David Brooks and the Status Quo at the NY Times

I've been thinking about how to address David Brooks' ridiculous op ed in Friday's NY Times on education where if you don't agree with the likes of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Andrew Rotherham and, best of all, Al Sharpton (read all about his extortion racket,) you are labeled a status quoer. On first look, I thought it was a Tweed press release. Well, now that I think about it, it read a lot like Tweed PR chief David Cantor.

NYC Educator's brilliant piece today pretty much nails Brooks, who ought to visit the lovely trailer NYC teaches in, but I want to add a few points.

Brooks focuses on where Obama will go on ed policy. Brooks puts him between the regressive ed reformers and the progressive ed reformers whom the RER zombies are branding as "status quoers." NYC Educator focuses on the fact that none of the so-called regressive ed reforms seem to have worked, but Brooks wants to continue to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic anyway.

In his own fit of rhetorical gibberish, Brooks refers to the "patina of postpartisan rhetoric" as he writes about the competing vision of the Progressive Ed Reform Movement (PERM):

The status quo camp issued a statement organized by the Economic Policy Institute. This report argues that poverty and broad social factors drive high dropout rates and other bad outcomes. Schools alone can’t combat that, so more money should go to health care programs, anti-poverty initiatives and after-school and pre-K programs. When it comes to improving schools, the essential message is that we need to spend more on what we’re already doing: smaller class sizes, better instruction, better teacher training.

Does Brooks really believe we're spending more on smaller class size? Maybe in the private schools his friends attend. What does he think about the fact that the class sizes in NYC are 25%-35% higher than the rest of the state? Who really supports the status quo, people like Brooks or the PERMs? Brooks and the RER's are really about busting teacher unions. Lucky for them they have a compliant AFT/UFT that is frightened of being branded as SQ's to deal with.

Brooks says, "the crucial issues are: What do you do with teachers and administrators who are failing? How rigorously do you enforce accountability? Tough decisions have to be made about who belongs in the classroom and who doesn’t. Parents have to be given more control over education through public charter schools. Teacher contracts and state policies that keep ineffective teachers in the classroom need to be revised.

What irony. Has he seen how parents in NYC have less control over their schools than ever as regressive ed reformers use mayoral dictatorships to hand entire urban public school system over to Bill Gates and Eli Broad, while Brooks' friends in the suburbs actually get to elect school boards and vote on budgets?

What to do with reporters and editors who are failing?
Who belongs in the NY Times newsroom?
As NYC Educator points out, Brooks and the NY Times were vigorous war hawks and don't seem to worry about accountability and failures when it came to their own promotion of the weapons of mass destruction and general coverage of the Iraq war.

And then there's the issue of how a trillion dollars can appear out of nowhere, but those who call for even a fraction of that expenditure to lower class size are branded status quoers.

Let David Brooks take a look at the failure of the NY Times, not only in relation to Iraq, but in the biased coverage of education in NYC. True accountability starts at home.


Check out this review of Susan Ohanian's new book for some sanity.

The Unity Caucus Tail Wags the AFT Dog

REVISED Monday, June 16 8AM

Some people find it hard to believe that a caucus of around 1500 people can control a 1.4 million member organization. But the UFT is firmly under the Unity Caucus thumb and the AFT is controlled by the UFT.

Actually, it's worse than that – it's more like one person – the president of the UFT, plus entourage – that controls the Unity machine, which itself is not a democratic organization.

Some people are confused. They think Randi Weingarten is getting a promotion when she becomes president of the AFT next month. Maybe a promotion in prestige. But in terms of power, the AFT president has significantly less power than the President of the UFT. The AFT president deals with other union leaders who control their own locals, so it is a powerless position in terms of the number of people under control, which is limited basically to the AFT bureaucracy. Unless of course the AFT president also controls the UFT, as has been the rule since Al Shanker took over in 1974 (other than McElroy's filling the slot between Feldman and Weingarten.) That is one reason why Randi will not give up the UFT presidency unless that base is totally secure, which without her choosing a clear successor (which she intentionally hasn't done), will not happen.

Randi is a pretty shrewd cookie and knows how to play this game. Thus, telling people there are 6 possible successors. Divide and conquer. (See links to our previous series "Randi Succession Obsession" in the sidebar.) Imagine a scenario where Randi goes to Washington, appoints a successor as did Shanker and Feldman before her, and finds the person she chooses has that ambitious lean and hungry look and starts purging her people, leaving her as a supplicant. Ain't gonna happen for a while.


The numbers tell the story: The UFT is the elephant in the room
The AFT has around 1.4 million members, with the UFT's share being 200,000 plus. But it goes beyond that when you look at New York State United Teachers' (NYSUT) 600,000 plus, which is controlled by the UFT. So, do the math and you see how the UFT tail wags the AFT dog. And why when I was recently asked whether Randi Weingarten will face opposition in the AFT election, I answered, "no more than token, at most a candidate from the left, since there is even less of an opposition caucus in the AFT, with the Unity-like Progressive Caucus in total control."

And one point about Randi's being crushed by Hillary's defeat because now she can't become Sect'y of Education: I do not believe for a minute that she had any intention in that direction. What real long term power does a cabinet position hold other than for a few years?

In fact, Randi would have served, and will serve, Hillary's purposes in a much better way as the head of a national union. And with the goal of making Hillary the president one day still alive, Randi is well positioned to use the national pulpit of AFT presidency to promote their goals, especially if she can pull off a merger of the 3.4 million member NEA and AFT and if she can convince the NEA people to make her president of the merged 5 million member union.

At that point she would have surpassed even Al Shanker, who could never have accomplished such a merger because NEA people despised his ruthless, authoritarian and undemocratic methods. Hmmm, on second thought, nothing's really changed in the UFT. Except that Randi is so much slicker than Al and will try to convince the NEA she is a democrat in addition to being a Democrat. Don't sell her short. As we've seen here with the UFT and Tweed parallel large PR machines, you can get people to believe anything.

If she does, who is to say she would not be in line to head the entire AFL/CIO? I know, some labor people say a teacher union head could never be in that position. But unions are on the run and Randi has figured out a way to "save" them. Just give away as many hard won rights as possible to convince management the unions are willing to work with them in a collaborationist way.

NYC teachers have seen the results of this "new unionism" strategy promoted by Leo Casey. They wish the rest of the labor movement luck.

Who's Funding the Education Quality Project?

Reformatted: Thread is in reverse order. Leonie in blue, Cantor in red.

GBN News discovers answer to secret funds for Educational Equity Project.

Sometimes all you need to do is put up a thread without comment. Do you need more to understand why just yesterday someone characterized Leonie as a true heroine of the education wars against the regressive ed reform zombies. Of course, Leonie would be characterized by the NY Times' David Brooks as a "status quoer."

From Leonie Haimson on nyceducationnews listserve:

See David Cantor's comments below -- on the fact that this Klein/ Sharpton alliance is being funded by an "anonymous donor" -- though apparently not by Bloomberg.

I would think that the kind of public campaign that the Chancellor is embarking upon, including staging "events at both political conventions” and attempting to influence the position of the next President should be obligated to reveal its source of financing.

David also questions my description of the press office as large and well-funded -- though I still maintain that is larger than the press office of any other city agency and much larger than under any previous Chancellor. I have an excel file from October with the names, salaries and positions of thirteen people employed in the Communications office, in case anyone would like to see it. Not that they don't earn their salaries, working overtime to cover the blunders and mistatements of their superiors.

David: two questions -- who is paying your salary when you write press releases for this Klein/ Sharpton effort and/or answer calls from reporters about it? Are you getting paid extra by this "anonymous" donor -- or does your official salary funded by taxpayer money cover your efforts?

Secondly, are you thinking of writing an expose a la Scott McLellan about your adventures in the land of Tweed when Klein's term in office is over? I myself would pay a pretty penny for such a book, and I bet many others would as well. Let me know if you'd like some contact information from publishers who would likely be interested. Unfortunately, I must turn down your offer to come fix your copying machine; I don't have any particular expertise in that area (not that ever stopped the Chancellor in his hiring decisions.)

Perhaps by cutting down on the high salaries of some of the top educrats at Tweed -- or eliminating one or two positions in the burgeoning Accountability office, you might be able to afford to pay a repairman.

thanks as always,

Leonie Haimson



From: david cantor [mailto:cantorrac@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 11:20 PM
To: Leonie Haimson
Subject: Re: question for David Cantor: who is funding this project?

Leonie: The project is being funded anonymously. No public money will be spent. The mayor is not funding the project.

Re comments on your blog: If Class Size Matters ever wants to hold a press conference in Washington, the National Press Club room we used (Zenger Room) is available for $500. Also, I invite you to come over to the press office when next you're at Tweed and check out our "huge" communications "juggernaut" at work. I think you'll be surprised. If you're any good at fixing a copy machine we may put you to work.

David Cantor

Press Secretary

NYC Dept of Ed

On 6/13/08, Leonie Haimson wrote:

So tell us then, David, who is funding this, if not Gates and Broad?

I see that on the webpage of http://www.educationequalityproject.org/press/ , you are one of the two contact people listed:

Contact: David Cantor - NYC Department of Education (212) 374-5141
Rachel Noerdlinger - NAN/Al Sharpton Media (212) 876-5444

USA today: "Neither Sharpton nor Klein offered details on the Education Equality Project, but said they sent letters to both presidential candidates Wednesday and plan to stage events at both political conventions."

So is this campaign coming out of our taxpayer money? In the midst of an economic slowdown so dire that Bloomberg says he is forced to cut all city agencies, including Education by $450 M? And/or is this project being subsidized by Bloomberg himself?

It's easy, though, to see how people including myself could assume that Gates and Broad were funding this. If you go to the Ed ''08; webpage it says:

Strong American Schools is a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, two of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, have provided grant funding for Strong American Schools. Roy Romer, the former governor of Colorado and most recently superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is our chairman and lead spokesman.
You click on Roy Romer's link and you get to:

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bringing Equity to the Education System
Today I joined with New York City Schools' chancellor Joel Klein, the Rev. Al Sharpton and a host of other civil rights leaders, elected officials, and education reformers to announce the launch of the Education Equality Project. The new project will challenge politicians, public officials, educations, union leaders, and others to view fixing public schools as the foremost civil rights issue of the early 21st century.

Other quotations from press release:

"Our nation's economy and individual family income is tied to improving our skills through education," ED in '08 Chairman Roy Romer said. "Americans cannot afford to sit back and watch its schools fail our students. We need to raise expectations and opportunities for every single student, regardless of race, color, creed, or income. Most importantly, we need strong leaders to take initiative. Today, I am joining these influential leaders to call for change."

"Nationally, our public education system is failing to provide our students with the skills they need to compete for the best jobs in the global workforce," said former Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr., who serves as a spokesperson for ED in '08. "Too many of our students are not graduating from high school and too many who do graduate are not prepared to face the challenges of college, the workplace, or life. This crisis in education is destroying the foundation of our economic success and national prosperity. I am glad to join the bi-partisan coalition to sound the national alarm to improve our schools."

Bloomberg is well known for his generosity to many organizations through the Carnegie Corporation– see this today's news, about his latest contributions of $60 million: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/nyregion/13charity.html?ref=nyregion ( full list is here: http://www.carnegie.org/sub/news/VGrelease.html )


All in all, very confusing and mysterious. Please enlighten us, David!

Leonie Haimson

Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 12:16 AM
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [nyceducationnews] Klein, Sharpton Ally on Achievement Gap

No Gates or Broad money is going to this initiative. Zero.

David Cantor
Press Secretary
NYC Dept of ED

On 6/12/08, leonie@att.net wrote:

as I predicted, this "new" coalition will focus on charter schools and union busting-- not a word about the need for the critical reforms that have actually been proven to work to narrow the achievement gap -- like class size reduction.
This strategic alliance, or "beautiful friendship" as Klein likes to put it, appears to be based instead upon the ideological biases of its funders -- the Gates and Broad foundations.

Klein, Sharpton Ally on Achievement Gap

By
RUSSELL BERMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 11, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/national/klein-shaprton-partner-on-racial-gap-in-education/79786/

The Story of A and E

A story to illustrate why the simplistic "close the achievement gap and all will be well" zombies out there make longtime teachers froth at the mouth. I was inspired to tell this story after my meeting with the Teach for America alum from the previous post.


My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it was in the mid 80's. I picked up the phone and heard shrieking. "Mr. Scott, E is dead. E is dead." It was A, one of my all-time favorite students. Both A & E were in my top performing 6th grade class in 1975. We had kept in touch over the years.

E, her boyfriend and another woman were found shot to death execution style with bullets in their heads in the Bronx. She was around 20 at the time. "Drugs," the papers said. I raced over to the funeral home. Young friends of E were milling about crying (not the only time I got to witness such scenes). E's mom,who I had known for so many years, was catatonic.

A had gone to one of the 3 competitive special high schools and then on to a top university and eventually turned to teaching and even subbed at my school a few times.

Coming from a poor family with a single parent, A was a star from the day she entered school. No achievement gap here. None of the 8 teachers she had at our school from pre-k through me in the 6th grade would think of taking credit for her achievements. (Think of the merit pay she would have brought us.)

Her amazing mom was the key. Tall, thin, supremely dignified and proud, her voice with hints of her southern roots, she was a school lunchroom worker raising two daughters in the midst of a neighborhood that lost so many kids. Talk about accountability. I wouldn't have dared think about not being accountable to her. If they're giving out merit pay, it should go to people like her.

E wasn't quite as successful a student, but was certainly not behind in math and reading. There were 3 kids in the family. In 1975, the family was whole, with a father present who seemed dedicated to the family. To an outsider, this seemed like one happy family. But not soon after E graduated from my school, things went bad. The dad walked out. That seemed to lead to a downward spiral all around. Mom didn't do too well. One brother served some serious time in prison. The other had problems in school.

I don't know to what extent E's "achievement" was affected. I assume she finished high school and probably just fell in with the wrong guy.

Postscript: A few years later my wife and I attended A's beautiful wedding when she married her high school sweetheart. I thought about E that day and what her wedding would have been like.

A's mom was there, standing tall and proud.

Can TFA's Be Saved?

I was at a small meeting yesterday that was attended by a 4th year Teach for America alum. Not biased against the union, she understands what the UFT leadership is all about and is interested in knowing more so that one day she could run for chapter leader. She wants to know about the rights of union members and how to defend them.

"The first few years of teaching, you barely keep your head above water," she said, "and you don't think much about your rights." She talked about the TFA training, which she said is really dependent on the group leader. After the summer institute, recruits do not have much to do with TFA, she said.

We talked about reaching out to other TFA's, or those that stay. Maybe even a campaign to get more to stay. This TFA is a politically conscious about the larger socio-political context of teaching and feels sharing that viewpoint with others would be helpful.

"Teach for America is all about a narrow concept: closing the achievement gap. Results count. The idea of teaching the whole child is not really part of their equation," she said. "Luckily, I went for my masters at an institution that took the opposite approach and focused on the whole child. Maybe too much. So I got the benefit of both worlds."

This TFA gets it and is jumping into the broader social justice struggle that goes beyond the achievment gap and over time hopes to get other teachers to do the same.

Over time I got to see kids who did not have an achievement gap at my school still get lost to the streets and some that were behind find success later on. So I've never seen closing the achievement gap as the end all and be all. Fighting the lure of the streets and family dissolution seemed to be part of the bigger battle.


Read the followup: The story of A & E

Sharpton & Klein

Perfect together.
From a DOE Press Release:

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Reverend Al Sharpton Launch Weekly "Education Equality Hour" on Webcast Radio Show "Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton"

http://www.sharptontalk.net/

Of course they got the first version wrong. Leonie Haimson commented:
They changed the website address so it works now; doesn't anyone in their huge, highly paid press office ever check these things first?

Michael Fiorillo had a stronger statement:

What little significance anything Rev. Al does, meaning its relationship to his political and financial interests, is to be found in the bit about him teaming up with "Ed in '08:" he's obviously trolling for money from Broad and Gates, who are the funders of this oligarchic effort to generate public support for their campaign to undermine public education.

The man is a political whore of the worst sort, and should be exposed at every opportunity.

How the UFT Spends Dues Money

Check the ICE blog comments for the latest posts for some fun reading from the union's LM-2 report. Believe me, it's even worse than that.

Ethics (and the lack there of)

(For The Wave, June 13, 2008: www.rockawave.com)

by Norman Scott

Defining ethics can be more elusive than holding onto to a wet bar of soap, but one general view is it has to do with right and wrong. Some say there is no such thing as ethics. That right and wrong is based on your point of view. Or the majority point of view. Would this mean that if the majority of people decide to kill off the minority, they were acting ethically? Most people (sadly, not all) think genocide is not ethical. It seems that some things are obvious right and wrong, but when it comes to the NYC Department of Education under Joel Klein and his boss Michael Bloomberg, all bets are off.

The BloomKlein “regressive education reform” has more to do with the ideology of a corporate/privatization agenda than with kids.

I received a report that at a recent Panel for Educational Policy meeting (the monthly show for the public) parents and teachers were protesting the constant shoving of semi-private charter schools into public school space, the greatest land grab since the Nebraska territory was opened.

Joel Klein responded that he was concerned with all the children in NYC. What exactly does that mean? Screwing Peter to pay Paul? Causing more overcrowding in increasingly beleaguered public schools, while giving a charter in the same building frills and smaller class sizes? What he really means is he is concerned with his “let’s steal the public school system and put it in private hands” constituency.

A parent asked, somewhat naively, why charter schools were needed at all. Why couldn’t Klein do the same thing in public schools? Not having a real answer, he again talked about his concern for all kids.

At this point, Manhattan borough PEP rep Patrick Sullivan said, “Isn’t your support for charters an admission of failure since you have had control of the public schools for six years?” Duhh!! Somehow, this is a point the NY Times doesn’t get. Or doesn’t want to get. My correspondent said that Klein had as sick a look on his face as she’d seen. The walls are closing in. Once they are gone, oh, the stuff that will come out.

Five years ago, I spoke at one of the early contentious meetings Klein was holding and said that the school systems of Baghdad and Kabul would recover sooner than NYC public schools after the BloomKlein terror. Maybe we should add western China to the list.

Klein wants to expand teacher bonus pay by 20% while school budgets are cut
Tweed wants to use $25 M of public funds to expand the program from 230 to 270 schools, which was privately funded. Bonuses are based on the same formula that led to the ridiculous school grading system, almost completely dependent on one year’s gains or losses in scores. Since the program has not yet been evaluated, one would think you would wait to see the results. But when the agenda is ideological and self-serving, why wait for results? Ahhh, ethics.

Speaking of which –
“Randi Weingarten said the bonus program was meant to encourage collaboration between teachers and administrators, not to improve teacher quality.” – NY Sun. This one has to go on Letterman's Top Ten funniest list of Randiisms.

The Sun reported that Weingarten...Was a partner to the city in conceiving the program last year. … she said that, given the proposed budget cuts, the bonus-pay program falls into the category of an extra that should not be expanded if it means less money will go to core services. "I like this program. I wanted it," Ms. Weingarten said. "But not at the expense of cutting schools."

Asking the ethical question - Well, Randi, if it is at the expense of the schools now, why wasn't it at the expense of the schools before?

One of the thousands of DOE spokespersons said:
...The program was a clear example of one of the Contracts for Excellence categories: improving teacher performance.

The code words "improve teacher performance” really mean “raise test scores by hook or crook so we can claim we had a major impact on closing the achievement gap and we can use that to advance our political careers." The real “expense” to the schools, teachers, students, and parents is the attempt to bribe teachers into putting their entire focus on high scores on one or two tests, to the detriment of the rest of the educational process.

Can't you see the thought flashing through teachers' minds: Gee! For the extra 3 grand, I'll REALLY teach. The entire process is an insult to teachers, but the UFT wore its (lack of) ethics on its sleeve in supporting the program.

The teachers at each school get to vote on the program and the UFT pushed hard to get them to say “Yes,” though miraculously, over 30 schools said “No.” Klein has urged school committees to give out bonuses according to the size of test-score gains made by each teacher's students, rather than equal distribution. Teach gym or library or computers or science? Sorry folks, out-a-luck. Until there’s a test. How about a bonus to a gym teacher for every kid who can finish a race?

If you want to read more on how attaching high stakes to test scores make the results highly suspect – check this blog by Steve Koss (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2007/12/campbells-law-no-its-not-soup.html) where he says, “the more you base decisions like promotions, firings, or bonuses on a particular number or set of numbers, the more likely it is people will either cheat or otherwise try to game the system.”

What should Randi Weingarten's response have been?
Dear Joel,
Since you insist on playing games with the budget, we are joining ICE, TJC, Teachers Unite, Justice Not Just Tests, NYCORE, Time Out for Testing and other educational groups around the city in urging UFT members on the compensation committees in all 270 schools to reject the bonus pay plan in the future and use the money saved towards reducing the cuts you are imposing on the schools despite a large budget surplus.
Your (ex) pal
Randi

Ahhh! Just a dream on a hot summer day!

Los Angeles teachers march during first period; UFT Does a Survey
Ninety percent of the teachers in LA spent the first period on June 6 marching around 900 schools while in New York the UFT called a secret meeting of chapter leaders on June 9 to hand out surveys for teachers to fill out rating Joel Klein’s performance. I’m not opposed to doing this since it will show Klein has basically zero support from the very people who are expected to implement his programs. But with BloomKlein being lame ducks, this is merely another public relations gimmick to make teachers and the public think the UFT is really doing something. It will have zero impact.

Does something strike you odd about the vast difference in union activism between the left and right coasts? Some think it’s the teachers. I think it is the union leadership.

Nominate Tweed's greatest foul-ups!
Famed educational historian Diane Ravitch has been a major voice in exposing the BloomKlein follies. She is holding court over at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com where Diane says:

Six years into mayoral control, it is time for an accounting. For the sake of history and memory, can we begin to compile a Directory of Tweed's Greatest Foul-Ups? Parents and others; please contribute your nominees for this distinction by posting them on the comment section of this blog. The decision of the judge will be final.

So many to choose from, so little time. Oodles of them are posted on my blog where I write this kind of crap every day.
Got some ed news? norsmco@gmail.com
Blog: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Results from Principal Survey relevant to the heat wave

In our recent principal survey, 38% of principals said their schools lacked sufficient electrical power, and many commented on the need for more air-conditioning.

18% of principals reported that their schools have classrooms with no windows. Many said that special education classes and services were being given in inadequate spaces, including closets.

Clearly these would lead to unbearable conditions given today’s temperatures.

492 principals completed our survey in full -- representing more than one third of all NYC public school principals. Their schools contain about 350,000 students or 37% of our total public school population.

For the results in full, please go to http://www.classsizematters.org/principalsurveyresults.html

Leonie Haimson

"Emergency" UFT Chapter Leader Meeting...

Revised

...there were some ticked off CL's.

Weeks ago Randi Weingarten announced there would be an important chapter leader meeting at the Brooklyn Marriott - which means they expect more than the 850 people who can fit into the auditorium at 52 Broadway, but more importantly, a shot at a batch of those wonderful cookies the Marriott serves – mmmmm, the macadamia nut. However, being in the 3rd week of the South Beach Diet, there was no way I could go within 10 feet of these cookies without gaining 10 pounds. So I petitioned Randi to change the meeting until I was on phase 3 of the Diet and could get to a nibble at one macadamia nut. But NOOOOOO! See, criticize her a little and look what you get.

Well, ya know, I had been getting emails for weeks from chapter leaders asking me what I knew about the secret meeting. "Is Randi naming her successor," one asked? Ha, I said. If you read Ed Notes online you would know her successor (hint: initials are RW.)

Maybe something to do with ATR's or the rubber room was a popular choice. But why would she ask people to schedule chapter meetings in the next 3 days? It's got to be something related to a vote.

Well, I was meeting a friend for dinner in downtown Brooklyn, so I figured I might as well go and check it out and bring the ed notes blog ads to distribute - those cartoons of Klein, always a popular item.

And why not bring a batch of the review of the Kahlenberg Shanker book I co-wrote with Vera Pavone? Now I wasn't planning on distributing this to the masses - it is 5 pages long and and I could see many of them going right into waste baskets. So I gave them out selectively to people I knew and to anyone that showed an interest. As usual, quite a few Unity people always want to know what I've got up my sleeve so I got plenty of business from them. Even New Action's Michael Shulman came over to get one. I gladly gave him a copy, just to remind him of the policies he used to oppose. (Remember Unity red baiting, Mike? But of course, Randi is different.) I should sell this stuff to them.

There was a good crew of people giving out their stuff. Teacher Unite's Sally Lee and CL Steve Quester handing out stuff on Debbie Almontaser and CL John Powers doing his info campaign on the GHI/HIP merger and privatization. Boy, has one guy gotten some mileage out of pushing an issue with a superb show of energy. If there were 50 more John Powers out there Unity would be playing defense.

Well, it turns out this meeting was all about distributing a survey of sorts to rate the performance of Joel Klein and his administration. (Bloomberg is not mentioned much, as the UFT likes to separate them, as if Klein were gone things would be better, part of their "obfuscate and confuse the members as to the real cause of the problem" - read our Shanker review when it is available online for a clue.)

Now I think this is a good idea. We have maintained all along that BloomKlein have practically zero support from not only classroom teachers, but beyond as you move up the supervisor food chain - find even one blog that supports them. In just about any enterprise, such alienation of the entire work force is a sign of total failure of policy – except for places like the Rotherham Ed Sector crowd who know full well what is going on - i.e., read NYC Educator for a start - yet act like it isn't.

But the real rub for many CL yesterday, on one of the hottest days of the year, was being dragged down after a day of teaching, to pick up materials and hear some speeches. There was just a bit of outrage. "One of the worst planned meetings - they're talking to us about the fucking heat and Randi isn't even here," said one, leaving in a huff.

Well, Randi did show up to make some people see she is feeling their pain and the meeting broke up before 6 as there was an Executive Board meeting (I asked UFT staffer Gary Sprung whether the meeting was next door at the UFT borough office or in Manhattan and he gave me his usual charming grunt.) I saw Marjorie Stamberg who was going to the Ex Bd to hear the results of her appeal of her chapter leader election and we expect her report soon (guess what the results will be?)

Oh, and I did spend some serious time staring at the cookies, but not touching. I think I only gained 3 pounds. Or was it from the enormous amount of food my friend and I consumed at an Asian fusion place?

Randi says bonus program meant to encourage collaboration....

.... between teachers and administrators, not to improve teacher quality

This one has to go on Letterman's Top Ten funniest list of Randiisms.

Elizabeth Green's piece in the NY Sun today about the expansion of the bonus program by 20% in the midst of budget cuts nails what BloomKlein is all about: right wing anti-teacher ideology ("see, we got the mighty UFT to buy into this.")

The expansion would cost taxpayers $25 million and would expand the program to include 270 schools from 230 this school year


Green writes that Weingarten
...was a partner to the city in conceiving the program last year. Yesterday, she said that, given the proposed budget cuts, the bonus-pay program falls into the category of an extra that should not be expanded if it means less money will go to core services. "I like this program. I wanted it. I like it," Ms. Weingarten said. "But not at the expense of cutting schools."

Well, Randi, if it is at the expense of the schools now, why wasn't it at the expense of the schools before?

Under the city's proposal, a large portion of the funds, $20 million, would be paid for with state money granted through the Contracts for Excellence program, which sets aside a certain pot of funds to be targeted only to a specific set of programs at the city's neediest schools.

One of the thousands of DOE spokespersons said:

...the program was a clear example of one of the Contracts for Excellence categories: improving teacher performance.

Can't you see the thought flashing through teachers' minds: Gee! For the extra 3 grand, I'll REALLY teach. The real code words are "improve teacher performance in raising test scores by hook or crook so we can claim we had a major impact on closing the achievement gap."

Schools use four-person "compensation committees" that include two administrators and two UFT members to make that decision. Chancellor Joel Klein last year voiced hope that the committees would choose to draft the size of the bonuses according to the size of test-score gains made by each teacher's students.

[Teacher] Gregory Schmidt...said one problem is that only three of the school's six grades are tested by the state, and many other UFT members do not see their performance judged by student tests: the art teacher, the gym teacher, and people who work in the main office, for instance. "You don't want to come back next fall and be sitting in the teachers' lounge with somebody who got less money than you did because of an arrangement you agreed to," Mr. Schmidt said. "If the whole thing becomes a battle amongst teachers for money, it would be crippling for school morale."

What should Randi Weingarten's response be:

Dear Joel,
Since you insist on playing games with the budget, we are joining ICE, TJC, Teachers Unite, Justice Not Just Tests, NYCORE, Time Out for Testing and other educational groups around the city in urging UFT members on the compensation committees in all 270 schools to reject the bonus pay plan in the future and use the money saved towards reducing the cuts you are imposing on the schools despite a large budget surplus.

Your (ex) pal
Randi

Ahhh! Just a dream on a hot summer day!

On Campbell's law --how attaching high stakes to test scores make the results highly suspect -- see posting by Steve Koss at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2007/12/campbells-law-no-its-not-soup.html

Green's full piece at:
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bonus-pay-for-teachers-may-be-expanded-amid/79578/

NYC Teachers Protest SEIU Backstabbers at PR Parade

There's a lot of history here (check the ednotes blog sidebar for links). We got to meet the FMPR president and other strikers at the Radical Math Conference back in April. A key element from our point of view is the FMPR disaffiliation from the AFT in 2004 (I was at the AFT convention in Washington when this all came up sitting at the press table with EIA's Mike Antonucci when he was the first to report on it.) When supporters recently asked the UFT to back the strike, the leadership agreed, after the usual waffling by Randi, who initially said they couldn't do it without asking the AFT first or getting a formal request form FMPR, or something like that. But playing the usual political card of giving ice water in the winter she agreed to a mild resolution "expression of support" – though strikers could burn the reso for fuel.

I was one of the few arguing for a stronger reso that would tie in some of the FMPR/AFT history with SEIU actions and calling on the AFT/UFT (look for a followup post on how they are one and the same) to make overtures to FMPR (I know, it would have been rejected.) But NYC FMPR supporters felt that the strikers would feel better even with this. But at the last Delegate Assembly, a reso to provide financial support to the 17 teachers who have been fired, was turned down with an Hispanic Unity Caucus member of the Executive Board arguing against supporting the teachers. With SEIU out to remove and independent, militant, left oriented union, and with the AFT/UFT sitting on the sidelines (are they really?) one can't but think that the traditional anti-left, militant AFT/UFT leadership is in essence supporting SEIU by supposedly staying on the sidelines. And by the way, the governor of PR who is trying to destroy FMPR by bringing in SEIU, is a strong Hillary Clinton supporter and was part of her victory in the recent primary. Oh, da woim toins.

June 8, 2008 Puerto Rico Parade

by Angel Gonzalez (NYC teacher)

As the 1199/SEIU Parade Contingent gathered to march today, members of the Puerto Rico Teachers' Federation/FMPR-Support Committee of New York greeted and distributed leaflets denouncing Denis Rivera betrayal of the teachers' and education struggle in Puerto Rico. Buttons calling for FMPR solidarity and a "Stop to the SEIU Raiding" of the FMPR Teachers' union, were well received by many in the 1199/SEIU Parade Contigent. Some 1199SEIU were very receptive and appreciated this information which they learned about for the first time. One marcher said "I have just returned to New York from Puerto Rico and it is an outrage what SEIU is doing to the teachers in Puerto Rico."

Some SEIU members called our leaflets false propaganda and misinformed. But none, including the Marshalls and an 1199 President could not explain exactly what was false about our charges of Denis Rivera's betrayal of the P.R. education struggle and his despicable collusion with the teachers' boss, Governor Acevedo-Vila. This governor brutally repressed a valiant and democratic strike of teachers, parents and students who demanded better school and work conditions -- a struggle that successfully fought against privatization of the public schools and won promises of improvements to wages and schools.

Andy Stern and Denis Rivera demonstrated no solidarity and worker unity with critical and just struggle for P.R. schools and teachers. Instead they were making back-room deals to promote the decertification and sabotage of the FMPR; making such deals to support the corrupt anti-worker Governor in exchange for his support in getting the teachers under the SEIU "dues-sucking" membership. The same riot police that repressed the heroic teachers during their 10 day stike this past March were the same police who were called upon to again repress and brutalize the FMPR teachers who leafletted at last weeks SEIU Convention in PR.

Both PR Parade Gran Marshall Denis Rivera and Gov. Anibal Acevedo - Vila, who hand-in-hand led the parade, were also greeted with our leaflets. Both were denounced as traitors by our members as the parade began.

We again call on members of 1199/SEIU to repudiate Denis Rivera's shameful betrayal and misleadership at their union meetings. Denis Rivera should be held accountable at 1199's Delegate Assembly. He has yet to speak on this issue there.

Attached find pictures of our committee members distributing our buttons and leaflets at the parade today. They were well received by many at the SEIU contingent.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2kxcd/fmprs

LA Teachers DO IT! A One Hour Work Stoppage

inconceivable
in NYC,
the UFT –
collaboration,
new unionism,
atr and rubber room
abomination

Tens of thousands of teachers formed picket lines outside nearly 900 schools here Friday morning to protest cuts to education financing proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help close California’s projected $17 billion budget gap.
LA Update at Norms Notes

Found on Schools Matter: New Film on Teachers

I actually sent Michael Moore an email urging him to do such a film. But maybe it's on the way. Jim Horn points the way to a trailer on a film that may be the "Inconvenient Truth" for education. Maybe not. It does jump on board "the single most important thing in education is the quality teacher" bandwagon which places the emphasis of spending priority on salaries. I've seen too many kids who consistently had decent teachers still go down the drain to believe that.

What's needed is a film to expose the phony regressive ed reform movement, which also places the "quality teacher" argument at the top of the list instead of a true progressive reform movement. Instead of calling for higher salaries, the corporate gang calls for merit pay.

No wonder the unions jump on board both bandwagons. Class size and other progressive reforms are given short shrift.

LITTLEST PROTESTORS “STORM” Tweed

I'm curious as to how this takes place during school hours. Are kids being pulled by the parents? Maybe it is an official school trip. It is hard to believe the teachers or admins can in any way be involved without repercussions. Yet, these cuts seem to have made some principals bolder in their criticisms. And, there could be bad pub for Tweed if they do retaliate.

LITTLEST PROTESTORS “STORM” DOE:

Public School Kids Barrage Steps of to Demand Klein Rescind Budget Cuts;

Experience Democracy in Action

WHO: NYC Public School Kids

WHAT: Rally, deliver protest letters and signed posters;

protest $450 Million NYC Public Schools Budget Cuts;

learn what it means to have their voices heard.

WHEN: Every school day in June until Chancellor Joel Klein

appears on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse to announce

full restoration of the DOE budget (see full schedule for week

one, below).

WHERE: Tweed Courthouse (52 Chambers Street, Manhattan)

WHY: Despite increased state allocations for NYC schools, Klein

has chopped NYC public school budgets already by $180

million this year. An additional cut of as much $450 million is

planned for next year.

WEEK ONE: Monday, June 9th – PS 75M students arrive at Tweed

Courthouse, 12:30

Tuesday, June 10th – Central Park East II –10:00

Wednesday, June 11th – TBA

Thursday, June 12th – Six Schools from District 2 – 12:30

Friday, June 13th – High School Kids Express Solidarity

Murrow/Stuyvesant – 4:00

Contact: Paula Seefeldt, PA Board, PS 87; kennapj@hotmail.com;
646-734-0182

Cynthia Wachtell, PA Board, PS 87; wachtell@yu.edu;

917-392-2486

http://www.kidsprotestproject.org/

Pre-K Fiasco and reject survey/rally on Sunday

More evidence of the massive screw-up in preK admissions, compounding the screw ups in middle school admissions, G and T and everything else that Tweed has put their hands on in recent years. Despite the fact that according to the NY Times, there are there are 23,000 spots for the next school year citywide, 3,000 applicants out of 20,000 received not a single seat. Question: How much did they pay to that outfit in Pennsylvania, that they outsourced the admissions process to? - Leonie Haimson

If you know someone affected by the fiasco in preK admissions, PLEASE PASS ON OR POST THIS SURVEY so their voice can be heard:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0B4Y3u5DSXKj4qsF7gptpA_3d_3d

Also: THE CITY COUNCIL IS SPONSORING A RALLY AT CITY HALL AT 1 PM ON SUNDAY AT CITY HALL TO GET THE DOE TO TAKE ACTION -- PLEASE BRING YOUR KIDS!

As you have likely heard, a number of public PreK applicants who should have received priority (siblings of older kids already enrolled at that school; zoned kids rejected, while out-of-zone and out-of-district kids were accepted) did not get spots in this year's PreK admissions. As spots are limited in general, some schools simply have more sibling or zoned applicants than there are spots for, but that is not the matter at issue.

If you know of anyone in this situation (anywhere in NYC!) please ask them to complete this survey as we (parents of rejected kids) attempt to get a handle on the scope & outreach thus far. While both Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum & City Councilman Bill De Blasio called a press conference Wednesday demanding the DOE deal with the situation, we have yet to have a proper response from the DOE as a group or individually. They have told the press they will find suitable spots for wrongly rejected kids, but these spots may be in a school elsewhere in one's district. That is unacceptable.

Bay Brown, Mom to rejected twin and accepted twin (although no letter yet) at big sis' school, PS 282, D 13, Brooklyn brown_bay@hotmail.com

Randi and Hillary

Sent to ICE-mail:
I heard Randi is looking very glum these days because of Hillary's defeat. I guess her political future is finished. Will Randi gain anything if Hillary is VP?


This is barking up the wrong tree. People who think Randi was in this for a cabinet position are way off base - those are at most a few years and out and she would have lost the power base she has.

Randi's future is and always has been to move up in the labor movement. Her political future on the national stage is just beginning. The next step is to unify the NEA and AFT which would give her a massive base. That is how she is much more useful to the Clintons in a 2012 campaign.

The Clintons have been open about the fact that they think Obama can't win - and they have played a not small role in that - and in essence declared McCain the winner. They will play the support Obama game to the end. My view is that for them and Randi, the 2012 campaign begins the day after the election. And Randi will be perfectly positioned as AFT president to use that platform for Hillary.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a one way street and Randi's career exists outside the life of the Clintons. Reaching the status of an Albert Shanker for her would not be a bad achievement. I hope she doesn't get ahold of the bomb. But then again, can you imagine Woody Allen using that line about Randi?

How Many Sides of His Mouth Can Tim Daly Speak Out Of?

"Is it appropriate to allow teachers to be placed teaching a class they are not licensed for?"

The New Teacher Project's Tim Daly made this statement in the NY Times article on the UFT's response to his biased report on ATR's.

So, let's see now. Daly thinks it is ok to place a teacher with a few months training with a phony fast track licensing procedure from the Teaching Fellow's program in a classroom?

Let Daly be honest enough to admit he has a business interest in attacking ATR's through his organization's contracts with Tweed.

Pssst, Kid. Have I got a pre-k school for you

Two articles in today's NY Times touches on the utter incompetency of the BloomKlein regime.
The pre-k debacle and the principals of schools with problems getting bonuses.

Note how the "NO EXCUSES" Joel Klein administration always has, well, excuses. "The dog ate my ARIS." I love the "bad algorithm" one that somehow left out accounting for siblings.

A teacher who might make one mistake is sent immediately to the rubber room. If Tweed had a rubber room, it would be filled and all those cubicles filled with zombies would be empty.

Shanker Blows Up the World

The review Vera Pavone and I wrote, "Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon" of Richard Kahleberg's "Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal," is appearing in the summer edition of New Politics and is a good corollary to the article below since it focuses on the educational aspect of Shanker's actions and how it has done so much harm to teacher unionism. The review will be available shortly.

A must read by Thomas Sugrue in the November 12, 2007 edition of The Nation.
A lot of the background of democratic party politics - super delegates, the McGovern impact, the fractures of '68 being played out today are laid out. And Al Shanker and Richard Kahlenberg on Shanker are part of the structure of today's debates. (It was no accident the book came out last summer and was funded by the likes of Eli Broad and other regressive ed reformers.)

The article also goes a long way towards explaining the philosophical underpinnings of the UFT/AFT and their alliance with the Clintons that goes way back to the early 80's, before Randi Weingarten ever set foot in the UFT.

A choice nugget (amongst many) from Sugrue:

...the new Democratic orthodoxy evoked a wholly fictitious American past. The Democrats needed to turn the clock back to the antediluvian moment--that is, before 1968--and restore the economic opportunity, colorblindness, family values, law and order, and personal responsibility that supposedly reigned before hippies, rioters, anti-American activists and multiculturalists took over.

The man named Albert Shanker did not drop the bomb on liberalism. But he was no small part of a political and intellectual Manhattan Project that exploited the fractures of New Deal and Great Society liberalism and empowered the New Right to rebuild from the rubble.

Kahlenberg pines for a Shankerist political order. If only the Democrats had listened to Shanker. If only they had adopted a "tough liberalism" that jettisoned pesky identity politics for the neat politics of class interest; if only they had embraced meritocracy rather than harmful racial "quotas"; if only they had stood up to the dual menaces of communism abroad and rampant crime at home; if only they had rewarded merit and hard work rather than capitulating to the fashions of multiculturalism and "extreme bilingual education," then they could have thwarted the Republican juggernaut.

The full aticle is at Norms Notes.