Teachers' Survey Finds that Policing and Excessive Suspensions Undermine Learning, and Teachers Support Human Rights Approaches to Discipline

Teachers Unite's Sally Lee has been working on a teacher survey on the impact of excessive policing and suspensions for some time which was released on October 22.

This can be a complex issue for teachers who work in schools that they perceive to being dangerous. I taught my entire career without police presence in the schools, but that was at the elementary level. We have had intensive discussions at ICE meetings over the years. There are other solutions at all levels and this report presents a comprehensive alternative. Thanks to the Ed Notes supporters and ICE teachers who assisted Teachers Unite in the survey.

Read the press release at Norms Notes and download the report http://www.nesri.org/Teachers_Talk.pdf.

Politics and Schools Update: Tim Rehm Gets It

Even when it's not part of a lesson, there's apparently no law against teachers and other school employees wearing campaign buttons. Cornwall Superintendent Timothy Rehm agrees wholeheartedly that students have a right to wear buttons.

I knew Tim Rehm for years when he worked in District 14 (Williamsburg) and eventually became principal of PS 196 a few blocks up the road from my school, PS 147 on Bushwick Ave. His dad Bob was a high level official in the district office.

When I hear the attacks on the pre-mayoral control system, I think of the quality of people like Tim who received accolades as a principal and his school was very well run. He went on to be a deputy Superintendent on Long Island before becoming a Superintendent upstate. He is the kind of man who will never be looked at as a chancellor in the NYC system or any system under mayoral control, which will look everywhere but educators as the solution.

I'd bet my pension that Cornwall and 95% of the school districts in this country would laugh at the idea of handing their schools over to someone like Joel Klein.

From the Times Herald-Record
Political buttons OK for teachers in Hudson Valley
By Michael Randall

October 27, 2008

Ban the campaign buttons?

Parents will likely see a lot of political play in the region's schools between now and Nov. 4. And while a New York City judge has banned teachers there from wearing campaign buttons, local teachers are unrestricted.

Here campaign buttons and other political paraphernalia are generally welcomed, especially when they're part of a lesson, like the one taking place this week and next at the Tuxedo Park School.

Students are mounting a mock campaign with student-made signs for Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama; a debate in which eighth-grade students will play the roles of the major-party candidates; and a vote on Election Day. They'll see how their results compare to the real thing at an assembly on Nov. 7.

"I wanted the students to understand the significance of (the electoral process)," said Christine McDonald, coordinator of the history department.

Even when it's not part of a lesson, there's apparently no law against teachers and other school employees wearing campaign buttons.

Jonathan Burman, a lawyer with the state Education Department, noted state Education Commissioner Richard Mills backed a school board's decision allowing employees to wear buttons supporting candidates, saying they had a free-speech right to do so.

Burman did add that decision applied to a school election, not a political one.

Yet earlier this month, a judge upheld New York City's barring of teachers from wearing political campaign buttons.

While it's acceptable for teachers to post political material on union bulletin boards, or distribute it in their mailboxes, the judge said, the ban on campaign buttons reflects a judgment about the buttons' potential impact, not an attempt to stifle free speech. The union might appeal.

Can students wear buttons? A booklet issued jointly by the state's School Boards Association and Bar Association says students have a right to wear buttons as long as they don't "substantially interfere" with the educational process or the rights of others.

Local school officials said the issue seldom comes up.

Cornwall Superintendent Timothy Rehm agrees wholeheartedly that students have a right to wear buttons.

As for teachers, Cornwall has no official policy for staff, and Rehm said it's left to building principals to deal with the matter as needed.

Rehm said teachers should not "bring political views into the classroom," although using buttons or signs in a lesson is OK.

At Newburgh Free Academy, Principal Peter Copeletti said complaints about buttons never arise, but the school tries to ensure students get a balanced message on politics in the classroom.

"In our social studies classes, and also our journalism classes, we make sure we portray both sides of the picture," he said.

New York State United Teachers spokesman Carl Korn teachers should be given credit for knowing when to politick and when not to politick.

"I think teachers know how to balance their roles," he said.

mrandall@th-record.com

Eighth-grader Emma Zahren-Newman exercises free speech at Tuxedo Park School on Friday.

Paul Moore (and More) on Rhee in DC

Miami teacher Paul Moore lays one into Rhee in DC. But before you get to Paul, connect to this on the AFT - and I'll use the term very loosely - "support for the DC teachers union by providing counseling to teachers threatened with firing.

From the Washington Post
The teachers union is gearing up to respond. In a letter to members earlier this month, WTU President George Parker said the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) will join the Washington local to "provide support and strategies" to instructors designated for the 90-day plan.

I posted the full article at Norms Notes

What? Legal strategies? That's it? The AFT should be ringing a permanent picket line around Rhee headquarters. But Randi Weingarten in charge will perpetuate the "carry a twig, squeak like a mouse" strategy which hands victory to the Joel Kleins and Michelle Rhees of this world.

Is it all about the AFT/UFT cutting their losses and grabbing whatever bucks are out there to grab? Or is there maybe a hint of underlying support for the neo-liberal agenda? [ie. Read our review - Ruthless Neoncon - of Kahlenberg's "Tough Liberal" - link in the sidebar.]

Globalization Spits Up Michelle Rhee

by Paul Moore


D.C. students, their parents, teachers and public school workers need only hold on. When you have Alan Greenspan disowning Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand in congressional testimony it is a sign great change is on the way. One of those changes will be the end of the tyranny of Bill Gates' and Eli Broad's attack dog Michelle Rhee.


Lacking any discernible qualifications, her shocking appointment, can be understood only when you realize that Rhee was brought in to inflict maximum damage on the district's public schools. And as a cultist (Teach For America, New Teacher Project) and true believer she came at a bargain basement salary. Real superintendents were courted (Fenty visited Miami with several members of the D.C. commission to interview Dr. Rudolph Crew) but those candidates could not be counted on to mindlessly take a club to D.C.'s public schools. The havoc and disruption that Rhee has caused was no accident. It was the plan!


But Michelle Rhee appeared in your lives because and when the "global economy" was riding herd on this planet. Globalization was at the very foundation of business model for schools, charters, vouchers, data driven instruction, merit pay, standardized testing, and most perversely of all, paying students to consume their version of education. It was the reason the Business Roundtable and Bill Gates were interested in public education at all. The CEO's wanted a profit
making private school system and Gates wanted visas for Indian and Taiwanese tech workers he could pay lower wages to.


An economic earthquake has now cracked the foundation of the model that spits up a Michelle Rhee. The superstructure will collapse in time. The global economy is history.


Soon it will be every private school and charter school investor for himself. Private school students are being moved to the public schools by their debt ridden parents in significant numbers already. In the scramble to survive the privatizers will throw their tool Ms. Rhee to the wolves. Stripped of her powerful patrons, Michelle Rhee will stand alone as a petty, vindictive, insecure bureaucrat who had no business pretending to care about children. And she will leave. Hold on!

Trickle, Trickle, Little Star

I've started writing a political column for The Wave (www.rockawave.com) in addition to my bi-weekly "School Scope" column focusing on education.

I'm calling the column "Politically Unstable" (naturally). Here is the column I submitted for this week and will run if space is available or if people need extra newsprint to wrap fish.

Trickle, Trickle, Little Star
by Norman Scott

After seeing the Rockaway Theater Company’s performance of “The Music Man,” I spent a good part of the summer humming the Harold Hill classic, “Ya Got Trouble.”

Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of govment in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in the old US of A.
Why sure I'm a Wall Street player,
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a sub prime mortgage in my hand are golden.
I say
You’ve got govment
With a capital "G,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for POOR!
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.



So let’s get this straight. John McCain proudly proclaims at the Republican convention the problem with this country is too much regulation. A month later when the financial meltdown occurs, he says we have to impose regulations to prevent this from happening in the future. Stuart Mirsky, The Wave’s conservative columnist wrote, “The conservative inclination for deregulation is blamed by angry populists without any recollection of who actually put the kibosh on regulating the two agencies at the core of this meltdown.”

Okay, I get it. The Democrats are just as much to blame. But if the “conservative inclination for deregulation, ” seemingly adopted by the Democrats in the Clinton years, got us into this mess, how are they justifying more deregulation? Or are they giving up the conservative anti-government mother ship?

You can’t blame me if I get confused. The mantra has been “big government is the problem.” Or any government. But they are for strong defense budgets. Guess what? BIG GOVERNMENT!!!

Big government gave us social security and regulation of the meat we eat. And the drugs we take. And the toys our kids play with. Under the Bush years, there were enormous cuts in inspectors in all the regulatory agencies as they were politicized. How are all those unregulated products from China working out? Ptomaine city.

Big government gave us the US highway system. If not for that we would still be driving on dirt roads when we sojourn down to Florida.

Big government responded to Sputnik in 1957 by ramping up federal funds to schools to create more mathematicians, scientists and engineers that help made the US space program work.

And big government through DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was the instrumental force in creating the first iteration of the Internet.

Barack Obama wants to use government in the same way to spur the creation of new energy sources that will allow us to drive a nice quiet car without having to load our trunks with money to buy gas. And heat our homes without having some big oily, smelly truck block traffic on our streets while it spills oil all over our lawns.

I know, I know. Conservatives believe in trickle down. Sure, I see all those corporate executives who get millions by raising the value of the stock just itching to pour money into stuff that might be good for us.

Does your school have merit pay?

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

Does your school have merit pay?

Justice Not Just Tests is looking for educators who are at schools with merit pay.

To date, 35 of the 240 schools who were offered merit pay voted against having pay for performance in their schools because of the harmful effects that high-stakes testing has had on teachers and students.

-We are looking for stories and examples of discussions that teachers are having in schools that have implemented merit pay (whether you've earned it or not).

-These merit pay testimonials can include changes to your school's culture, language that your administrators have used, competition amongst teachers and how it promotes test prep.

-We plan to collect this information and use it to organize a campaign to remove merit pay from NYC schools.

Submissions may be publicized anonymously.

Please e-mail Justice Not Just Tests at jnjt@nycore.org if you would like to contribute a story.
For more information about merit pay and high-stakes testing, go to Justice Not Just Tests' webpage at http://www.nycore.org/jnjt.html

A full list of merit pay schools can be found here
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pgxRf3gM4qtz60kWUvt49DQ

Bloomie and Mugabe: Perfect Together

Michael Bloomberg's Velvet Coup

Is Mayor Mugabe an outrageous comparison?

By Tom Robbins
Village Voice
published: October 22, 2008

Mugabe? OK, it's an outrageous comparison. Forgive me. Mike Bloomberg would never shut down newspapers or use brutal thugs against dissenters in order to hold onto power. He doesn't have to. He buys them. MORE

Bill Ayres Follow-up

UPDATED:

One of the first things I learned upon becoming an activist beginning in 1970 that the Weatherman movement functioned as a destroyer of the progressive movement and that people like Bill Ayres were anti-union leftists.

When I said this in the post previous to this, Fred Klonsky disputed me. I backed off. Then Michael Fiorillo followed up and nailed Ayres as an arrogant elitist supporter of the Chicago school model of "reform". I'll go with Mike.

Hello All,

Ayers was an arrogant fool back in the day, and he's an arrogant fool now.

In the '60's, Weatherman, of which Ayers was a founder, was roundly criticized for their dogmatism, arrogance and idiocy. As Kirkpatrick Sale wrote in his history of SDS, it was common among Weatherman's critics to turn the source of their name (from Bob Dylan's "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing,") against them by saying,"You don't need a rectal thermometer to know who the assholes are." True then and now.

Just as Weatherman represented the dissolution and demise of the New Left, Ayers work for small schools has shown an incredible naivete, having been hijacked by the corporate ed reform movement to destroy neighborhood schools and neutralize/weaken and ultimately destroy teacher unions. I met him at my school about 8 years ago and found that arrogance and sense of privilege - his father was the Chairman of Chicago's electric utility - intact. It seems to me that he has used his work in education to rehabilitate himself. However, no matter what the Right may think, the Left should disregard him.

Best,
Michael Fiorillo

Mike Klonsky has left a new comment on your post "Bill Ayres Follow-up":

Sad to see leftists and progressive educators piling on Bill Ayers right at this opportune moment and pronouncing various educators at "anti-union." The Weatherman faction of SDS is pretty easy pickens from the right or the left. I ought to know, having led the fight against them in 1968. Problem is, that was 40 years ago and the Weather faction is not really the problem facing New York's teachers or their union at this moment.

And the charge that Ayers is "anti-union" today, or that he supports the current Chicago school reform initiative, Renaissance 2010, is pure bullshit and the people feeding you that crap know it. So if you are really interested in this question, read Bill and my Kappan (Feb. 2006) articles, "Renaissance 2010 Meets the Ownership Society" and
"Private Management of Chicago Schools is a Long Way from Mecca," and then go back and tell my brother Fred that he was right all along, and send Bill a note of apology.

Mike Klonsky

The Next Education Secretary: Another Horror Story?

UPDATE: Buried in this post and the comments section is my comment that Bill Ayres was an anti-union leftist (based on the elitism of the weather underground). Fred Klonsky disputed that. I backed off. Then Michael Fiorillo followed up and nailed Ayres as an arrogant elitist supporter of the Chicago school model of "reform". I'm posting Michael's comment as a stand alone right above this.

Susan Ohanian posted this Cleveland Plain Dealer article dealing with the next Education secretary with this comment:

On education, attention is focused on who McCain, Obama would name education secretary. We know McCain's possibilities are scary and most of Obama's are too. Just enter the names in a 'search'.

Susan has been a major supporter of George Schmidt's struggle against the Chicago 14 years of the mayoral control/corporate model of educational reform. The very same basis of the Educational Equality Project being trumpeted by Al Sharpton, Joel Klein, Mike Bloomberg, and John McCain. Obama hasn't signed onto it but supports some of the thrust.

Remember, his connections with Bill Ayres* was due to serving on an educational commission that has supported this Chicago model.

Underlying much of these "reforms" is removing schools from union influence (closing schools, creating charters, forced school choice that destroys neighborhood schools, etc., etc.) The two Chicago Superintendents in all these years have been Paul Vallas (failure in Philly and now heading the New Orleans mess that resulted in firing just about every union teacher) and former pro basketball player Arne Duncan whose mom had influence.

So I'm scratching my head over these excerpts from the Plain Dealer:

In a city where so much works well, Chicago's public schools seem to have improved little since the days a decade ago when Obama headed a philanthropic drive here that spent $150 million but did little to improve the educational opportunities for the city's children.

And don't forget Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan [for Ed Secty], a friend and adviser with whom Obama often plays basketball. Obama recently accompanied Duncan on a visit to Dodge Renaissance Academy...

You mean the same Obama's buddy Arne Duncan who has been in charge of a school system that is still failing under mayoral control after all these years?

In spite of the dismay people involved with education in NYC at all levels feel about the prospect of another 4 years of BloomKlein, one of the positives will be the loss of their legacy as having improved the schools as the number of better performing kids are wrung out of the system and into charter schools. What happens when most of the large large high schools are closed and there are few union rules left, if any and there's no one to blame? There's only so much manipulation of statistics and phony grad rates they can squeeze out. Kids who were in the 1st grade when they took over will supposedly be graduating from high school in 2013. If researchers explore this cohort they will discover the true horrors of the BloomKlein years when many of these high school "graduates" will find themselves in remedial college programs and the very same business community that supports Bloomberg with such fervor will find their potential hires with as few real skills as they had 12 years ago.

See Manhattan Panel for Educational Policy (Bloomberg's illegal renaming of the Board of Education) Patrick Sullivan, the only BloomKlein critic, outline what he sees for a Bloomberg 3rd term at the NYC Public School Parents blog.

Oh, there's one more nugget in the Plain Dealer article:

"Now you have an interesting array of people whom you can't really characterize," [Randi] Weingarten said. "You have to talk in shades of gray. Things never get implemented in education when you talk about litmus tests." That's why Weingarten is spending every weekend on the road campaigning for a guy who talks about performance pay.


*Bill Ayres [probably one of those anti-teacher union lefties- I jumped the gun on this one - see Fred Klonsky comment and my reply. I took some license here based on some of the attacks I've seen on teachers by the so-called progressive left. I accept Fred's point of view.]

Lessons for Anti-Unity Caucus Oranizers in the UFT?

The organizing methods of the Obama campaign may have some lessons for anti-Unity organizers within the UFT. See related link from Under Assault.

The struggle to create a movement for change within the UFT has been a difficult one. Perhaps the caucus system is not as effective a tool. Maybe too top down. Though associated with ICE, my instinct has been to encourage people to form into decentralized groups rather than try to bring everyone into one big tent.

Let each group organize whatever constituency they serve and then try to get the groups to affiliate with each other. That is the bottom up aspect talked about in this article. The difficulty is in the coordination at the higher level. Right now there are lots of forces (ICE, TJC, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, various ad hoc groups - ATRs, rubber room, other special interest lobby groups within the UFT) floating around. They may come together at a point there is a feeling of need to take some action. People are going to watch how the UFT handles the ATR demonstration that was forced down their throats at the Delegate Assembly last week. The UFT business as usual approach of holding a narrow demo without a major attempt to organize may not work for the UFT - with over 100 schools signing petitions for the ATRs - and it's still growing. I ran into a guy I know who lives and teaches in Rockway. HE is anti-Unity. Getting him to come to anything the UFT does is impossible. "I'll come to an ATR demo," he told me. ATRs are a hot issue with many teachers who are in schools threatened with being closed - probably in the long run, the overwhelming majority.

The Obama organization from the Huffington Post

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

The "New Organizers" have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

Win or lose, "The New Organizers" have already transformed thousands of communities—and revolutionized the way organizing itself will be understood and practiced for at least the next generation.

More

Hot Rumor: Stick a Fork in Richard Mills?

Richard Mills, a contender for the most awful state ed commissioner one can find and certainly a horror for NY State which has one of the worst testing policies in the nation, may be on the way out. His is noted for such things as giving Joel Klein a waiver to be chancellor since he has no qualifications and for looking the other way as BloomKlein ran rampant over just about every state ed regulation and over the entire law giving the mayor power but not dictatorial power.

Obama's Economic Advisors - Oh Vey!

Michael Fiorillo is one of the most respected voices in ICE. When he speaks (or writes) people always know something interesting is coming.

There was an interesting - and disquieting - article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about Obama's economic team, having come across it on the "LBO Talk" section of Doug Henwood's Left Business Observer (www.leftbusinessobserver.com) When you get to the section, type in "financial crisis" and you should find it.

The article describes Obama's reliance on the terrible threesome of Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers for his economic advice. Should these be the people he listens to, we can likely expect a harsh regime of structural readjustment, the punishing economic shock therapy that has been applied in recent decades in other nations undergoing credit crises, which includes large-scale privatization of public assets - highways, bridges, schools, water systems, etc. - and the decimation of the civil service. The NYT has already reported that NY governor David Patterson is already explorinjg the sale of state assets. We have also seen a hint of this with the news that Obama lobbied the Congressional Black caucus to approve the $700 B bankster bailout, without insisting on a nickel for distressed homeowners or changes allowing judges to
modify bankruptcy workouts for individuals.

Obama's official economic advisor is from the U of Chi Economics department, which ranges from center-right to Milton Friedmanite derangement. Also not encouraging. The advisor, Austin Goolsbee, is not among the most rabid from that department, but let's just say that you don't get tenure there by being insensitive to the feelings and interests of bankers.

The article should help people to cut through much of Obama's attractive persona and rhetoric, and reveals who will really be calling the shots. While the above-mentioned may suggest that my continuing intention to vote for Obama is irrational, given what I've stated, I'd say that it points out that we have go into the coming period without any illusions, and with the understanding that only a broad popular mobilization for economic democracy gives any hope whatsoever that the republic can be reclaimed and saved.

Best,
Michael Fiorillo

Commentary on the Keegan/Darling-Hammond Debate

I'm glad Sean Ahern joined me (two older guys in a sea of 20-somethings) at the Linda/Lisa Obama/McCain ed advisor debate webcast sponsored by NYCORE at NYU last night.

The actual debate was at Teachers College a few miles north. Glad it was as I was ready to run up and strangle them both. Lisa and her trumpeting of the Klein/Sharpton/Rhee EEP's was despicable. But Linda was fairly hapless in her responses, especially when she sidestepped Lisa's attempt to pull her into the "TFA is wonderful" trap. The host of the NYU session, Bree Picower, pointed to the NYCORE focus this year on making the Neo-liberal connections to the ed debate. Lois Weiner has written extensively on this and was the featured speaker at one of our Teachers Unite forums last year and she will be doing a session with Meghan Behrent (TJC and ISO) at an upcoming forum. Sean nails many of the points that were nagging at me during the debate. But first a few caveats. I am guessing the term "liberal" Sean uses more commonly refers to Democratic Party liberals, often misnamed as "the left," which is not the real left, who are just as disparaging of this group as Republicans. Neo-liberals in the classic European sense, so aptly dealt with by Naomi Klein in "The Shock Doctrine" are total free marketers and just off the edge of neo-conservatives. The neo-liberal world wide agenda with respect to education is not just esoteric stuff we're spouting but has a direct impact on what is going on in your classrooms. Understanding this stuff becomes increasingly important to explain the role unions like the AFT/UFT and NEA play in this scenario, all too often lining up on the wrong side.

Heeeeere's Sean

The achievement gap was trotted out early on as the games began. Which team would control the ball? True to form Lisa positioned herself behind NCLB and the "civil rights community" who supported uniform assessments. (Test score inequality is now the only form of inequality considered legitamate for media attention, that is unless poor Black and Latino homeowners are being blamed for the financial crisis)

Linda pooh poohed the notion of filling in bubble sheets. Lisa quickly turned the tables on the liberals. All those flaky alternative assessments are just liberal glosses over the gap, and it's the gap (stupid!) that needs to be reduced. Will the liberals be hoisted on their own petard? Pre-school education for all countered Linda bravely. Lisa countered, where's the evidence supporting the additional $ for pre-school? Where are the test scores! Show me the money. in neo liberal neo conservative America, test scores are equated as proof of value added or value lost. Finally, corporate cost accounting has landed on the head of the educrat nincompoops. Everyone can see how well corporate accounting has served the nation, why not extend it to education?

Linda countered but tepidly, pointing to the success of NJ which lead the way in school funding reform, granting equal state funding to all schools in the Garden State. She only stuck a toe in this big pond. Why not take a dive in?

My question, How can the 'achievement gap be reduced when the wealth gap and the race gap widens? Why are educators heeding, in effect, Cheney's favorite injunction to "stay in their lane" and not making connections? Linda Darling Hammond barely acknowledged the connection in her reference to NJ. Isn't making connections what educators are supposed to do ? And if the leaders of education won't make the connections, then who will?

Lisa lined up with Rhee in DC and NYC with thinly veiled union bashing, but no mention of Chicago's much longer 'reform 'effort? Why?

Could it be that Bill Ayers might come up as one of the proponents of Chicago's reform? Oops, that's not part of the script since McCain is using Ayers to bash Obama. But before all the liberals line up to defend Ayers supposed redemption through educational service, think twice. Ayers was wrong about the "Revolution" in 1968, and yes folks, he's wrong again about school "reform" in Chicago. Like Mr Magoo, Ayers makes a mess of everything wherever he goes but always comes out on top and always manages to be the center of media attention. Are we being played again by a media show that features false leaders, pushes them forward as the change agents, thereby discrediting change or even revolution in society and in education?

Peace,
Sean

Teachers to Be Rated on Chronic Absence - parody

The release of the Milano report finding that

... more than 20 percent of the city’s elementary school pupils were chronically absent during the 2007–08 school year—that is, they missed at least 20 days of the 185-day school year. In districts serving poor neighborhoods, the numbers are even higher. In the south and central Bronx, in central Harlem, and in several neighborhoods in central Brooklyn, 30 percent or more of the pupils were chronically absent, according to the analysis. In contrast, only 5.2 percent of pupils were chronically absent in District 26, which serves the middle class neighborhood of Bayside, Queens… Of the 725 public schools serving elementary grades (excluding charter schools and schools serving severely disabled children), 165 have chronic absentee rates of 30 percent or more… [MORE and NY Times article]

has led to a landmark agreement between the UFT and Tweed to rate teachers on their ability to prevent chronic absence of their students, Ed Notes News is reporting.

Joel Klein said, "These high absentee rates are clearly due to teachers who do not do lessons interesting enough to get their kids to want to come to school."

"No excuses," proclaimed his able assistant Christopher Cerf when asked about the vast differences in the numbers between the poorer and wealthier areas of the city. "Teachers have to figure out ways to get these kids into school. You do what you have to do. If mouth to mouth is necessary, then damnit do it. That is the way to show a spirit willing to close the achievement gap."

Surgical masks, rubber gloves and hazmat suits will be issued to teachers making visits to sick beds. "See, we're not as heartless as they make us out to be," said Cerf. Schools that do not improve will be closed and replaced by condos.

Randi Weingarten agreed to sign on to a plan to grade teachers based on their attendance figures as long as the results are not publicized. "This once and for all ends the public pillorying of teachers based on the attendance rates of their kids," said a UFT spokesperson. "The results will be used by teachers solely to improve by looking at what is wrong with their teaching to keep so many kids away from school for a month.

Ask but don't tell
The spokesperson said, "And the best part of this is our victory on the Klein-Cerf demand that teachers looking for a job have to show the results. Principals may ask but teachers don't have to tell."


Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development Dennis M. Walcott will speak at a forum addressing the impact of chronic absenteeism in New York City public schools, following the release of a report from The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs, Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families. Deputy Mayor Walcott will talk about the importance of creating in all schools a culture that recognizes that failure for our students, regardless of their family or life circumstances, is not an option. He will also reinforce the Department of Education’s efforts to hold schools accountable for students’ academic achievement, and highlight efforts to combat chronic absenteeism and the role of community collaboration and partnerships in that work.
[Last paragraph NOT a parody.]

Big Dog

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next.

Pretty soon they'll be making robotic mayors and chancellors. Or do we already have that?

There is no meeting with UFT today...

.... Here is Why

Here is a follow up from a first year Teaching Fellow who has helped organize TF's threatened with being fired on Dec. 5th. I printed an email to me from this TF in this post on the morning of Oct. 15 before the Delegate Assembly. The demo in front by both senior and first year teacher ATRs brought out reporters. And that naturally brought out UFT officials led by "sweet talking" Michael Mendel and a horde of PR people. Our post delegate assembly report is here. Our first year teacher/reporter is showing a lot of moxie and political savy. We hope this group doesn't go away soon and if they survive they will join the alternative movement to force change down the throats of the UFT/Unity Caucus misleadership.

There are emails from 2 TFs and they read in reverse order so follow carefully.

Norm,
Thought you might be interested in reading how we didn't have a meeting with the UFT regarding our legal issues.

Best regards,
[TF Correspondent 1]

New York City Teaching Fellows
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:46:43 -0400
Subject: There is no meeting with UFT today, here is why
To: PKadushin@uft.org, MMendel@uft.org

The United Federation of Teachers ("UFT")'s Michael Mendel specifically asked me to email you and explain to you why I was not meeting with the UFT today.

In short, I am not meeting with them because Mr. Mendel promised to meet with us, and then less than 24 hours later broke that promise.

At the direct action we had in front of the UFT building on Wednesday when we were speaking directly to the delegates and the media, Mr. Mendel came out and spoke with us. He interrupted us in our work, a calculation designed to impede our communication.

He asked each of our members to fill out some form he had collecting their personal information. This was because he said that they wanted to contact us each individually.

Of course I explained that we were committed to speaking in one voice and didn't need individual communication with the UFT (however if you believe you would like to reach out to the UFT I have copied Mr. Mendel onto this email and his email address is: MMendel@uft.org).

He stated to me directly in his sweet voice that they were trying to have a meeting with us.

He promised one of the other Fellows directly a meeting with him.

Then after he had left and I was speaking with two reporters, one from The New York Post and one from The Chief about our situation I directly asked the UFT press representative Peter Kadushin (also copied on this email, at reachable at pkadushin@uft.org) if ANYTHING I
said wasn't true.

All he could say, in front of these reporters, is that the UFT was interested in meeting with us. I asked him what meeting he was referring to. He said he only knew that Mr. Mendel had mentioned meeting with us. I asked when he had heard that, and he said it was just at the direct action.

If any of this is incorrect I am sure either Mr. Kadushin or Mr. Mendel will email me back to let me know (and I will forward along to you unedited).

So after the direct action we all went back to our normal lives.

The next day, yesterday, I received an email from the Fellow who directly received a promise to meet with Mr. Mendel.

This is the email, the only thing I removed is the name/email of the Fellow (I assume that I am the "David" to whom he refers-- the English teacher in me sees this as an unintended metaphor to our David versus Goliath actions against the UFT):


From: Peter Kadushin [UFT]
Date: Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:36 AM
Subject: RE: Follow Up
To: [TF Correspondent 2]
[],

I was told that Carol Gerstl, our legal council, is setting up a meeting with David. Please let me know when you hear from her.
Peter Kadushin

-----Original Message-----
From: [TF Correspondent 2]
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 6:23 AM
To: Peter Kadushin
Subject: Follow Up
Dear Peter,

Yesterday, Michael Mandel told me he wants to meet with me and other Fellows threatened with dismissal on December 5th. Could you please email me his phone member? I would like to schedule a date with him.

Thank you again for your assistance. I appreciated talking with you before the delegates meeting and look forward to your help in covering our fight for our jobs.

Sincerely,
[TF Correspondent 2]


From TF Correspondent 1
Notice the times posted.

So when I saw the email I called Mr. Mendel directly. He said that he was "unaware" that I had attempted to have a meeting (about which you have already received emails from me) with UFT legal.

As you know, I gave them a deadline of last Monday for that meeting. Any offer of a meeting was rejected by them.

The funny thing is that Mr. Mendel was copied by Ms. Gerstl on the emails that made clear they were not meeting with me by the deadline.

Mr. Mendel said the only meeting we would have is with Gerstl and her associate.

I told them it was not useful for me to meet with their legal team-- that was an offer I had made to help them understand the legal issue which they actually should be doing on their own and that I had given up on being allied with the UFT management and now only wished to have a meeting with someone who could commit the UFT to action.

He said that wasn't going to happen and that I was being rude because he said I told him that meeting with Ms. Gerstl was a "waste of my time".

He was yelling and me and threatened that I wouldn't meet with anyone if I didn't take the meeting.

He also requested that I let you know that I was declining this meeting. And here I am emailing you as he requested (by the way, the UFT has never done anything we have requested of them and we are the ones that pay them for their services, another $47.27 out of
yesterday's check!).

I did then say we would take the meeting.

He hurried off the phone.

I called Gerstl after I had thought about it, and realized that we were promised, in front of the press and in front of delegates, a meeting BY and WITH Mr. Mendel and taking a meeting without him was not acceptable.

I told her that the meeting was canceled. (I remind you that it is rare that anyone at the UFT actually answers their phones, so I told this to her voicemail).

Later the same Fellow who had emailed Peter Kadushin and I spoke. He said he would meet with their legal staff. He phoned them and had a productive conversation with Carol Gerstl but I understand she declined to meet with him.

So as Mr. Mendel requested, I am writing you (getting up early to do it) to let you know that I did decline to meet with the UFT at this time.

The meeting was not on the terms which were acceptable to me even before a direct promise from Mr. Mendel.

Simply put, we need the UFT to act on our behalf. We have a right to that action, we pay for that action.

If the UFT's leadership stalls and misleads us in our private conversations with them (see the previous emails) and even breaks promises they make in front of delegates and the press, we simply cannot take what they say as any indication of what they are doing for us. We must see concrete action before we are convinced they are helping us.

I look forward to meeting with you this weekend to discuss this, and other matters, in person.
Of course you are welcome, if you don't mind outing yourself, to email Mr. Mendel if you have anything you wish to clarify, he has invited this conversation.

Best regards,
TF Correspondent 2

No Reckoning for Eli Broad on KB Homes

The "B" in KB stands for Broad, as in Eli.

Sub-prime mortgage shenanigans helped fuel Eli Broad's philanthropic contributions to the ed reform movement that have unleashed the same forces of de-regulation, market-based concepts and privatization. And also the same type of financial shenanigans that we see in the BloomKlein administration in NYC. As Ann Cook pointed out at a parent forum on mayoral control the other night: the CEO one person in charge dictatorships means no accountability.

John Lawhead to ICE mail:

This NY Times article is mostly about the construction giant, KB Home. It neglects to mention the name of Elli Broad who made his fortune from the company. Poor Henry Cisneros. The billionaire Broad gets to ride above the fray. Maybe it's because Broad is such an important household word in education. To link him to the mortgage crisis would be like associating Bill & Melinda Gates with the mountains of outstanding college-loan debt...

Would that "the reckoning" weren't just for Henry but alas, the sacred dogma is not to be disturbed. Working class city kids must only hope for escaping their communities by way of college and a professional job title (if not home ownership).

As the Clinton administration’s top housing official in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions so first-time buyers could qualify for loans they could never get before.

Then, capitalizing on a housing expansion he helped unleash, he joined the boards of a major builder, KB Home.

For the three years he was a director at KB Home, Mr. Cisneros received at least $70,000 in pay and more than $100,000 worth of stock.

Where ICE Stands

As the Independent Community of Educators is about to reach its 5th anniversary (on Halloween, of course) we put this outline of some of ICE's basic positions without going into depth, which we will be doing on the ICE blog and web site. But you get the idea. I'll be writing more reflective pieces on the evolution of alternative views in the UFT over time.

Share with your colleagues. Contact me if you need a hard copy of an emailed pdf.

Click to enlarge.

TAGNYC: The Two Big Lies

Share a copy with your colleagues.

Click to enlarge.

John Thompson in the Trauma Ward

I often get tongue tied when trying to discuss what it was like teaching elementary school in one of the hard core poverty areas of Brooklyn. Or finger tied when trying to write about it. One year I'd have the sweetest kids. Another a difficult, problem-laden class (but still with a lot of sweet kids - mostly girls.) They all looked the same - 65% Hispanic and 35% black. But, oh what differences.

Thank goodness for John Thompson over at TWIE who says in two short paragraphs what would take me 5 pages.

If you do not understand why high poverty magnet schools have little in common with neighborhood schools, check out my neighborhood’s middle school..

It's the Trauma. Duh!

Surrender of Tenure in Chicago....

...a precursor for New York

by George Schmidt

10/16/08

The Chicago Teachers Union has surrendered tenure in all but the flimsiest thought. Tenure exists now for teachers at "successful" schools, but not for teachers at "failing" schools. Since most of our schools are "failing" (Chicago is much more segregated than New York City, and with much more dense sections of complete poverty) that means just about everyone.

Basically, Chicago began surrendering tenure with the surrender of seniority in the mid-1990s, and has been surrendering since. There was a brief time under Debbie Lynch (2001-2004) when the union wasn't as big a part of the problem, but that is now over and things are worse than ever.

The CTU "Fresh Start" (peer lynching policy, I'm calling it) is based on the monstrosity from Toledo Federation of Teachers (Dal Lawrence) and is now being exported from Chicago via AFT to everyone else.

Randi knows this.

She's lying if she doesn't admit that she is giving away tenure, bit by bit, with Chicago serving as the role model and a couple of other places (e.g., Washington D.C.) coming in a close second because AFT isn't organizing and supporting resistance to people like Michelle Rhee. Of course, the greatest surrender of all is New Orleans. But that, too, is a much longer story.

George Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

Ed Note:
Chicago is years ahead of NYC in mayoral control and has had all the horrors that hit here years before. Ed Notes was out there warning people in the UFT about mayoral control from way back in 2001. On the day Randi came out in favor (May 2001) I went to an Executive Board meeting that night and placed a leaflet with the Chicago story in front of every UFT Executive Board member. Of course they knew and went along for the ride. Dumb? I think not. Mayoral control fits the AFT/UFT vision of education. Thus, they will not make a stand against it, though they will have their committee on governance make some namby pamby noises about checks and balances. And thus they will do nothing to try to stop Bloomberg from another term, the truest spirit of collaboration. Their problem is how to convince the members to go along. But they have the answer: scare them with the financial catastrophe that is to come, making reference to the strike in '75 as a failure. Sure, it was a failure because Al Shanker sold it out. We can expect nothing less than a total sellout – on mayoral control, on Bloomberg, on rating teachers based on test scores, on unfairly closing schools, on ATRs, on the rubber room, on grievances, on just about any issue you can bring up. The only hope is for teachers to wake up and forge a militant opposition to Unity.