On This and That

Fringing in NYC: Farmer Song
For the past 3 years I've been volunteering with the NYC Fringe Festival (http://www.fringenyc.org/) running until August 26 - 190 plays at 19 venues in the Greenwich Village vicinity. The other day I met Joel Perkins, a computer programmer from Iowa who is appearing in "Farmer Song, The Musical." The play is about the farm crisis in the 80's and is written and performed mostly by people who grew up on a farm and in some cases, continue to farm. The rolled into town in a van and a pickup truck and spent the last week soaking up NYC while doing 5 performances. (The last one was yesterday afternoon and they headed back to Iowa with some great stories to tell about their experience.)

We headed over to the New School Theater on Bank St. on the far west side on Friday and enjoyed the show with it's unusual political message. The cast seemed most impressed that our friends from Western Australia had attended, certainly the award for coming the furthest (you can't get any further from NYC than Perth.)

Yesterday, I was asked to come down and film an interview at Fringe Central (Carmine & Varrick St) and low and behold, it was with the entire cast and crew of "Farmer Song." They were all as delightful off stage. The gang at Fringe are working on a documentary about the festival and the Iowans should be a great feature as they are true Fringers.

Pedagogy
Speaking of which, a bunch of us are going to see Staten Island teacher Nanci Richards' "Pedagogy" [Can working for the Department of Education be worth more than just a $10 co-pay?] this Weds. Aug. 22 at 5:30 at the Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place).
"I wanted to do this show because I was sick of the story of the "hero" teacher. We only seem to hear about teachers when it comes from some myth that Hollywood creates. I wanted to tell a story about a group of people, (teachers ) who we all seem to talk about , but barely seem to know."
All tickets are $15, no reserved seating.
Some of the ICE gang are going out to eat afterwards but I may be on duty taping...


Jaspora...
...at the same venue by Chicago actress of Haitian decent Nancy Moricette's one woman show (she bills herself as "An Imitation Haitian") at 7pm. I met Nancy the other day and I hear she is dynamite. Where else can you see back to back performances for $30? Only at the NYC Fringe.



Today we are going to see "Williamsburg, the Musical" which should be fun since I spent 35 years working in what was considered a ghetto but is not the hippest place on earth.

We're going with Dan & Robyn Scherr, our house guests from Fremantle, Australia. Dan grew up in the Williamsburg Houses off Bushwick Ave. and went to JHS 50, which is near the epicenter of the Williamsburg revolution. (Think one day soon the reading scores at some of these schools may rise? Oh yes, if they do it will probably be due to things like paying teachers merit pay or better staff development, according to the pundits at Tweed.)

Dan should be catatonic from culture shock. Last night we got together with our college friends and Dan's co-Williamsburg buddies from JHS, Jeff Gleicher and Ken Shrednick. They were responsible for my ending up teaching in Williamsburg, where they also also taught for a number of years. They grew up in the South 9th Street area, where Jeff's parents owned a cleaning store on the corner of South 9th and Bedford. I once went up to Jeff's apartment in a tenement on South 9th and even coming from east New York, it was somewhat shocking. They both left the Burg for Long Island to raise their kids. Now Jeff just bought a condo on North 8th and Kent St. for, let's say, a few shekels more than the rent at the old South 9th st. tenement.


Rome
I've become an ancient Rome nut. Fueled by our recent visit at the end of May, my first trip there. Actually, always I was. As an undergrad history major and with 30 grad credits, I still never took a course on Rome. But I read Robert Graves' "I Claudius" and "Claudius, The God" when I was in high school. (I was looking for the sex scenes.) Imagine my delight at the PBS series "I Claudius" my favorite TV program ever. I even have a complete set of tapes still in shrink wrap that I swore I would watch as a marathon when I retired 5 years ago. Still haven't got to it. That damn union crap keeps getting in the way.

Digression: With Rome on my mind I can't help thinking of how the UFT/Unity Caucus empire will last longer. Augustus/Shanker set it up real good. You could actually get rid of Roman Emperors but Unity is forever with hand-picked successors. By the 22nd century Leo Casey's grandchild will be saying "we just have to wait out this mayor."

Oh, yeah, back to Rome. I don't have HBO but friends have humped the 2-year series "Rome" as an amazing piece of work. So for the past few weeks I have been avidly watching the dvds and they were right. Covering about a 10-15 year slice of Roman history (turn on the little notes you get to explain some of the background) it is a great companion piece to "I Claudius." Why does Octavian/Augustus remind me of some of the Tweed types we see around?
I've also got a few books by Julius Caesar and Livy and even a volume of Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall." That ought to keep me off the streets.


My First Screen Credit
MSG has been showing "The Irish Ropes" - last week after a tape of a recent John Duddy fight. Duddy is an Irish fighter who is undefeated. I'm not a boxing fan but I was recruited by retired NYC teacher and current filmmaker Bob Sarnoff as a cameraman for the film, which is about a boxing club in Rockaway in the Arverne section. We followed the fighters through Golden Gloves matches which took place all over the metro area - from Freeport to the Copacabana to Brownsville. The owner if the Irish Ropes club (it has closed) was Eddie McLoughlin who is Duddy's manager. The film includes a visit to my alma mater Thomas Jefferson by McLoughlin and Duddy where a teacher who is a Golden Gloves fighter invited then to speak to the kids.

This MSG version is shortened from Sarnoff's original film and emphasizes Duddy, whereas the full version deals much more with the amateur fighters, many of whom are from Arverne in Rockaway. The Ropes attracted a group of people of all races and ages and even though I was involved towards the end of the life of the club, it was obvious the potential for filling a gap in an area of Rockaway that could really benefit was lost.

I wrote a column about the sad closing of the Irish Ropes boxing club in Arverne in The Wave in Sept. 2006. Sarnoff's full version of the film is still to be released.

Sarnoff, myself and Mark Rosenhaft, my long-time partner in NorMark Productions (non-profit - meaning we have never made a dime) are currently working on "Dispatch," a Rockaway-based film on a local car service. Cab, anyone?

Is it racist to criticize Barry Bonds...

... or antisemitic to criticize Israel?

Both seem to be two sides of the same coin.

Sometimes I seem to be spiraling in space.

I received the following email from a colleague in ICE:

How can you be 100% that Barry Bonds took steroids?
This is the type of thing that offends many in the black community.
And many Latinos.

I'm often accused of not getting it. Some might say "It's a black thing." It is common to attack non-Jewish critics of Israel as antisemitic and Jewish critics as self-hating Jews. Or I am accused of being a self-hating Jew when I have defended - or more likely explained - the motivations behind the actions of Palestinians or, in years past, over the actions of members of the minority community in response to certain education situations, especially in the 70's when the repercussions of the '68 strike were still being felt most strongly (and they still are today.) Jewish colleagues at my school in the early 70's used to tell me I should not worry so much about Blacks and Puerto Ricans but about Jews. One of them was a Holocaust survivor and also happened to be my first Hebrew School teacher at the New Lots & Pennsylvania Ave. Synagogue. I could understand where he was coming from but that didn't make it any less racist.

To be criticized by both ends might just be where I want to be.

The recent turmoil over the Kahlil Gibran school and Steve Quester's post that was critical of Randi Weingarten on this blog resulted in an anonymous attack on Steve - "He hates Israel." Not that he is critical of the policies of Israel, but a personification of Israel as an entity beyond criticism. Like people opposed to the war in Iraq (or Vietnam) are anti-American. Or better yet, the opposition to the UFT leadership are traitors to the union and are even funded by Bloomberg - the rumor Unity used to spread about Ed Notes. (New Action used to claim it was Unity giving me money when Ed Notes was critical of them.) Sure, I used to get all that money from a submarine off Rockaway. These are the attacks made by singleminded sectarians who only see their own narrow point of view.

I responded to my ICE colleague:

Why are blacks and Latinos offended?
To me that is racism.
Jason Giambi is white and I believe he took steroids. I'm not offended as a white person.

He came back with:

Why is the media so intended to attack Barry Bonds? And why was Hank
Aaron attacked when he was chasing Babe Ruth"s record?
To me this is racism.

And I said:

Aaron was not attacked by the media but by racists. He was breaking Babe Ruth's record. I don't remember the media being against Aaron. There was more of a hubbub when Maris was breaking Ruth's record.
In this case the media seem to support Aaron.
Bonds has been a jerk to the media - arrogant, etc. The media responds to that. There are many other examples both white and black. I remember Mickey Mantle being under attack by people like Dick Young in Mantle's early years because Mantle's shyness was taken as arrogance.
Bonds is under attack for breaking another black man's record. Aaron is being defended as someone who did it legit.
The fact that Bonds' major home run hitting came after he was 36 and admissions from people that he took steroids makes it a pretty good bet he took them.
Personally I don't really care. Pitchers took steroids too.
Question: If Bonds were white would you give a shit? Do you think he wouldn't be criticized given the exact same conditions? To me that smacks of a racist attitude. Like black and Latinos defending OJ. When he was acquitted half my school screamed in victory and cheers and there was a party attitude. The other (white) half were mortified.

Maybe it's true. I just don't get it.

The Excessed and ATR's Want to Meet

Calls and emails are coming in from ATR's. Each story has its own backdrop, but I'll stay away from these now. There is certainly a feeling the UFT has nothing for them. There are calls for a meeting of ATR's to discuss the situation.

Our July 14th post:

The Bronx is Burning ... with ATR's reported
A UFT official writes in an email to one of my correspondents: "The number of veteran teachers in excess in the Bronx is huge. 33% of the teachers at Stevenson have been placed in excess this June and a whopping 56 employees from Evander Childs have been excessed. Dozens from Walton are out, including the Chapter Leader. Meanwhile, on the hiring committees that I have been attending, at least 3/4 of the applicants have been Teaching Fellows with shiny new Trans B licenses."

This was followed by "Excessing," a guest editorial from one of these ATR's and resulted in some comments by anonymous UFT officials (most likely Zahler or Casey and maybe their lapdog Redhog). The editorialist demolished their specious arguments in a follow-up comment.

The lack of any effort on the part of the UFT to seek out and provide any level of support to ATR's as a class (they only do things on an case by case basis when an individual contacts them - call this the Deflection modus operendi - see UFT: Masters of Deflection) led to a follow-up:

Calling All Teachers in Excess on July 23 which set up a special email address (excessed101@gmail.com) and a form (see below) to be filled out for people to respond so information can be gathered that can be presented to the UFT. The idea is to form a pressure group of excessed and ATR's that can force the UFT (the only way they will act) to defend their interests as a group.

A UFT Tea Party?
This came in the other day:

NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !

Why pay dues, when the union bosses have gone AWOL under the unremitting attacks by corporate educrats and unprincipled principals.

– ATRs abound.

– A union-condoned Open Market system that demolishes seniority protections.

– A contract left undefended (Article 17B on excessing procedures).

– Senior teachers with S-ratings (or fake U-ratings), their careers in ruin.

One would think that if you’ve just taken a hit through school restructuring or a cut position, you could go to the UFT’s own website for guidance and help.

Think again. This debacle has been playing itself out all summer, but shamelessly and for the world to see, the UFT website doesn’t even set up links for Excessed Teachers or ATRs. And if you search those terms, you’ll get nothing but gems like this one: “You can receive, upon request, individualized assistance from ... Human Resources on how to maximize your chances of success in being selected for a transfer.” What? How we can increase our “chances” of being selected? They can’t be writing all this pollyanna spin stuff for me or for anyone else who wants real help getting back into a real job.

Don’t be deluded either by the link "Denied a Transfer." I told them a couple of months ago that people who don’t even get asked in for an interview are not actually being denied a transfer. The name of that link doesn’t fit any of us left out here in the stone cold, especially senior teachers who are eliminated flat out for their big salaries alone. Why would we even think that link applies to us? No response from the union on that one. They never changed it because they don’t care and they don’t want to know.

NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !

As for the Edwize blog, another joke. We could read all the stuff they post there on CNN.com. (By the way, check out the picture of Randi and Bloomberg. She’s in a white suit, all smiling and happy. We suspected they're in bed together, maybe they just got married.)

NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !

The computers at union headquarters can tell the people we’re paying our dues to all kinds of stuff, like the numbers of teachers in excess, our ratings and seniority. A little trolling for senior teachers with problems getting new jobs would turn this union into a viable one. Our dues would mean something then.

Silence on their side doesn’t mean lie back and play dead on this side. We’re collecting information about teachers who have been thrown under the wheels of this UFT/DOE juggernaut. If you or someone you know is excessed and having trouble getting another job or likely to be an ATR next term, please contact us (or tell them to contact us) through this form. Copy and paste the questions below in a new email, answer the ones you want to answer, and send them to excessed101@gmail.com. You don’t have to give your real name, and you can sign up for updates.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Your real name (optional) OR a pseudonym to prevent duplication: ________ 


When were you excessed? Month ________ Year _____ 


Seniority at the end of June 07: _________________

If you're a teacher, your subject: ______________


Otherwise, your title: _______ 


Used the Open Market yet? Y/N _____ 


No. of schools applied to: _______ 


No. of interviews you were granted: _____

No. of interviews you attended: ______ 


Has the DOE tried to place you yet (as stipulated in the contract)?
Y/N ______ 


Any factors you think make your excessing not your fault (e.g., school closing): ________________________

Any factors you think make it unlikely you'll be placed in a permanent position

(e.g., politics, race; optional, but probably very important): ________

Additional comments: ________________________________________




Do you want to be contacted with updates on the statistics? Y/N ______

If so, your email address: _____________________________


Daily quote of the day from infoweek update
"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good." -- Samuel Johnson

Steve Quester on UFT Role in Debbie Almontaser Resignation

"I write as a White, Jewish anti-racist educator who is heartsick over the role his union played in this sordid affair." - Steve Quester

The resignation of Debbie Almontaser as principal of the proposed Arab language school in Brooklyn has caused a great deal of controversy. The DOE replaced her with Danielle Salzberg. (That ought to inspire the Arabic community to register their kids for the new school.) There's so much stuff flying it is hard to keep track of it all. An interesting interview by Amy Goodman posted on Democracy Now can be found here. Also this piece written by Almontaser, not long after 9/11. http://www.gothamgazette.com/commentary/107.almontaser.shtml

Steve Quester, a UFT chapter leader, comments on the role the UFT President played.

Imagine...
A veteran Latina educator, with a years-long record of service supporting Latino/a youth and building bridges between Latino/a and non-Latino/a communities, is slated to be principal of a new middle school with a focus on Hispano-Caribbean studies and Spanish language. She endures months of vitriolic attacks from right-wing hate websites and blogs, and from the Murdoch news organizations. Finally, the Murdoch media uncover that she’s on the board of an organization that shares an office with a Latina girls’ empowerment organization. The organization has produced a T-shirt with the image of Che Guevara and the words “Hasta la victoria siempre.” The Murdoch media point out (rightly) that the “victoria” to which Che referred was the violent overthrow of all capitalist governments, including the U.S. The media demand that the educator condemn the T-shirt, but instead she says that the girls’ intention was to point to the victory of tolerance and coexistence over anti-Latino/a bias in New York. The media howl. The educator quickly apologizes, admitting that she did not take into account the effect that the image of Che has on Cuban-American refugees of Castro’s oppression.

After the apology, the UFT president, who had been supportive of the new middle school and its principal, is quoted condemning the educator’s initial defense of the T-shirt. The president makes no mention of the educator’s exemplary record, or the racist context in which the controversy about the T-shirt has taken place. The UFT president says, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The print, broadcast, and Internet media trumpet the UFT president’s condemnation far and wide, and the next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

Now imagine that the educator is a respected African-American, and the new middle school will have an Afrocentric focus. The T-shirt has an image of Malcolm X holding a rifle and the words “By any means necessary.” The media point out (rightly) that the “means” to which Malcolm X referred included armed struggle. The educator says that the girls’ intention was to point towards non-violent African-American empowerment, not armed struggle. When the educator apologizes, she admits that she did not take into account the effect that the image of Malcolm X holding a weapon might have on efforts to combat gun crimes in New York City. The UFT president is quoted saying, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

In reality, it’s unlikely that these T-shirts would have prompted sustained media attacks, or that the UFT president would have ever taken such an extreme public reaction. And if the president had taken such action, there would have been an outcry from the rank and file, and not just Latino/a or African-American members. In New York City, T-shirts of Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, or Leonard Peltier do not instill fear, provoke tabloid campaigns or result in demands for any person to make a wholesale repudiation of other members of their community.

Now imagine that the veteran educator is an Arab-American and a Muslim, with a years-long record of service supporting Arab-American and Muslim youth and building bridges between Arab-American, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. The new middle school will focus on Arab studies and Arabic language. After months of vitriolic attacks from right-wing hate websites and blogs, the Murdoch news organizations uncover that she’s on the board of an organization that shares an office with an Arab-American girls’ empowerment organization. The collective has produced a T-shirt with the words “Intifada NYC.” The Murdoch media point out (rightly) that for most New Yorkers “intifada” connotes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

When the media demand that the educator condemn the T-shirt, she says, “The word [intifada] basically means 'shaking off.' That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic. I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City. I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society… and shaking off oppression."

The media howl. The educator quickly apologizes, saying, “The word 'intifada' is completely inappropriate as a T-shirt slogan. I regret suggesting otherwise. By minimizing the word's historical associations, I implied that I condone violence and threats of violence. That view is anathema to me.”

After the apology, the UFT president, who had been supportive of the new middle school and its principal, is quoted in the media condemning the educator’s initial defense of the T-shirt. The president makes no mention of the educator’s exemplary record, or the racist context in which the controversy about the T-shirt has taken place. The UFT president says, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The print, broadcast, and Internet media trumpet the UFT president’s condemnation far and wide, and the next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

The third scenario happened, in August of 2007. Our union could have stood with Arab-American and Muslim students and educators against the onslaught they have endured since 9-11, but instead we joined the chorus of racists, led by the teacher-hating, Arab-hating New York Post and Fox News, who hounded veteran educator Debbie Almontaser out of her job as principal of the Gibran Academy.

In writing all of this, I do not claim to speak for the members of my chapter. I did not consult them. I do not claim to speak for a UFT caucus. I do not belong to one. I certainly do not claim to speak for Debbie Almontaser. Although, as a District 15 educator, I am acquainted with Debbie and her work, I have not seen or spoken with her since long before the Gibran Academy controversy erupted at P.S. 282. In presenting the imaginary scenarios, I do not claim to speak for the political views of anyone in the Latino/a or African-American communities.

I write as a White, Jewish anti-racist educator who is heartsick over the role his union played in this sordid affair.

Peace,
Steve Quester
UFT chapter leader
P.S. 372/418K The Children’s School

Stress Relief for UFT Leaders

A Unity Caucus critic comments:
"It amazes me that time and time again people like you in ICE/TJC fail to acknowledge the amazing efforts and the incredible stress that our officers face."

Six figure salaries and double pensions not enough boobie?

Here are some ways for UFT leaders to reduce stress as recommended by the classroom teachers of New York City.

#10 Become an ATR.
No paperwork, enjoy the experience of different classes, different schools every day. Get to know all parts of the city from the north Bronx to Staten Island while enjoying the luxury of a pay check.

#9 Do Lunch duty and potty patrol.
One of the great stress relievers of all time, which unfortunately was not available for the 10 years between the 1995 and 2005 contracts. The sounds of kids talking, eating - join in the fun of food fights.

#8 Spend 37.5 minutes a the end of the day teaching small groups of 10.
A great relief after spending the first 7 hours with classes of 30 or more.

#7 Go to school 2 days before the Labor Day weekend.
See all your friends early. Relax during faculty conferences and hours of staff development.

#6 Go to school 2 days before the 2 days you're supposed to go back.
Set up your room, wash your desks, put up bulletin boards.

#5 Be observed by a supervisor out to get you.
One of the great stress relievers. And no anxiety of having to grieve a negative letter in your file thanks to the 2005 contract.

#4 Get excessed.
Staying in the same school gets tiresome and is a known cause of stress. Meet new friends.

#3 Give up seniority with all these additional stress relievers:
Try the Open Market System.
Put in for 10 jobs. When you get no response, you save the stress of traveling to job interviews. Then you can.....
Go to a hiring hall.
Enjoy nice relaxing interviews, especially if you are an experienced, higher salaried teacher waiting on one slow moving line. Watching the separate line for Teaching Fellows and new teachers moving at 3X the speed of yours will sooth you.
Make up a portfolio of yours and the kids' work to bring to interviews.
Relive the fun of those childhood days of scrapbooks.

#2 Read a book on differentiation of instruction.

And the number one way to reduce the stress of working full-time for the UFT?

Go back to teaching full time.
Get the advantages of 1-9 and end worries on how to spend all that extra money you make at the UFT while ending worries about what to do with that extra pension.

Daily Doins: Aug. 9

A fairly new chapter leader is very serious about getting a complete picture of UFT history and sharing it with the teachers in his school as a way to foment a higher level of union consciousness. He has been going over some of the old issues of Education Notes and has found them very helpful. But he doesn't have a complete set.

So I spent the morning pouring through 10 years of issues, which pretty much correspond to Randi Weingarten's tenure as UFT President. So reading them will provide some historical perspective. Now I'm the first to say that my point f view is particular and may not always reflect reality. But certainly the official UFT position is so often more about appearance that reality that if he balances mine and theirs he may come up with some point in between.

But here are some basic truths:
From the first editions class size was #1 on the agenda. I had a regular feature called Class Size Matters even before Leonie Haimson got her organization going.
Another issue from Day 1 was a call for more protections for UFT chapter leaders.
Calls for NO MERIT PAY under any circumstances.
Constant refrains on the impact of high stakes testing.

And lots of satire. Good satire. I don't know where that has gone. Maybe things aren't so funny anymore.

Other issues today

Asian Population of NYC grows...
....was the report in today's Times. obviously BloomKlein's secret plan to raise reading and math scores and improve the grad rate. Part 2 of their plan is to have the Partnership of NYC raise funds to by Level One readers condos -- in Peoria.

The AFL-CIO ...
frees member unions to endorse Democratic candidates of choice. The Times says the AFT is "leaning" towards Hillary. Leaning? With Randi Weingarten working full time to get Hillary elected, I would say more than leaning. Like how about horizontal? No simple Tower of Pisa here. The Times naively says that strong support for Obama in midwest could prevent the AFT from endorsing Clinton. A basic misunderstanding that the AFT is controlled by the UFT and will do whatever Randi wants it to. When Randi takes over the AFT in July 08 she will put the entire structure in the service of Hillary.

No End in Sight - the supposed anti war movie on Iraq
We saw it last week and I didn't find it anti war but a critique of the Bush implementation of the post-war Iraq. Talk about to hell and (not) back. Even conservative pro-war critics could like this movie. Someone sent me a hard copy of a good review from The Nation. I have no links but check it out if you can.

Go Barbara Morgan
I was one of 16,000 teachers who applied to go into space in 1985 for the Jan. '86 flight that ended in disaster. I read with jealousy about Christa and Barbara. I became big fans of theirs. Barbara was supposed to go on the flight after the Endeavor. She worked all these years to become an astronaut. The idea of a teacher in space was a real PR move on the part of NASA and many people feel the money could be spent on many more worthwhile projects. But I'm a space junkie and have a hard time taking a critical look at the space program.

I was in Antigua when the Challenger went down. A friend had sent me a post card a day or two before the flight saying "Sorry you didn't get to go." I got it the day after the crash. With Friends like these....

Just heading out for some volunteer work at the NYC International Fringe Festival. 200 plays for over 2 weeks all in the Village area and tickets are all $15 starting tomorrow (Aug. 10). Some of us are going to see Pedagogy written by a NYC teacher (Can working for the NYCDOE be worth more than just a $10 co-pay?) on Aug. 22 at 5:30 at the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place and then out to eat afterwards. Fringe HQ are at the corner of Varrick and Carmine St.

A Sight to Behold

Worth sharing from Ira Goldfine who volunteers at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens:

When I got down to the Discovery Garden this morning there was this big hullabaloo at the Flatbush Avenue gate. It turns out a huge snapping turtle -- probably 100+ years old had strolled from the flooded Prospect Park lake and was lost and got across Flatbush Avenue somehow withoutn getting killed -- it was snapping at everything in sight until they put a garbage can over it. The turtle used to be in Japanese Garden pond but they moved it to the lake in the park a while ago. What a scene it caused.

Seriously folks....

.... let's talk educational steroids. Pump up those test score and grad rate muscles.

Cream the best kids.
Lose the potential chronic low scorers.
Encourge failing students to take the so much easier GED's.
Have teachers mark their own students' tests.
Pay "merit" pay to teachers so they have an incentive to pump that iron. Ditto for bonuses to principals.
Pressure teachers to pass kids who can fog a mirror even if they are rarely in class and have barely passed anything.

And it's all so legal. Barry Bonds should have been a teacher.

Barry, Mike and Joel: It Ain't Tainted

The connections is so obvious, this post can pretty much write itself. Barry and BloomKlein have been using the same cream(ing) to get similar results - pumped up everything - home runs, grad rates, test scores. Tweed has been slipping the cream into Leadership Acad. water coolers.

Barry is significantly more honest and up front than Mike and Joel. No one got hurt. Teacher and student lives weren't ruined. Just a few extra home runs. Didn't Babe Ruth spend whole nights in whore houses drinking and carousing? Give him an asterisk for using artificial stimulants.

If Joel and Mike get the Broad prize on Sept. 18, as expected (Broad giving BloomKlein a prize is like Halliburton giving the Bush administration an award for fiscal responsibility) we need to prepare an asterisk the size of the Goodyear blimp to put next to Mike and Joel's "achievements."

(Any photoshoppers out there want to take a shot at this?)

What Tweed Hath Wrought

Fleeing the coop

While critics of the BloomWeinKlein reforms of the schools in NYC often focus on the big picture, a snapshot of what happened in 1 school can offer a great insight.

I got such an insight last night when I had dinner with a group of colleagues from my old school where I spent 27 years as a teacher and 5 more in district tech support. I won't go into all the gory details, but you might have read in this space about the teacher of 22 years removed in handcuffs by 5 cops in front of the entire community on trumped up charges of a parent instigated by the principal.

Yes, the principal was the focus of my former colleagues' wrath. Leadership Academy and all that - following the Lead. Acad. Princ. (LAP - dogs) pattern to get rid of every person in the building who preceded her. Only about 7 people remain from when I was there. The departed are in no way poor teachers but the best and most experienced. I was glad to hear the person who I considered one of the best teachers I ever saw (I spent serious time in her classroom) has just flown the coup. She absolutely despised this LAP and was one of the few willing to demonstrate her disdain. Of course the LAP is probably very glad to see this great teacher, who was so beyond excellent that any attack on her would have been laughed at, be gone.

The irony is that even the people handpicked by the LAP are also leaving. I hear so many of these stories repeated from LAP schools. One teacher at another school told me 28 teachers have left in 3 years. In the old days the departure of so many experienced teachers was a warning sign of a principal out of control. In the world of Tweedledee these principals get a bonus.

But the really "fun" stuff were their descriptions of the willy-nilly ways teachers have been forced to teach. The TC model with rugs taking up half the room while kids at their desks were forced into such tight spaces that discipline became so much more of an issue. From a massive binder where all kids of "data" -- yes the big word - that will never be used - are kept. This principal, being in the empowerment zone was able to design her own assessment. So now teachers have to do 5 report cards and spend enormous time filling out useless paper work instead of teaching. Oh yes, there is an Aussie trainer in the building doing more spying than instruction.

One story is that another teacher who left the school and has since left teaching knows someone who was involved in the creation of the balanced literacy training videos Lucy Calkins made. Teachers have complained that there are too many kids that cannot function in this environment and that many more discipline problems result but have been told to shut up and that these problems are the result of their poor teaching. When these video were made, whenever there was a kid who could not focus, Calkins ordered he/she be replaced with a more docile, cooperative kid.

Well, the upshot is that there is not all that much difference in the school's results before the arrival of the LAP when the obvious easier rubrics, easier tests and questionable marking procedures - -the hallmark of the improvement of scores under BloomKlein and discipline is a mess. This LAP has managed to alienate teachers, parents and children with a heartless and arrogant treatment of all.

I could go on - and they did for a few hours last night. They told of teachers with 18-21 years being excessed when the LAP complained that special ed kids brought down the scores. They have avoided ATR status -- not through the Open Market System which failed them utterly - but through personal contacts at other schools. One teacher asked the union how he could be excessed since the contract says if you have 20 years this can't happen. He was told to file a grievance. He asked why he has to go through this since this is such an obvious violation of the contract and he is still left with having to look for jobs since the vicissitudes of the grievance procedure are well known. The union should be able to pick up a phone and get an instant response. They shrugged.

For decades we have called for penalties for administrators who engage in obvious violations -- cut into those bonuses -- but the UFT/Unity leadership just laughed at us.

The hiring halls were a joke as the excessed were separated from the new teachers. Excessed people were given a sheet telling them how to interview. New teachers were given shiny red folders (so it was obvious to the interviewer which group people were in) with maps of districts listing openings.

We ended the evening of ribs and beer with a toast all who have escaped, hopefully to better place, and a wish that the 55-25 retirement package (which we called bogus since it was not to cost the city anything) promised by the UFT/Unity leadership to sell the '05 contract will one day come to pass (probably at the expense of the teachers themselves who will be willing to pay just about anything) to free the rest to go to the promised land of retirement.

These are the people running the UFT

Son Of Unity has left the following comment [about 50 times on many posts on many blogs]

Seriously, does ICE even serve a real purpose other than to drive a wedge within our union? Has ICE ever accomplished anything worthy of mention? And no, a sham presidential candidate in the last election, shoddy quality YouTube films, and heckling during the Delegate Assembly doesn't count. -Son Of Unity, the next generation I'll be back!

Let's see now Son of Unity. You just spent more than an hour in the summer time doing this. On blogs that serve no real purpose according to you and therefore probably are not even read by anyone but families and pets.

We can't wait for your next visit. Maybe it will keep you too busy to screw the membership of the UFT. Hey, aren't you the guy with the Green Dot on your forehead?

Son of Unity being prepared by Unity Caucus faithful for his Jihad against the ednotesonline and other blogs critical of Unity Caucus.

Teaching Fellows in The Village Voice

A great read in The Voice this article reveals many of the fault lines in the Teaching Fellows program. The answer to the problem - paying them as interns and using them as assistant teachers in the classroom for a year - will not be forthcoming. Tweed finds it perfectly acceptable to have this turnover rate even when when in the words of the Fellows themselves the kids are severely shortchanged in the first year and possibly 2nd year of teaching. It is always interesting for the "No Excuse" administration at Tweed to always make excuses instead of taking a problem and solving it.

There's a lot more to say since I entered teaching out of a similar program in many ways in the late 60's, a program I am sure Joel Klein also came out of, something you never hear him talk about. Know why? Because it was hell - he got out in about 6 months and seems to have banished the memory.

Look for an update to this post later. The full article is posted at Norms Notes.

UFT/DOE Plan for ATR's

Modeled on the day laborer concept, the UFT and Tweed have agreed on a plan to address the numerous ATR's (absentee teacher reserves) who have been left out in the cold by closing schools and a failed Open Market System. ATR's will line up at 6 AM at specially designated Transfer Stations. Principals will be given pick-up trucks and drive around picking up teachers.

"We feel we have finally come up with a plan that is fair and equitable for all," said a UFT spokesperson. "It is true principals will be allowed to ask teachers to jump as high as they can while the truck is moving and those that are able to grab on without falling off will be hired. But the old system was much worse."

How "Open" is the Open-Market?

... the title of a post by blogger Syntactic Gymnastics, indicates that even newer teachers are having trouble with the much bragged about (by the UFT) Open Market System. Check the "Do You Hear Snoring" guest post on this blog and note the defensive "myth- fact" post by an obvious UFT official.

They trash a system that they set up and maintained for 40 years before BloomKlein and brag about the system they replaced it with. They supported the BloomKlein myth that the problems with the school system were due to the right of teachers to take seniority transfers, which everyone knew were often manipulated by principals. Like people with long commutes waited forever to get jobs in Staten Island while all these young teachers who were politically connected on the Island were filling up schools. Naturally, the weaknesses of this system were exacerbated by the looseness of the language of the contract and the lack of UFT enforcement of the existing contract at the time.

I worked in a school for 27 years and never saw one case of someone taking a UFT transfer into my school. And our colleagues who took transfer to "better' schools because they grew wary of teaching the most difficult children, found it so much easier to teach when they made the move to middle class schools and often overcame initial principal resistance when they proved to be among the best teachers in the school. Discipline certainly was not a problem for them.

But this became the big BloomKlein argument - that the UFT contact forced principals to take people they didn't want. (I wonder of they give police precinct or fire house captains or any city agency head total leeway in who ends up working or them? There is such a thing as civil service rules for a reason -- to prevent the very corruption we are seeing.) Klein claimed he wanted the right to transfer senior teachers into poor performing schools and then with UFT assistance set up a system where these schools would be penalized by hiring these more expensive teachers.

I know a licensed high school math teacher in his 60's (only teaching a few years, stil with a fairly low salary, an indication more of age discrimination) who has not been able to get a job for the past year when he was an ATR. The UFT will say, "Hey you're getting paid." He said he physically just cannot do another full year as an ATR and will probably quit.

Aren't we being told all the time that there is a drastic shortage of licensed math teachers?

But this is just another case of spinning reality by the UFT (and BloomKlein too). It's an old theme we studied in college in a course on Shakespeare - appearance and reality. UFT officialdom is all about appearance and spins reality to shape it to put themselves in the best light. And of course, we see the same from BloomKlein. Both the UFT and the DOE have massive PR departments.

Here is a reality check:

What is Randi Weingarten most preoccupied with? (choose one)

a. Protecting the rights of teachers in the schools who are under attack, dealing with the problems of ATR's, senior and excessed teachers?

b. Assuring that Hillary Clinton gets elected by planning on taking over as AFT President and using the national platform to assist Clinton?

Tweed's Trojan Horse

Bloomberg/Klein Intentions Revealed

The Department of Education is pledging to help solve a charter school space crunch, pointing to an aggressive campaign to close a slew of city-run schools in the next two years.

A new accountability plan slated to begin in September will place about 70 schools under consideration for closure in 2008, creating potentially dozens of abandoned school buildings for charter schools to take over. Chancellor Joel Klein's Office of New Schools is touting the possibility to charter operators desperate to find new facilities as their schools grow."

Thus begins "School Closures May Open Way For New Charters," an article by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun that exposes in one of the clearest ways we've read the true intentions of BloomKlein: To turn over as much of the school system to private operators as possible and to facilitate this by manipulating school closings so they can turn over entire school buildings where there will be no public oversight and little or no union presence. (Oh, sorry! That's already the situation in most schools.)

Phew! For a while we thought they were going to sell off all schools in hot neighborhoods to condos developers and adopt our idea to build stadiums where 50,000 kids at a time can be taught. Shhhhh!

Actually, when you tie all the building of housing without asking developers to account for where kids will be going to schools, it all begins to make sense. Drive people with children who can not afford to live in NYC out by turning over local schools to charters which will never be able to handle the large numbers of students. What will be left are overcrowded schools with high class sizes (note how the Ross Charter based at Tweed just had their class size capped at 20) loaded with the most at-risk students who will be doomed to fail.

The insertion of charters into school buildings targeted for failure could be compared to Trojan Horses. Well, at least Troy didn't abandon their experienced warriors. The invading forces of BloomKlein will ultimately find their Achilles heel as in the post BloomKlein tight lips will become unsealed.

And by the way, where it the UFT on this? Jumping right in and trying to get a piece of the gravy by setting up its own charter schools in public space.

Green's full article is posted on Norm's Notes.

Lisa Donlan from the District 1 (lower east side) Parent's Council, who blogs here, commented on the NYC Education News Listserve:

In a mailer from Saint Ann's School I found an article by the founder of the charter school Girls Prep, class of '84, who writes:

" To introduce choice and accountability into the system, Bloomberg and Klein encouraged the creation of 45 charter schools with in the city... Intrigued by this I met in the fall of 2002 with Chancellor Klein to ask whether he was serious about letting private citizens run public schools. "Serious?" he asked at our first meeting. "We need public charter schools to show the other public schools how accountability works. Would it be easier for you to start if I gave you free space in a public school building?"

Of course the article fails to describe the PS where the charter has been "incubating," other than pointing to its location in a "tough neighborhood, right next to the housing projects that line the East River." No mention of the 250 kids who are 98% minority, 89% of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunch that attend this NYSED designated School In Need of Improvement. Rather than support the high needs children served by this community pre-K - 5th grade school, the charter school set prefers to use " free space," pushing out a District 75 school in the process, to serve another set of almost just as poor and nearly as highly concentrated group of minority children, half of whom commute an hour to attend the school.

Why? According to the author, it is because " our lack of overhead means that we can pay our teachers more. In exchange, our teachers work longer hours and a longer school year, and can be fired if their students do not show progress. We find that this deal- better pay for better performance- attracts talented teachers." As a result, there are 200 applicants for 4 new teaching positions next year, he boasts.

If the PS gets an F next year, Girls Prep can start rolling out their plans for expansion, maybe even a Boys Prep to boot, with all that "free space" up for grabs.

Joel Klein Bounced to Rubber Room by Aris

Another gem from Gary Babad:

GBN News has learned that in an ironic twist, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has been suspended from his duties and placed in a Department of Education “Reassignment Center”...

Now playing at the NYC Public School Parents Blog

NCLB: Test the Kids

Susan Ohanian and the gang at the Educator Roundtable have concocted this fabulous video:

Now showing at:
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=347
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=520DAgjCHdc

Do you hear snoring?

Guest Column by Woodlass

You've heard about scripted lesson plans for the classroom? Wait until you see what the DOE has scripted for us now.

They've just sent excessed educators a hefty "Placement Guide," which is a manual on how to let the Open Market System process you. Once again our employer has confused us with our students, and once again a very sleepy union is taking it on the chin. They, too, want to keep us barefoot and pregnant: to stay with the kids, do what we're told, and keep our mouths shut.

The new guide starts with this pandering come-on: "We hope this guide will give you an understanding of how the job search process works." If you really want to know how the Open Market works, just read the recent blogs. It "works" to further destabilize the system and hurt the educators in schools that are being closed or restructured, particularly those who teach the minor subjects and exercise their political voice.

There are some questionable sentences in the opening pages about hiring practices being changed in the teacher contract in 2006. I looked at the 2003-7 contract posted on the UFT website and I actually don't see anything in there about the Open Market system, particularly where it would hurt us most, in the article on excessing (17.B). Which contract are they referring to, the next one? I didn't know contracts prepared for a future date apply to the current moment. Correct me if I'm missing something here.

Then follows a deprecating little section in this guide of "tips" for conducting a successful job search, six DOs and DON'Ts that are basic for anyone looking for a job, much less educators who might have actually taught the subject themselves. After some "Job Search Strategies" on pages 7-8, you'd have to see the remaining pages to believe the content of this enormous script. There are 11 pages of how-to instructions: how to research schools, update your resume (sample provided), write a cover letter ("a basic three-paragraph" one no less), communicate with principals (two more pages of DOs and DON'Ts), prepare and take an interview (I guess they think all of us are getting them: Double Not), and much about a demonstration lesson. The last pages are filled with administrative info on certification, office hours, and the like, and finally my favorite -- an Appendix consisting of a long list of "Action Verbs."

I have said it many times before. The people who are running the DOE despise teachers. They see us as minions, not as educators, and having no regard for our degrees or our experience, they send us scripts so we can fit better into their plans. These are of course driven by corporate values and do not serve the public. They have degraded a school system many of us would have been happy to put our own kids in, even if we didn't have to.

Do you hear snoring? It's the union.

NYC Grad Rates Rising?

Samuel Freedman's column in today's NY Times (posted here) finally touches on the source of DOE claims for rising grad rates. Of course the DOE attacked the teacher (unfortunately there were a few negatives). I raised these issues in my 2 minute presentation at the July PEP meeting. Teachers have been reporting grade inflation, being told to mark the exams of their own students (with a wink), enormous pressures to pass kids who are failing, etc.

The state ed department has a hand in all this to make sure everyone all around looks good - easier exams, shady rubrics (if the kid fogs a mirror, PASS.)

A column I wrote in The Wave and on this blog called "Indecent Exposure" back in December touched on these issues:
Inflated test scores and cover-ups of massive cheating scandals in addition to scores being pumped up by constant test prep. “Test-mania fuels cheating at many schools, teachers say,” said just one headline that is just the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming majority of school personnel will remain silent due to fear. (Maria Colon, the union rep at JFK HS in the Bronx, was persecuted because she exposed her administration, which has gotten off Scot-free.)

Teachers toe the line, especially newer, inexperienced teachers. The attack on senior teachers (anyone with about 7 years in today's world) is not just about money, but compliance in solidifying the sham BloomKlein are pulling.

At the end of my presentation at the PEP I pointed out that we can see even higher grad rates once the principals get their hands on the bonus money.

Going up, anyone?

Privatization & Mayoral Control

Mayoral control of school systems is a symptom rather than a cause. What has occurred is privatization of policy over public schools, where people like Eli Broad and Bill Gates get to use their private money to make public policy and shape urban public school system the way they want to without public oversight. Mayoral control is their instrument since it allows then to do their thing without having to open themselves up to public scrutiny. All they have to do is get Bloomberg, et al on board, which is easy to do by the offer of money.

Can you imagine them getting away with this in places like Scarsdale? "We think you should break up your high school into small schools."

All over this nation, local people have some say over their schools. But not the people in urban areas that have given themselves over to mayoral control. When the UFT agreed to this model, we should not pretend they did not know what they hath done. They hath proven themselves part of the Broad/Gates cabal of corporate takeover of the public schools to the detriment of students, teacher, parents and the general public.