New Report Challenges Charter School Civil Rights Policy

For Immediate Release


*New Report Challenges Charter School Civil Rights Policy*

Los Angeles-November 12, 2009-
A new civil rights report raises important issues about the Obama Administration' s central emphasis on the rapid expansion of charter schools, pointing out that although there are outstanding and diverse charters, there is also a vacuum of civil rights policy shown in both previous research and current on-going studies.

The Civil Rights Project report, *Equity Overlooked: Charter Schools and Civil Rights Policy, *by Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, provides a much-needed overview of the origins of charter school policy; examines the failure of the Bush Administration to provide civil rights policies as charters rapidly expanded with federal and state aid; outlines state civil rights provisions, and highlights the lack of basic data in federal charter school statistics. UCLA Professor and Civil Rights Project Co- director Gary Orfield commented, “Choice can be either a path toward real opportunity and equity or toward segregated and unequal education. If charters are to be a central element in educational reform, then basic civil rights policies must be an integral element of the Obama policy.” The CRP, a non-partisan national research center based at UCLA, will issue, next month, an analysis of the educational effects of charters and the detailed patterns of diversity and segregation across the nation.

*About The Civil Rights Project at UCLA**

*Founded in 1996 by former Harvard professors Gary Orfield and Christopher Edley Jr., the Civil Rights Project/*Proyecto Derechos Civiles* is now co-directed by Orfield and Patricia Gándara, professors at UCLA. Its mission is to create a new generation of research in social science and law, on the critical issues of civil rights and equal opportunity for racial and ethnic
groups in the United States. It has commissioned more than 400 studies, published 14 books and issued numerous reports from authors at universities and research centers across the country. The Supreme Court, in its 2003 *Grutter v. Bollinger* decision upholding affirmative action, cited the Civil Rights Project's research.

Contact:
CRP office at (310) 267-5562; crp@ucla.edu Erica Frankenberg at
frankenberg@ gseis.ucla. edu Genevieve Siegel-Hawley at gsiegelhawley@ ucla.edu

posted at:
http://www.civilrig htsproject. ucla.edu/ research/ deseg/equity- overlooked- repo
rt-2009.pdf

Renowned Arizona Charter School Asks Disruptive Students to Leave

Whoopee!! The Basis School is featured and the filmmaker, Bob Compton, just answered Brian Lehrer's million dollar question. Some students do not have the make-up for intense academic work, he thinks. What happened to "no excuses?"

Pay for teachers are differentiated. They are all very talented. Put some of these talented teachers in the average NYC high school and they would run screaming.

Just push the students harder is the key. Load them with work and they will succeed. Let me point out that this is not the average student just about anywhere.

The filmmaker is a venture capitalist. He went to India and China and saw wonderful high schools. Does he think the average child in India or China, where they weed them out way before high school, is what he is seeing? Can this guy be any dumber? Or is he just a manipulative ed deformer?

You can only see this film at www.2mminutes.com. Go and have a few laughs.

Teachers are the best indicator.....blah, blah, blah

I just heard it again on NPR in a Beth Fertig report:

Someone she was interviewing said, "Teachers are the best indicator of whether a child will succeed or fail." No follow-up or questioning of whether there is any basis to this claim, other than the usual, "research shows." What research shows? I bet my pension that whatever research that shows Teachers are the best indicator of whether a child will succeed or fail can be countered by just as much research that shows that socio-economics is the best indicator of whether a child will succeed or fail. I guess I wasted my 15 minute conversation with Fertig last week trying to point out just how ridiculous this statement is.

Should we measure the success or the failure of the current state of investigative education reporting based on the quality of the individual reporters? I've heard plenty of excuses from reporters that there are staff cuts and the papers don't support investigative reporting.

Try this one out and fill in the blanks:

[Policemen, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, add your own] are the best indicators of whether a [crime victim, war, patient, defendant, add your own] will succeed or fail.

By the way, have you seen the stories on the Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was, aside from everything else, considered an incompetent doctor. He supposedly saw an average of one patient a week and his supervisors discussed how to get rid of him but did nothing because, as one supposedly said, "You know how hard it is to get rid of a doctor."

So where's the race to the top in the health care debate about removing bad doctors? It all goes to show that the blame the teacher mentality is all part of THE PLAN also [Obama Supports Demise of Public Option in Education] to undermine public education.

If you clicked on the link above to my posting on THE PLAN, make sure to go to Perimeter Primate's great post.

Yankee Parade Brings Back Memories

This must be "student gets out of prison" story week. (See "So, You Get a Phone Call, Revised").

The Yankee parade reminded me of the parade 10 years ago. I was in a district job at the time and asked for the morning off. I stopped by my old school on the way. In one of those coincidences that seem so crazy, in walked a former student looking for me. Call him "M". He had just been released from a 7-year prison term, which he had served after a parole violation from a previous 7-year term. He must have been about 31 or 32 years old. He went in at 15. Half his life in jail.

We chatted and I told him I was on the way to the Yankee parade. "You took us on a trip to the Yankee parade," he said. Memories came flooding back. It was 1978. I was teaching a 6th grade class and we had a trip planned that day. So we made a pit stop to see the parade. We stood at the barriers on lower Broadway and waited for the Yankees to go by. Crowds were sparse, but loads of ticker tape was floating down. Everyone was so friendly and the kids had a blast rolling in the masses of paper. Three or four flatbed trucks sent zipping by and we barely saw Reggie Jackson. Maybe 30 seconds.

These trips were the cement that glued relationships together between the kids and myself as the shared experiences created bonds that created a true classroom community. That was a special class because I had moved up with them from the 5th grade, so knowing all the kids and them knowing me made the opening of school particularly easy. Except for "M", who had not been in my class the year before. He wasn't a bad kid but just never shut up and was constantly calling out and making wise-ass comments. The first couple of weeks were rough for us and I had to get control of the situation. So one day I told him to tell his mother I was coming over the next afternoon to talk about his behavior. They lived in the projects. M opened the door when I knocked with a look of shock and surprise on his face. Surprisingly, rather than be unhappy, he seemed pleased that I came. That gave me some important insight into his character. I sat down in the living room with his mom, a very big woman. I told her that there was a lot to like about M, who could be very funny – when you weren't trying to teach – but he had to get control of himself. M sat there grinning ear to ear.

After that day we were pals. It wasn't only his behavior that changed. Mine did too. I began to tolerate his remarks and laughed openly at them. I often retorted and the kids loved what became a sort of routine between us. M became one of my favorite students of all time.

Randi and Rhee, Two for Tea

Leonie Haimson wrote at nycednews:

Michelle (Take no prisoners) Rhee, head of DC schools and former media darling, is now in hot water, given her mismanagement of the budget, teacher layoffs, and the like. Rhee also recently announced her engagement to Kevin Johnson, former NBA player, charter school head and current mayor of Sacramento. See http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2009/11/michelle_rhee_kevin_johnson_pu.html

In today's WaPost, Jay Mathews, education columnist, nominates Randi Weingarten to replace her if Rhee decamps for California. Excerpt:

From the pen of Jay Matthews (who will be writing the ICE/TJC campaign lit):

She [Randi] is a practical and imaginative leader who likes to defy conventional wisdom herself. She endorsed Republican George Pataki for re-election as governor of New York in 2002. She set up union-run charter schools in New York despite many union members distaste for that reform. She even signed a contract with the New York City school system allowing payment of teacher bonuses if students's test scores rose, another no-no to many unionists.

Most importantly, running the D.C. schools would give her a chance to demonstrate in the most visible way her oft-expressed view that teacher unions are just as committed to raising the achievement of students as anybody. She has already accepted money from big charter school supporters many of her members do not like, such as Bill and Melinda Gates, for her union's new program to encourage teacher innovations.

Read it all at:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/11/dcs_next_schools_chief_how_abo.html


One commenter was astounded:
Are you sure you're feeling ok Mr. Mathews? Because I can't remember reading anything filled with so much tortured logic and deluded thinking in my life. Of course Randi Weingarten will never be the Chancellor of the DCPS but thanks for letting all of us know that she's a lesbian. That's always an important consideration in matters like this. Certainly it's an area where Michelle Rhee is want.

Matthews, who is so often laughed at by educators, may be onto something as he lays out the full sellout of the AFT/UFT. Aside from the sexual orientation issue, the ideology of Rhee and Randi is not as far off as some people might think.

By the way. How could Randi do all these things so many teachers in her own union don't want? The answer is the Unity Caucus dictatorship that makes people like Putin jealous. Can he match 100% of the Exec Bd endorsed by one party?

Obama Supports Demise of Public Option in Education

One of the fascinating aspects of the health care debate has been over the offering of a public option to reduce costs while at the same time the Obama administration has been promoting policies (charters, etc) that will ultimately lead to the destruction of the public option in education. Here, in a series of posts over the last few days at the Schools Matter blog, we see the plan to undermine public education (and of course to destroy teacher unions) laid out by a former Bushie in early 2008. Now ask yourself: exactly what is the AFT/UFT doing in response? Think: who needs public education, let's get our share. Thanks to Michael Fiorillo for finding this gem (and don't forget, GEM in NYC right now is the only organized opposition to THE PLAN.)

Kenneth Libby in Friday's post laid out the plan to eliminate the public option in education in this post:

From the Vault

This is part of an essay written in early 2008 by AEI/Fordham's Andy Smarick, a former Bush II Domestic Policy Council member tasked with K-12 and higher education issues:

Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering's way forward: First, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to a secondary provider. The target should be 75 percent. Second, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter base (at least 5 percent market share), a policy environment that will enable growth (fair funding, nondistrict authorizers, and no legislated caps), and a favorable political environment (friendly elected officials and editorial boards, a positive experience with charters to date, and unorganized opposition). For example, in New York a concerted effort could be made to site in Albany or Buffalo a large percentage of the 100 new charters allowed under the raised cap. Other potentially fertile districts include Denver,Detroit,Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.

Third, secure proven operators to open new schools. To the greatest extent possible, growth should be driven by replicating successful local charters and recruiting high-performing operators from other areas. Fourth, engage key allies like Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, and national and local foundations to ensure the effort has the human and financial capital needed. Last, commit to rigorously assessing charter performance in each community and working with authorizers to close the charters that fail to significantly improve student achievement.

In total, these strategies should lead to rapid, high-quality charter growth and the development of a public school marketplace marked by parental choice, the regular startup of new schools, the improvement of middling schools, the replication of high-performing schools, and the shuttering of low-performing schools.

As chartering increases its market share in a city, the district will come under growing financial pressure. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. With a lopsided adult-to-student ratio, the district's per-pupil costs will skyrocket.

At some point along the district's path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city's investors and stakeholders--taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards--are likely to demand fundamental change. That is, eventually the financial crisis will become a political crisis. If the district has progressive leadership, one of two best-case scenarios may result. The district could voluntarily begin the shift to an authorizer, developing a new relationship with its schools and reworking its administrative structure to meet the new conditions. Or, believing the organization is unable to make this change, the district could gradually transfer its schools to an established authorizer.

You can practically check off each of Smarick's suggestions for a pro-charter policy environment, particularly in places like Los Angeles. The general silence of Right-wing education "reformers" (hell-bent, in reality, on destroying and privatizing public education) is not a coincidence - they're largely happy with Obama/Duncan's education agenda.
Welcome to "third way" centrism.


More Schools Matter articles on charters:

After Years of "Innovation," NJ Charters Perform No Better Than Poorest Public Schools

The Real Effects of Corporate Charter Schools on Public Schools

CEO Pay in Charter School Chains

Gloucester Parents Stage Protest Against Crooked Charter School Approval

Did Mulgrew Abandon ALL UFT Resistance to Judging Teachers On Student Data?

This Gotham Schools report on the Tisch/Moskowitz/Mulgrew/Williams panel last week had a few tidbits:

Tisch calls on charters to take on city’s worst high schools

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch yesterday called on city charter school operators to move away from elementary education and take on the problems of fixing large failing high schools.

Speaking at Hunter College, Tisch said that charter schools have benefited from being the political “darlings” of the city and state, blessed with the most qualified teachers and some of the highest-achieving students. Instead, Tisch said, charter schools need to branch out to serve more struggling high school students, English language learners and special education students.

Tisch also said that she was confident that the ban on linking student achievement data to teacher tenure decisions, a state law observers speculate may disqualify the state from the competition, would not be renewed after it sunsets in June. “I do not believe there is an appetite legislatively to extend or prolong that law,” Tisch said.

Mulgrew, the president of the teachers union which originally fought for the insertion of the law into the state budget, did not contradict Tisch’s projection.

We have always maintained that the law was a farce in the first place because an nontenured teacher can be let go for a bad haircut. The law gave no real protection but was all about PR from the union to the members. So Mulgrew's abandonment of the law means nothing. What needs to be questioned was the strategy in the first place, a strategy that wasted political capital and became a national issue used by the ed deformers to attack the power of teacher unions. If you are going to get slammed anyway, then try to get a law that really provides protection.

Then there is the other contradictions on the part of the UFT when it comes to narrow data being used to measure teachers and schools. Support for merit pay, even if not for individual teachers - yet! The UFT cooperation in the Gates project to come up with ways to measure teachers (they say beyond standardized testing) will lead to that anyway.

thousands of retirees who rely on electronic pension payments have had funds involuntarily withdrawn from their accounts

Statement by UFT President Michael Mulgrew:

We have been informed that thousands of retirees who rely on electronic pension payments have had funds involuntarily withdrawn from their accounts. The city comptroller's office and the Bank of New York Mellon, who oversee the payment process, must move immediately to restore the funds and make anyone who was harmed whole. We are calling on the city and state to begin an immediate investigation into how this could have happened.


Gotta run. See if anything's left.

Election Post Mortem: John Liu is the Bomb

I'm not all that big on the voting process, given the fact that the choices we have are so narrow and the people who run need to raise so much money.

Voting is the least involvement (choose from amongst the very poor choices being offered by the wealthy oligarchy and go away for the next 4 years) and it is just not enough.

But given the election results, there is already speculation about the 2012 mayoral election.

Quinn? A Bloomie suckup. DeBlasio has a history of accommodating Bloomberg. Liu gives no quarter. And has the guts to do it. He showed up at the CPE founding convention and seems willing to lay waste to Bloomberg on education and other issues.

How gratified to read in yesterday's Times: ...when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu...Mr. Liu could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight.

Liu told the reporter, "A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City."

DeBlasio, on the other hand, who will be a major rival of Liu in jockeying for position, did meet with Bloomberg, despite the fact Bloomberg had called for the abolition of the office of Public Advocate.

Thus the landscape of the next 4 years was laid down the day after the election. I'm betting on Liu being smart enough to be as tough as anyone could get on Bloomberg, while DeBlasio already showed Bloomberg will have an easier time with him.

Watch the attacks on Liu start real soon. Anthony Weiner caved at the first hints of a Bloomberg assault. Liu will not be such an easy mark.

--------
Educate, Organize, Mobilize

From some of my young radical friends, the themes of educate, organize, mobilize (when necessary.) The first 2 are ongoing.

I take the same view of lobbying by individuals and groups with small constituencies. One of my friends talks about going to Albany to lobby against the charter school cap. Sure, why not try and compete with billions of stimulus funds. On the other hand, have thousands behind you with the ability to educate, organize and mobilize and you have another thing altogether when you try to lobby. Call it "muscle."

The UFT has all the elements in place to do this effectively but they don't educate their members or the public on the major issues (what they do is propagandize). They do minimal organizing in terms of the long term. An educated and organized membership would look at the operation they run and laugh. And they only mobilize for a narrow agenda once in a while. The UFT "muscle" in terms of results for members and the schools is fairly tiny.

Bloomberg and Weingarten to Tie The Knot

When I saw this old picture of BloomGarten over at NYC Educator, where Schoolgal is running a contest for the best caption (some good ones already, so get in there before the deadline), I was reminded of this piece in the Feb. 2002 Ed Notes hard copy edition.

Bloomberg and Weingarten to Tie The Knot

In an attempt to forge an alliance that would result in a fast track towards a new teachers’ contract, UFT President Randi Weingarten and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced their engagement. Shocked members of the press bombarded the happy couple with questions. “I know he’s short,” said Weingarten. “But I’m shorter.” “Michael and Randi have had a wonderful relationship for a long time,” said a UFT spokesperson. “She was even his date at a dinner a few years ago. And the sweater gift---that was the clincher.” As part of the engagement agreement, the Mayor’s 22 year old daughter Emma will become the new Chancellor. It was also announced that the UFT & Bloomberg, LP will merge into a new firm to be called BLUFT.

The couple will live in the fancy penthouse digs atop the new UFT headquarters near Ground Zero, enabling both to walk to work. “Michael won’t have to take the subway anymore,” said Randi. The expected savings on the train pass have graciously been donated by Bloomberg towards the new contract.


While perusing the Feb. 02 edition, I came across some other stuff to share:

Delegates Vote to Shut Lights, but Not to Turn Them Back on

In a wondrous display of democracy, Randi Weingarten asked delegates at the Jan (02) DA if they wanted the lights shut so they could better see the wondrous slide show of the wondrous new downtown buildings. For the next 20 minutes, delegates got some much needed sleep. Unfortunately, the lights were turned back on suddenly without a vote being taken, an indication of how the union leadership manipulates democracy for its own ends. Delegates were outraged at being awaken so suddenly. Ed. Notes sponsors the following resolution:

RESOLVED: all future Delegate Assemblies be held in the dark. Union leaders would no longer waste time and money trying to pull the wool over the eyes of delegates.

There was actually some serious stuff in there, especially on the governance issue, where we trash Randi for supporting mayoral control. I put one piece up on Norms Notes:

Ed Notes on Governance, c., Feb 2002

Here are the jokes from that issue (why do you think people read Ed Notes at the time, for my brilliant insights?)

This comes from a Catholic elementary school. Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments.

In the first book of the bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off.
Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark, which the animals come on to in pears.
Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.
The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.
Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.
Moses led the hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.
The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards,
Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten amendments.
The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the hebrews in the battle of Geritol.
The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.
David was a hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. he fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.
When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.
When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.
Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, “a man doth not live by sweat alone.”
It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.
The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels. The epistles were the wives of the apostles.
One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.
St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.
Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

NEW READING TEST REVEALED
Here are some more words that will appear on this year’s reading tests. Start preparing your children now!

Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.
Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

A Tiny Norm Sound Bite: Obama Gets Tough on Teachers – What Does That Mean for NYC?

I spoke to Beth Fertig for about 10 minutes and chewed her ear off and about 5 seconds got used in this story. (David Bellel sent me the audio but I am not sure how to upload it.)

She didn't exactly use what I would have chosen, but I appreciate her effort to tell this story. What I stressed was the absurdity of trying to measure teachers, considering how almost no other job is being measured: cops (# of arrests?), firemen (volume of water out of the hose), reporters (# of words written or spoken), politicians (least amount of money stolen or wives cheated on. )

Her report talks about the 43% raise teachers got under Bloomberg, but I pointed out that a chunk of that is for a longer work day and not really a raise.

When she asked about the state law barring test scores for being used for granting tenure and how outraged Joel Klein was I pointed out that the law was irrelevant and everyone (but the press) understands that since non-tenured teachers can be fired if the principal doesn't like the way they cut their hair. This didn't make the cut.

By the way, when Obama talks about the firewall separating teacher evaluation from student results, how about his own performance so far? Mr. Obama, tear down that (fire) wall!!


http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/143870

Obama Gets Tough on Teachers – What Does That Mean for NYC?

by Bert Fertig

NEW YORK, NY November 05, 2009 —President Obama is praising Wisconsin for changing its law to allow student achievement to be used to evaluate teachers. The president visited Madison, Wisconsin yesterday, to promote his Race-to-the-Top fund which will award over $4-billion in total to states in exchange for reforms. As WNYC’s Beth Fertig reports, that puts pressure on New York, just as the city and the teachers union are negotiating a new contract.

REPORTER: Schools Chancellor Joel Klein talks often about the importance of getting better quality teachers.

KLEIN: President Obama himself has pointed out time and again it’s not race, it’s not poverty, it’s not zip code, it’s the teachers you’re getting that’s going to determine the quality of your education and we’ve got to get right on that in America.

REPORTER: Klein was furious last year when the state legislature passed a law preventing student test scores from being used to determine teacher tenure. And that law has come under renewed scrutiny now that the Obama administration is tying billions of dollars in education grants to specific reforms.

Obama didn’t mention New York in his visit to Wisconsin yesterday. But he alluded to states with so-called firewall laws.

OBAMA: Now here’s what a firewall is. It basically says that you can’t factor in the performance of students when you’re evaluating teachers. That is not a good message in terms of accountability.

REPORTER: Obama went on to praise Wisconsin and California for changing their laws. He also singled New Haven, which negotiated a new contract with its union that uses student performance in part to evaluate teachers.

The chancellor of New York’s board of regents believe the state will be elligible for the extra $4 billion in grants, because the law against using data to determine tenure sunsets in June. But with the city negotiating a new contract with the teachers union, some say this is a prime opportunity to look at new ways of evaluating teachers.

WILLIAMS: What the president has done is raise the bar in terms of expectations for mayors and school boards around the country about what it takes to negotiate reform minded contracts.

REPORTER: Joe Williams is executive Director of Democrats for Education Reform. He says one weakness in New York City’s contract with the teachers union is the rating system. A teacher can only be given a satisfactory or unsatisfactory rating.

WILLIAMS: If we want to have a system that’s filled with excellent teachers it would be nice to have a designation for excellent teachers. Right now the best we can hope for is satisfactory. I have my own kids in the system, it would be nice to know they have better than satisfactory teachers that are in there.


REPORTER: But city teachers don’t trust principles to rate them and they think the mayor puts too much stock in test scores. Some think their union has already bent over backwards to cooperate.

The United Federation of Teachers is working with the Gates Foundation to study what makes an effective teacher. Volunteers will be video taped and surveyed, and test scores will also be taken into account.

Norm Scott is a retired teacher who runs an opposition faction within the United Federation of Teachers. he says the union has compromised in other ways:

SCOTT: They’ve proven it by merit pay. They’re opposed to individual merit pay but they put the foot halfway in door by allowing for schools to be judged by merit pay.

REPORTER: And the union won a 43 percent raise over Bloomberg’s tenure in exchange for a longer work week. The UFT notably stayed out of this year’s mayoral race by not endorsing Bloomberg’s Democratic opponent.

That might make it difficult for the mayor to get too demanding in the next contract - especially when a $5 billion deficit prevents the city from offering teachers any sweeteners. Which is why instead of measuring effectiveness, the mayor might focus on something else: namely, the so-called absent teacher reserve.

More than a thousand unassigned teachers are still on the city’s payroll as subs because they lost their positions and other principals won’t hire them. The chancellor has called for a time limit to hire these teachers, to weed out the bad ones, but the union says there are also many good teachers in the pool.

For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig.

Join the Campaign Against K-2 Testing From TOFT

From Jane Hirschmann, Time Out From Testing

Hi, Norm, how are you? We are moving ahead on our Campaign Against K-2 testing before the DOE brings it in after the New Year. they have an RFP out for a math test and told us that they hope to have it in place in January.

I was wondering if you could ask people through your blog to go to our website at www.timeoutfromtesting.org and sign our online petition.

In addition, since parent/teacher conferences are coming up next week in the elementary schools, could you ask folks to download our parent letter and set up tables in the school to get parents to sign these letters? We have thousands already abut need thousands more. Here is the info:

Below is a link to a letter (in English and Spanish) of opposition to K-2 standardized testing. We need people to help us organize this letter-signing: make copies of the letter, have adults sign the letter, COLLECT the letters and then get them back to us. If you can help with this effort, that would be terrific!

We have found that parent-teacher conferences are a great time to get the letters signed. Parents set up a table in the school lobby (with permission from the principal) and ask parents to sign as they come into the school.

We also have a link to a resolution for SLTs and PTAs to pass and sign, stating their opposition to K-2 standardized testing in their schools. We ask that you get your school's PTA and SLT each to pass and sign this resolution, and then to give us copies.


Parent Letter in English:
http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/k2testing_parentletter.pdf

Parent Letter in Spanish:
http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/k2testing_sltpta_letters_spanish.pdf

Thanks so much,
Jane

The Morning After Winners (Thompson) and Losers (Bloomberg, UFT and Anthony Weiner), Updated

Updated Thurs. Nov. 5, 10pm

From the NYTimes today:

Said one top Bloomberg campaign adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect internal discussions: "If a poll had come out showing that the race was within five points, Barack Obama would have swung into town, the United Federation of Teachers would break for Thompson and Mike Bloomberg would not be mayor today."


Addition to loser list: Obama- See below under Losers

The big winner, and maybe the only winner in the mayoral election, was Bill Thompson. 51% to 46%. Add the other anti-Bloomberg candidates and it's a statistical tie: 51-49%.

All along I felt he was running for the 2013 race. Everyone declared him a loser from the very beginning. The obvious issues: Bloomberg was pretty popular and his money. But Thompson also ran an inept campaign, refusing to really go after Bloomberg on his education record and other issues. When Giulianni pulled the race card while campaigning with Bloomberg standing at his side, Thompson showed no fight back. A lot of the enthusiasm for Thompson that existed was due to anti-Bloomberg feeling.

Ed Notes was predicting from the get-go that Thompson didn't want to go overboard, preferring to husband his resources for the next time. And I felt that the lack of the UFT endorsement was a sort of quid quo pro, where he pretty much figured he would get it in 2013 in his face-off with Anthony Weiner, who the UFT despises. Thompson is now the most viable candidate in 2013 and has 4 years to build a war chest.

The losers:
The big loser is Michael Bloomberg. Listen to news reports and he's almost a laughing stock. Jeff Greenberg on Imus calculated what he spent per vote (I think it was thousands) and suggested Bloomberg should have just gone around in a Brinks truck and hand out a thousand dollars to everyone who promised to vote for him and he could have saved $50 million. (Thanks to Leonie, I realize he meant applying the thousand dollars a vote to the margin of victory. He could have spnet 50,000,000 by giving a thousand doilars each to 50,000 people who promised to vote for him. My math still may stink, so check it.)

By the way, if Bloomberg had donated the 100 million he spent for class size reduction in the 100 worst schools in the city he would have done a lot more to improve education for a great number of kids than anything else he's done in his education deforms. Remember what happened in Ed Koch's third term. May the same fate befall Bloomberg.

The other big loser is the UFT, which sat on the sidelines (see comments below). Their performance should cause as much embarrassment as Bloomberg faces. The numbers come out to their worst nightmare. At the debates over the Thompson endorsement at the October Delegate Assembly, the UFT leadership made the case that Thompson was a sure loser and at most could move the needle only 3 points. Let me do the math: subtract 3 from Bloomberg and I get 48%. Add 3% to Thompson and I get -- let me see now, it comes to 49% for Thompson. Thus, every time another idiot policy comes out of Tweed or out of the mouth of Bloomberg, every single teacher in the system should think about these numbers.

When the UFT folded on term limits in rejecting an ICE proposal at the October 2008 Delegate Assembly, Paul Egan also made a lame case, as I reported on my blog: In opposing the ICE amendment to the term limits resolution, UFT District 11 (Bronx) rep Paul Egan made the astounding argument that if each individual in the room went home and called their city council rep that would have a greater impact than if the UFT as an organization took a stand and pressured the reps to deny Bloomberg another term of office."

Will the election results affect the upcoming internal UFT elections? ICE/TJC will make sure to remind the members how Unity Caucus and Mike Mulgrew put Bloomberg in office.

(See the Ed Notes report from Philip Nobile on the Oct. DA:
Endorse Thomson Resolution Trashed at DA Fearful UFT Leaders Surrender to Bloombergs’s Reich)

Another big loser was mayoral wannabee Anthony Weiner, who folded like a cheap suit when faced with a few measly attacks from the Bloomberg machine. Counting on Thompson being the sacrificial lamb and would get swamped to the extent he would not be a viable candidate for mayor in the future (call it the Ruth Messinger syndrome), Weiner figured to be a shoo-in in 2013. In fact he could have beaten Bloomberg this time and maybe even handily. Look for a mea culpa, but his jelly fish spinelessness will not easily be forgiven.

Obama is also a loser here. He shunned Thompson while campaigning 5 times for Corzine. How embarrassing is that? What kind of message does it send to Democrats? Obama favors the millionaires like Bloomberg and Corzine over working politicians who came up through the ranks like Thompson.

ICE members comment on the election

Michael Fiorillo
The election results demonstrate the moral and political bankruptcy of the Unity Caucus, and particularly Randi Weingarten.

She was in many ways the chief enabler of Bloomberg's weak victory. Had she fought the overriding of term limits, had she exposed the fraud of Bloomberg's and Klein's educational regime, had she endorsed Thompson (admittedly, far from a perfect candidate), the entire political climate in the city might be perched on the edge of movement and change, and the axe might be a little further from teacher's necks. Instead, she took the craven route of sucking up to power.

Well, movement and change is going to happen regardless. Bloomberg's popularity and political support has been shown to be a Potemkin Village. If there is any validity to the Third Term Curse, then he is likely to soon become the most hated man in NYC.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Loretta Prisco

Certainly, Thompson was not all we wanted, but at least we would have a had a shot of having a more compassionate school system, kinder to kids and teachers. The media declared Thompson a loser a long time ago which seriously effected his ability to attract money and volunteers. If only our union...


Out of Oakland
The Perimeter Primate has left a new comment on your post "Comments on UFT and Bloomberg Embarrassing Win":

Yesterday I heard on the news that Michael Bloomberg had spent about $100 million on his campaign.

With a net worth of $16 billion (the most recent Forbes figure, making him world billionaire #17), the amount of money Bloomberg spent on his campaign was the equivalent of $312.50 to someone with a net worth of $50,000. In other words, it was a chunk, but not all that much -- relatively speaking of course.

I'm so sorry that the campaign finance laws of this country are permitting the wealth of this person to rule NYC. I'll keep my fingers crossed that more and more New Yorkers give him absolute hell for the next four years!

Comments on UFT and Bloomberg Embarrassing Win

Did Thompson run a campaign that could have won?

A couple of things were obvious during the long slog to today's Bloomberg "win." To have Thompson come so close is astounding and the closeness given the spending is almost being painted like a loss by the TV press. 5 points. Here are two emails that rolled in on ICE mail:

So from a position of weakness; not endorsing Thompson, we end up with a Bloomberg win by less than fifty thousand votes. Nice move UFT, excellent strategy to stay on the sidelines.
.......

Remember when [UFT Legislative Rep] Egan said that [at the Oct. DA] UFT endorsement would mean only a 3 pt.bump for Thompson?

I always questioned whether Thompson was running for mayor this year or in 2013. The catalogue of incompetencies in the campaign seemed astounding. He seemed to amble through, husbanding his resources and the UFT non-endorsement of one of their long-time buddies almost seemed like a plan. "You're still our candidate for mayor. Just not this year."

The NY Times had an interesting article on the campaign, with this dig at Thompson:

Three weeks before the election, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made an appearance with Mr. Bloomberg before a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.

Whatever message they had hoped to convey was drowned out by Mr. Giuliani’s speech, in which he suggested the city could not afford to return to the bad days before 1993, when the city’s first black mayor reigned, adding, “And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who had prided himself on lowering the city’s racial temperature, was furious. The mayor’s advisers recognized the statement could become a nightmare if Mr. Thompson’s campaign exploited it deftly.

Mr. Thompson’s advisers pleaded with him to seize the opening.

“I talked to the Thompson campaign and said, ‘This is the decisive moment, it may be the best opportunity to change the race,’ ” a Democratic leader said. But Mr. Thompson refused to make a big fuss about the statement. He addressed it only in passing, relying on surrogates to take on the mayor. The Bloomberg campaign braced itself. But the storm never came.

Many always thought that Anthony Weiner could have won and today it is clear he could have. But no guts, no glory as he backed off at the first sound of unfriendly fire out of the Bloomberg camp.

In many ways, what the campaign was selling was a charade. Inside the campaign, pollsters and consultants fretted over surveys that showed New Yorkers angry over term limits, anguished over the economy and eager for change. Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election numbers were alarmingly low for a two-term incumbent. <>

Mr. Tusk started to hold daily meetings about how to knock Mr. Weiner out of the race, unleashing a two-pronged attack: making on-the-record statements belittling his record and encouraging embarrassing articles in the New York dailies. Negative articles began appearing, the most colorful of which purported to show that Mr. Weiner had skipped votes in Congress to play hockey in Manhattan.

Despite angry denunciations of what he called a smear campaign, the congressman slowly lost his will to take on the mayor.

On May 26 Mr. Weiner announced he would not run, and Mr. Tusk and Mr. Wolfson held a celebratory dinner at Peter Luger’s, splitting an $85 porterhouse steak.

When Weiner shows up at our doors in 3 years to announce he is running for mayor, give him the boot for his "no guts, not glory" philosophy.

So, You Get a Phone Call, Revised

Revised Nov. 11, 2009

Last week I received a phone call from J, a former student who was in my 6th grade class in 1973-74. He had just been released from a NY State prison after serving 27 years for murder and was in a shelter (not a good thing) until he finds a place to live. We stayed in touch all these years. I visited him twice in various prisons (he seemed to be in just about every state prison possible). He has been denied parole at least 6 times and he was somewhat shocked when it was granted so suddenly on the 7th try. He was released with just about nothing and with little time to notify people (though it turns out that the weird phone numbers popping up on out caller id were from the prison).

His family was even more shocked. Why was he is in a shelter? At first I thought the family forgot he existed. But it turns out that is a requirement of his release for a few weeks.

I knew lots of people in his family. I taught his brother and his nephew and knew his older sister, who was a political activist associated with a socialist party. In the 1975 teachers strike, she came with a bullhorn to rally community support for us.

A political note: These type of family associations are only possible when a teacher spends many years in one school, something that seems to be out of style with the ed deformers.

J had taken up a hobby in prison of building a miniature farm out of popsicle sticks. He sent me the entire farm, which I still have in my basement. Beautiful work.

He was one of the more difficult kids to deal with and had disrupted many classrooms in the past years (that was before special ed). That class was very difficult, with more than a few kids ending up dead or in prison. I took his behavior issue off the table by buying lizards and some math manipulatives and freeing him from his seat or having to do any formal work in class, though he was free to join us when he wished. He had already been held back twice I think – the maximum possible - see BloomKlein, we didn't have automatic social promotion - but it was enough. You couldn't do it a third time and have a 13-year-old sitting in 6th grade forever.

He dropped out at 14. He studied acting and used to come to my classes in later years and do acting exercises. At times he went on trips with us. Then came drugs. And murder. One time he called me on Thanksgiving from jail and said there were 9 guys from the projects in the same cellblock. He put some of them who knew me on the phone. (One of them is featured in the Yankee parade story below.)

His scores on the test the year I had him were probably not great, as expected (though I maintain that if I tried to force him into a traditional setting he might have done even worse). Obviously, my fault. No merit bonus for me. And maybe even a firing for being such a bad teacher as to not get good results, other than to get a child who had disrupted every class to function effectively in a social setting. How do you measure that?

I can't tell you what he learned in class that year academically (though free to roam, his curiosity took him into many areas of interest). Maybe to trust a teacher enough to stay in touch for 35 years. Obviously, the long-term results were not good. But I can only look at that year and I rate that pretty high. What would I have done if I had been offered more money for getting his score up? Or if threatened with being fired for not?

We've been in touch over the past week. I'm dropping off his "farm" at his sister's place. He has a daughter and once he gets out of the shelter, he has a place to stay. I try to imagine the impact on someone who goes to prison in 1982 at the age of 21 and gets out at 48. How does he see the world today? Cell phones, computers, a world really changed in almost 30 years. "What is the biggest change you see," I asked? "The number of women with big butts," he answered.

Hey friends-- get the rubber rooms ready: "They Call Me Mr. Fry", Teacher Show, Opens Friday

I met Jack Freiberger when he did his show at the Fringe Festival in NYC in 2008. Jack taught in LA and developed his show from his experiences. A bunch of us are going opening night this Friday, Nov. 6, 8PM. The Comic Strip Live at 1568 2nd Ave (bwtn 81st & 82nd)

Join us. You can get tickets at the door (teachers, $20) or email me and I'll reserve a bunch.

Jack will be joining us at Woody McHales tonight at the ICE fundraiser (starting at 4pm and on into the evening) to talk about the show.

Hey friends-- get the rubber rooms ready.

Mr. Fry is back with his hit show They Call Me Mister Fry, the story about a 1st-year teacher teaching 5th grade in South Central Los Angeles - the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a teacher.

"Jack Freiberger is the Patch Adams of Education... highest quality of off-broadway theater”

LA Examiner

“This production has enough heart, audacity, and originality

to stand out from the crowd mainly because of the artistry of Jack Fry.”

dctheatrescene.com

“What Freiberger dramatizes most masterfully and intimately is...

the triumphant tragedy of the self recognition.”

The Washington City Paper

(see Reviews)

Recently selected by top DC theater websites as one of the "Best of the Fest" (dctheaterscene.com) and "Best Male Monologue" (allartsreview4u.com) at the 2009 Washington Capital Fringe Festival, They Call Me Mister Fry has been playing in Los Angeles before sold out crowds and standing ovations for two years.

It is to be performed for a "Command Performance" this fall in Washington, DC at the Department of Education before 2 at-capacity shows, and it will have an 8-week off-broadway run at the Comic Strip Live Theater (read more) (see video promoting the event)

You can now see it in NEW YORK!!!! Opens Friday November 6th 8 pm!!!

Comic Strip Live Theater

1568 2nd Ave (bwtn 81st & 82nd)

New York, New York 10028

Map it!

FRIDAYS, SATURDAYS, SUNDAYS 2pm & 5pm

WEDNESDAYS, THURSDAYS 6PM

Friday Nov 6th-Dec 31st

Tickets: $25

Teachers: $20

Children under 16: $12

212-861-9386

BUY TICKETS

THEY CALL ME MISTER FRY

in New York City Nov 6th - Dec 31st

THE FUNNY, POIGNANT, YET TRUE STORY OF A 1ST - YEAR

TEACHER TEACHING 5TH GRADE IN SOUTH CENTRAL

Important websites

misterfry.com

Comic Strip Live Theater

Reviews

Video

Off-broadway

BUY TICKETS

Goldstein and Eterno: ICE Chapter Leaders in the NY Post

The new ICE election 2010 blog has this item:

ICEr CLs in Queens schools quoted in the NY Post

One of the things to be proud of: the amazing work people associated with the Independent Community of Educators do. Queens chapter leaders, the vet James Eterno (Jamaica HS) and the newly elected CL Arthur Goldstein (Francis Lewis) are featured in this excellent piece in the NY Post by Angela Montefenise. Goldstein makes the point that the solution to the overcrowding at Francis Lewis HS is to improve the other large high schools in the area.

“I absolutely believe that they can make the other schools in the area better,” said Goldstein. “It’s their job to make the other schools better. Better options would spread students out, and everyone would be better off.”

A perfect example is Jamaica High School, a large school located less than three miles south of Francis Lewis. It received a C on its progress report, has attendance rates in the low 70 percentile and a grad rate of only 47%, stats show.

Francis Lewis received almost 13,000 applications — the most in the city — from students eager to go there. Jamaica received 1,580 applications, eight times fewer.

Meanwhile, with 1,416 kids, Jamaica is 700 students under capacity.

“I understand the DOE wants to give parents and students what they want,” said Goldstein. “But they should be focused on getting kids interested in Jamaica so they want to go there. That should be the goal.”

Eterno, the ICE/TJC candidate for UFT President against Unity Caucus' Michael Mulgrew, is known as one of the top chapter leaders in the city. He talks about Jamaica HS:

Jamaica social studies teacher and UFT rep James Eterno said his school “has the dedicated staff and programs” to be successful, but needs a helping hand to become more attractive to students.

“We have the space right now to lower class sizes,” he said. “If we could offer really low class sizes, personal attention, parents would send their kids here. That’s something Francis Lewis can’t offer.”

The DOE response:

DOE spokesman Will Havemann said class size is not just tied to space, but also to the number of teachers at the school. “Principals are free to hire new teachers to reduce their class sizes, but given the city’s financial circumstances, significantly reducing class sized may be prohibitively expensive,” he said.

Eterno has repeatedly reported on the ICE blog how the DOE has put Jamaica in a situation that steered kids away. We know their policy is not to build up a school like Jamaica to make it more attractive but to openly and surrepticiously undermine it so the fabulous building will become available for Gates, New Visions, or any charter school looking for free space.

James Eterno is running for UFT President and Arthur Goldstein will be running for a UFT Executive Board position on the ICE/TJC slate in the upcoming UFT elections.


Support the election effort by joining the ICE fundraiser Monday night. Make it a virtual party if you can't make it by sending a check made out to Independent Community of Educators (not ICE) and sending it to:
Box 1143
Jamaica, NY 11421

Rank and File Opposition (CORE) Sweeps Chicago Teacher Pension Elections

"In what can only be described as a stunning upset, two Chicago public schools teachers, Lois Ashford (O'Keefe Elementary School) and Jay Rehak (Whitney Young High School) decisively defeated two incumbents to win seats on the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) in an election held in all Chicago public schools and most of the city's charter schools on October 30, 2009." George Schmidt for Substance

George Schmidt called with the news yesterday and Substance is running a major article on its web site. There are lots of lessons for us in trying to build a movement within the union here in NYC.

Deteriorating conditions for public ed in Chicago, after 15 years of mayoral control are way ahead of NYC so a CORE type group emerging may have been inevitable. We should see the same type of development here within the next few years as the privatization movement accelerates. But the CTU has a much weaker leadership in terms of control than the uft. Core has a chance to actually win in the union election in May.

George's full article is at http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=966&section=Article

Here's another report from a CORE member:

Rank and File Opposition Sweeps Chicago Teacher Pension Elections

by Jesse Sharkey, Caucus Of Rank and File Educators (CORE)

Rank and File activists swept the election for the Chicago Teacher Pension Fund trustees (two were up for election) Friday night.

Jay Rehak, a teacher at Chicago's Whitney Young High School, and Lois Ashford, a teacher at O'Keefe Elementary were elected pension trustees to oversee the Pension Fund's $8 billion assets.

The election was significant because pension trustees will have to play an increasingly active role in defending the. The fund has been specifically targeted by, the new CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and many teachers fear their retirement is under threat. Huberman slashed the Chicago Transit Authority pension when he ran that agency in 2007, raising retirement age by ten years.

The election is also significant as an indicator of the popularity of the four main groups vying for control of the union.

Vote totals below indicate that CORE's candidates (Rehak and Ashford) beat out the current leadership's United Progressive Caucus candidates, Williams and Otero, while Finnegan--running with former president Debbie Lynch's Pro Active Chicago Teachers caucus, and Demeros (unaffiliated) brought up the rear.

The unexpected result signals that CORE may be the favorite to win the race for leadership of the CTU, coming up in May.

TEACHER TRUSTEE
Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund 2009 Teacher Election
Final Vote Summary - October 30, 2009

* Jay Rehak 6,551 23.72%
* Lois Ashford 4,842 17.53%
Nancy Williams 4,799 17.38%
Reina Otero 4,115 14.90%
Rose Mary Finnegan 3,037 11.00%
Aspasia Demeros 2,137 7.74%
Unexercised Vote 1,711 6.19%
Multiple Mark 428 1.55%
27,620

RELATED: HELP BUILD AN ALTERNATIVE TO UNITY CAUCUS IN NYC

October 31, 2009 - Lehman Story Gets Legs, DOE Investigations of Teacher Whistle Blowers Gets Trashed by Sullivan as DOE Throws Child Under Bus

If you've been following the Lehman HS scandal exposed at Gotham Schools here and here and our follow-ups at Ed Notes, Lehman HS, School for Scandal, What Did Klein Know About Lehman and When Did He Know It? the story is gaining legs. CBS picked it up, closing with this:

Investigators are also looking into whether teachers who blew the whistle on the scandal improperly shared student records.

The back story is that teachers notified Joel Klein last March and he supposedly ordered an investigation - a very s----l----o----w investigation. When the school year began and they hadn't heard from investigators (I say investigate the investigators), teachers felt they were facing the same crap this year and went to the press with the phonied up student records. Now the DOE is investigating them for releasing student records (though phony, were they really student records?) I bet the teacher investigation takes priority over the cheating scandal.

Manhattan member of the Panel for Education Policy Patrick Sullivan pointed to the hypocrisy by comparing it to the case of the release of the test results of a 4th grader:

The Bloomberg administration has a double standard on student privacy.

On Wednesday, the Daily News covered the story of a 4th grader who was told she couldn't be in her school's dance program because she instead needed to attend test prep sessions.

DOE spokesman Will Havemann, in a feeble defense of the decision, proceeded to broadcast to the News readership that the girl scored "a low level 3" on her ELA.

By their twisted internal logic, releasing student data to smear a nine year old in defense of the Bloomberg administration is acceptable, yet furnishing transcripts with redacted personal information requires an investigation. This from the people who tell is their mission is to "put the needs of the children before the needs of the adults".

If anyone is interested, I plan to raise these issues with Chancellor Klein on the record at the Nov 12th PEP meeting.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/10/28/2009-10-28_student_forced_to_study_not_dance.html

Leonie Haimson followed with:

Why is this acceptable behavior David [Cantor]?

To reveal confidential test score information on a little girl, while investigating teachers who exposed major corruption? Not to mention the absurdity of barring a girl from taking dance classes because she tested at a “low level 3” – which by the way, means she is on grade level.

Over and over again, the administration has claimed that the emphasis on testing has not led to a decrease in arts education, yet we know this has happened. This case is a perfect example of the insanity that has taken over our schools.

In the response put out by the Bloomberg campaign to the candidate survey put out by the Center for Arts Education, asking about his elimination of the dedicated funding called Project Arts, they wrote: “rather than tying the hands of school leaders by dictating their budgets for them, we need to give principals control over their resources and hold them accountable for learning outcomes.

”http://www.scribd.com/doc/21817208/Bloomberg-CAE-Mayoral-Candidate-Questionnaire-FINAL.

In other words, as long as those test scores go up, arts education be damned.

Learnin’ New Tricks

School Scope column for The Wave (www.rockawave. com)
October 30, 2009

By Norman Scott

I’ve always tried to take the “old dog, new tricks” cliché to new heights. One of the fascinating things about teaching was how much I learned from the students, probably more than they learned from me. I certainly learned a lot about the human condition. Most of the things I learned from kids occurred during the 17 years I taught self-contained classes in grades four through six. Spending almost entire school days with a bunch of kids for an entire year certainly gives you lots of insights. Twice I moved up with my classes. Spend two years with the same kids and you’ve moved into their heads. And they’ve moved into yours. But you have to pay attention and do a lot of observing.

In today’s world of test prep all the time teachers don’t seem to have the luxury of just watching their kids. Watching them do what? Fill in test bubbles? I used to enjoy watching them just be themselves and observe how they related to each other. We had enough space in the day for me to give them some breaks to relax and talk to each other. A very important aspect of education that is too often ignored is how much they learn from each other. And the numerous class trips, for many the only times they left the neighborhood (Williamsburg), were like little psychological laboratories. How much fun was it to see kids who were sniping at each other in class walking arm in arm and sharing a sandwich?


Acting 1.1
In the seven years I’ve been retired this old dog has discovered new tricks in unusual places. I recently began my third round of acting classes at the Rockaway Theatre Company with the amazing Frank Caiati. The members of the class range in age from late teen to ancient (me). Now Frank is about 23 years old and I probably could have taught his parents, but I’m learning a hell of a lot from him, not just about acting, but the human condition.

Frank is not only a great actor but also an insightful director. Teaching acting is not about showing how it’s done but helping the actor discover the character. What would a person given these characteristics do in a given situation? Having such understandings are important skills in the real world. (My ability to predict the behavior of the kids in my class once I got to know their characters made a big difference in the way I dealt with issues that arose.)

So when you get up to do your lines he wants you to know as much as possible about the relationships the character has, the background, what took place before your lines get read and what happens after you finish your lines. He gives us short two person scripts of about ten lines totally out of context with no plot or background. We have to make up the context and fill in the details. The script for each twosome is the same, but the lines come out meaning different things to each pair of actors.
Wow! What insights. And then Frank starts pushing. If you say you broke something right before the scene started he wants to know exactly what you broke. He wants to know what took place years before between the characters. “What does your character want and how will he/she get it?” That is his constant refrain. And he often sets up a situation where the two characters want very different things. That's when things really got going.

No one ever considers me shy. But getting up on a stage in front of an audience to perform is a frightening thing. As the videographer for the RTC, I watch every play they do through the lens and marvel at the talent and abilities of the people involved. So the idea of me ever having the nerve to go on stage seemed totally out of the question. Until I started working with Frank I used to think that acting involved getting it right the first time. But Frank teaches there is no right or wrong. Try stuff and don’t be afraid to fail. Work with the director and your fellow acting students to uncover the character and the relationship to other characters. I gained enough confidence in last year's class with Frank after doing a short scene with Joe Lopez, a young up and coming RTC actor, that when I was recently offered an opportunity to play one of the card players in an upcoming production of “The Odd Couple” being produced by the Bayswater Players in Far Rockaway, I was ready to take my shot, whereas BF (Before Frank) I would have run away screaming. My time constraints made me take a pass. If you’re thinking, “what time constraints, you’re retired,” don’t ask. But maybe next time.



I learned a few more tricks recently. Like when someone calls you with an offer with two free tickets to last Sunday’s Yankee with a few hours notice, drop all plans and say, “YES!” Which is what I did when a Met fan and Yankee hater chose to watch the Jets game. So I called up a former pre-k teacher from my school, a rabid Yankee fan. She didn’t hesitate. She is almost 80 years old now, but all the young female teachers in my school used to idolize her as the kind of independent woman they wanted to be, a woman who never stopped learning new tricks.

Unfortunately, I had to miss an event I was looking forward to. I help out on a Manhattan Neighborhood Network TV show called “Active Aging” which is run by a group of mostly former professionals in the industry, a fascinating group of people, mostly in their 70’s and 80’s who have taught me many new tricks. Sunday evening there was a birthday celebration for a 91-year-old tango dancer named Alex Turly at Sessions ’73, a restaurant and club that holds Tango dances every Sunday night. My partner, Mark Rosenhaft, and I were supposed to go up and tape it. My wife and Mark’s wife were kind enough to take my place and do the sound and lighting. The footage of Alex dancing with one woman after another, all dressed in Halloween costumes and learning new Tango tricks from an old dog, is priceless.


We took our twenty something cousins to Peter Lugers on Monday to celebrate one of their birthdays. The boys had just returned from a weekend in Michigan where they went to see the Penn State/Michigan game. They returned Sunday and the birthday boy had tickets to both the football Giants game and the Yankee game. What choices. (He chose the Yankees and we met up before the game.)

At dinner Monday night, the older brother was saying how proud he was when his younger brother “manned up” over the weekend. Now this is an expression I’ve been hearing more and more often and seems to be a code for what is considered proper manly behavior in these times. But I’m not always sure of the exact details of what it entails to “man up.” This old dog still has a lot of new tricks to learn and gaining a better understanding of “manning up” is one of them. I just hope my wife won’t be too mad when I do.