has been assembled to develop TIT for TAT.

12 Years a Slave - Under Bloomberg

A new movie tells the story of a formerly free school system with public input and oversight that is lured into a seamy arrangement by an ego-driven, manipulative billionaire who then enslaves over one million children, over a hundred thousand school employees and a disenfranchised public. His overseers, Merryl Tisch and Eva Moskowitz make the lives of the slaves miserable.

After 12 years of servitude, the school system sees the light of freedom at the end of the tunnel by the emergence of a tall savior and even though the tall savior holds on to the reigns of control but promises to be a benevolent dictator.

There will be a sequel in 2018 titled "Let Freedom Ring."