Steve Orel: He is gone...

Posted by Glenda Jo Orel

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden


We are so sad to report the passing of the remarkable Steve Orel after putting up one of the great battles against colon cancer. But no one was surprised that Steve would fight to the end. After all, he fought the Klan in Birmingham (as a Jew and civil rights worker in Birmingham, that ain't easy), the racist policies of the Birmingham Board of Education, and his most valiant fight of all - to make the WOO (World of Opportunity) a place where the poorest, most downtrodden students would get a second chance. The recipient of ACT NOW's "Courage in Education Award," that barely touches on the incredible things Steve accomplished.

It is often said about people who pass, they will be sorely missed. By the people who loved them. Or worked with them. In Steve's case, he will be missed by all of humanity. There is probably no worse time to lose someone like Steve.

In April 2006 I hitched a ride with friends Ira and Sheila Goldfine who were driving down south. We loaded up the Godfine's van with old computers, books and whatever else we could gather, as The WOO has become a center for the distribution of "stuff" to people in need. With Steve's illness looming so large, we never expected to see Steve, who I met at the ACT NOW conference organized by SusanOhanian, Juanita Doyan and others to forge a national resistance to the evils of high stakes testing and to battle against the upcoming NCLB Act. The conference was held at the WOO in March 2003 where Steve was given his Award. Steve included the entire WOO in accepting the Award.

We were on the highway looking for The WOO, when a van cut us off, the driver pointing to follow him. Hey, this is the south, and we were nervous, but we got off at the exit. A yellow paper popped out the window. In bright red letters, it said "WOO" on it. when we pulled into theWOO's driveway, out popped Steve from the car, his arm in a sling from all the crap they had been pumping into him. "You didn't think I wouldn't recognize 3 Jews from New York, did you," he said with a big smile? That was the first time Ira and Sheila had met Steve and after an hour with him talking education, politics, people, kids, etc. theimpression he made on them was as great as anyone they had ever met.


Ira, Sheila and I visited with Steve and Glenda Jo one evening a few months ago on one of their visits to Sloan Kettering here in NY and heard all the horror stories about the health care system directly from them. Michael Moore could have made "Sicko" just using their story. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten to see Steve twice in the past year or so.


The other day, when things were looking bleak, Glenda Jo, asked for final messages to be read to Steve in his final days. Knowing Steve as a man with one of the great senses of humor, I could imagine him making jokes about his situation 'till the end. So I sent a bunch of politically oriented chicken crossing the road jokes along with the message below. I hope he got to hear a few of them and smile.


Dear Steve,
While there's much to be sad about, there's so much to cheer in a life well lived. We only met a few times but I feel I've known you so well. I wish we had more time to hang out and schmooze, and, most of all, laugh. Of course, your first words to me when we met at the WOO were "Hello, what subject do you want to tutor? Here's someone to work with. See you later." No laughs there. I didn't find out about your amazing sense of humor 'till later when we went to get those peace banners from your car for the weekly anti-war vigil on a corner in downtown Birmingham, Al., as surrealist experience as I've had.

You said such kind words about what you noticed about the work I did with the student. You got me as a teacher in just a few moments. I value those words of yours as much an any praise I have received.

But enough of the serious stuff, Steve. As a man with as good a sense of humor as anyone I have met, we know that there's nothing you like better than a good laugh. And you are about the only one I know who, despite your situation, will find a laugh to be the best medicine. When Oscar Wild was in your situation he said, "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

And given the point we are at and the risk of doing anything in bad taste - but of course, "bad taste" are my middle names, I revert to the venerable use of the "chicken crossing the road" series, which no matter how dire the situation, I hope will bring a smile to your face. Or at least, get you to start removing that wall paper.

From Susan Ohanian:
I mourn the loss of my soul brother, friend, and great champion of young people. He started the World of Opportunity in Birmingham, Alabama to right the injustice of students terminated by the public school system. The door at the WOO is always open for students to get a second chance. . . and a third and a fifteenth, when need be.

Steve, your spirit fills the streets of Birmingham and the hearts of all who were privileged to know you.

Susan has been sending contributions to the WOO from the sale of this CD:
Order the CD of the resistance:
"No Child Left Behind? Bring Back the Joy."
To order online (and hear samples from the songs)
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dhbdrake4
Other orders: Send $15 to
Susan Ohanian
P. O. Box 370
Charlotte, VT 05445

Another way to assist Glenda Jo in keeping The WOO running.

Support the World of Opportunity!
Start your Amazon.com shopping at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/102-6736567-7856906


Thanks to John Lawhead for these pics of Steve when we visited the WOO in '03

DOE to Schools: Class Size Go Blah!

The DOE had a press release on reducing class size today. Thank goodness we have Leonie Haimson to decipher the gobboly gook for us.

Okay, what many of us were breathlessly waiting for turned out not to be worth waiting for at all.

There is nothing that Tweed submitted today that resembles a real class size reduction plan, and it clearly does not comply with the state mandate.

Moreover, they appear to think that they can charge $40 million for the interim assessments, including “data inquiry teams” and the Senior Achievement Facilitators (SAFs), to the state-funded contracts for excellence and the CFE funds; this doesn’t fall under any of the categories set out by state law – as even their own summary reveals: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/ChildrenFirst/CFE/ContractProgramAreas/default.htm

Instead of adding to instructional time, the interim assessments further diminish it.

More real analysis soon, particularly of their totally inadequate class size reduction proposal, or what they are trying to package as such.

Meanwhile for those who are interested, some highly tendentious and debatable documents are here:

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/ChildrenFirst/CFE/ContractProposal/default.htm

http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/219D42DE-28DB-4531-8935-ED47A53EAC1C/23819/FairStudentFundingandtheContractsforExcellence.pdf

http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/358C31A7-2EC8-43CD-9B40-4838FADC361C/23890/NYCDOEClassSizePlan.pdf

I hope that all of you will come out to the hearings in each borough next week; save the dates and locations that are below. I will supply talking points for those who would like them.

Thanks,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

leonie@att.net
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Okay, Leonie, as you know I am not new to this issue, but can you play devils advocate and tell us is there any conceivable reason why the administration would not support a real lower class size initiative. During all my years it was always a goal in our schools and in our district to bring down class size where we could scrape together the funds to do so. So why, what is the reason, that the bloom/klein team don't want to do it. Something so simple that everyone seems to believe would be a real boon to education in NYC there has to be some reason why they don't want to do it.

dorothy

region 6 hs

I get asked this question all the time and I usually refuse to answer on the grounds that I would be speculating.

But between us, I would guess the following: It doesn’t fit their game plan; they don’t care/think it matters much, and they don’t want to have to bother to build enough schools to make it happen throughout the city. They have never been educators so they have no idea how difficult/impossible the job is when you have 28 or more needy students. They believe it’s just a matter of getting the right sort of teacher.

Of course they would never consider depriving their own kids of smaller classes…but you get the idea.

It is no longer a lack of funding. They would just rather spend the money elsewhere – on consultants, ARIS, more testing, data inquiry teams, school achievement facilitators, SSO’s and PSO’s, charter schools, small schools, etc.etc. You get the idea.

And so it’s our job to fight like mad, and to try to make sure that all the CFE funds don’t get wasted.

Leonie

I would add to Leonie's answer to Dorothy that class size reduction has many ramifications: many more schools, many more teachers, and the bureaucratic structure to support it. These are long-term solutions and they are only interested in short-term answers so they can make their political points in the limited time they are in power.

Everyone knows that top suburban schools and elite private schools have low class sizes. But the Bloom/Kleins, Eli Broads, KIPP, Green Dot, etc -- those phony reformers of the public education system -- envision a very different education for the inner city -- and they want to do it on the cheap: use narrow standards and narrow tests to create a narrow level education to prepare whatever kids come out "successfully" for the narrow job market that will be available to them -- a very different job market than available for the graduates of the elite schools where kids get a very different education. Check out blogger jd2718's post on two separate education systems for some good analysis related to the small schools.

Today's This & That - July 4, 2007

Happy Post July 4th

Rush on over to NYC Educator - DO NOT PASS GO - to read this week's Carnival of Education round-up of the blogs, where he features a few choice items from this abode. http://nyceducator.com/

There is an item from blogger and NYC teacher jd2718 "Do we really want Black and White kids to be educated not only separately, but differently?" that makes so many good points I wish I had written it myself as he analyzes some crucial issues related to the small school movement and how it has been implemented. As I pointed out in my post about how the DOE has a dog in the hunt, when it comes to this issue and will use every PR move to make sure their dog wins.

While I have had issues with jd2718 over his support for the role the former opposition caucus New Action has played with its total support for Weingarten and Unity, it was nice to see him at least raise the the possibility that the UFT should be taking more of a role on this issue besides passing resolutions and issuing reports - both PR moves from my point of view. I repeat uncle Normie's mantra: watch what the UFT leadership does, not what it says. jd2718's point below pretty much nails it:

"The United Federation of Teachers issued a report saying that we support a mix of large and small schools. But there is no mix. Some groups of neighborhoods have large schools. Some have good mini-schools. And some have ‘redesign’ and Gates mini-schools. Which groups of neighborhoods have a mix? The UFT’s resolution has never been acted on. We have never challenged in a serious way the Department of Ed’s willy-nilly opening of lousy mini-schools, or their disruption of larger schools. And today? Today the UFT is partnering with Green Dot to bring a small charter high school to…. the Bronx. We already set one up in Brooklyn. And Green Dot doesn’t have a pretend report about supporting a mix of types of schools."

I just hope New Action leader Mike Shulman doesn't get too much agita that one of his members might have gone too far to make Randi mad. Bet he gets a call from Leo Casey.

Jolanta Rohloff in today's Daily News:
"We're very pleased and relieved," said Lise Hirschberg, who heads East Harlem's Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics school's chapter of the teachers union. "Klein objects to moving bad teachers around the system, but that is apparently what they're doing in this particular case."

In her new $130,000-a-year job, Rohloff will be developing a new high school that she will run when it opens in 2008 - a job specially created for her, said schools spokeswoman Melody Meyer.

We're sure teachers will just be dying to work there. They'll probably have to hire them off the dead scroll list. Jolanta has already given U-ratings to 20% of the prospective staff before hiring anyone. Gary Babad of GBN News at the NYC Public School Parent Blog reports the real story behind the scenes and reveals who the other candidate for principal at Manhattan Center really is.


Check Samuel Freedman's article in Wed. ed section of the NY Times which I posted on the Norms Notes blog. Of note are the assinine comments of Andres Alonso regarding the overwhelming paperwork ESL teachers labor under. His blabber just reaffirms my post on my own brief experience with Alonso. I would love to hear from any teachers who actually worked with Alonso. I bet he had real disdain for his colleagues. As I said, "Good luck Baltimore."


In response to this post on ICE mail,
"I heard a rumor in the Unity grapevine that Randi is trying to set her table up for a possible nomination for Secretary of Labor should Hillary Clinton be elected President. Randi wants to appear more conservative and tougher on labor in order to have an easier nomination process before conservative Republican Senators. This could explain Randi's collaboration with BloomKlein."

Michael Fiorillo responded:
Well, if Randi wants to appear tough on labor, she's done a pretty good job by going out of her way to undermine the AFT local in Los Angeles. Her embrace of Green Dot, despite their maintaining a company union in LA, is a disgrace.

I had assumed that the green Dot ploy was her entrance onto the national stage vis-a-vis her expected assumption of the national AFT throne. Either way, duplicity and betrayal, in the guise of "new realities" and "cooperation" with management, is the order of the day.

EdNotes comment:
I totally disagree that Weingarten is interested in the Dept. of Labor position, since once out of that office she would not gain entrance back into the labor movement. Leading the AFL-CIO eventually is the perfect arc. But it all starts with the AFT presidency in July '08.


I was at a meeting last night with a bunch of people of various ages and experience in the schools who represent a wide constituency of interests in education. One of the article I read in prep was on Neo-liberalism as it relates to education by Lois Weiner. It nailed and tied together so many points related to privatization of schools, Eli Broad, the World Bank, standards, testing, etc. and the role the unions, in particular the AFT contrasted with the NEA, play in this scenario. We're working on a series of events addressing many of these issues for next year. We'll keep you posted.


I was at the annual July 4th party in Rockaway today - this is about the 30th edition we've been to - where we get to see people only this once a year. Naturally there were a bunch or retired or soon to be retired teachers. One of them works a few days a week doing PD in a small school - one of 4 or 5 occupying a large school that was closed years ago. She said that with each year things in these small schools get worse and in a few years the building will be as bad as the one that closed. She feels so bad for the newer, younger teachers and said their first year, one of the main things she does is pass out tissues. A lifetime high school teacher with an impeccable rep, she gave more insight into how the DOE has been able manipulate the grad rates through lots of subtle and not so subtle pressures to pass kids so they graduate on time. She points to the importance to the DOE of keeping students in their cohort - one of the major words we hear bandied about - and all sort of little tricks are used. Like a few days or even hours of summer school instead of a full course to pass kids for courses they have failed. And of course, teachers marking their own students' regent exams. She said she actually gets physically ill at some of the things she sees going on. There was more but it's midnight and time to go.

The 14th floor is deserted....

... at 52 Broadway.

Your dues at work

50 members of the Unity steering committee are enjoying an all expenses paid trip to Philly for the NEA convention! Yes, that's NEA, not AFT. Well, you know, the NEA and AFT merged in NY State into NYSUT so they need 50 more YES votes.

Philly fans greet Unity leaders

It started last Saturday and ends this Saturday. Many UFT'ers are staying at the Sheraton. Anyone out there with a video camera? You can have lots of fun visiting the Philly hot spots after 12 noon any day - the zoo, baseball, the track, Reading market, shopping - and don't forget the bars at night.

While in Philly, Unity Caucus will adopt the crack in the Liberty Bell as a metaphor for their leadership of the UFT

Tilden and Lafayette: A Tale of 2 Chapters...

....What a farce 3

The response from the Unity gang at Lafayette to the posts of comments by current and former teachers at the school is so indicative of how Unity operates. They brag about how they got rid of the doctor even though the patient died. And add on some egregious statements that confirm the charge of one teacher about how they play both sides against the middle.

Unity: The DOE had the support of the Alumni.
ICE: They distributed to all staff the recent op-ed by well-known Lafayette alumnus Jerry Della Feminina denouncing Klein for closing Lafayette and calling for a rally of alumni to keep the school open.

Unity: Support the 2005 contract and denounce the ICE person at the school for being anti-union for opposing the contract.
ICE: They ostentatiously denounce the 2005 contract as the "worst" contract ever.

The anon. Unity comment "the ICE guy MELTED during the fight against Rohloff" is interesting considering he was the one who openly was quoted in the NY Post about the lack of textbooks in articles as he stood up despite Rohloff's attacks. That has to be put in the context of the comments from the teachers who were attacked by Rohloff (as posted in both What a Farce items below) that they did not feel the Unity people really fought for them. Besides, as one of the fairest-minded people I know, the ICE guy always felt that, though Rohloff was so wrong-headed, he felt she had some positive things about her and never gave up the idea of getting her to function in a better way. Idealistic? Maybe. But he kept his eye on the prize - keeping the school open.

Contrast the actions of the Unity people at Lafayette with the way the Tilden chapter responded as both scenarios played out at the same time. Weingarten, who in the initial stages did not respond at Tilden, was forced to do so when the chapter activated itself to engaged in an active fight to keep the school open, a fight that they are still engaging in, as Meredith Kolodner pointed out in last week's article in The Chief.

I posted a series of articles on the evolving situation in Tilden on this blog. (Do a search of the blog for the Tilden tag to read them, in particular the comments of ICE's John Lawhead, one of the leaders of the fight keep Tilden open.

Of course having a user-friendly principal at Tilden helps, so the cases are not exactly equal. But the ICE person tried to get the chapter at Lafayette to unite behind the idea of keeping the school open.

When Weingarten said that Lafayette should be closed -

"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."

-that was the death knell for any action by the Unity reps there to engage in such a fight. The Unity gang owe allegiance to Unity and the leadership over the members at Lafayette - remember, there are free conventions to attend and other perks. So when the leadership decided getting Rohloff's scalp took priority over a battle to keep the school open, it was game, set and match for the demise of Lafayette. The people at Tilden may not win the fight and end up being closed anyway, but they are still in the game.

The Unity "victory" over Rohloff has resulted, and will result, in many of the teachers at Lafayette ending up as ATR's. The anon. Unity commented,

"As the unity folks at Lafayette have seniority, more than 60 years combined in teaching, they have a right to remain until excessed. Or do you and the ICE person begrudge them that?"

With the Unity abandonment of seniority, resulting in so many senior teachers under attack despite, and maybe because of their high salaries, this comment shows they are not too worried. Just another perk of being in Unity.

What a farce II...

... a response to Unity

Yesterday's "What a Farce" posting resulted in a comment by an anonymous Unity person, most probably one of the 2 Unity people referred to in the response below:

I read the "What a Farce" item on your blog, and your facts are correct. The note from "anonymous" purports to be for the record, but it attempts to muddy the record. The ICE person tried to do just what you said he did, get the chapter to ease up on the relentless ad null campaign against Rohloff in order to focus the chapter's energies against the closing and the long-term negative impact on the school of this strategy since as long as the closing was a fait accompli, Rohloff was gone anyway. That's the kind of "support" for Rohloff, in order to challenge Weingarten's capitulation to Klein's small school, break the union strategy. The ICE person asked for a truce in the battle against Rohloff and that would have built a stronger chapter that could have also checked Rohloff's U-rating binges.

As you suggest, the two [Unity] prime movers of the "Rohloff is the root of all evil" demarche, remain secure in their jobs, at least for now. Meanwhile, they ostentatiously denounce the 2005 contract as the "worst" contract ever, without even mentioning that they supported it, stuffed the mailboxes for Unity, and attacked ICE for being anti-union [because ICE opposed the 2005 contract].

"Anonymous" further claims that the Alumni, as well as one politician approved the takeover of Lafayette by the High School of Sports Management and two other schools. Yet "Anonymous" also distributed to all staff the recent Post (?) op-ed by well-known Lafayette alumnus Jerry Della Feminina denouncing Klein for closing Lafayette and calling for a rally of alumni to keep the school open. I hope more alumni write your blog and let you know how much they "approve" of the closing of Lafayette!

Small Schools: Bloomberg & Klein have a dog in the hunt....

... thus, politics takes precedence over education

Exploring some of the complexities of the small schools/large schools issue.

As Canarsie high school parents met with Region 6 Officials - sort of, we think - the press was banned - we noticed a poster on the door of the Region HQ at 5719 Flatlands Ave. says "Your voice counts. When one parent speaks schools listen." Sure.

On Monday, June 25, a group of parents and teachers and some students came to the Region 6 HQ in its final days to ask for a meeting to discuss the planned removal of principal David Harris. What they got was typical DOE mumbo jumbo. That, added to the fact that not all of them were allowed into the meeting. Lack of space or something like that. There must be special training sessions at Tweed on exactly what to say to people who demand answers.

It is certainly of interest that in their dying gasps, just days before they officially closed down the operation, officials of Region 6 chose to disrupt yet another high school with the removal of Harris, a popular principal who seems to have the support of parents, teachers and many students.

One teacher, just days away from retirement, said that Harris in his year and a half tenure had begun to change the culture of a school that has been under serious difficulty over a period of many years.

My guess would be that the removal of Harris is part to the overall plan to close down Canarsie to make room for a gaggle of charter schools by making it impossible to show any success.

In giving some background to a reporter from Channel 12, I talked about the political context of the action in Canarsie against the backdrop of the closing of just about all the other large schools in the immediate area – Jefferson, Tilden, South Shore, Wingate – leaving Canarsie as the last large school standing. When I and another teacher made some critical comments regarding small schools, the reporter said, "What's wrong with small schools?" We told her there is nothing intrinsically wrong with small schools, but when shoved into larger ones creating even more pressures leading their ultimate closing, they are being used as a political tool.

"Explain," she said.

If you start out with the idea that you are going to make the establishment of successful small schools one of the pillars of your national reputation as an educational miracle maker and stake your political bones on these grounds, then you have a political ax to grind to make large schools look bad and small schools look good. BloomKlein and their Tweedle Dees have a dog in that race and will manipulate stats to give their small school dog every edge they can. Note the extolling of grad rates in small schools and the concurrent attack on the stats in large schools. While the numbers have grains of truth in them, as usual there is a story behind the numbers.

See the accompanying piece at Norm's Notes where Diane Ravitch nails the details on the spinage spilling out of the mouths of Tweed on grad rates.

Since small schools in their initial years do not have the facilities to accept some of the more difficult students to work with, like special ed and students with language difficulties, these students end up gravitating to the nearest large schools still remaining open. This is moving pieces, which is all the children are to the Tweedles, around a game board. Or rearranging those proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic.

In fact there is a lot of information on the subtle creaming to skim the better students that goes on at these small schools. Klein denies it, pointing to the number of Level 1's and 2's and to the fact that 90% of the students are African-American and Hispanic (figures the DOE gives us no way to prove by withholding access to the actual data.) Because schools require an application process where a proactive parent must make an active decision, that alone is a form of creaming. Even low performing students academically, but with parents concerned enough to take action, are often not the kind of behavior problems and that make such an enormous difference in how a school functions.

I have no problems with the fact that these kids are skimmed and often saved by the attention they get in the small schools, one of their prime benefits. But I object to the way the policy is implemented in a way to harm way more kids than are helped. Plus the outright lies and distortions.

When I was a teacher and had difficult kids heading for middle school where I knew they would get lost, I hoped that such schools would exist. I even looked for one for an extremely difficult child who ended up dropping out in the 7th grade and was killed at 18 while selling drugs. So I absolutely support the movement to create small learning environments. But not in the way it is being done by BloomKlein, whose main purpose is political, not educational.

Let's at least be open abut what is going on. Any teacher or administrator will tell you that a fairly small cadre of difficult to manage kids can infect an entire school. These are kids who have parents that will not be out there looking for a small learning environment. In cases that they do and the kids end up in a small school that is in no way equipped to deal with the difficulties they present, in many cases the school does the kinds of things that will drive the kid to either drop out or transfer to a large school.

See examples of how schools do this in Jeff Coplon's New York Mag amazing piece "NEST+m: An Allegory" the most succinct account I've read of the manipulation principals engage in to drive students out. I had the opportunity to meet Jeff at a party last Friday night and told him this was one of the most perceptive pieces I had read and points to the serious lack of adequate reporting by the NYC Ed press. Jeff said it was his first ed piece. Kudos to him.

Most of these kids also want to be able to hang out with buddies, roam the halls, etc -- all the things that drive all schools, but especially the larger ones to distraction. They become an infection of sorts to the rest of t he kids. As to how to rescue these kids, we'll address at another time.

But the DOE shell game of moving schools around creates a class of nomad students not really wanted by anyone, but the large schools are forced to accept them and schools like Canarsie, which as we pointed out, will be overloaded with these super at-risk students who will be joined by many students who will not find room in the small schools in the neighborhood. That at a time of the massive reorganization and the expectation that with South Shore and Tilden not accepting 9th graders who will gravitate to Canarsie, the idea of not leaving Harris there as principal and bringing in someone new at this crucial point in time is insane. But this is the NYC DOE. I have an idea. Try Jolanta Rohloff who can deal with the situation by threatening teachers with u ratings. (One sidelight of Harris' removal was his refusal to come up with his quota of U-ratings.) Sorry, she's slated to destroy Manhattan Center for Math & Science.

Since there will never be enough room in the very cost-intensive small schools where the Bill Gates money runs out after 4 years and these schools begin to face some of the downhill slides if they cannot attract enough students who can perform well academically, the people at Tweed ought to invest the capital necessary to attempt to fix the large schools instead of throwing up their hands and saying it is no use.

The attack on large schools, using the buzz words of "we need to change the culture" is an attempt to replace a teaching staff that is often more knowledgeable about their union rights - in effect a union-busting tactic. In essence, they want to change the culture on the backs of young, inexperienced teachers who will be often be burned out after just a few years and replaced.

When I attended a luncheon at the Manhattan Institute for Christopher Cerf, he said throwing money at educational problems doesn't automatically fix them. I raised the point that the DOE under BloomKlein is willing to throw all kinds of money at consultants, expensive computer systems and all kinds of pet programs, but not at schools. I asked, "Why not at least try throwing money at schools like Tilden and Lafayette instead of closing them? Try putting enormous amounts of personnel to provide guidance, social workers and a drastic reduction in class size." He had no response. But that's expected when you have a dog in the hunt.

Bloomberg and Klein's dog (undoubtedly a lap dog) is proving one of the underpinnings of their restructuring of the NYC school system - the success of the small schools - will be hammered home again and again even at the expense of the overwhelming majority of students remaining in the large high schools. To them, the collateral damage to an entire generation of students is a small price to pay. If there were truly an educational pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we could at least say their motives were pure. But every day they reinforce the idea that it's all about politics, not education.

Skelly Champ of Alabama Ave.

I was the Skelly champ of my block - what you do when you're a lousy athlete. I was pretty good at boxball too. Today's NY Times article on the street games of our youth, so missing from today's streets - brings back memories. I remember "Kick the Can" as being played as a form of baseball on the 4 corners of Riverdale and Alabama Aves in East NY. We also played Triangle (with only 3 bases) and something my dad taught us called "One a Cat" but I can't remember the details. Hit the penny was a big one too and the girls played Hop Scotch.

We played stickball on Newport St which connected Georgia Ave and Alabama Ave just north of New Lots Ave. We called that street Newport Stadium and it seemed so far from end to end when I was a kid, but looked tiny when I drove by in later years. Of course, with the rubble that neighborhood became, it is hard to recognize much.

We spent a summers sitting on stoops playing rummy, hearts and pinochle. I had one deck of each in each of my back pockets. And of course, the Mantle/Mays/Duke arguments.

The schoolyard at PS 190 was always humming in the mid-to-late 50's -- all day and all evening. Packed on Friday nights with kids from all over the neighborhood. There were big money games on Saturdays and Sundays - the school yard was almost a block long. There were also lots of what we called "holes" - areas between the wings of the school and there could be as many as 6 games going on at once. But then the gangs began to come and the schoolyard became deserted by the early 60's. And, of course, the portables ruined what was a great schoolyard in the mid-late 60's.

Atlantic Yards – and the UFT

An article on the massive project in Brooklyn in today's NY Times points to the release of documents that were only obtained through a lawsuit.

"Critics have long suggested that the project is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the developer, the project’s promised jobs and subsidized housing a kind of Trojan horse for the thousands of high-end apartments that come with them. But the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation." [My emphasis.]

From purely an education point of view, though there is no mention of this point in the Times article, Leonie Haimson and other critics have been pointing to the fact that with all this building, there is no provision for schools. Our May 4 post "Bloomberg Vision: A Childless NY" with a link to Leonie's comments addressed that issue.

But I always come to the question: Where is the UFT on the refusal to divulge crucial information or the no-schools issue or on the enormous amount of public money being pumped into the project? Just as the UFT took an initial position supporting the Jets stadium until they jumped on the bandwagon when public sentiment turned against it, the UFT, being part of the power structure, goes along with what the power structure wants. That is the "new unionism" - a partnership, lining up with the real estate and corporate interests – have you heard of any criticism over the enormous tax breaks for corporations while telling the members there is no money for class size reduction or new schools and relying on decades old CFE suits and phony petition drives on class size?

Well, it's not really all that "new." A new book on Al Shanker backed by the UFT's best friend, millionaire Eli Broad will connect even more of the dots, green, pink or whatever. Sean Ahern has been off and running on this one already and we'll get to that in another post.

What a farce.....

We get letters:

A teacher who asked for help with a friend who is fighting to keep her license wrote:

All the NYSUT lawyers say to either pay the fine or resign. It's time for a coup d'etat at the UFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another teacher posted the message below to ICE-mail. She was U-rated by the infamous Jolanta Rohloff and embargoed from working under her high school license. She is trying to regain the license. What does the system have to lose in letting her keep the license if there are principals willing to hire her? A pound of flesh is not enough. At least she is currently working in the NYC system under a different license.

As for the UFT's role...ugh! Instead of focusing on keeping the school open, they focused on getting Rohloff removed so they can claim a pelt on their belt. Weingarten herself said the school should be closed. An ICE person, who had also been U-rated by Rohloff, tried to get the chapter leader to address the school closing, but as a Unity Caucus clone, he had his own agenda and attacked the ICE guy as being anti-union. Jeff Zahler and Leo Casey must be writing his material. I bet he makes out pretty wel in the closing while the ICE guy was excessed into ATR'dom.

One side story. This teacher got a now-defunct UFT transfer after 4 years of teaching in the Bronx (she lived in Brooklyn) before Rohloff took over at Lafayette that summer. In August, she decided to go to school and introduce herself. The very first words out of Rohloff's mouth to her were, "Don't you think I should be able to hire my own people?" Welcome to the school. Within the first weeks she was being given U-observations, clearly one of Rohloff's chosen pre-determined targets. Rohloff had stated on her first day at the school there would be a rain of U's.

Her assignment to Lafayette as principal even caused smiles among her colleagues at the Leadership Academy, who had clearly seen in her performance there that she would not be appropriate as a principal. It's pretty interesting that even people in the belly of the beast speculated that Rohloff got the assignment because it was clear that her difficult personality would finish Lafayette off. Now the Tweedles have targeted Manhattan Center on the upper east side as Rohloff's next victim, another school that will driven into closure to make room for charters. Teachers there are already passing around petitions.

Here is the teacher's letter. Hard to decide whether to place more blame on the DOE or the UFT. Maybe a tie?

My hearing with the DOE to argue my discontinuance regarding my high school license was held in February ( I was at Lafayette High- 'nuff said).

Though clearly evidence regarding my discontinuance was in my favor (again, those that know of the goings on at Lafayette would agree), the LIS has decided to uphold the discontinuance. This I expected, as I feel the DOE rarely reverses itself, regardless of the justice or injustice of a situation.

Today, I called the UFT. I was told that no further appeals can be carried out by the UFT. I must obtain a lawyer myself to initiate an Article 78 proceeding, if I wish to appeal the DOE decision. After researching what I need to do, it appears that the process is quite lengthy and costly. Again, basically, I was told: "Tough luck"...

WHY doesn't the UFT undertake such appeals on behalf of its' members? Isn't that WHY we have a union in the first place, to protect the members in the case of such events? The UFT rep that I spoke with could not even recommend a lawyer!

More and more, I see the futility of the UFT as a viable organization designed to represent teacher issues vis- a- vis labor problems with the DOE. WHY do we even HAVE a union in the first place, if the Union does not even fulfill its' most basic functions, that of representing
the members in the face of unfair management and labor practices?

What a farce.....

Jobs' Jabs at Teachers in Unions

ET, IPhone Home.
Or, ET TU, Steve?

"I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy." Steve Jobs, Founder and CEO of Apple, Inc.

As a loyal Apple user, and one of so many unionized, tenured, lifetime teachers Jobs is talking about who did so much to help build Apple's business in the schools, this attitude is very disappointing, to say the least. But I'm pretty sure Bill Gates, the esteemed leader of Apple's competition feels the same way Jobs does and has actually put his money where his mouth is to bring his faulty new vision into effect. Linux, anyone?

Check out Murray Bergtraum Chapter Leader John Elfrank's great rant on Steve Jobs' statement on teacher unions at his blog http://laborslessons.blogspot.com/

Some excepts:

Steve Jobs seems to have had an epiphany regarding what ails education. It's the slacker teachers who enjoy tenure and seniority through union contracts. They stifle innovation and creativity; the kind we would see in the great Man of the Century, Albert Einstein, whose image Apple has exploited in its "Think Different" campaign.

However, there are a few things Mr. Jobs doesn't know. 1. Albert Einstein was a founding member of the Princeton, New Jersey chapter MY UNION: The American Federation of Teachers. He believed strongly in unions and thought intellectual workers especially needed to belong to them.

"I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field." Albert Einstein

The second point of Mr. Job's ignorance is that he presumes teachers are so coddled that they remain in the profession for a lifetime. The truth is that the job is so stressful teacher turnover is rampant. A CNN story shows the teacher supply problem is a myth. The challenge is keeping them in the classroom. More at John's blog.

A Parable

Joel Klein was challenged by his counterpart in Tokyo to a canoe race between the highest performing schools on standardized tests in their respective school systems. The race would be held on the Hudson River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

Klein decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A senior management team from Tweed was formed to recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a more professional study with statistics was in order, Klein hired the Alvarez and Marsal consulting company, paying $15 million for a second opinion. Their conclusion: too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing, but it would take another $15 million for them to come up with a solution.

Klein gladly paid, telling critics of the high fee that the people at Tweed just didn't have the expertise needed and besides, these critics were just afraid of change and that a victory over the Japanese was essential as a demonstration of the success of his Children First initiative. A&M recommended that the rowing team's management structure be totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

Tweed's top management implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program.' The program included after school meetings, new rowing standards and free pens to motivate the rower. Suggestions from the school to get new paddles, canoes, and extra money for practices were rejected on the grounds that "just throwing money at a problem does not lead to a solution."

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Klein blamed whatever was left of seniority protection in the teacher contract for the loss and the rower was U-rated for poor performance. All capital investments for new equipment was cancelled and the money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team would be staffed from a Charter School jointly managed by Green Dot and the UFT.

Thanks to Benna G. and Beth K.

Connecting the Green Dots

(Links to full articles posted on the Norm's Notes blog)

Why Weingarten's deal with Green Dot dovetails with the general attack on public education

Following up on her Screw ball toss at the Brooklyn Cyclones game, Randi Weingarten has taken the screwing metaphor to a new level in today's announced deal with Green Dot charters. It is not just teachers the deal screws, but with all other the news today about Charter schools, her actions aid and abet the screwing of public education.

First we have a link to the LA Times version of the story where LA teacher's union president AJ Duffy rejected a deal with Green Dot. But not Randi. Watch the Leo Casey and crew at Edwize justify this one. As the NY Times version says "but their contract would be simpler than the citywide contract." Let's see how simple: "Rather than dictating the number of hours and minutes teachers must spend at the schools, it would just call for a “professional workday,” they said. The contract could also eliminate tenure, but would set guidelines for when a teacher can be dismissed."

Heard of fuzzy math? Child play compared to fuzzy contracts. NYC Educator goes into much greater detail on the contract so let's focus on other aspects. I won't even go into the issue of union democracy, where if the UFT weren't run like the Roman Empire under Augustus, there would actually be a serious discussion taking place. But the mandate given Weingarten by the 78% of working teachers who did not vote will have a long-lasting impact. By the way, has anyone seen a word mentioned about class size in this contract?

“We have never been against increasing charters, but we were against the anti-union animus in some charter schools,” Ms. Weingarten said. The Times says, "Green Dot is heavily financed by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad."

If one looks at Broad's agenda in San Diego (and many other places) where Anthony Alvarado got to do his magic, which was almost totally replicated in NYC by Bloomberg and Klein, which Weingarten was supposedly so critical of - and you understand why I see her as such a duplicitous collaborator whose interests dovetail more with the BloomKleins, Broads, Gates, etc. When she criticizes them it is mere rhetoric. Always follow the mantra uncle Normie lays down: Watch what Weingarten does, not what she says.

Pay attention to the very relevant David Herzenhorn piece "Patrons' Sway Leads to Friction in Charter School," also running in today's Times.

This article points to the pitfalls of the benefactor model of charter schools. While the rich Reiches gave a lot of money to Beginnings With Children school, Pfizer (across the street) donated the building. But I bet most money still comes from the public sector. Should the Reiches have such total control? What about parent and teacher roles?

Herzenhorn writes:

"The clash has exposed fault lines of wealth and class that are perhaps inevitable as philanthropists, in New York and nationwide, increasingly invest in public education, providing new schools to children in poor neighborhoods while making communities dependent on their generosity.

"And for those lucky to have such benefactors, the situation raises core questions: Who ultimately controls charter schools, which are financed by taxpayers but often rely heavily on charitable donations? Do the schools, which operate outside the control of the local school district, answer to parents, or to their wealthy founders?

"At Beginning With Children, many parents and teachers say that the Reiches’ main interest is to burnish their reputation as advocates for charter schools, and that the school’s original purpose, of catering to each child’s individual needs, is now secondary to drilling for exams in an effort to elevate scores and the Reichs’ credibility.

"The Reichs said the problem was that the board was “constituency-based”...... Among those told to quit were five parent and faculty representatives."

Well, there you have it in a nutshell. We no want constituency-based input. Sound familiar?

I have a little background with the school, which is located in District 14 in Williamsburg and was once a public school but not under control of the district (a good thing). But it did function under the UFT contract. The chapter leader used to attend the district CL meetings.

I visited a couple of times and was impressed. They were adding a grade a year and had a very progressive model of education.

But the Reich's have the same agenda as so many other"benefactors" like Broad – to take public schools away from the public – and the school became a charter school. In order to further their political agenda the school moves away from the progressive model and towards test prep.

Note in the Herzenhorn piece how quietly we find out that the Courtney Sales Ross' charter school relocated at Tweed after they failed to force their way into the NEST school and has had 4 principals in a year. In the belly of the beast with all the Tweedles running around. We don't get any Tweed press releases telling us about that. Hey, I have an idea. Instead of running around the city telling everyone how to run schools, let Klein or Chris Cerf become the principal of the school and show how it should be done. Deck chairs on the Titanic, indeed.

If we connect the Green Dots to Weingarten's deal with Steve Barr, she is treading in dangerous territory with the future of public education. When a major union spokesperson basically accepts the philanthropic model (Broad gave the UFT $1 million,) it seriously weakens the case calling for full funding of public education and gives enormous power and sway to people with a narrow agenda that goes beyond the interests of the kids.

"If you really actually believe in kids and believe in their success, those of us in education, we really shouldn't be in the sandbox fighting with each other. We should be … trying to figure out how to work together," Weingarten said.

Does she really believe this stuff? People behind Green Dot have had so many negative effects (witness the DOE/Tweedles) and she wants to sit down in the sandbox with them? I'm sure that if she taught just a bit longer than 6 months she would have a slightly different perspective. Are they sitting down in the sandbox in Long Island schools or Scarsdale, where there are no charters but schools are fully funded, as NYC Educator has pointed out numerous times about the suburban school system his daughter attends?

That Weingarten will soon be spouting this stuff nationally as AFT President is a scary prospect indeed for the future of public education. Luckily, at this point, the NEA has taken a stronger stand and this issue may pop up in merger talks when Weingarten will hope to one day lead the entire national teacher movement into oblivion. Though AFT member AJ Duffy in LA took a politically correct stand when commenting on Weingarten's deal with Green Dot, the hope is that the LA Teachers Union will lead some kind of national resistance to Weingarten's turning the AFT into a shill for the attack on public schools by wealthy benefactors with narrow agendas.

As one of the first people in the UFT to advocate for Charters as a way for teachers to take over and run schools, I had conversations with Weingarten almost 10 years ago (Tom Pappas told me "You lost 50% of your support because you favor charters.") At one point in the conversation when I was pushing the idea from the point of view of teacher power, Weingarten made a rare, but revealing, slip, saying something like, "How can we trust these people" – meaning the teachers. Realizing what she said, she shut up and said no more. But it was a rare slip, my first inkling as to which side Weingarten is really on.

(Thanks to DB for the picture.)

Why I Have Indigestion

Thirty years ago, many of our friends got involved in making a film directed by Mark Rosenhaft, now the co-owner of Central Vision Care in Cedarhurst, Long Island (plug, plug, plug - and they take the UFT plan). We took a long hiatus, but Mark and I have been working on a few film ventures recently, our most current being "Dispatch" about a car service in Rockaway, working alongside filmmaker Robert Sarnoff (a retired NYC teacher), whose boxing movie "The Irish Ropes" is getting a lot of buzz.

The original 30 year old film, naturally called "The Rosenhaft Chronicles," shot in Super 8, has been making a comeback and segments have been popping up on you-tube. Here's one - grainy, but if you can peer through the grain, check it out:

That famous chef, Julia Grownup, makes my favorite dessert, Chocolate Mouse. That she happens to be my wife explains why I sometimes have indigestion. I play the mouse trap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HVl2kHKrY&mode=user&search=

Randi tosses out ball

Randi Weingarten was to throw out the first ball at the Brooklyn Cyclones game Tuesday night. Teachers who have become ATR's, older, higher salaried teachers, younger and older teachers left without contractual protections, teachers doing lunch duty and potty patrol, you fill in the blanks ______ have no doubt she threw a screw ball.

Another Year is Done

Posted to The Wave for the June 29th edition:

As I write this on the morning of the last day of the school year for teachers and students, I have no sense of joy at the days to come. I am not floating two feet above the ground. The chirping birds do not sound louder. And the roses do not smell any sweeter.

You see, I am a retired teacher and I no longer get to celebrate this wondrous day - my biggest regret at being retired. Though I may join still working friends later at The Wharf [a waterfront joint in Rockaway with great views] to help them celebrate and congratulate them on their 2-month annual retirement, I will have just a touch of sadness at not being able to truly share in the euphoria.

Now don’t get me wrong. I really liked teaching, especially the close to twenty years I spent teaching in the self-contained classroom. We were with the kids up to the last moments of the school year (high school teachers slap their foreheads in disbelief when they hear this) and it was sad having to say goodbye to the kids and the little community we had built over the year. But a few minutes after they were gone, followed by an hour or two cleaning up, there was the announcement “the checks are in” and I joined the snaking line of teachers (some had lined up the night before) turning in keys, roll books, record boxed and whatever other stuff we were asked to bring along before we could get our checks. And off we went for another summer of recuperation.

Now this column is clearly aimed at teachers, but those not in the profession who accidentally stop by may scoff at this summer off business. “Hey, we get two weeks vacation, four at most.” Yeah! Well I won’t go into the details but think of teaching as being in a play that opens in September and closes in June, where the teacher is the actor, director, writer, custodian, ticket-taker, etc. No one resents actors taking a little time off between plays. ‘Nuff said.

I did not dread going back to work in September. But the end of two months of freedom was a dreadful counterpart to the fabulous end of June. No matter how many years you taught, the butterflies were always there on the night before you saw the kids for the first time.

Come this September, there will be no twitch of sadness when the gang troops back to the trenches and I get a double dose of the euphoria I am missing out on today.

Canarsie High School Rallies for Principal David Harris...

.... Monday, June 25th at 4 PM.

at Region 6 Office
5619 Flatlands Avenue
(Between East 57th and East 58th Streets.)

Seventy five parents, teachers and students attended a preliminary rally on Sunday at 11am at Canarsie HS to defend David Harris, their principal for the past year, against what they say is his unjust removal by the Region 6 officials, especially since the Region and the people who made the decision will no longer be active in the affairs of Canarsie HS after this Wednesday when all Regions will be abolished. The letter to remove Harris was signed by Wendy Karp, who will have a new position in Queens under the DOE reorganization.

Today's rally is expected to be considerably larger with most of the school staff, many students and an organizerd group of parents joining in. That an entire school community would rally for a principal is somewhat remarkable in today's world of DOE political maelstrom. Canarsie is the only large school left standing in southeast Brooklyn after it was announced that Tilden, South Shore, Jefferson (sadly, my alma mater) and Wingate have, or are in the process, of being closed. It is expected that Canarsie will get many of the more at risk students who will not be accepted to the new small schools being opened in these buildings.

Canarsie is a School Under Registration Review (SUR) and the Registration Review prepared by the state ed department recommended that Harris be allowed a few years to turn the school around, a fact many of the protesters claim has already began under Harris' brief tenure. When informed of his removal, an anonymous State Ed Department official expressed surprise and dismay that the recommendation to retain Harris was ignored.

Contacts:
Teacher Thea Platt 917-754-0171
PTA President Reginald Murray 718-809-6529

The CEO of a Major Corporation....

... decides he's had enough of being a captain of industry.

So he does something meaningful with his life. He becomes a NYC Teaching Fellow. That is the fastest way to get into the classroom with certification. And get part of your Masters paid for. He is assigned to a large high school where the notorious Mr. Ogre, renowned for his ability to humiliate and destroy teachers he doesn't care for, is principal. Does Mr. CEO know that going in? Even if he did, he probably thinks his background and credentials will do him good, even with Mr. Ogre. But MR. O is never happy with having another Alpha Male around, especially one with this high level background who will easily see through some of the games he likes to play.

About a month into the term, Mr. CEO is having the usual struggles new teachers have. Nothing catastrophic. With some experience and administrative support things will work out - eventually. But the word "eventually" doesn't exist in Mr. Ogre's vocabulary. He calls Mr. CEO in for a conference and reams him out with a withering attack that is totally humiliating. Mr. CEO emerges and says in all his years in industry he has never been subjected to or witnessed this type of behavior. He packs up and quits. After one month, saying that he has no interest in continuing to work in a system that will tolerate the Mr. Ogre's of this world.