Tilden, Lafayette and South Shore: Don’t Close Schools, Fix Them

The announced closings of 3 large Brooklyn schools in south Brooklyn has sent more shock waves through a system hit with Tsunami like effect from the changes wrought by BloomKlein. That the impact they have had is being mirrored all across the nation in urban school systems is part of the attack on public education is enough to make educators think twice about what education will look like. Or just plain get you nauseous.

BloomKlein like to portray themselves as leaders but they are actually following models set up in Chicago and San Diego. Professionally trained educators are degraded and anything public is looked at as bad and all things private are good. When a privatization disaster, like the attempt to privatize NYC custodial services, giving all kinds of people access to young children, was abandoned after years of trying to force it down people's throats, that reversal was barely noticed. The disaster perpetrated on the St. Louis school system by A&M consulting is just coming out now. Of course, Klein gave them 15 million to find savings on the backs of teachers and students in NYC. But why quibble about money when we have 35 or more in some classes. BloomKlein refuse to recognize class size as being a factor in anything related to education.

Here is The Wave column that appeared on Jan. 12 on closing schools.

Tilden, Lafayette and South Shore: Don’t Close Schools, Fix Them
by Norman Scott

Fear and loathing among teachers and parent groups continues to grow as details emerge over the DOE’s decision to close more large high schools, three of them in south Brooklyn. While initial attention was focused on Lafayette HS because of the controversial principal Jolanta Rohloff, recently Tilden HS has come up for more scrutiny. South Shore is also on the list and can Canarsie HS, the school slated to get many of the students from these schools that no one wants, be far behind?

A stir was caused when it was revealed that a Quality Review by another high-priced consultant group Klein has hired (from Britain) to make 3-day visits to most schools had given Tilden fairly high marks. Why would you expect the DOE’s right hand to know what its left hand is doing when both hands are busy picking your pockets?

John Lawhead, an ESL teacher at Tilden who had gone through the trials of the closing of his previous school, Bushwick HS, has a unique perspective on school closings and has been an outspoken critic of the decision of the DOE and its often partner in crime, the UFT. Tilden’s principal found out the school was being closed from the school’s chapter leader who was informed by the union hierarchy. "No way," was her response. Sorry, “Way.”

Principal Diane Varano, a graduate of Joel Klein’s horrendous Leadership Academy, has developed a good reputation with the entire Tilden educational community as someone who is willing to listen to people’s input, a “No-No” in the lexicon of Jack Welchian trained graduates.

Lawhead likes teaching at Tilden and has written a wonderful analysis of how the DOE can manipulate a school’s closing. (I can’t say enough about John’s guts and smarts and leadership on this issue, considering the dogs of war at the DOE and the fact that eventually, he will most likely be thrown into the cauldron of the Open Market System trying to find a job.) I’ll include some excerpts here. You can read John's full piece on my blog, http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2007/01/tilden-teacher-john-lawhead.html

“There were rumors and some ominous signs at the start of the school year, but the announcement of our closing still came as a big surprise. It's now clear at least to me that Tilden was selected as a “target” school for phase-out months before the actual announcement. There was a sudden drop in enrollment and that led to a budget reduction of several hundred thousand dollars. There were many cuts, including most of the after-school programs and the school is bracing for deep excessing of teachers in February.

“A major factor in the decline in enrollment was the loss of new 9th graders. List notice transfers from the feeder schools fell by half. The principal explained to the UFT consultation committee in mid-October that she believed ninth graders had been steered away from the school. She said she had heard reports of students applying to Tilden as their first choice and being assigned elsewhere. I later confirmed this for myself by asking my students if they knew of anything similar. For instance, a girl in one of my classes mentioned to me that a cousin of hers had put Tilden as first choice but was sent to John Dewey. They both live on East 32nd Street in East Flatbush.

“It also seemed apparent to the principal that the high school enrollment office was deliberately sending kids who were long-term absent or could not be tracked down. In October there were nearly 400 out of the building not accounted for. To make matters worse, in September all the families of Tilden's students were sent a letter declaring the school to be ‘persistently dangerous’ and giving them the opportunity to transfer their children. Of the responses sent back about 140 were granted. Families that were not happy with their transfer were told they had to wait until February to return to Tilden.

“One doesn't have to dig very far to see that the decision to close Tilden is not well grounded in publicly available data. Results from New York State's 2001 cohort analysis showed Tilden to be in the middle of a pack of other schools with regard to graduation and dropout rates [by the time they were due to graduate in 2005.] Almost everything said by the DOE and Region 6 administrators about Tilden could also be said about a dozen or so and in some aspects several dozen city high schools. The closings create drama but what escapes notice by the major media is the stark similarity of a vast number of schools with similar demographic profiles.

“The explanations from Region 6 were very vague. According to Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard in a letter to parents of December 12 the major problem was that Tilden was “not on track” to meet the city's goal of “raising the city-wide 4-year graduation rate to 70% and the 6-year graduation rate to 80%.” As you know, the claim that New York City is actual anywhere near these levels for graduation is far fetched. The city's graduation figures have been heavily padded (by counting GEDs and not counting an enormous contingent of mysterious transfers) and are way off from what the state's statistics show.

“During the faculty meeting of December 11 where the closing was announced I was amazed at the detachment they expressed. Jean-Claude Brizard declared that he wouldn't want to have his daughter attending Tilden. We were supposed to think he would favor a school only because of its data and ignore that it was 96 percent black and 20 minutes from any subway line. I asked Brizard to name a school in NYC with a demographic similar to Tilden that was doing significantly better. He named Transit Tech as a positive comparison. I asked if he could name a school more similar to us than that one and he declined.

“According to the schools' report cards (showing figures for 2004-05), at Transit Tech 15.5 percent of incoming 9th and 10th graders were over aged. For Tilden it was 50.5 percent. Three percent of Transit Tech's students were classified as recent immigrants compared with 22.9 for Tilden. In other words, the demographic similarities are rather elusive, aside from the bare fact that most of the students are minority. (And one should add it's not likely that Superintendent Brizard's daughter will be going to Transit Tech either.)

“The detachment from our reality is no surprise. The attitude from the top administrators is one of blanket condemnation. Mayor Bloomberg has suggested large schools are inherently unmanageable. There's such an indifference toward the specific challenges that schools face and it amounts to disownership. Yet, this stands in sharp contrast to the close scrutiny, the walkthroughs and reviews which schools must devote extensive time to preparing for. The Quality School Review which required three days of visits created the illusion that the evaluation would mean something.

“I think it's significant that the data was ignored but I wouldn't suggest that schools with worse evaluations should be closed instead of Tilden. Nothing good and a whole lot of damage have come from this targeting and condemnation of high schools. After the publicity of Tilden's positive rating on the School Quality Review, the UFT leadership appears to be coming around to a position that Tilden looks better on paper than they thought. If they decide to defend us that's fine but I'm afraid they will continue to take a 'devil take the hindmost' perspective without questioning why the wholesale closings are taking place and what the impact is.”

Way to go John.

Next: Randi visits Tilden – for a 15 minute photo op.
Or, how the UFT gets crotch rot from trying to straddle the fence.

Oh, Those UFT Commercials

It is always nice to see our money being shovelled into the hands of high priced consultants (Howard Wolfson's Grover Park, Hillary Clinton's people) who design commercials that have zero impact on the public for the benefit of teachers.

"Oh, please, please, please give teachers a voice. They (boo, hoo) work so hard. And by the way, reduce class size." That oughta do it. Convinced me. So why are we spending millions that could be used for things like, say, a dues rebate?

You just don't get it. This is not about the teachers. It is about the future of our maximum leader, also known on some blogs as Le Gran Fromage. That this commercial just appeared (along with the $750) during a UFT election period is not surprising. But with Le Gran assured of winning by big numbers we hear from Unity insiders that she considers anything less than 90% a defeat ("90% or Bust"). What a relief to ICE-TJC to know that all they need is 11% of the vote to win. Most leaders seem to be happy with numbers over 60% but even the 6 (out of 89) ICE-TJC members of the Ex Bd must be stamped out by the Unity rubber stamp, New Action.

I personally don't mind seeing all those millions being spent to promote the career of Le Gran Fromage. She has sacrificed so much for us all. Remember how BloomKlein supposedly sent people to look through her garbage? And all those supposed personal attacks by the likes of ---wait, that's me.

The New York stage is no longer big enough to contain her and besides, she is sick of having to deal with the Kaufmans and Eternos of this world. Imagine, one minute consulting with Hillary and an hour later dealing with Kaufman. Ugh!

We are paying teams of consultants to mull things over: run for office (first task-- learn Spanish -- bet we are paying for that too) or work for a future Democratic administration in Washington (even the Cabinet-- Labor Secty or Ed secty).

But the betting is that the next move is to AFT President in the summer of '08 at the usual Unity junket where 800 of our favorite people get to eat, drink and be merry. The only problem is that AFT Pres. is a ceremonial position with no real power, which resides on the locals, the biggest enchilada of which is Local 2, ye ole UFT. Can LGF control the UFT while AFT Pres. as Shanker did? Why not just keep both positions and leave Michael Mendel to clean up the mess? There really is no obvious successor to LGF (Feldman hand-picked and groomed LGF many years before she left to take her place) who can so consistently pull the wool over the eyes of the members so slickly as LGF. That there is no clear successor is an important sign. A strong successor would in itself be a threat. (Bring back Alan Lubin from exhile upsate in NYSUT --- Alan, who had a good rep even with the opposition, was thought by many to be a potential threat to Feldman's plans.)

And as LGF did to the old Shanker-Feldman machine, a strong successor might do unto LGF and undermine the UFT power base in the AFT. So it is not such a simple move to the AFT Presidency, which really requires a lot of schlepping around all over the country. Oh, the problems!

Let's think bigger for our LGF. How about targeting Pres. of the AFL-CIO after John Sweeney leaves? Now that idea makes the AFT Pres. as a way station an attractive idea. Sweeney might want to look into hiring a food taster.

Just don't count on LGF immediately disappearing from the NY UFT stage, too big a platform to just walk away from. Look to the Shanker model of control where the precedent of remaining Pres of both organizations will be used. Hey! Maybe we can pay for surveys of members to see how that will fly? Or better, let's pay to run commercials nationally so the entire country can get to know LGF.

I've given lots of reason to vote ICE-TJC. Keeping Kaufman-Eterno, to be joined by Bryant HS CL Sam Lazarus, a former cab driver and organizer in the taxi union, on the Exec. Bd. will cause complications for LGF who would have to explain why she cannot get 100% control of the Ex. Bd. Right now she has to miss all too many meetings and all that good food because of these louts. And think of the repercussions if LGF should get less total votes than three years ago. Oh, da pain!

Vote the ICE-TJC Slate in the Upcoming UFT Elections

This leaflet is available in pdf format for downloading and distribution to your school. Or if preferred, enough copies can be sent directly to you. Past rulings assure all UFT members access to mailboxes in their schools (at all times) and other schools during this election period as long as it is off working hours. Problems? Contact ICE.

Independent Community of Educators
www.ICE-UFT.org www.ICEUFTBlog.blogspot.com

UFT Elections Are Coming:

Why We Must Say NO to Weingarten/Unity Caucus-New Action

The UFT has not stood up against the closing of schools
The Department of Education can no longer be allowed to mismanage and inadequately fund schools and then close them, displacing students and staff, even when consultants hired by the DOE give schools like Tilden HS in Brooklyn proficient ratings in quality reviews. Randi Weingarten’s Unity Caucus (her political party) has put up no real opposition and has in fact cooperated with the DOE. ICE calls for a moratorium on closing schools were watered down by Unity. The giveback-laden 2005 contract gave away preferred placement rights for UFT members, eliminating Article 18G5 that gave members “the broadest possible placement choices available within the authority of the Board.” Hundreds of experienced teachers were forced to become day-to-day subs. UFT leaders actually branded this as an “improvement” along with the Open Market Plan (which leaves all choice in the hands of principals).

Weingarten/Unity still refuse to oppose mayoral control of NYC schools
ICE has called for the end of Mayoral Control when the law (giving the mayor full unchecked authority over the schools) sunsets in 2009. Weingarten backed the law change that allowed the Mayor to assume control of the schools and the UFT passively sat by as a system without checks and balances, ran amuck, ignoring views of both parents and educators. When Bloomberg needed a waiver to get a lawyer appointed as Chancellor, Weingarten was silent. When privateer Christopher Cerf was recently brought in to continue the attack on public education, again silence. We need to get politicians out of education and set up a new system that truly gives power to teachers at the school level. Weingarten/Unity rejected our position, instead, creating a committee that will examine all forms of school governance, including the possible renewal of Mayoral Control. An honest poll of members would show an overwhelming rejection of mayoral control.

Lower class size must be priority contract demand
Teachers list class size as a number one working condition priority. NYC has the highest class sizes in the state, if not the nation. The only protection teachers have had for 40 years has been the contracts negotiated in the early 1970’s, before the UFT changed its policy. Yet, Weingarten-Unity-New Action refuse to make this a contract negotiating demand, using the bogus excuse that money would be taken from salary increases (note how prep periods and other basics like health care are never tied to salary). Weingarten throws up smoke screens with petition drives (twice so far and more to come) for referendums to lower class sizes, knowing full well this tactic is subject to the mayor’s veto, with virtually no chance of reaching voters.

New Action is a phony opposition group in bed with Unity
New Action had been the oldest “opposition” group in the UFT until they began to give uncritical support for Weingarten, even endorsing her in this election. New Action is claiming their alliance with Weingarten allows them to influence UFT policies but they can’t cite a single gain other than for themselves in getting New Action’s entire leadership on the union payroll. Their latest leaflet proclaims, “President Weingarten changed a forty year policy of excluding opposition caucuses from having a voice in the UFT. She opened the door and New Action opted to enter.” How can New Action call itself an opposition when it no longer opposes Unity policy? And if they support Unity, why not just run on the Unity slate instead of as a separate entity? Weingarten cannot tolerate even a few critics on the Executive Board and is using New Action in an attempt to replace the only legitimate opposition voices from ICE-TJC. No party should be allowed to monopolize power for half a century. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely and the Unity/New Action alliance epitomizes a corrupt system.

Contract givebacks extended through 2009 while salary does not keep up with inflation
Weingarten gave away many hard-fought rights (seniority, hall patrol, grievance procedures, etc.) in the 2005 contract for salary increases (much of which were time for money swaps) that didn’t even keep up with NY area inflation. In addition, NYC’s 190-day school year is the longest of any district in the Metropolitan area. A raise is when you get more money for doing the same job instead of accepting whatever DC 37 negotiates with the city and saying “me too.” We need to organize a strong militant membership aligned with other unions so we are the ones to set the pattern on our terms.

Democratic reforms are needed to repair the UFT
Unity Caucus has controlled our union since 1960. Absolute power breeds an unhealthy climate for the kinds of decisions needed by a dynamic union to fight the attacks on public education and unions. Unity’s major interest is in holding onto power so that they may augment their own salaries and privileges at the expense of the working conditions and salaries of working teachers. ICE supports: election of divisional vice presidents (academic high schools, vocational high schools, middle schools, elementary schools) by the teachers in that division instead of by all the members, including retirees (who make up over 1/3 of the members) and reinstitution of elections for District Representatives. Dues increases should be subject to vote by members.

Weingarten/Unity Caucus/New Action have:

• given away seniority rights and weakened tenure protections
• not been able to stop the wave of micromanagement
• allowed massive erosion of the contract
• stood by while the ability of UFT members to fight harassment withers
• allowed an emasculated grievance procedure
• allowed a longer day/year (37.5 minute small group periods in most schools/ 2 days in August)
• still not delivered on promised 55/25 retirement plan

Vote the ICE-TJC Slate in the Upcoming UFT Elections

ICE-TJC Officers (AdCom) (CL: Chapter Leader, D: Delegate)

President Kit Wainer - Goldstein HS, (CL)
Secretary Camille Johnson - Humanity & Arts (D)
Ass’t Secty Ellen Schweitzer - Stuyvesant (CL)
Treasurer Marilyn Beckford - Hillcrest HS (CL)
Ass’t Treas. Yelena Siwinski - PS 193K (CL)
VP Elem. Lisa North – PS 3K (CL)
VP Middle Josh Kahn – MS 443 K (D)
VP HS Arthur Colen – FDR HS (CL)
VP Spec. Ed Joseph Wisniewski - PS 163 (D)
Voc. HS Gerard Frohnhoefer - Aviation HS (CL)
VP At-Large Ellen Fox – Ret.
[Schweitzer and Colen are current Ex. Bd members and Fox served for yrs.]

ICE: P.O. Box 1143, Jamaica, NY 11421 Phone: (917) 992-3734
On the web: www.ICE-UFT.org www.ICEUFTBlog.blogspot.com
I would like to:
____Contribute to the ICE (Make checks out to Independent Community of Educators) $_____
____Distribute election literature at my school # of copies________
____Run on the ICE-TJC slate in the election
____Contribute to the election campaign

Name___________________________________ School__________________________
Email___________________________________ Phone___________________________ HomeAddress____________________________________________________________________

Petition Signing Parties

The UFT election process requires an enormous effort to get petitions signed. (Unity does it at one of their meetings in one shot.)

ICE is looking for people who are willing to sign many petitions and will be holding petition signing events every Friday starting on Jan. 19 until we are done. Petitions are due on Feb. 14.

ICE needs to know in advance to save time by pre-printing your name, school and file number so all you have to do is sign - numerous times.

Contact normsco@gmail.com if interested.

ICE Platform: Union Democracy -Updated

We need a union that is structured to insure that no matter who is elected to leadership they will be accountable to those of us who are working in the schools. An active, well-informed and honestly represented membership is the necessary backbone of a union that is capable of standing up to the attacks on teachers, children and the public schools.

Instead, what we have is a union that has gotten progressively weaker, a teaching staff that is defenseless, demoralized, disengaged from unionism and resigned to tolerate all manner of abuse, and now fears that any change will be for the worse. A large part of the problem is the fact that our union is led by people who are removed from the reality of our schools.

Since its inception in the early 1960s our union has been dominated by one group, Unity Caucus which constantly adjusts its methods to insure that it monopolizes decision-making. President Randi Weingarten knows how to portray herself as a concerned and responsible leader at union meetings and in the pages of the NY Teacher, but her number one concern is to manage the membership rather than advocate for us and represent our interests.

The three levels of decision-making in our union are the ADCOM (citywide officers), the executive board, and the delegate assembly. All three are tightly controlled by the overwhelming presence of Unity Caucus members, who rubber-stamp all of President Weingarten’s policies, even when they themselves disagree.

In order to make each one of these bodies more representative and democratic we propose the following:

1. Divisional vice-presidents (high school, middle school, etc.) should be elected by those they serve, members in their respective divisions.
2. The number of at-large members of the executive board should be reduced and a method of proportional representation should be used to elect them, with seats awarded to caucuses on the basis of their proportion of the vote.
3. The number of retiree members of the delegate assembly should be reduced and their election should also be on the basis of proportional representation.
4. District representatives (a full time UFT position to support the chapter leaders and members in a district) should be elected.
5. Every issue of the NY Teacher should be opened to opposing viewpoints, with space available for the printing of statements both for and against ratification of proposed contracts.
6. All caucuses (political parties) who have met requirements to run in an election should be able to mail at least one piece of literature to all the members at union expense during election time. All caucuses should have access to teacher mailboxes for distribution of union-related literature and each caucus should be able to email campaign literature during the election. (Rejected by Weingarten at the Jan. 9, 2007 Ex. Bd. meeting, ICE will continue the fight for this right throughout the elections and beyond.)
   
7. There should be an open microphone at all union meetings.
8. Retirees should not vote for UFT officers, who are responsible for negotiating the contract for active members. But they should vote for the three teacher members of the Teachers Retirement System Board, something they presently cannot do.

Most important for democracy is an underpinning of active school chapters where meetings are held monthly and school issues are discussed openly. Chapter leaders are there to protect the interests of the members with respect to the administration and also to see that the flow of information between the chapters and the various levels of leadership of the union travels on a two-way street. This means that chapter leaders must do everything possible to encourage attendance at meetings and to carry out the wishes of the members, both within the school and as a representative to other union bodies. It is the concerns of chapter members, who are the best informed about the issues, that should be driving union policy.

UFT Advice to Teachers at Closing Schools? How to Fill Out Your Resumes

It has always been clear that the UFT will not take a position of support for teachers at large high schools that are being closed. That was most clear at Tilden HS when Randi Weingarten made an appearance, showing up 15 minutes late for a half hour meeting, leaving teachers little time to make their points.

Instead of assisting the teachers, parents and community to fight for the school, the union ignored pleas for help. A teacher commented later that the UFT seems only interested in helping people fill out resumes. The fact that the UFT bargained away rights that would protect the teachers in the 2005 contract lies over the entire situation like dead fish.

But what do we expect from the collaborationists at the UFT. Know how the principal found out the school was being closed? From the union rep. "No way," was her response. With their "I surrender" mentality, he union hierarchy should be taking French lessons (instead of the Spanish certain UFT leaders are studying.)

Only after a favorable evaluation came out did Weingarten respond and offer to come to the school, in what amounts to a public relations move so she can say, "See, I am concerned."

Read her lips: Phew! Got through that. Now we can help our pals at the DOE close that sucker down. Maybe even get some of my people like Peter Goodman work as consultants in setting up the small schools.

When ICE Executive Board members with the support of TJC offered up a resolution at the Jan. 9 UFT Executive Board meeting that called for a moratorium on the closing of small schools, it was rushed to Weingarten who was not in attendance but in hiding behind the magic curtain. She quickly ordered the Unity hacks to put up a substitute that would make it appear the union was doing something, saying something along the usual lines of "We urge the DOE to... blah, blah, blah." UFT leaders are great Urgers.

Not surprisngly, one Unity member rose to bow in thanks to Randi after having complained years ago how the union abandoned that member's school when it was closed years ago.

Can't wait to see the New Action suck-ups, who often put Unity hacks to shame in their desire to heap praise on madam Weingarten on the Executive Board next year. The guaranteed 5 seats will be known as "The Gift of the Randi." Pucker up boys!

Read more about Tilden from teacher John Lawhead posted on this blog a few days ago.

A few more things happened at the Exec. Bd. (I skipped the dinner as I had to cook up all that dead fish you see above for the Delegate Assembly today.)

Of most interest, the election committe made its election announcement tonight. ICE tried to amend it by asking for the UFT to get an announcement in the Principal's Weakly from Klein telling principals about the rights to use mailboxes during the election campaign. Guess what? Randi is afraid of asking big, bad Joel to do this because he might interefere in the election. Har, Har, Har. How would he be able to close down so many schools so easily if he lose his best buddies in Unity? Parlez-vous franaise, anyone?

ICE asked for the UFT to send out literature from the caucuses to their email list. They adamantly resisted, pointing to the ads in the NY Teacher, which just happen to come out as ballots are being mailed out. Gee, are you surprised?

When ICE Ex. Bd. member James Eterno thanked Randi for ignoring a calling of the question to allow him time to make an amendment, her comment was, "I won't be reading that on the blog tonight." Well, here it is. Hope she can sleep well now. (Note: is it possible the president of the largest union local in the world has nothing better to do?)

FIRST LEGO League Robotics at PS 261 Brooklyn

Last Wed. after school I stopped by for what I thought was a few minutes (that turned into an hour and a half) to visit the 4th/5th grade robotics teams (called "Nanorama I and II") at PS 261K in downtown Brooklyn in Region 8. They are preparing for the FIRST LEGO League tournament to be held at Riverbank State Park in upper Manhattan on Jan. 27/28 where 155 teams from NYC area schools (both public and private) and community centers will compete by building robots out of LEGO blocks that must complete a number of tasks (in 2 1/2 minutes in each round) related to Nanotechnology, this year's theme (Nanoquest).

The teams are coached by teachers Maureen Reilly, Allisyn Levy, and Jennifer Lindauer-Thompson. I was still there an hour an a half later observing the incredibly well organized operation as the 22 children accomplished an amazing amount of work with the guidance of their teachers.

After an opening warm-up session they broke into distinct groups – research, programming, building – and ended with a whole group sharing session.

Maureen, a 2nd year teacher, began the program last year and recruited Alyson and Jennifer this year after getting support from Brain Pop. Maureen is not your average robotics coach as she worked for LEGO for 7 years and is still a consultant, even getting to go to Denmark every summer to visit the Mecca of LEGO.


Jennifer meets with the group preparing a research report on Nanotechnology, which will be presented to a panel of judges at Riverbank



Allisyn works with the programmers





A pep rally send-off was held for the robotics teams at the school the Friday before the Brooklyn tournament. A Daily News reporter was in the building for another reason and, looking in, asked what the rally was for. She was incredulous when told it was for the robotics team. Another pep rally will be held on Jan. 26th the day before the massive citywide event.

Teaching Nanotechnology as it relates to one of the FLL challenges


How she stores all the stuff - this is just a small section as Maureen's classroom is the Brooklyn version of LEGOLAND.


Maureen and I discussed the idea of getting Region 8 coaches and may be some other Brooklyn teams together post tournament to plan a follow-up robotics event in the spring.

Nanomaniacs gather around the competition table at the Brooklyn borough FLL tournament at Brooklyn Tech HS on Dec. 9




Maureen prays for a good score







FIRST, the organization behind all the excitement, bills these tournaments as sporting events for the mind. We expect well over 1000 people at the Riverbank gymnasium each day as teams come with cheerleaders, colorful banners and tee-shirts. The excitement is pumped up by a d-jay, a jumbo TV screen and all sorts of other activities. The first time I saw one of these events 5 years ago when they had only 35 teams, I was hooked and have been a volunteer registration and team recruitment coordinator for NYCFIRST.

No matter how much I tell people how great an event this is, they are still overwhelmed when they actually see this in person. FLL is for ages 9-14 and we have elementary, middle and a number of high schools with 9th graders all taking part in the same event. AND THEY ALL HAVE SO MUCH FUN. And their teachers too, who often tell me this is one of the most enjoyable things they have ever done as a teacher, despite all the incredible work involved.

The NYC event is special because it is so massive and is one place where children from the poorest schools mingle with and compete with children from the most exclusive private schools. A teacher from PS 193 in Brooklyn, a rookie school that has jumped in with both feet, sent an email after the Brooklyn tournament (with 27 teams) with a quote from a child who said that was the best day of her life. She ain't seen nothin' yet.

Volunteers are needed as:
Team Quers
Crowd Control
Research/Tech Schedulers
Referees
Field Re-setters

Contact Elizabeth Almonte at: nycfllvolunteer@yahoo.com

City Class Sizes are Highest in State

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters reports:

The DOE finally reported the average HS class size data for each school, as well as for each district, borough and citywide late Friday to the City Council; I just received the file this morning – almost two months past the legal deadline as required by the City Charter.

In December 2005, the Council passed legislation requiring that this information be reported twice a year, on Nov. 15 and Feb. 15.

What it reveals, if the data is accurate, is that the average class sizes citywide in HS range from 27.3 (ninth grade English) to 28.9 (10^th grade Social science and Science.) High school class sizes are largest on average in SI and Queens – with most subjects and grades at 29 or 30.

This report also shows that either class sizes have risen dramatically in City schools this year, or that the HS averages as reported in the Mayor’s Management Report have been highly inaccurate – with most years, the city reporting HS instructional class sizes at about 26 (For the latest MMR for FY 06, which reports this figure at 26.2, see http://www.nyc.gov/html/ops/downloads/pdf/_mmr/doe_wi.pdf)

During the current year, there are many schools where the class sizes are ridiculously large – among them, Enterprise, Business and Technology HS in Brooklyn– where 10^th and 11^th grade English average 43.5-46.5 students per class, and at the Richard Green HS of teaching in Manhattan, where Social studies classes in 10-12^th grades average 41.9., 37.5 and 37 students. All these class sizes exceed the contractual limits.

There are also numerous schools on the SINI or failing list where classes are at 30 or larger.

All of these classes are too large to give students a fair chance at success, and are much larger than HS classes in the rest of the state, which average only 20-22, depending on the subject and grade.

It is no wonder that so many of our high schools are failing, and that our four year graduation rates are only 43.5%, according to the state.

The sad fact is that the city has no plans to reduce high school class sizes, even with as much as $5 billion in additional CFE funds – even though our highest court said that NYC students were deprived of their constitutional right to an adequate education because of their excessive class sizes, and that there was “a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and … poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.

http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/irts/pmf/2004-05/2005_Avg-Class-Size.pdf

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters
www.classsizematters.org

NOTE: Leonie attached an Excel spreadsheet with all the data. If you want a copy shoot me an email. Normsco@gmail.com

FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff

by Norm Scott

Over 230 students and their teachers and mentors from 24 New York City high schools gathered at Polytechnic University in downtown Brooklyn on Saturday Jan. 6 for the annual kickoff of the FIRST Robotics Competition.

They watched a live NASA feed sent all over North America from FIRST headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire as this year's game, Rack 'n Roll, was unveiled to the oohs and aahs of the excited kids. They wasted no time as they immediately began discussing strategies for robot building that would attack the problem as they waited on line for lunch, which was followed by afternoon workshops on Sensors, Pneumatics, and C Programming. At the end of the day, they took home their robotics kits to begin the 6 week window they had to complete the complex project before regionals to be held all over the nation begin. The New York area FRC regional will be held at the Javits Convention Center from March 16-18 (free and all are invited to see a wonderful event that will restore some of your faith if you have any doubts about the kids today.) 32,000 students from 1300 teams from every state and many nations take part, with a World Festival to be held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in mid-April. (Every year quite a few NYC area teams attend.)

Is it remarkable to see so many students and teachers giving up a Saturday for a robotics event? Not if you've been involved as I have as a volunteer with the New York area NYC/NJFIRST organization since I retired over 4 years ago. The teams do not only represent the area tech schools like Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Staten Island Tech, but many teams from neighborhood schools that have often been looked as "failing" by the DOE. Region 2 robotics consultant even led the Morris HS (a school being closed down) team up to Manchester to meet the FIRST team led by well-known inventor Dean Kamen (the Segway). Last year I even met some robotics students from my alma mater Thomas Jefferson which has been closed down, (sort of sad since the class of 1962 met kids from the last Jefferson class ever.)

Right now we are working on the FIRST LEGO League middle/elementary school robotics tournament to be held at Riverbank State Park (145th St, and Riverside Drive) on Jan. 27 and Jan. 28, as 160 teams from NYC schools and community centers will take part. More details in another post.

SHAME

I received this about a month ago but it got lost on my desktop. It is still very relevant despite the overwhelming passage of the contract and indicates that a lot of people voted "yes" while holding their noses.

Notes to myself on the way home from the OCTOBER (‘06) UFT DELEGATE ASSEMBLY
by an elementary school chapter leader, unaffiliated with any caucus

I am ashamed I did not speak out publicly that there was a grave wrongdoing at this evening’s Delegate Assembly.

Regardless of the fact that agendas for tonight’s October Delegate Assembly were mailed to the delegates’ homes just the night before last, as Chapter Leaders and Delegates arrived at Union Headquarters they received an amended agenda.

On this new agenda were the bargaining coalition demands. The assembly was told that the first bargaining session was to be held tomorrow therefore it was imperative the assembly decide by vote tonight whether they wanted to accept these demands or reject them. It was explained that if the vote carried to table the demands we would lose the opportunity to bargain with the coalition.

Then, an outspoken chapter leader named Dave made a very valid complaint when a few members began to question the lack of sufficient notice and asked to table the decision.

To paraphrase Dave, he argued: Three hundred people worked diligently and gave of their time over the summer to hash out these demands and it is unfair to disregard their work.

That is very noble - perhaps the gravity of the problem is escaping Dave’s overworked consciousness. When the membership or any people are kept in the dark it weakens us all. In these difficult times when workers’ rights are being eroded away it is especially important to fuel and foster openness - the sharing of information is key to building strong organizations.

Why had we heard nothing ALL SUMMER from this negotiating committee? Nothing on the results of the survey? Which can also be argued against as a very narrow focus for NEW contract demands. The members I have personally spoken with since the ratification of the last contract had many issues they would like addressed the next time around.

For example: A YEARLY CALENDAR on a PAR WITH OTHER NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL DISTRICTS -the state minimum is 180 days.

Why do we have a variable number of work days/year unlike any other unionized school system?

SET HOLIDAYS (this year they took Veterans Day-What next?)

LOSS OF SENIORITY RIGHTS: ALL those members who were told by their seniors: “YOUR DAY WILL COME - you’ll get your chance- you just have to work long enough.
NOW that they have put in the time-their time has come but there is little to no rights left.
Check out the new contracts article 15E.
DESCRIPTIONS for NEW PER SESSION jobs- talk about leaving loopholes!

This list is by no means exhaustive. It is merely a brief beginning to stress my point.

The ONE CRUCIAL question is: Why isn’t Dave along with the rest of the DA asking:

Why NOT table it until we can disseminate this IMPORTANT information to the membership for discussion and debate?

The membership needs to be well informed in a timely manner not rushed and forced into making decisions that offer only one choice, which is in effect NO CHOICE AT ALL.

This agenda item #1 was presented to the membership to vote on.

Without question, to engage in this type of practice is not simply unfair, it is far worse - it is disgraceful. Those who bear the title of EDUCATOR MUST ASSUME the responsibility that goes along with that title.

These coalition demands that were the new item on the amended agenda needed serious and thought-provoking discussion among EDUCATORS - the membership - the very people who – we, as delegates, ALL represent - this is probably the most disturbing fact - that we were asked to vote on something without input of any kind from the membership.

I am most ashamed for NOT speaking out in the face of this type of disregard.

Educators share a set of values where integrity and the promotion of healthy and lively debate are held in the highest regard. To refrain from acting and speaking out on this is MORE THAN disregard for A PROFESSIONAL responsibility. It is a shunning of A MORAL obligation.

I now seek repentance and hope my fellow colleagues will join me.

First and foremost, we must engage among ourselves to speak and act in accordance with our moral responsibility as educators.

Teacher Union Actions in LA and Boston

Union calls for action by its teachers

Members urged to boycott meetings, activities

BY NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN, Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 01/05/2007 09:19:16 PM PST

In its first major job action amid ongoing contract negotiations, Los Angeles Unified's teachers union on Friday called for its 48,000 members to boycott faculty meetings and unpaid after-school activities.

The boycotts are scheduled to begin at Tuesday's faculty meeting, roughly one month before United Teachers Los Angeles has scheduled a strike-authorization vote.

Union officials said the moves will not affect educational programs or children but are designed to step up pressure on the district to lower class size; give teachers, parents and others more control; and give teachers and health and human service professionals a raise.

Teachers union threatens 1-day strike

Seeks progress in contract talks

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | January 7, 2007

The Boston Teachers Union yesterday threatened a one-day strike as early as Feb. 15 to protest a lack of progress in contract negotiations.

In an e-mail sent to the union's 8,000 members, Union president Richard Stutman said it will hold a meeting on Feb. 14 for teachers and others to consider a strike the following day or an alternate day.

Tilden Teacher John Lawhead

Here is a posting from Leonie Haimson’s list followed by Tilden teacher John Lawhead’s excellent analysis.

“See message from John Lawhead of Tilden HS below; John makes lots of excellent observations, among them the generally good performance of the principal (a Leadership Academy graduate!) and the unique nature of this school for ELL students and esp. Haitian Creole students.

“Tilden's recent quality review points out that at the school, for "English language learners...[their] 2005 Regents passing rate was 25.3 percentage points above similar schools and 16.8 percentage points above schools across the City."

“These results, if accurate, are nothing to sneeze at; moreover this quality review had many other positive things to say about the school, and though the Chancellor cited its low graduation rate, there are many high schools in the city have similar rates, according to SED – and the principal never got a real chance to turn this around.

The quality review report is posted here: http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolQuality/Reports/QRR/18K415.pdf

“One potential danger that John and others might try to keep their eyes on, if the school is indeed phased out, is what will happen to the students still enrolled -- w/ no one taking responsibility for them, there is a real threat that many of them will be discharged and/or drop out, as many of the credits they need to graduate may no longer be offered and they will be barred from taking courses at whatever small schools open up in the building. This apparently has happened before at many of the so-called failing schools that are "restructured" or phased out, and may be one of the reasons that the no. of discharged students have risen over the last few years.

“Also, whether the ELL students will be excluded from the new smaller schools that open up in its place, as has happened elsewhere as well.

“The way the administration manipulates enrollment at schools to make some look good and others bad -- while claiming that principals completely control and are thus accountable for the outcomes at their schools -- is another subject ripe for further investigation.”

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters
www.classsizematters.org




Here is some background and observations from inside the school
by John Lawhead

There were rumors and some ominous signs at the start of the school year, but the announcement of our closing still came as a big surprise. It's now clear at least to me that Tilden was selected as a “target” school for phase-out months before the actual announcement. There was a sudden drop in enrollment and that led to a budget reduction of several hundred thousand dollars. There were many cuts, including most of the after-school programs and the school is bracing for deep excessing of teachers in February.

A major factor in the decline in enrollment was the loss of new 9th graders. List notice transfers from the feeder schools fell by half. The principal explained to the UFT consultation committee in mid-October that she believed ninth graders had been steered away from the school. She said she had heard reports of students applying to Tilden as their first choice and being assigned elsewhere. I later confirmed this for myself by asking my students if they knew of anything similar. For instance, a girl in one of my classes mentioned to me that a cousin of hers had put Tilden as first choice but was sent to John Dewey. They both live on East 32nd Street in East Flatbush.

It also seemed apparent to the principal that the high school enrollment office was deliberately sending kids who were long-term absent or could not be tracked down. In October there were nearly 400 out of the building not accounted for. To make matters worse, in September all the families of Tilden's students were sent a letter declaring the school to be “persistently dangerous” and giving them the opportunity to transfer their children. Of the responses sent back about 140 were granted. Families that were not happy with their transfer were told they had to wait until February to return to Tilden.

It would be interesting and useful to have more information about the enrollment process and other schools' experiences. I think the sudden decline in list notice transfers was engineered, not simply a matter of students' preferences, even given the bad publicity Tilden has had because
of gun incidents and its being on the list of Impact schools. Such a drop was much too sudden.

Joel Klein likes to say that students' preferences expressed on high school applications are a sign that the zoned schools are failing. However, this is not public data and so anyone can say anything they want. The fact that 8th graders -- or the counselors who typically complete the form for them -- must name twelve schools before the applications are complete makes a
mockery of the claim that students really get to exercise choice. As the “push-back” against closing Tilden continues to gather steam it's likely that the enrollment drop may become more prominent as an official “explanation.”

And there's obviously a need to have more convincing reasons. One doesn't have to dig very far to see that the decision to close Tilden is not well grounded in publicly available data. You posted results from New York State's 2001 cohort analysis showing Tilden to be in the middle of a pack of other schools with regard to graduation and dropout rates. Almost everything said by the DOE and Region 6 administrators about Tilden could also be said about a dozen or so and in some aspects several dozen city high schools. The closings create drama but what escapes notice by the major media is the stark similarity of a vast number of schools with similar demographic profiles.

The explanations from Region 6 were very vague. According to Superintendent
Jean-Claude Brizard in a letter to parents of December 12 the major problem was that Tilden was “not on track” to meet the city's goal of “raising the city-wide 4-year graduation rate to 70% and the 6-year graduation rate to 80%.” As you know, the claim that New York City is actual anywhere near these levels for graduation is far fetched. The city's graduation figures have been heavily padded (by counting GEDs and not counting an enormous contingent of mysterious transfers) and are way off from what the state's statistics show.

During the faculty meeting of December 11 where the closing was announced I was amazed at the detachment they expressed. Jean-Claude Brizard declared that he wouldn't want to have his daughter attending Tilden. We were supposed to think he would favor a school only because its data and ignore that it was 96 percent black and 20 minutes from any subway line. I asked
Brizard to name a school in NYC with a demographic similar to Tilden that was doing significantly better. He named Transit Tech as a positive comparison. I asked if he could name a school more similiar to us than that one and he declined. According to the schools' report cards (showing figures for 2004-05) , at Transit Tech 15.5 percent of incoming 9th and 10th
graders were overaged. For Tilden it was 50.5 percent. Three percent of Transit Tech's student were classified as recent immigrants compared with 22.9 for Tilden. In other words, the demographic similarities are rather elusive, aside from the bare fact that most of the students are minority. (And one should add it's not likely that Superintendent Brizard's daughter will be going to Transit Tech either.)

The detachment from our reality is no surprise. The attitude from the top administrators is one of blanket condemnation. Mayor Bloomberg has suggested large schools are inherently unmanageable. There's such a indifference toward the specific challenges that schools face and it amounts to disownership. Yet this stands in sharp contrast to the close scrutinity, the walkthroughs and reviews which schools must devote extensive time to preparing for. The Quality School Review which required three days of visits created the illusion that the evaluation would mean something.

I think it's significant that the data was ignored but I wouldn't suggest that schools with worse evaluations should be closed instead of Tilden. Nothing good and a whole lot of damage has come from this targeting and condemnation of high schools. After the publicity of Tilden's positive rating on the School Quality Review, the UFT leadership appears to be coming around to a position that Tilden looks better on paper than they thought. If they decide to defend us that's fine but I'm afraid they will continue to take a 'devil take the hindmost' perspective without
questioning why the wholesale closings are taking place and what the impact is.

As an ESL teacher I see it as mainly an effort to slash educational services that the neediest kids require. There won't be any replacement of the Haitian Creole bilingual program which students travel from other parts of Brooklyn for. Recently arriving immigrants benefit by learning new subject content and skills in their native language while also learning English for a substantial part of the day. It's also crucial that they have the opportunity to socialize and participate in activities like sports and clubs with "mainstream" students. I'd hate to see them further segregated in a small school only for English Language Learners.

I just want to also mention a couple other reasons why the closing of Tilden was surprising. First, the timing of the announcement and then our new principal. The announcement of which five schools would begin phasing out in September 2007 came on December 11. By this time the deadline for proposals for the new schools to replace the phasing out schools had already passed on December 1. The New Century Initiative for new high schools was once touted as a way to create “community partnerships” for the schools. While New Vision declares that such partnerships are “essential” for effective schools, it's fairly apparent that local partnerships are not being anticipated.

The lack of notice was an outrage for the local politicians, especially the state officeholders like Kevin Parker and Nick Perry. I know Parker has been in the building often and is familiar with the school. I would hope to see the issue of Tilden framed as an indictment of mayor control and the exclusion of community imput from the decisionmaking.

Joel Klein has really offered the big schools only one thing for improvement: newly trained principals (with enhanced powers). That raises the issue of closing a school when a new principal had arrived only the year before and was just beginning to make changes.

Diana Varano is generally well respected, and I find her much more honest and approachable than the typical high school principal. She made efforts to solicit teachers' views about the school and act on them. Some of her initiatives such as expanding elective classes to encompass teachers' suggestions fell by the wayside. But she succeeded in addressing other major concerns, notably the programming of students' schedules which was horrendous in the years before she came.

Naturally, I don't think she's done everything right. I have still have an oversized size that's been grieved for several weeks. But the school is in a budget crisis and it's important that she thinks it's worth saving.

John Lawhead
ESL Teacher
Tilden HS

The Battle of Lafayette - see It's da Norm at the UTP website

Teachers at Lafayette HS, in open revolt over the proposed closing of the school, were joined by parents, students, community members, politicians, and alumni at the barricades. But not the UFT, which was waiting to see which way the wind blew before taking a stand.

Beleaguered principal Jolanta Rohloff and the rest of the administration barricaded themselves in her office..... Go to: http://www.theutp.com/on_the_inside.htm

Inside the UFT Negotiating Committee

From the very beginning we have maintained the 350 member UFT negotiation committee was basically bogus -- the usual gimmick by Unity Caucus to give the appearance of democracy. I met a former chapter leader at recent robotics tournament who is not affiliated with any opposition group and she concurred, saying from the first meeting it was clear Randi Weingarten was manipulating things. She said if there had never been a committee the recent contract would have been no different. Even Jonathan, one of the New Action people said basically the same thing on his blog ("I don’t think we got a better contract because of this mode of negotiating, but I don’t think we did any worse, and the involvement of teachers is a big positive.") He got the first part right.

The following was posted as a comment on the ICE blog and is well worth reading. Would you be shocked to see Unity attack TJC for breaking "non-disclosure" after Weingarten did just that by announcing to the DA how Jeff Kaufman voted.
I bolded the damning statement: "When the Unity position won, Weingarten suggested TJC should no longer be on the Negotiating Committee."

Inside the UFT Negotiating Committee

by Megan Behrent, Peter Lamphere, Kit Wainer

We are three members of Teachers for a Just Contract, who were part of the 300 -member Negotiating Committee. We took part in order to take advantage of whatever opportunities it presented to assure UFT members a “just contract.”

President Randi Weingarten and the UFT leadership have been trying to establish the legitimacy of this new proposed contract by presenting the negotiating process as “more democratic and inclusive than ever,” and the negotiating committee as “mostly rank-and-file members” with “representatives from all school levels, the functional chapters and every union caucus.”

While technically accurate, the picture it suggests of open, democratic discussion with input coming from the grassroots and free give and take among the caucuses, is false.

From the very first meeting, President Weingarten and her ruling Unity caucus absolutely dominated the proceedings. It was not unusual for Weingarten to talk for hours, and to speak at length after each and every person had spoken from the floor. No idea except those that came from members of the dominant Unity caucus was allowed to be given serious consideration.

Here are just two examples of how proposals that came from outside Unity were handled. The first proposal was even adopted later when it was proposed by the Unity leadership.

At the first meeting of the Negotiating Committee in April, Marian Swerdlow of TJC made a motion to reject “any and all givebacks.” Representatives from both New Action and Weingarten’s Unity caucus spoke against this. It was said that this would be “refusing to negotiate” and would violate the Taylor Law. The ludicrousness of this criticism was exposed during the summer when DC 37 negotiated a no givebacks contract and at that point, the UFT negotiating committee did adopt this “illegal” position. However, in April, the threat that this was illegal frightened the independents on the committee into defeating the “no givebacks” resolution. The majority of the Negotiating Committee, as members of the Unity caucus, were required to vote against the resolution, since Weingarten opposed it.

In the fall, Kit Wainer of TJC proposed that the UFT adopt the position that the Department of Education could not dictate educational methods to teachers. President Weingarten prejudiced the discussion by claiming this was an “ideological position,” as if it were any more or less ideological position than any other bargaining demand. As if that were not enough, she again played the “fear card,” claiming illogically that this position could lead to teachers getting disciplined. Again, the independents were frightened and manipulated into voting against a position that was clearly in the interests of UFT members, and of course the Unity majority automatically supported Weingarten’s position.

What is perhaps the UFT leadership’s most outrageous claim about the Negotiating Committee is that no one on the Committee raised the proposal to “win back what we gave back.” Although it has not so far appeared in print, this is being used by Unity members all over the city in what are clearly coordinated “talking points” to discredit TJC’s position that the contract should have restored at least some of what we lost in 2005. Many of the Unity members making this criticism were not even members of the Negotiating Committee.

This Unity criticism of TJC is totally false. At the September 13 meeting of the Negotiating Committee, Peter Lamphere of TJC called for a campaign to restore the givebacks, and argued that this goal would energize and mobilize the union’s membership. Weingarten and other Unity leaders reacted with great hostility. At the October 25 Negotiating Committee meeting, he repeated this call, focusing on eliminating the requirement that teachers work the two days before Labor Day. Weingarten recognized that Lamphere was calling for nothing less than a completely different strategy for the contract campaign, a strategy of mobilizing the membership to fight to restore givebacks and to make gains. She called for an immediate vote by the members of the Negotiating Committee on whether to “stay the course,” or to adopt Lamphere’s strategy. When the Unity position won, Weingarten suggested TJC should no longer be on the Negotiating Committee. In the light of how strongly Weingarten and Unity reacted, it is ludicrous for them now to claim that no one on the Negotiating Committee suggested we should be fighting to restore the givebacks.

One of the reasons that we joined the negotiating committee was out of the hope that it would be a tool for mobilizing our members in a fight for a better contract. The reverse turned out to be the case: this contract has come with even less mobilization than the last one. This is a fact that Mayor Bloomberg even bragged about at the Nov 6th press conference, when he argued that this contract shows how it “doesn’t work to yell and scream.” We in TJC feel the exactly the opposite: that we must organize our members for action to present the credible threat of a strike if we ever want to win a contract that goes beyond the low expectiations of recent concessionary deals. Our members volunteered on two separate occasions for an “action committee,” that was supposed to coordinate mobilization efforts, but after a brief initial meeting in the spring, this committee never convened.

There is one last point we want to make. We participated in the Negotiating Committee despite our reservations over the “secrecy provision” in the “Negotiating Committee Membership Agreement” we had to sign. We had to promise information would “not be disclosed during negotiations.” Since negotiations are now concluded, this part of the agreement is no longer in effect. We also agreed to a “confidential relationship” with other members of the committee. Having watched President Weingarten and other Unity leaders reveal in public meetings (most conspicuously Weingarten at the November 8 Delegate Assembly) how various opposition members of the Negotiating Committee spoke and voted in its meetings, we must conclude that this confidentiality agreement is likewise no longer in effect. Nevertheless, the only names we have used are our own and President Weingarten’s.

Can Joel be totally oblivious to the oncoming Tsunami?
Thanks to http://dbellel.blogspot.com/ for the photo.

What Randi Weingarten said about Lafayette High School

"It is no secret that there have been problems at Lafayette, so its closing is not surprising. We are working with the DOE to create a redesigned school - and potentially two new schools - that parents will want to send their children to and where educators will want to teach."

The UFT goes right along with:
Closing of the large high schools instead of calling for the problems to be fixed by whatever means necessary which might actually include “ horrors“ spending whatever funds it would take to provide personnel, lower class sizes, etc.

The UFT ignores the fact that:
The closing of the schools is one ploy to get half of the teachers out, arguing they have to change the culture of the school instead of fixing what's wrong. That means getting new students and teachers and administrators.

The UFT Sits by while:
Teachers are blamed for failing schools. If they tried to fix schools that are broken, then the teachers and students stay.




What the DOE did at Lafayette was take a school in trouble and put in a Leadership Academy principal who came with the attitude that the problem was the teachers. On her first day in the building (Summer '05), she threatened a rain of U ratings as a way to fix the problem. Teachers came under immediate attack by Rohloff when school started that September. There should have been an immediate response from the UFT.

Randi Weingarten promised the staff an article would appear in the NY Teacher. Instead of an article defending the teachers they get stabbed in the back, a sign that Weingarten was aware of the fact that the school and 4 others would be closed. The fact that this information was carefully released by the DOE immediatley after 90% of the members ratified a contract extension that will assure at least 50% of the teachers in the affected schools will have to pound the pavement looking for jobs with the possibility they will end up as substitute teachers. Do you smell collusion?

What did Weingarten know and when did she know it?

The Unity "club" in the school claim we are distorting the facts and in fact Weingarten and other UFT officials gave the school support.

The proof is in the pudding. We often say "watch what the UFT does, not what it says." In this case what Weingarten said for a change reinforces what she did: Cooperate in the closing of large high schools.

So let us repeat those words again: "It is no secret that there have been problems at Lafayette, so its closing is not surprising. We are working with the DOE to create a redesigned school - and potentially two new schools - that parents will want to send their children to and where educators will want to teach."

Et tu, Randi?

Unity Spins and Grins: A History Lesson

NYC Educator has posted a proposal for a petition calling for divisions to elect their own VP's instead of at-large. Here is an explanation of the history of the change.

There is a debate going on at the NYC Educator blog in UFT democracy, or lack thereof. Since 1994 Unity caucus amended the constitution to eliminate the direct election of divisional vice-presidents -- e.g. Academic HS, Vocational H.S., Middle Schools, Elementary Schools--by constituents of each division and instead had these Vice Presidents elected on an at-large basis by the entire membership, including retirees.

A Unity spinner on the blogs actually claimed this is a good thing, ("The notion that the executive branch should be elected together, in order to provide a minimal unity for governing, is hardly an anti-democratic one.") even trying to compare this to having the US President and VP come from the same party. Naturally he distorted the facts of what really happened to make his case, which NYC Educator trashed in his response.

I asked former Manhattan HS district rep Bruce Markens what occurred while his memory is still intact. (Bruce's long tenure as the lone non-Unity Dist. Rep. despite constant attempts by Unity to defeat him was one of Weingarten's motivations in ending the election of DR's.)

In the mid-80's the opposition was still a coalition called NAC (New Action Coalition, a combo of 3 caucuses with a piece of the name from each one -- some of the founders of ICE were with the Coalition of NYC School Workers).

Mike Shulman won the 1985 election for HS VP by 94 votes over the Unity incumbent George Altomare, one of the founders of the UFT. This sent shock waves throughout Unity and they got Alomare to challenge the election claiming improprieties, a joke since the Unity machine ran the elections.

Naturally, the election committee upheld the protest and they refused to seat Shulman. They finally agreed on an arbitrator and his report called for a new election. This time, without a slate headed by Shanker at the top, Shulman got 62% of the vote. He was not allowed to take his place on the AdCom until Jan/Feb 2006.

With the next election coming in 1987, Unity dumped Altomare and recruited John Soldini from SI (where they could get the large HS vote out for him) to run against Shulman and Unity geared up all forces for the ‘87 election. Schulman almost won again, losing to Soldini by only 21 votes.

He lost again in '89 and by 110 votes in '91 election. But in that election, NAC also won the junior high ex bd seats, giving them 13, the most they ever had. Their JHS VP candidate also lost by about 150 votes. With the opposition seemingly getting stronger, Unity clearly had to do something to keep the wolves at bay.

Their opportunity came after the '93 election when inexplicably, New Action lost the high schools and junior high schools, giving the opposition no voice on the ex bd.

Unity formed a task force to "improve" the election process. It had no specific mandate to deal with the issue of changing the divisional vps to be elected on an at large basis.

At an ex bd meeting in early Jan. '94 they sprung the " improvement" - taking all divisional elections of VP's out of the divisional and making them at-large. A few days after, they sprung it at the Jan. DA, (historically one of the least attended of the year). There also just happened to be a snowstorm that day (Did Unity rig the weather?) guaranteeing an even lower attendance of non-Unity people.

But Unity assured a quorum would be there to make the act legal by threatening Unity Caucus members with the loss of their part-time union jobs and banishment from the slate, which assured a free trip to the AFT and NYSUT conventions. Thus, Unity was able to steamroller through the "improvement" in the election process.

In our so-called democratic union the Unity way, you can change the consitution without having to get membership approval.

But even if they had gone that route, the Unity machine would have spun this “improvement” to the members in some fashion. Without an effective opposition to oppose it (the inability of New Action even at that time to put up a semblance of a fight is indicative of some level of ineffectiveness) the members are helpless against the machinations of Unity. One more argument for the building of an effective opposition to Unity as opposed to the phony bogus opposition New Action has become with all their leaders on the UFT/Unity payroll.

Counter Attack! - The Wave, Dec. 29, 2006

by Norman Scott

Last time I wrote (“The Empire Strikes Back”) about the very favorable NY Times article on Region 5 Superintendent Kathleen Cashin that pointed to the very high results in Region 5 compared to the rest of the city while Cashin did things counter to the Tweedles. Our take was that the article was a sign that the old BOE people are lining up behind Cashin for a possible coup d’etat when BloomKlein are out of office. You knew the gang at Tweed could not have been happy. Hidden behind the faint words of praise given her by Kleinites in the article were clearly words of damnation and unhappiness. Eschewing Leadership Academy principals, empowerment zone schools, Teacher College “progressive’ curriculum, having good relations with the UFT hierarchy (giving them space for 2 charter schools) and other transgressions of Tweed orthodoxy, Cashin emerged as a sort of counter hero, though many teachers in Region 5 read the article with a “humph,” thinking about Cashin’s top-down management and even questioning whether the “growth” in Region 5 scores was legitimate.

Would the Evildoers at Tweed strike back? Emails came in asking if it was true that Cashin and almost all the R5 Lis’s would be out by Feb. 1, the only question being whether Cashin was going to be moved up or be let out to pasture. Or none of the above. You know the old saying. There is the right way. There is the wrong way. And there is the DOE way.

Cashin would seem to be protected. Part of former Chancellor (1978-1983) Frank Macchiarola’s political sphere of influence, the former principal of PS 193 in Brooklyn’s District 22 had strong backing from Macciarola when she became Superintendent of Brownsville’s District 23. Despite being out of office for over 2 decades, Macchiarola still has some influence and may have played a role in Cashin’s appointment as Region 5 Superintendent when BloomKlein executed its bloody coop.

BloomKlein had a major goal of dismantling the local political/educational machines in the former districts while undermining UFT influence, which had been so tied into those machines. And they seemed to do just that — with a vengeance. But politicians who had been so involved and had benefited to such an extent, mostly from patronage from the old system, didn’t easily disappear and many of the machines are still intact just lurking until BloomKlein disappear into the vapor from which they appeared. They are joined by the UFT leadership, which plots right along with them.

Even with the onslaught, many from the old guard with political influence managed to land on their feet in the BloomKlein administration after they came out of shock, though thee was some district reshuffling in their version of musical chairs where those with the least influence were left standing after each round.

After I posted the column on my blog a retired teacher began a correspondence. “You wrote an excellent article referring to the Times article. I don't understand why there aren't more folks talking about what crap the teacher's college reading and writing workshop approach is and how much it is costing.” He goes on: “More on the Cashin fall out: Whitney Tilson, a big macha with Teach For America shills for Klein on his blog at edreform.blogspot.com.”

It is interesting to read the criticisms of Cashin from a Klein shill, who gives any credit for Region 5 improvements to Klein, not to Cashin. Note my cryptic comments in brackets.

"I've done some due diligence [HACK JOB] on Kathleen Cashin and she has indeed made improvements -- but the real story is much more nuanced than this article makes it out to be. The performance of her district, while better than before, hardly calls for hosannas. It outperformed other districts, but not dramatically in most cases, and the high school graduation rate is below most others (which the NYT story didn't mention). This district is not doing well by any objective standard — it's just gone from being truly awful to merely lousy.

“I don't buy the argument put forth in the article that her district's improvements are entirely due to her — and especially due to her bucking of the new system. Klein has implemented big changes over many years that are beginning to move the needle in the right direction across the city — if I recall correctly [NOT], in both NY state and national data, NYC showed more improvement [PHONY GRAD RATES, ETC.] than all other large cities in the state and nearly all nationwide — so why wouldn't Cashin's district be benefiting as well?

“More importantly, it's critical to understand how Cashin has achieved the gains we've seen in her district. Generally speaking, there are two approaches to reforming big, broken systems, whether we're talking about General Motors, the old Soviet Union or the NYC public school system: you can either keep the existing system in place, but wring incremental improvements out of it by exercising extreme command-and-control, or do the opposite and try to reform the broken system by changing incentives, setting up accountability systems and pushing power and control down to the local level. [PUT DOWN THE COOL-AID, WHITNEY. THE OLD HIGHLY CENTRALIZED SOVIET SYSTEM HAD MORE LOCAL CONTROL THAN KLEIN ALLOWS.]

“Cashin is a classic example of the former, whereas Klein has adopted the latter. [MORE COOL-AID] Turning to Cashin, according to a friend who's in the know, she is ‘a total control freak’ and runs her district with an iron fist. If a principal tries to buck her in any way, she fires and blackballs him/her. Cashin's educational pedagogy has merit, however, so imposing it on a district that had no sound educational approach at all yielded some incremental improvements, as noted in the NYT article.

“There are severe limits to Cashin's approach. Fundamentally, the system and the biggest problems within it — lack of human talent [SURE, THERE WERE NO GOOD TEACHERS BEFORE KLEIN] and motivation [THREATS, INTIMIDATION] — haven't changed at all. So, my prediction is that Cashin's district will not show much if any incremental improvement and will remain merely lousy — unless Klein's reforms kick in. [WORDS OF DOOM FOR CASHIN?]

“Klein's approach is, at its core, the exact opposite -- and is, obviously, the one I think has the most long-term promise. But it also has real risks -- trying to reform a deeply entrenched broken system in the face of massive resistance (not to mention mostly hostile media coverage [HOSTILE? HE MUST ONLY BE READING THE WAVE]) is really hard and messy [THEY’LL FIND OUT THE REAL MESS KLEIN LEFT ONE DAY], as noted above. If too much autonomy is pushed down the school level before the accountability and motivational systems and human talent [REPLACE TEACHERS EVERY 3 YEARS] are in place, the results would be disastrous. That's why I like Klein's incremental approach with Empowerment Schools… [BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!]

Tilson goes on to tell stories coming out of Teach for America teachers about how horrible the system is with kids roaming the halls all over the place. The Tilson Klein vs. Cashin debate is a straw man, there being no choice, both being top-down centrally managed, though from a different location.

My retired teacher friend defended Cashin on Tilson’s blog:
“Maybe part of the reason is a curriculum that is mostly smoke, mirrors and jargon that makes absolutely no connection to kids, especially middle schoolers. If Cashin is "a total control freak" and runs her district with an “iron fist," what do you think Neutron Jack Welch taught all the newbie principals at the Leadership Academy? There is plenty of talent in the NYC school system and it is not restricted to charter schools — (who by the way play with a rigged deck because they can skim quality students).

“To say that Cashin's way is inferior to Klein's just doesn't wash. Klein has NO WAY. There is no thought with going from the regional plan to empowerment. The only thought is that the old way is not working. (For this I give him credit). The sad part is that great damage is being done with a literacy program that makes very little connection to the majority of kids in the system. It is heavy on structure with no content. Without engaging content you lose the interest of the kids-especially the middle schoolers who are failing at ever increasing rates. These are the kids who are roaming the halls of your Teach For America folks' halls. I get the impression from the Times' article that Cashin relies on content and methodology that has proven effective, especially in her districts

"For a guy who is a financial whiz has it ever occurred to you how much the city is getting ripped off by Columbia Teacher's College and how much teaching time is being lost to send people there for training?”

Get those daisy petals out. Cashin-Klein-Cashin-Klein-Cashin-Klein. Having had some “issues” with Cashin in the past, here I find myself in the position of almost defending her system of education, which I worked under in District 14 and grew to despise, an indication of how BloomKlein have alienated just about anyone who was ever been truly involved with teaching. I’ve always been for maximum teacher power and input in making educational decisions.

I’m trying not to gag over the fact that Cashin vs. Klein might be our choices of how schools should be run. That my union, the UFT, plays in this “no power for teachers” game sends me searching for a giant bottle of Pepto.

On Closing Large High Schools

From Leonie Haimson listserve:

The Comptroller has received several calls from other elected officials concerned about the closings of these schools. We are interested in finding out if anyone can tell me if the DOE did any outreach at all to parents or the effected communities prior to making this decision….and if they have any plans do so now with respect to the next steps they will take re: the creation of new schools/programs at these site.

Comments from Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters on Dec. 12:

The pattern that we have repeatedly seen of closing failing large high schools down and opening up new small schools in their place sounds good; but in the end, it often hurts rather than helps our neediest students, leading to even higher discharge and dropout rates.

For example, Tilden HS has 300 special ed students and at least 300 ELL students, many of them sent there originally because other large high schools nearby were closed in recent years, like Bushwick, Prospect Park, Wingate and others.

Why? As we know from recent reports from the CCHS, Immigration Coalition and NY Lawyers for Public Interest, most of the ELL and special ed students will be excluded from whatever new small schools are formed in their place.

When a school is being phased out, no one cares about the students who still go there – they no longer count in terms of any accountability system. This may be one of the reasons we’ve seen a steady increase in discharged students over the last four years. In many cases, these students are denied the classes they need to graduate, even if these same courses are being given at the small schools opening up in the same building.

If they don’t manage to graduate in the few years that their original school continues to exist – and many won’t – most of the lowest-performing students will be discharged to “alternative” or GED programs, or transferred to other large high schools. These schools in turn will likely become even more overcrowded than before – and in many cases, destabilized.

In either case, many of the students at the schools that are were announced today as closing will likely end up as dropout statistics, or even worse, if “discharged” they will be expunged from existence, and not even counted as dropouts.

Today I spoke to a teacher at Tilden HS, one of the schools being closed down; he told me that school has never been given the resources or programs it needed to improve. He has many ELL classes that have 30 students or more – classes that should be no larger than 20.

Four of these five schools also had principals who graduated from the Leadership Academy. What this shows is that leadership alone does not help, unless classroom conditions are also addressed.
Until this administration has a plan to improve opportunities for all our students, including providing them smaller classes no matter where they go to school, we will continue on in this cycle of failure, far into the future.