Michelle (Take no prisoners) Rhee Swings the Ax

Michelle Rhee appoints a principal over parent objections in July. Then fires her on October. There's stability for you. It seems the principal fought for resources for the students and parents. Fighting for kids? A no-no in Rheeland.

For more on Ed in DC read union Exec Bd member Candi Peterson's blog The Washington Teacher. In the DC teachers union, an exec bd member can actually disagree with the leadership. Unike the Unity monolith here in NYC.

Update: - http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1008/561119.html


Posted by Leonie Haimson:

Michelle (Take no prisoners) Rhee swings the ax – and removes a principal that she had just hired in July. It’s beginning to sound in DC like the last stages of the French Revolution.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/10/rhee_swings_the_ax.html

As is customary with personnel matters, Rhee did not explain her reason for the abrupt move, which sparked a torrent of e-mails and phone calls to The Wire from angry parents.

BenZion was not the first choice of a school community panel that screened principal candidates this summer. But Rhee chose her nonetheless.

"Dr. BenZion took her job seriously and believed it was her job to advocate for the resources we needed, said PTA president Earl Yates. "You have to speculate there was some head-banging."

BenZion did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. In a message she sent to the Shepherd listserv, Friday afternoon, she said:

My Dear Parents,

You have heard by now, that the Shepherd school community has lost its principal today.
According to the Chancellor I am not the right fit to this community and it is best for the children that I am replaced.

I feel as if the flower has just began to bloom and was just stepped on. It has been a privilege to get to know each of you.

Motion on ATRs for the UFT Delegate Assembly

Read the call of the ATRs we posted a few days ago. Here is their motion which they will try to present at today's Delegate Assembly.

Motion

ATR Urgent Situation

WHEREAS, at the start of this school year, classes are more crowded than ever, state money budgeted for reducing class size is used for other purposes, and more than half (54 percent) of New York City schools have seen their class sizes or student-teacher ratios increase in recent years; and

WHEREAS, almost 1,400 teachers are assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve, in many cases because their schools have been reorganized out from under them, and due to the new funding formulate which works against senior teachers; and

WHEREAS, these teachers are highly qualified, yet are kept in substitute pools, and sometimes even prevented from teaching; and

WHEREAS, the mainstream media, the mayor, the chancellor and the “New Teacher Project,” funded by the DOE, are scape-goating teachers in a publicity barrage, trying to break our contract and put ATR teachers on unpaid leave after a year or 18 months; and

WHEREAS, ATR teachers are facing stepped-up harassment from principals such as formal observations in classes outside their license area, truncated or no pre-ob conference, and where the sub has not had the opportunity to know the students' particular interests and abilities; and

WHEREAS, many new teachers in the Teaching Fellows program have also not received assignments and are facing the threat of being terminated in December and dropped from the program if they do not find a position; and

WHEREAS, this is a vital issue for the UFT and affects all union brothers and sisters—teachers, paras, secretaries, speech teachers and pathologists, counselors, social workers/psychologists, and others -- by enabling the DOE to drop tenured staff from their positions and leave them in limbo; and

WHEREAS, students suffer when the DOE refuses to reduce class size while keeping qualified teachers out of the classroom; and

WHEREAS, the UFT has called for a moratorium on new hiring until the ATRs are placed, yet this proposal has been ignored by the Tweed, the Mayor’s Office and the Media.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the UFT will organize a mass citywide rally to show our unity and strength, calling on the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size and give assigned positions to all teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve who want assignments before any new teachers are hired; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Teaching Fellows, many of whom gave up jobs and traveled to NYC to become teachers, not be terminated, and instead be placed in positions in the DOE, before any new teachers are hired.

The Delicious Irony of the UFT Suit on Political Freedom

In the entire world of UFTdom, this lawsuit has to be one of the funniest things to come out of 52 Broadway in a long time.

With only weeks to go before the November 4 elections, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) today [Oct. 10] filed a federal court lawsuit claiming that a New York City Department of Education policy banning educators from wearing campaign pins in schools violates their constitutional rights to free speech and political expression.
- UFT press release, Oct. 10, 2008. [Full release at Norms Notes.]

Ahhh, the hypocrisy of this defense of free speech by the UFT/Unity Caucus, the very organization that has its people pull opposition literature from mail boxes and has taken the astounding stand that groups critical of the leadership only have the right to go into schools to communicate their views once every three years during the 6 week UFT election period.

“The ban on members wearing lapel pins is bad enough,” Weingarten told reporters. “Now the Department of Education wants to restrict the communications between the UFT and its members through the regular channels utilized for such communications such as union bulletin boards and employee mailboxes, both of which are out of students’ view.

Unity Caucus chapter leaders have refused to allow anyone but them to post material on the UFT bulletin boards. UFT district reps have gone into schools and removed ICE and Ed Notes from mailboxes.

Have you been to a UFT Delegate Assembly and seen Unity delegates hoot and boo members of the opposition? You'd think you were at a Sarah Palin rally. Just short of, "Kill Jeff Kaufman. He's a terrorist."

The UFT's filing of a law suit against the DOE for banning teachers from wearing political buttons as an attack on free speech is akin to John McCain's attempt to distract people from the economy by raising straw men. And talk about character assassination.

"Are these the kind of leaders we want running our union" is a question asked by the card mailed directly to thousands of teachers' home? Distorting the ICE/TJC platform and going after Randi Weingarten's opponent in the 2007 election Kit Wainer's personal political views.

Remind you of the scare tactic character assassination of Barack Obama by the McCain campaign? It is a perfect example of the kinds of attacks the UFT/Unity Caucus machine engages in to slime the opposition.

Unity Caucus' Jeff Zahler, now Director of Staff at the American Federation of Teachers, told a Delegate Assembly he was proud of the Unity Caucus campaign literature that attacked Wainer for his socialist views. The only thing they didn't include was connecting Kit to Bill Ayres.

Here is a link to some ed notes commentary on the Unity slime literature.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-propaganda-machine-treads-in.html

John McCain- Make-Believe Maverick - Rolling Stone

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It's the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.

McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.

There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

More
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

Elephants Never Forget - Usually

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for everyone who sends those heart-warming bullshit stories.

Anonymous email

THE REAL FACTS ABOUT ATRs

Not the New York Post
THE REAL FACTS ABOUT ATRs

With the new school year, the Department of Education and its trained media have resumed their favorite all-season sport: teacher bashing, and more particularly teacher-union bashing. The latest round began with a triple-barrel assault last month from the New York Post, Daily News and the New York Times blaming the UFT for the fact that the NYC Department of Education is refusing to assign some 1,400 teachers to classroom positions.

Now a follow-up editorial from the Post (October 5) says: “Can anybody seriously doubt that the United Federation of Teachers stands as the chief impediment to meaningful reform of the New York City school system?” They claim that “ the city is paying out some $74 million a year –- and rising – to teachers who are too incompetent to teach.” This is a slanderous smear.

Chancellor Klein tried to float this last spring with a ballyhooed study by the New Teacher Project, which is funded by the DOE. As for its “report,” any Statistic 101 student could make mincemeat of the cooked-up figures that prove nothing, or the opposite of what they claim. Their main target is the teachers who have lost their positions due to the closures of schools or programs and who are now in the “Absent Teacher Reserve.”

In fact, teachers who were “excessed” (in DOE-speak) are some of the most experienced, talented, and dedicated educators in the NYC school system. Many have been working among the neediest students in schools that have been systematically starved of facilities and funding by a DOE that has illegally diverted to other purposes millions of dollars mandated by the state to reduce class size.

Someone has to set the record straight, and it’s up to us, the teachers, to do it. We are calling upon our union, the UFT, to hold a mass citywide rally demanding that the Department of Education give positions to all ATR teachers who want them and that no new hiring take place until these teachers, and the teaching fellows who are at risk of termination, are placed. We also urge the UFT to fight the smear campaign about ATR teachers. We need to reach out to the parents and communities who are allies in our struggle.

Here’s the real story that the DOE and the media won’t tell you.

• The number of teachers in the ATR has ballooned in the last several years, going from under 800 at the start of the 2006-2007 school to almost 1,400 reported ATRs this September. The actual figure is likely much larger. This is not because NYC teachers have suddenly become more “incompetent” but because the DOE has stepped up its closure of schools. And there’s a reason behind their madness.

• Teachers are in the ATR pool because of a corporate scheme to “restructure schools” and cut the budget by excessing senior teachers who receive higher salaries. Under the new budget formulas, teacher salaries are paid for by each principal, which gives them a financial interest in lowering “personnel costs.”

• This is what you get when you have a school system run not by educators, but by lawyers, privatizers and corporate money counters. The DOE just hired George Raab, III, former managing director of investment banking (!) at the failed Bear Stearns Wall Street bank to be the Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Education for $200,000 a year (check it out at TheDeal.com). As CFO of the DOE, he can run our schools into the ground!

• Meanwhile, classes are more overcrowded than ever. According to the latest figures available (February 2008), there are over 27,000 NYC students in classes that are larger than contractual limits (NYC DOE, 2007-08 Class Size Data Report). And according to a report of the New York State Education Department this school year “53.9% of New York City schools reported that either class size or pupil-to-ratio increased in 2007-08” (NY SED press release, September 15).

• So while thousands of students need teachers, there are thousands of certified, capable teachers who are being kept out of assignments by a Dept. of Ed. intent on enforcing its “principle” of total principal control of hiring in the schools. The ATR “problem” is of the NYC Department of Education’s own making. They are tearing up the lives of 1,400 dedicated educators, to be sacrificed on the altar on the Klein/Bloomberg “business model.”

• The crisis of ATR teachers stems from the 2005 contract when the UFT gave up seniority transfers which guaranteed teachers a right to a position. Now, the DOE wants to go after teacher tenure and the “no layoff” clause in the contract. Bloomberg and his minions are making ATRed teachers into scapegoats because they want to get rid of any form of job security.

• The media are howling about the city paying millions to teachers who supposedly sit around doing nothing. In fact, the large majority of ATR teachers are teaching every day and in difficult situations. Many are working in the same or similar job as they had before -- only now they have no security in their positions. Others are working out of substitute teacher pools, having to teach out of license, coming in cold to face a classroom of students whose individual strengths, difficulties and interests are unknown to them.

• Now the DOE has created an additional problem by hiring 5,400 new teachers, yet many of these have not been given assignments either. More than 200 of the teaching fellows have been given till December to find a position or be “terminated.” We must support these new teachers, many of whom left jobs and families behind to travel to NYC, only to be thrown into this “Catch 22” situation.

ATR teachers are under attack The DOE is forever trying to break the contract with talk of forced “unpaid leave” after a year. What they are actually angling for in the short run is to turn “buyouts” into push-outs. The mayor and his education chief are trying to use the situation of the ATR teachers as a battering ram against the union as a whole. We cannot wait this one out. There is no “least bad” option.

We must stand up for our ATRed colleagues, our union, and for the students who are already suffering the consequences of the DOE’s endless “reckless reorganizations.”

Assign ATR Teachers Before New Hiring Takes Place! Stop the Smear Campaign Against ATR Teachers! Stop Union-Busting! Stop Teacher Bashing! Bring Back Seniority Transfer Rights!

How Will Crisis Impact on Market Based Ed Reform?

For one who worked in the schools through the catastrophic financial crisis in NYC in 1975 and 1976, these times seem very familiar. The impact on schools then?

About 13,000 layoffs with excessed people from schools bumping people all over the place.

Of course with the current contract, that won't happen. Just a mass of ATR's. Or not. Remember that "no layoffs" clause in the contract? I think there's some small print along the lines of "Unless there's a fiscal crisis." Hmmm.

Now would they lay off $45,000 a year teachers while keeping people making 80- 100 grand? Hey, the law says they have to. I wonder how those mad dogs from the Leadership Academy (costing us $50 million over 5 years and one of the numerous pet projects of BloomKlein that will survive class sizes of 80) will take to that? Maybe Bloomberg can do a 2 for 1. While buying the city council to extend term limits and the state legislature to continue mayoral control, he can get them to change other laws.


They hit the elementary schools in '75 and the secondary schools the next.

My elementary school lost 15 people from a staff of about 70. All cluster teachers except one was left standing. Our preps were cut from 5 to 3 a week. How did they manage that? We got one prep a week and they sent kids home 45 minutes early 2 days a week for 2 years. (The only benefit was the wine and cheese Friday 2:15 parties.) A freeze even of the salary steps we were to get. Basically, a total suspension of many of our contractual gains. Class size? Forget about it.

Oh yeah. And we went on a strike to supposedly resist. Al Shanker's "We won't go back 'till we all go back," still resounds. Then the next thing we know is he is giving away our pension money to bail out the city. I was with the Coalition of NYC School Workers and we stood outside Madison Square Garden pleading with people to vote the plan down to no avail.

For you newbies used to the capitulation of the UFT (the one bulwark that could organize resistance) the Unity Caucus leadership has had a lot of practice.

Other than special ed (which exploded in the late 70's) over the next 10 plus years, I don't remember one regular ed addition to our staff.

Schools were closed and later sold off to private interests - in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) there are still 4 large former public schools being used by the Hasidic community that they bought for about a buck. (They DID have 3 members of the school board.)

Pretty much all long-term maintenance on schools was stopped for 15-20 years and that caught up with them in the 90's when serious problems cropped up in many buildings that they are still addressing today.

So, how will the current crisis that can turn out to be worse than the one 33 years ago impact on the schools in NYC and the BloomKlein program that puts a premium on high priced executives and extremely expensive private schemes while shortchanging classrooms? What about all those frills floating on the pond of market-based ed reform?

We'll speculate on the future of the extended day (can you see them cutting this - and the salaries that go with it?) small schools movement, merit pay schemes, after school programs, etc. a bit in an upcoming blog.

But here's an early warning shot from a Chicago teacher:

The Chicago High School Redesign Intiative (CHSRI) layed off all of its employees last Monday who were working with small schools. CHSRI managed the Bill Gates grants that help fund additional money to the small school movement. This will be the last school year that there will be a small school AIO. Next school year the small schools will return to the area offices AIO's or to the turnaround school AIO. CPS will be closing small schools and turning them back to "one" whole school. Small schools cost too much money because of higher administrative costs and CPS will be able to save money by going back to one principal instead of three or four principals per building. In a small school you must have at least 600 students per school, for the staffing formulas to work economically.

(jargon translation: AIO is Area Instructional Officer--small schools have had their own separate area, rather than being organized like the other schools into geographic areas. Turnaround schools are run by an outside agency headed by "venture capitalist" Martin Koldyke and also have their own "area".)

Mad Dog Palin - Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

Some choice excerpts

The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America
......
The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer.
.....
She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly-sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later," is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.
.....
Right-wingers of the Bush-Rove ilk have had a tough time finding a human face to put on their failed, inhuman, mean-as-hell policies. But it was hard not to recognize the genius of wedding that faltering brand of institutionalized greed to the image of the suburban-American supermom. It's the perfect cover, for there is almost nothing in the world meaner than this species of provincial tyrant.
.....
Sarah Palin is that new, new thing, and in the end it won't matter that she's got an unmarried teenage kid with a bun in the oven. Of course, if the daughter of a black candidate like Barack Obama showed up at his convention with a five-month bump and some sideways-cap-wearing, junior-grade Curtis Jackson holding her hand, the defenders of Traditional Morality would be up in arms.
.....
...she didn't actually sell the Alaska governor's state luxury jet on eBay but instead sold it at a $600,000 loss to a campaign contributor (who is reportedly now seeking $50,000 in taxpayer money to pay maintenance costs).
.....
It is worth noting that the same criticisms of Palin also hold true for two other candidates in this race, John McCain and Barack Obama. As politicians, both men are more narrative than substance, with McCain rising to prominence on the back of his bio as a suffering war hero and Obama mostly playing the part of the long-lost, future-embracing liberal dreamboat not seen on the national stage since Bobby Kennedy died.
.....
So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in.
.....
The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

Read the rest:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23318320/mad_dog_palin

Doug Henwood on Klein's "Shock Doctrine" - Awe, shocks!

A more critical look at Naomi Klein's book is posted on Norms Notes.

SICK OF THE TESTING MADNESS? Come out with NYCoRE to fight testing!

Get involved!

Come out on Wednesday, October 15th to the UFT delegate assembly. Justice-not-just-tests is going to be leafleting and talking to UFT delegates from schools all over the city about the problems with high stakes testing. We need to get our union on the right side of this issue. Meet us outside the UFT building, 52 Broadway, near Exchange place, anytime after 3:30 till 6:15-6:30.

Please RSVP to sam_p_coleman@yahoo.com if you plan to come or have questions.

NYCoRE

Justice Not Just Tests

Ed Note: Education Notes and ICE members have been working with NYCoRE and its subgroup JNJT on a number of projects. A number of us attended last week's "Get to Know NYCoRE" meeting and it was a pleasure to see a group of committed younger teachers who are prepared to go beyond the classroom to create a movement for change.

We support this initiative, which is coming from younger teachers who entered the system recently and are now taking a good hard look at how the UFT has been operating. Future activities will be the distribution of the JNJT pamphlet opposing merit pay, focusing on schools that have voted for merit pay and reinforcing those schools that voted against.

We have also been working with Teachers Unite on some of their initiatives in getting teachers to work in their communities and also to get them more active in the UFT.

This is not about caucus politics or running in UFT elections. It is about building a broadbased movement for progressive change in education, a big component of which includes changes in the UFT, the elephant in the room.

Rumor Mill: Upset at Canarsie High School

UPDATE: Link to the Canarsie Courier --- you got to read this! Including the student account of their counselor being excessed and other chaotic excessing.
http://www.canarsiecourier.com/news/2008/0925/TopStories/014.html

UPDATE 2 (from a Canarsie teacher):
As a result of a letter writing campaign by a couple teachers, and multiple correspondence to Randi, she (took time off her busy schedule and) 1) sent Charlie Turner, who got a hostile reception, then 2) came herself , and was not treated so badly, and 3) sent Leon Casey and Charlie Turner who came today (Oct. 8).

Our teachers are concerned that they will become ATRs and forced to take a no-paid leave after one year, and more so, in the next contract, ATRs will be sacrificed. Randi reassured them that job security is paramount, "over my dead body", and they made her promise to write those assurances in the NY Teacher.

[So many] voted for the '05 contract, so the "chickens have come home to roost."



Original Post (Oct. 7, 12 pm)
This came in over the transom. Canarsie high school is in southeast Brooklyn. Canarsie is one of the big schools that are closing or closed (Tilden, South Shore, Jefferson) in the area, putting tremendous pressure on the education system. A free floating pool of ATR's -teachers without positions in all the schools has paralled the free floating pool of students looking for places to land. The chaos of the shock doctrine of the BloomKlein reforms.

I'm hearing that something big has been going on at Canarsie HS. There are reports that Randi was there last Friday and again today to try and control things. They had a large number of ATRs this Fall.

A teacher told a friend a couple of excessed teachers had written an article that appeared in the Canarsie Courier, a real estate newspaper. She also mentioned that Randi had discussed the possibility of striking if there were layoffs. Maybe she's rehearsing a new line for next week's D.A.?

They ought to give Randi a fire hose. Gee, who is running the AFT? Jeff Zahler, I hear. (Having fun, Jeff?)

Randi use of strike statement interpreted (if she said that.)
Randi's use of the word strike is more of a threat to teachers - like - do you want to strike - over this? She knows full well the newer teachers would laugh at the idea. So would older teachers who would have more confidence in the US economy's recovery that they would in Randi's willingness and ability to run a successful strike.

The Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Mayors

Miami teacher Paul Moore ruminates on the financial crisis' impact on the business model for education. - UPDATED


Oh, they had such grand plans for public education. Homage was paid to their ideological godfather Milton Friedman. In his 1950 book Capitalism, Friedman wrote that "The privatization of schooling would produce a new highly active and profitable industry."

Their pride and joy is burning as you read. It was never sustainable but they had us going for awhile, didn't they? It was immutable. It was eternal! It was a pig with lipstick in a poke!

Oh, they had such grand plans for public education. First the masters of the universe genuflected to their ideological godfather Milton Friedman. In his 1950 book Capitalism, Friedman wrote that "The privatization of schooling would produce a new highly active and profitable industry."

Then fueled with the fire of the Reagan revolution they put the finishing touches on their devious campaign at the Business Roundtable education summit in 1989. Standardized testing would be their primary weapon. The tests would isolate urban schools first and bury them under public posturing for accountability . The corporate vultures from Edison Schools and the others would move in to pick up the pieces and impose their gospel, the business model. Vouchers and charter schools would even redirect public monies to the destruction of public schools .

Toxic wastes, like incessant testing and mindless data collection and merit pay plans, would be pumped into the public school environment to sicken both teachers and students. And bye and bye the privatizers would have their brave new education system to serve their global economy.

And they were so close. They had their blueprint for legally closing public schools, the No Child Left Behind Act, in place. Billionaire Bloomberg and his CEO sidekick Joel Klein were in control in New York City. Mayor Daley and Arne Duncan were strangling the Chicago Public Schools. Mayor Villariagosa and Admiral Brewer were trying to get their hands around the throats of the Los Angeles Unified Public Schools. Jeb Bush, in and out of office, was calling the shots in Florida. Bill Gates had succeeded in winning Washington D.C. for Mayor Fenty and he in turn introduced the nation to a new level of ruthlessness and brutality in the person and policies of Michelle Rhee. Eli Broad's superintendents dotted the landscape from Vallas in New Orleans to Crew in Miami, chirping over the achievement gap and with grave voices declaring "the children of Singapore are eating our kids lunch." Many of those pesky democratically elected school boards had been eliminated.

Then just as the campaign appeared ready to bear fruit, their rationale for being, their precious global economy, crashed! Their pride and joy is burning as you read. It was supposed to be immutable. It was eternal! When the men of the Business Roundtable came down from their Charlottesville, Virginia education summit they were imbued with the Reagan Revolution's confidence. Now that's all gone.

A forlorn John Castellani's mug has been all over TV for the last couple weeks. He's the president of the Business Roundtable. Who could have imagined that less than twenty years after their education summit these same men would appear on their knees, hat in hand, to desperately plead with every public school teacher, parent and student to give them $3,000 as their share of a $700 billion public bailout. Goodness, what happened to their vaunted business model? Somehow these proponents of data driven education have no idea what their collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) and structured investment vehicles (SIV's) are worth. Most shockingly, the poster boys for accountability who pranced around with their noses in the air chanting "no excuses" over the battered minds and bodies of poor children, now beg for sympathy and want to be rescued by their victims!

Well it will take some time to clean up this mess, and we will suffer for their folly, but there is now some light ahead. Our corporate tormentors will soon slink away to lick their wounds and we will have the chance to rebuild the public schools, make them truly places of learning. Imagine there's no pacing guides, it's easy if you try. Our time under these sanctimonious, hypocritical blowhards is over! They have forfeited their right to any influence in our schools and in our lives.

Mail your No. 2 pencils to the Business Roundtable, swords into plowshares, standardized tests into poetry contests!

Long live Douglas Avella*! http://www.talkbx.com/tag/douglas-avella/

Paul A. Moore
Miami Carol City High School

*160 students in 4 classes left the entire papers blank on a [useless] practice test at IS 318 in the Bronx. All classes were taught by Avella. Nothing happened at first but when the story came out in the press, Avella was sent to the rubber room and has since left the system. Students reported they had their cell phones confiscated, were not allowed to contact Avella, were questionned intensely and many were manipulated into giving up Avella by being threatened that they wouldn't be allowed to attend graduation (and worse.)


Articles on Ed Notes on the Avella story in chronological order beginning in May 2008.

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/bronx-teacher-refuses-to-test.html

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/support-for-doug-avella-builds.html

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/dear-joel-klein-letters-on-student-test.html

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-is-leo-casey-and-edwize-on-test.html

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/06/ask-uft-to-make-testing-boycott.html

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/06/more-nyc-students-boycotting-tests.html

They Just Cut Interest Rates

What will they do when rates are zero?

In the Japanese financial crisis of the 90's - the lost decade - where the stock market didn't recover for over a decade, they tried cutting rates to stimulate the economy – until they reached bottom. Instead of getting interest when people put their money in banks, they had to pay the banks. Call it negative interest rates.

Numbers of people who bought apartments during the real estate boom of the 80's just walked away finding it cheaper to rent, thus losing their entire investment.

In July, William Patalon wrote:

If you think the "Lost Decade" Japan endured during the 1990s was deep and painful, stick around: As the global financial crisis that was jump-started by the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market continues to unwind, the U.S. economy is headed for a financial Ice Age that will make Japan’s 10 wasted years seem like a single chilly night.

The two meltdowns started in much the same way - with busted stock-and- real-estate bubbles. With both the United States and Japan, the market manias were ignited by laughably loose credit policies, smoldered under a lack of oversight from government regulators, market analysts or such private-sector sentinels as credit-rating agencies, and were finally fanned into a frenzied financial conflagration by the promise of easy profits.

...

On Dec. 29 of that year (1989), the Nikkei 225 Index topped out at 38,957.44, before closing at 38,915.87. By the following September, it had nearly been halved - and there was still much more bloodletting to go (despite several subsequent rallies up over the 20,000 threshold, the Nikkei ultimately bottomed at 7,830 in April 2003. It closed yesterday - Wednesday - at 12,760.80, still down 67% from its trading high 19 years ago).

...

By early 2004, houses were selling at 1/10th their peak value, and commercial real estate was selling for less than 1/100th of its peak-market value.

More

It's going to be a long ride.

If you had purchased...

..... $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today.
......$1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have $33.00 today.
......$1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle.

Call it the 401-Keg.

Will Obama or McCain Be FDR or Hoover?

UPDATE: Fred Klonsky on Palin's future - a companion piece

“Terrorist,” they screamed at Obama at a McCain rally. “Kill him,” some in the crowd were quoted as saying. These are people who are preparing for life after an Obama victory and are beginning to organize now. Economic pain for working people is not going to end on November 4th or even in January. Organizing fear and anger and attempting to direct it at a black president and a potentially progressive dominated congress is their plan. History has seen stuff like it before.

more

If we are comparing the world to the Great Depression and we are roughly in the 1928 area with the major economic crunches to come, it is much more likely that whoever "wins" the election will be fairly helpless to do much other than to watch the economy spiral down to massive unemployment.

In my opinion, only a New Deal WPA-like government supported massive job program could reverse course. Our infrastructure could sure use a little injection of capital instead of sending enormous sums to bail out Wall Street.

Remember, in the 20's and 30's, the Soviet Union was still viewed as heroic by many and the left was fairly strong. With the right wing anti-left, anti union ideology so prevalent today, there is little chance Obama, even if he wanted to, would get to set much of an FDR New Deal agenda. McCain doing so, of course, is out of the question.

If Obama wins, if he can't pull off FDR-type magic, it is likely he would be a one-term president as he gets the blame for not being able to stop the bleeding. Then Hillary Clinton gets to pick up the pieces for 2012.

Goin' Shoppin'

Some lessons of the 1920's and 30's: Remember how Germany printed money and they had hyperinflation, one of the keys to the rise of Hitler. See Reality-Based Educator over at NYC Educator today:

The Fed is going to start lending directly to businesses.
And where are they going to get the money from?
They're going to print it.

Of course in the Great Depression there was massive deflation. But given the choice today, government will choose inflation by printing money which might help disguise the problem.

But eventually, the population will get restless and move left. That is where repression comes in. [See Naomi Klein's "Shock Capitalism" for the chilling details.]

In the meantime, Palin polishes her act. Expect her to be around as a leading Republican presidential prospect for the next 20 years. It is almost inevitable that at some point she will be president.

In times of massive economic dislocation you end up with dictatorships and totalitarianism. And horrendous wars. (Iraq may prove to be a cupcake.)

People as late as the mid 30's laughed at Hitler. To those who laugh at Palin, beware. Imagine if Bill Clinton had ignored subpoenas, which Palin has done in Alaska over the firing of her ex-brother-in-law’s boss? All the seeds are in place in this country with extraordinary powers given to turn this into a police state.

A third term for Bloomberg? When will we see a president in crisis times calling for a repeal of the XXII Amendment limiting presidents to two terms?

As for me, my wheelbarrow is ready to be loaded with the money for that hyper inflated day when I’ll need to buy a loaf of bread.

Where is our new leader in the AFT in defending teachers in the nation's capital?

My response to Michael's question is: Weingarten is busy helping Bloomberg/Klein continue running NYC schools for another 4 years.

Michael Fiorillo comments on Rhee in DC on ICE-mail:

One of the things that's remarkable about the whole Rhee/DC situation is the failure of the union to call her out on her presumtuousness and statements that cannot be backed up by her beloved "data." The woman had a cup of coffee in the classroom ten year or so years ago, and claims that her students made tremendous strides. However, she is unable to document any of this, claiming that the "data" is unavailable. [See Daily Howler excerpt below.]

Additionally, the DC local, with help from the AFT should be demonstrating every day in front of the Washington Post. The Post, agitating so militantly for the de-professionalization of teaching, is also the owner of Kaplan, which along with other test prep factories, stands to gain from the corporate education regime. Kaplan is currently the largest single source of profit for the Washington Post Corporation.

Where is our new leader in the AFT in defending teachers in the nation's capital?

Best,
Michael Fiorillo

The Daily Howler (excerpt July 11, 2007 - Read full piece and also do a search for more on Rhee on his blog.) I heard Rhee claim she raised scores from the 15% to somewhere in the 85% in one year.

Note: Howler Bob Somerby taught in the Baltimore schools for many years so he brings a teacher perspective to the issues.

For years, Rhee has been telling a pleasing story. She performed an educational miracle at Harlem Park—and she “earned acclaim” in the national media for this brilliant success. Our reaction? Speaking frankly, her claim about test scores is so extreme that we would regard it as suspect on its face. Now, there also seem to be a question about the “acclaim” which she says she earned. But once again, the big problem here is the Narrative of the Miracle Cure—the pleasing tale that routinely takes the place of serious talk about low-income schools.

Let’s get serious for a minute; if you know much about standardized test scores, Rhee’s claim about those miracle scores should invite healthy skepticism. It’s amazing that DC’s city council—and Washington’s newspapers—have allowed that claim to stand without evidence. But let’s just say it: That’s what happens, quite routinely, when the interests of black kids are at stake.

One last time, we’ll restate our view. The Washington Post and the Washington Times should insist on getting those musty old test scores. (They only date back to 1995, for God’s sake.) We know, we know—it’s only black kids! It’s much more pleasing to tell cheerful tales—and let the data sleep with the fishes.

Dr. Art: Fired in DC

Back in August I received this email from a supporter of fired Wash DC teacher Art Siebens and posted it here: "You Don't Fit" - Fired in DC by Rhee

Hello - I just found your website and wanted you know about this website, www.reinstatedrart.com, sponsored by students and parents in support of a highly successful DC teacher [Art Siebens] who was dismissed from his 18 year post under [Michelle] Rhee's regime, with the explanation "you don't fit." I'm alerting the Daily Howler as well.

Eduwonkette outdoes herself today

All along the Eastern corridor, folks are buzzing about firing teachers. In New York City two weeks ago, the New Teacher Project once again called for the district to put excessed teachers who have not been hired after a year on unpaid leave. Last week in his Washington Post column, Jay Mathews also sang a paean about the virtues of principals firing teachers at will. And in Michelle Rhee’s proposed contract, teachers would give up tenure in exchange for performance pay. Now, she’s moved to “Plan B,” which involves giving “bad teachers” 90 days to improve, or else face dismissal.

In all three cases, the assumption is that principals know best, that they make decisions based on the best interest of students, that “kid issues” will be put before “adult issues” in hiring decisions, and that concerns about fair treatment are retrograde - even passé.

Yet right under Michelle Rhee’s nose, her own theory of action – that principals will always pick the “best teachers” – has been tested by the case of Dr. Art Siebens.

Read Eduwonkette"s full post on Siebens and Rhee. Make sure to read the comments.
(I put a choice selection below in comment #1.)

Weingarten & Bloomberg to Extend Terms to Life - and Beyond

In a late breaking story, Ed Notes News has learned that Mayor Bloomberg and UFT President Randi Weingarten will soon make a joint statement announcing they will seek to extend their terms in office. Bloomberg, headed for a 3rd term in 2009 and Weingarten for a 5th term (or is it a 6th? they do so run together) have discovered the joys of collaboration and plan to stay in office for life – and beyond.

Weingarten declared:
"Personally, I have always been opposed to term limits, as has this union. I am also, as are so many people, very concerned about the economy, and I am grateful the mayor is willing to step up."

A number of UFT'ers who have lost seniority, basic contract protections, (even parking permits) and seen a massive deterioration in their working conditions under a decade of Weingarten rule, had been looking forward to a new regime in the UFT since Weingarten's elevation to the presidency of the American Federation of Teachers and her appointment of Mike (Who) Mulgrew as Chief Operating Officer (COO,) are no longer cooing about his appointment 'cause as he tries to take the field, Weingarten's marching band refuses to yield.

Ed08 is Dead: Is Joe Williams Another Loser?

Fred Klonsky at Prea Prez thinks so.

This week we noted the demise of ED ‘08, the Eli Broad and Bill Gates backed outfit that bet $60 million that education would be a big issue in this presidential campaign. Not just a big issue. But an issue that they could direct towards a corporate model, that both the Republicans and the Democratic Leadership Council types would love and support.

Broad and Gates got former Colorado governor and LAUSD boss, Roy Romer to head it up. They got the likes of the Business Roundtable to sign on.

But it ended up having no traction. And last week it died.

But who are some of the other losers in this election campaign?

Joe (Democrats for Education Reform) calls Fred dumber than rocks. I have a video of Joe's appearance on a panel bowing down to Joel and Michelle (except for Diane Ravitch) at the Manhattan Institute last spring. Maybe I'll put some of it up on you-tube for a few laughs.

Rhee Bypasses Talks, Imposes Dismissal Plan

Have a contract? Negotiations broke down? Just ignore it all and forge ahead.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee made good yesterday on repeated threats to bypass labor contract negotiations by imposing her own program to fire ineffective teachers, including a measure that gives poorly performing instructors 90 days to improve or face dismissal.

Details from the Washington Post at Norms Notes.

For our NYC colleagues, one of the reasons Randi has been so collaborative is her fear that BloomKlein will pull the same stuff. "See, we broke the contract, do something about it." So Randi makes deals to give up the arm and half the leg and brags to the membership how they still have their thigh bone while leaving enough loopholes that allow BloomKlein to whither it away. But you still have your hip.