Welcome to the new school year … Remix

 Having just finished the first two of Stieg Larsson "The Girl..." trilogy and about to start "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" the piece below made me think that we could start our own series. It seems UFT President Michael Mulgrew's "Welcome Back to School" letter has kicked some kind of hornet's nest with a number of teachers.

We're keeping the teacher, who has had little concern about challenging BloomKlein publicly, anonymous to hold the Unity hounds away from the door.

Welcome to the new school year … Remix

For those of you who did not see it, or read it, UFT President Michael Mulgrew sent out a “Welcome Back” letter to members this week.  In it, he shamelessly spins the spineless acts of our union over the last year. 

With the kind of manipulative, pull-at-your-heart-strings propaganda we have come to expect from the ed deform whores; Michael Mulgrew proves once again our union is far more interested in protecting their seat at the table, than protecting our children and our profession.  It is time for a different kind of leadership, one that is not content to lick up the crumbs in order to preserve their power, but rather one that sets the table and serves the meal.

Here in bold is what Michael Mulgrew left out of his letter…

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of my fellow officers and the entire UFT staff (yes it is true we vacation, drive cars with parking spaces, and expense meals on your dues dime), I want to wish you the very best of luck this school year (you sure are going to need it since there are 2,000 fewer of you, but 18,000 more kids and millions in lost budget dollars). Your dedication and passion for making children’s lives better and improving the profession are the foundation of all that we do (bow down and let me pat you on the head). We know that budget cuts, larger class sizes, excessing and the lack of support from the DOE are major concerns in many schools as are the struggling economy and the endless attacks from the “blame the teacher” crowd.  But we also know that the commitment of our membership has made us strong, and working together we will navigate through the many challenges ahead (fear not, we will work to get you that overdue 2% raise that doesn’t even cover your cost of living expenses and we will do so by ceding even more of our voice in education policy while we give away even more of your protections, time and resources. As for ATRs, don't make any long-term plans). 

There is much to be excited about and thankful for (hey, at least you have a job) as we begin this school year, including several recent well-earned victories (even though we cowered after we won them) and smart, forward-thinking agreements (even though these agreements will do little to better the lives of children or our profession). Among them: We secured millions in additional federal funding (money that will never actually reach your schools and classrooms), which will help offset some future budget cuts (because the DOE continues to spend untold wasted millions on their obsession with accountability and testing rather than an investment in real reform). We blocked efforts to go after career teachers through misguided legislation (but agreed to an evaluation system that will tie your worth as a teacher to misleading, misguided and punitive high stakes testing). Teacher’s Choice funds, which were slated for elimination, were saved thanks to the hard work of our political team and volunteers (even though that $110 will not even cover your costs for paper and pencils). We reached a landmark agreement with the city to shut down the so-called "rubber rooms" (so teachers that have been persecuted by often times incompetent and vindictive administrative leadership, will be forced to work in the PR world of the DOE) and put a faster, fairer hearing process in place (faster maybe, but the DOE doesn’t know how to be fair). A new and more objective evaluation system will be on the way once we negotiate it, and we made sure it will include a true teacher improvement plan and limit the emphasis on standardized tests (even though at least 20% of this system will be tied to those very tests).  Crucial charter school reforms were passed that improve access for all students, including ELLs and those with special needs, and drive out for-profits who are pocketing millions in taxpayer funds (btw, teachers in co-located schools, go talk to those TFAers who now teach in your old classrooms and will take more and more of our public school resources, and unionize them please; I know they’ll be gone in two years, but the union dues will keep rolling in). And thanks to our legal action, the DOE was forced to comply with the state’s governance law (shhh, I know we sold out after we won this case and allowed the DOE to not only shrink to virtually nothing the freshman classes of the 19 schools targeted for closure and further allowed them to open new small schools and charter schools in their buildings, even allowing the sitting of one school in our own UFT building, but why hold the DOE accountable to the law, which we proved they violated, accountability is only for the little people like you).

We would not have achieved any of this without the efforts of so many thousands of UFT members who worked with parents in their own communities to raise public awareness on issues and lobby their elected officials (with little to no help and resources from your union organization, keep it up, so we can keep licking the crumbs off the table). From phone banks and leafleting to rallies and demonstrations, UFT members were out in force all across the five boroughs, fighting for their schools and their profession. We also owe a great deal of thanks to the many parents, organizations and elected officials who were willing to stand up and stand with us as partners on our many campaigns (even though we have far too often in our history fed into the divide and conquer mentality of the ed deformers and haven’t done nearly enough to work with parents and community).

No one needs reminding that we will again face many challenges this year. We cannot and will not capitulate to the political agendas of those who don't support educators, school staff or public education (even though we already have, but we’ll get tough, no really, I promise). We must continue to stand up for our students, parents and school communities, and set the agenda ourselves (our vision is coming soon, really, I promise). This is our time to take back our profession (see, I’m tough).  We must also continue to take on the Department of Education, which all too often refuses to take responsibility for its mismanagement of the system (I know many of you think there is an intentional undermining of our public education system at work here, but that is just conspiracy stuff, these guys don’t want to dismantle public education, they just want to replace half of your schools with charters and have you work more for a lot less). And the union will once again do all in its power to ensure that members are treated as the professionals that they are, and that they get the support and guidance they need and deserve (i.e. little to no professional development, micro-management, fewer resources with even greater expectations, narrowed curriculum, excessive focus on testing and no true salary increase).

Perseverance, commitment and unity (you like my double entendre here!? Don’t go thinking what happened with Chicago and CORE will happen here, Unity all the way baby) will help us stand apart from others. We are here for you (if it suits us), only a phone call or an e-mail away, and the newly redesigned UFT website is packed with important information as well (please go and read more of my propaganda blather).

Again, thank you for all that you do (keep doing more with less).

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

On Superman, Race To Nowhere, and Other Stuff

Dear Stuffers - or Stuffed if you happen to be an ATR - and Stiffed too,

As usual, Friday was a busy day at Ed Notes Central. With wife, who retired from her 3 day a week job last February, now joining the weekly Friday MahJong festivities, I am free to roam all over the city.

We had a production meeting at 3pm at a Greek restaurant on W. 4th and 6th Ave scheduled to discuss our new film in response to the Waiting for Superman hedge hog extravaganza coming up in 2 weeks, followed by attending the opening of Race To Nowhere, a sort of antidote to the Superman film, though not quite. (See review in the Times.)

First up was a pickup of the new Indypendent "Back to School Issue" (Download the pdf - upper right hand corner: http://www.indypendent.org/) . at their offices on Broadway and Bleecker.

I wasn't driving in on a Friday afternoon so I bought a backpack. Oy! GEM ordered 1500 copies for distribution. That's 15 bundles of 100 each. These suckers are 20 pages each packed full of goodies. The intention was to put them in a shopping cart the Indy people would loan us to wheel across town to 6th Ave. and then wheel back to return. But it only held 6 bundles. My colleague had a brilliant solution: Take a cab. I almost gagged. But it made sense. We were helped down by Liz from Indy who hailed us a cab - young and pretty works well in this town.

So we showed up at Karavas with 700 copies. Another GEM committee meeting was just breaking up and we loaded as many onto the backs of the people who were leaving and divided the rest  amongst those who were staying for the film production meeting. I still have to go back and get 800 more on Monday. If you want some for your schools contact me at normsco@gmail.com. The Indy people will be at the Sept. 22 chapter leader meeting to hand some out.

Well, anyway, the production meeting was full of fun and frolic over some beer and Greek platter food. I will be talking more about the film in upcoming updates and you might even be able to get involved in some of our activities to promote the film (email me offline if interested in a heads up.)

And then it was onto the IFC for Race to Nowhere (lots of good stuff at the web site and check out the trailer), shown in one of the smaller venues but with stadium seating - not a great idea for an older guy like me who just had some beer and Greek food. But the movie kept me awake. The story is about the pressure kids are feeling over their total lives being scheduled and tested. Lots of anti-testing stuff there and anti homework too. Interesting ideas for discussion and totally counter to the ed deform agenda. But for a Debbie Meier admiring teacher who wanted to teach in a progressive open classroom environment but never could, I eat up this stuff. I ruefully remember the day I gave up the idea after being convinced kids had to be driven to succeed. Well, it was my school culture and certainly infests the charter school movement with their "scholars."

As Steve Koss says, check out the Obama daughters school website - Sidwell Friends - or the Chicago U Lab school where they used to go - and see what the Obamas want for their kids but not for all the others that are being pushed by the ed deform agenda.

After the film we got to chat with some of the people involved. A group of Columbia U students were there and we made contact. I gave out Ed Notes cards and one of them said she read the blog. How cool! She said she really liked the satire. I didn't have the heart to tell her that what she thinks is satire is really just ed deformers being ed deformers and BloomKlein being BloomKlein.

Will Smickle be smiling after Tuesday primary?

Let's hope not. Harlem State Senator Bill Perkins is being punished by the Hedge Hogs for calling for more oversight of charters. Note below that Gotham Schools financial backer Ken Hirsch chipped in. And Governor Patterson endorsed Smickle. The charter school lobby has become one of the major threats to public education in this nation and the Perkins/Smickle primary is the epicenter.

I usually don't get involved with politicians but since last summer when I went up with GEM to defend PS 123 and other Harlem schools from the Evil Moskowitz invasions, I began to run into Perkins' people. Then Perkins' assistants (all of whom were incredibly impressive) started meeting with some of the GEM and CPE people in weekly meetings and he stopped by to chat quite often.

I filmed most of his charter school hearings in March and was actually the last speaker at 9pm. If there is one politician you contribute to, Bill Perkins should be the one. I may even go up there on Tuesday to see if I can help out.

Upper West Side (Manhattan for non-New Yorkers) parent activist Noah Gotbaum will be hosting an event for Perkins at his apartment tomorrow (Sunday). See below.

One of our sources sent this in:

Perkins also publicly said Paterson should resign after it was revealed that he called the girlfriend of his aide to talk her out of filing domestic violence charges. 

Paterson, Wright and many in the Harlem establishment were angry at Perkins for saying Paterson should not have interfered or worse yet cover up a possible domestic violence crime.

Smikle is desperate. After he loses on Tuesday, he should put in an application to start a charter. Zero investment, guaranteed revenue source and he'll make more money.  Be interesting to see if all his funders will be as supportive when he tries to sit at their table and have a slice of their charter pie.

Charter lobby last hour contributions to Smikle.  Petry's wife and Gotham Schools funder, Ken Hirsh. I guess they'll be contributing even more money in the next few days so that Smikle can pay off Wright, democratic clubs and other politicians after he loses on Tuesday.

Keith Wright is a Harlem Dem leader who is supporting Smickle.

A81115	FRIENDS OF BASIL SMIKLE FOR NEW YORK STATE SENATE	09-SEP-10	KAREN PETRY 260 W. 72ND ST. NEW YORK, NY 10023	$3,000.00
A81115	FRIENDS OF BASIL SMIKLE FOR NEW YORK STATE SENATE	09-SEP-10	KENNETH HIRSH 114 W. 13TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10011	$2,500.00

Articles published Friday re Perkins/Smikle race and others funded by the charter lobby.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11charter.html

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Albany/20100911/204/3361

 

TO ALL OF THE INCREDIBLE LISTSERVE EDUCATION WARRIORS: PLEASE JOIN US THIS SUNDAY AND/OR CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION ON THE LINK BELOW IF YOU CAN’T BE THERE. THANKS!  NOAH

Dear Friend,

This coming Sunday, September 12 I will be hosting a fundraising brunch at my home for our State Senator, Bill Perkins.  Bill Perkins has been a great State Senator; one who never backs down in his fight for basic justice, equality and helping those who need it most.  Bill has been especially effective in the area of education, fighting against school overcrowding, consistently promoting increased parental rights, and constantly reminding the City and State education authorities that ALL of our kids deserve a great education – including English Language Learners, transitional and homeless kids, kids with Special Needs, the 97% of our kids who don’t attend charter schools.  In the face of fierce opposition from the Charter School lobby – who are the primary funders of Bill’s opponent - Bill effectively led the fight for increased transparency and oversight for all of our schools, and for a level playing field and fair resource allocation for our public schools.

Bill also led the fight in the State Senate for the law to reform our public authorities like the MTA, and to take their operations out of the shadows, making sure their finances are scrutinized and that they are serving the people. He sponsored the new clean air law to reduce the sulfur content of home heating oil that will make it easier for New Yorkers with respiratory conditions to breathe, and it will help reduce acid rain. And Bill Perkins has been a voice for change in Albany – immediately calling for the ouster of Hiram Monserrate and working to bring new leadership following last summer’s Senate gridlock. You can find out more at his web site www.BillPerkins.org.

Bill Perkins has put together a broad based grassroots campaign that has earned the support of leaders like Jerry Nadler, Scott Stringer, Danny O’Donnell, Linda Rosenthal, Bill Thompson, Bob Jackson, Inez Dickens and important groups representing environmentalists, tenants, parents, the disabled, health care workers, teachers and leading voices for reform.

I hope you will join me Sunday for an informal bagel brunch -- two days before this Tuesday’s primary -- and help to make sure Bill has what he needs to get his message out in these crucial final days.  Here are the details:

Sunday, September 12, 2010,  12 – 2 pm

At the home of Noah E Gotbaum, 27 West 86^th Street, #7A (Between Central Park West and Columbus)

To RSVP and donate: http://www.billperkins.org/events/Gotbaum

 

Thanks so much!  Hope to see you on Sunday.  And if you can’t make it I hope you will consider making a donation.

All best,

Noah

Parent Richard Barr says:

For lots of years I organized the lobbying trips to the City and State electeds who represented School District 3 for our Presidents' Council.  Bill, as a Councilmember and then a Senator, always listened carefully, (as some others also did) but beyond that, engaged us in dialogue and offered opinions about how we might be effective in advocating for our issues, and attended District meetings in school auditoriums, sometimes arguing with the District Sup't. when he thought a school he represented was being treated unfairly.  (Back in the good old days when District offices had some decision-making authority).  His level of engagement seemed genuine and often went beyond that of many of his peers.

Afterburn
Riddle of the day:
Why does Smickle wake up in the middle of the night screaming EEP, EEP, EEP?

The story of Maxwell HS should be a canary in the mines of what’s to come for the rest of the city – Seung Ok on Fighting Closure: A Report from William H. Maxwell HS (CTE):

Seung is one of the founding members of the Grassroots Education Movement (GEMNYC). He put a lot of effort into trying to organize the school last year, reaching out to parents and students. Seung, a 12 year teacher, was excessed from Maxwell last week.

Fighting Closure: A Report from William H. Maxwell HS  (CTE)

      The legacy of Mayor Bloomberg and his reforms on education may very well be a footnote vilifying the extent of damage impacted on a generation of students in New York City.  The story of Maxwell HS should be a canary in the mines of what’s to come for the rest of the city. Situated in East New York, Brooklyn - arguably one of the most difficult neighborhoods to learn and teach in – the school proudly ran vocational programs that actually placed students in viable careers.

      The students in the optics program ran a free eyeglass clinic for all the students and staff in the building.  Anyone who needed to replace their glasses came with their prescription or old frame. The students measured the lenses, cut new lenses, fitted them into new frames – and instead of paying 200 dollars, one received a new pair of glasses free of charge.  Not only were students learning a valuable professional skill, but they were helping those in a community who may desperately need a new pair of glasses.

      The students in the cosmetology program were not the most academically minded.  If you remember the musical Grease, beauty school may not attract the next generation of Nobel peace prize winners.  But that program was doing something that very few schools can claim – keeping struggling kids interested and motivated to come to school.  The attendance of cosmetology students were among the highest at Maxwell.  These same students that might otherwise shun a high school degree, could be seen hard at work in the barbering and nail technology labs.  They would attend academic classes with their mannequin heads in hand and struggle through tough courses so they could continue what they loved to do.

     Our health care students boasted of having the New York State president of the Health Occupations Students of America – a national student organization. Through internships in hospitals and instruction under a practicing physical therapist – our students have enrolled in medical and nursing programs throughout New York.

    Just as in the case of Jamaica High School, all these programs are being abandoned by Mayor Bloomberg.  Since our freshmen enrollment is down to 60 students – 30 teachers had to be excessed.  At one point there were 300 students slated for our school, until the city violated the spirit of the judge’s ruling and sent out reselection letters to these students “in case” the city won the appeal.  Our excessed cosmetology teacher is being replaced with a wood shop teacher from another school.  There are not enough vision students to keep up the program.  What was once a legitimate career alternative and stepping stone to college is now on the brink of vanishing.

    Ironically, the mantra always touted by the mayor’s DOE is, “putting children first”.  By not hearing the pleas of the students, parents and teachers in these “failing schools”, the mayor is putting his ego first.  He has said as much in his radio program – where he denigrated the desires of parents to keep these schools open.  The  mayor’s seems intent on breaking the teacher’s union, and if that means putting the 1 million plus students in harms way, disenfranchising parents and their voices, and vilifying thousands of dedicated teachers – so be it.  If the reformers win, it will be a pyrrhic victory – and history will show, there were will be very few winners to show for it.

On the Testing Fiasco, Closing Schools and Sex

I'll try anything to get traffic. What better way than mentioning "sex."

ICE founding members Loretta Prisco and James Eterno are out in force at the ICE blog.

Sex, Lies and Videotapes By Loretta Prisco 

I don't know about the sex, but there are plenty of lies, and videotapes to prove it!

Using rising test scores, Klein/Bloomberg have insisted that schools are improving and went to Washington to brag about the "miracle" of NY. The recent realistic NYS calibrations of the standardized test scores nixed that miracle. People of faith know that turning water into wine and curing leprosy requires Divine intervention. Educating children first requires an understanding of what it means to be educated. And that bears no relation to raising test scores.

• Klein/Bloomberg are still boasting about the increase in HS graduation rates.

 Oh – those noses are growing right before our eyes. You've just got to go to the videotape here. Go to ednotesonline. Watch the Chairperson of the PEP (sitting right next to Klein) refuse to allow parents to ask questions about the changed test scores and shut down the meeting. Watch the guards escort a young child, who was attempting to ask a question, right off the stage and down the stairs.

And there must be some sex in all of this – we just haven't heard about it.

 Read it all:  Sex, Lies and Videotapes

And Jamaica HS Chapter Leader James Eterno follows up with

WE ARE THE CASUALTIES OF SCHOOL REFORM

The school year opened this week with great uncertainty at the 19 schools that the city tried to close last year but were saved by six judges. The Daily News and NY 1 did stories that featured Jamaica High School as part of their coverage of the opening day of the school year. Since I am the chapter leader at Jamaica and know the situation very well, I think it would be informative to explain what is going on at our facility so that people can understand how kids in closing schools are the casualties of school reform.

Back in December 2009 the Department of Education introduced proposals to phase out 19 schools but their plan was flawed because they wrote inadequate Educational Impact Statements. After the Panel for Educational Policy voted at 3:00 a.m. on January 27, 2010 to close all of these schools, the UFT (with the complete support of ICE), NAACP and others sued and won to prevent the closings.

Judge Joan Lobis decided on March 26, 2010 that the UFT was right when she ruled that the 19 schools should remain open. On July 1, an appeals court agreed 5-0 with the original decision. What was left unclear was whether new schools could still start in our buildings even though the old schools still existed. We believed they could not and wanted the UFT to go back to court on the issue to prevent the new schools from invading our space. I spoke with the chapter leader from Beach Channel and he agreed with me on this issue. I also emailed President Michael Mulgrew to no avail.

We believed we had a strong case by just looking at the flawed Educational Impact Statements. For Jamaica, the impact statement said that by phasing out Jamaica it would create space for the two new schools. No phase out equals no space for the new schools right? Well the UFT disagreed and on July 14 they basically sold out many of the nineteen schools by agreeing to allow the new schools to start in our buildings. In exchange we were supposed to get support.

Not only have we not received any help from either UFT or DOE after their July 14 agreement, our pupils have had to suffer the indignity of returning to school and being squeezed into the middle of the building in an area that looks antiquated while two new schools and an expanding third on the east and west wings install modern equipment for their small schools. It's appalling how conditions in the same building are so vastly different between schools.

Then to hear the mayor and chancellor say on the first school day that schools such as Jamaica don't deserve support is unconscionable. The corporate mindset has gone overboard. Bloomberg and Klein want to close our school so they will compromise the education of our students to prove their point. Even I am having trouble believing that people can be that vindictive against innocent children.

If anyone is thinking that someone should have told Judge Lobis about how her decision has been violated by DOE and UFT, we did. A Jamaica teacher named Debbie Saal, and I along with a student and parent wrote up something called an Order to Show Cause asking the judge to intervene as opening up new schools appeared to us to be a violation of her decision. In our petition, we asked the judge to stop two new schools from opening in our building since the Educational Impact Statement that created these schools was flawed as their existence was predicated on Jamaica phasing out, which it no longer is. We had many strong arguments saying that Jamaica’s pupils were suffering irreparable harm because we were losing so much space and funding.

Unfortunately, Judge Lobis, when she saw our papers, said because the case was closed our papers were therefore not timely. Translation, when the UFT made their deal with the DOE to let the new schools co-locate in our facility, we had no legal recourse. Since it is up to the judge to decide whether or not to intervene in a case, it means our legal options are very limited.

That's where it stands right now. Our school is open as an entity but with very few freshmen and no help coming from anywhere. Our programs are either nonexistent or a shell of their former selves. Some Advanced Placement classes have been dropped; there are no music classes; science classes meet one fewer period per week, many electives no longer exist and all ninth graders in general education, whether they are in our Gateway Honors program, Law program or are English Language Learners, are all in the same subject classes. 25 teachers out of 84 were placed in excess and Absent Teacher Reserves who don't know our school are being sent here to cover classes while our excessed teachers are sent packing all over Queens.

We have been abandoned by Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Michael Mulgrew and Judge Lobis.

Our students and staff are casualties of school reform. Can anyone help us? 

Parent activists comment on James' piece at the NYC Ed Listserve:

The UFT makes a deal and students and teachers at Jamaica HS get the shaft.  As Lois Weiner aptly put it:

The UFT in its present state has neither the vocabulary nor the will to organize its members, parents and community activists to defend a system of public education that will provide New York’s kids with well-funded, well-run, socially and racially integrated schools. Its modus operands is making backroom deals with New York’s notoriously corrupt politicians.

A depressingly familiar story.  We trust people in power when they spout the right words and don’t look too closely at what they actually do until it’s too late—look at all the little surprises packed in the new and improved school governance law, not to mention the change we actually got after being besotted by the rhetoric of hope & change.

You have a bigger problem than the UFT selling you out: after all is said and done, the school governance law still gives one man and his sidekick the power to shut you down and give your school to more favored folks.  That law gives you procedural rights (EIS, public hearings and so forth); these will keep people busy for while, but they can only delay, not avoid,  that outcome.

The NY State Constitution, however, gives each citizen a substantive right to a “sound basic education,” and that right has reasonably well-defined parameters (definition here) .  There ought to be a remedy for the blatant violation of that right at Jamaica HS and elsewhere—unfortunately, it will not come in time to help your school.

Paola de Kock

Thank you Paola for saying it like it is;
How can we have bold bright reforms on one side and only incrementalist push back on the other?

The entire opposition that could correct and adjust this lens in the tihe honored multfacted dialectic based excercise that iis democracy has been neutered by the in-pouring and laying down over tons of hedge fund and government cash;

History will not be kind to those who settled for crumbs just to keep their place at the table!

Lisa Donlan

What about the students?

Can the discussion begin with the impact these decisions are having on the students? After meeting with the SLT members of Jamaica (those willing to attend a summer meeting) and further reviewing the CEP, I was left with many questions relating to the quality of the academic plan for Jamaica.

What are the 'resources' promised?

And again I challenge the DoE to track the educational path of all the student attending the proposed Phase-Out Schools (2010).

Monica

I have a bunch of back reading if you have time posted at Norms Notes:

Lois Weiner on Why Teachers Unions Matter

 

Why I don't believe in "reform": from former TFAer, KIPP teacher and admin, and charter school administrator

 

Dan Brown on Waiting For Superman

 

Yes We Need Great Teachers! (But Vague, Emotional Rhetoric Opens the Door for Counterproductive "Reformers")

What About Principal Accountability? Bronx High School of Science Redux

Sure, it's all about quality teachers.

Bob Drake responded to an article linked below on Ed Week about principal accountability. By the way, if you go to the link you will read about Leo McKaskill, the deposed principal of Brooklyn Tech, who by the way, was exposed by the investigative journalism of fired NY Teacher reporter Jim Callaghan (who has an article on this week's The Chief). All references to the stories Jim did on the case have disappeared from the UFT web site.

If you search this blog you will find loads of articles on the BHSS situation. Bob Drake was one of Bronx HS of Science principal Valerie Reidy's victims. Reidy had received an honorary PhD and called herself "doctor". Drake, a real PhD made some objections. At some point Reidy was called a "quack". Tee-shirts and cartoons appeared. Students would mutter "quack, quack" as they walked by. Revenge was swift on her part against students and teachers.

One sophomore student was accused of bringing up the cartoon below from my blog. He was threatened with suspension and even expulsion. His parents had to take off from work to come up. He appealed directly to Joel Klein. To no avail since he backs any principal actions short of eating babies (and that is also questionable.) He was suspended for a day. Years later when he was elected to a student council position as a senior he was tossed off by Reidy for that transgression. Nice citizenship they teach over there.

Back in Oct. 2007 I put up this post:

The Bronx High School of Science "Quack" story has been humming as the mainstream press seems to be getting involved after our post a few days ago. It has been interesting following the postings of the kids at the school as some seniors worry about revenge by school administrators and guidance counselors in relation to getting into college while others talk about leaving their legacy so future generations do not forget the "quacking" story. One former student commented that his favorite Reidy quote was "Asians speak Asian." The animosity towards Reidy by the kids seems to be more intense than that of teachers. And I received an email from a parent leader that indicates many of them feel the same. WOW! Reidy has united parents, teachers and students.

Call it for the revenge of Bob Drake, the untenured PhD chemistry teacher who Principal Valerie Reidy hounded out of the system. Drake enjoys a job at a public school in Conn. at mucho times the salary. THANK YOU, VALERIE REIDY! Betsy Combier has a bunch of stuff on Drake and Science on her parentadvocates web site. The cartoon from the Riverdale Review, which has done a number of stories on the case, was posted by the students on facebook. Andy Wolfe in the NY Sun did a piece in May 2005 and we should see some articles today or tomorrow in some the NY Dailies. And check out the blog of a former student here.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2010/09/what_about_principal_accountability.html

Dr Bob in the Bronx wrote:

Erich Martel was lucky in that he was transferred away from his principal. As a senior (Ph.D., 30 years of college teaching) but untenured teacher in NYC I found myself, after two years of "satisfactory" teaching, on the wrong side of a messianic principal at one of the other elite NYC high schools. She demanded one type of lesson plan (developmental lessons), and subscribed to pet education theories long debunked by education researchers. Harassment came on a nearly daily basis, often by subservient assistant principals chosen for that trait and no other.

The principal stated her philosophy to me, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, but I'll win." And win she did, since the NYC DOE blindly follows the will of its principals, resulting in my being barred from ever teaching in NYC again at any level for life. As with Lee McCaskill at Brooklyn Tech HS, she has driven off excellent teachers, some who retired early rather than put up with what most people -- but not the DOE -- would define as harassment.

While there may be some poor teachers in the system, those that do not quit after a few years, and are granted tenure after review, deserve praise for showing up and teaching oversized classes day after day after day, particularly with the reprehensible behavior of students these days. The problem with high schools is the administration, not teachers, particularly the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" principals and their enablers. It is disgusting to see that the New York Times, as you mentioned above, fails to castigate administrations and blames poor student performance on teachers.

Students seem to feel that, as Woody Allen observed, "80 percent of success is just showing up" -- that they deserve at least a B if they attend class, even if unprepared, lacking completed assignments, and even if lacking a pencil. The elephant in the room is the Asian students, who, often despite language difficulties, perform at the highest levels, and now exceed 50% of the students at the high school I was driven out of. They succeed in the very same classrooms that others fail. Might their success be due to their preparedness, their parental involvement, their desire to attend the best college? Exactly how can a teacher, with five classes per day (often with several preparations) and required lesson plans and other administrative duties, possibly be responsible for the inspiration and success of each and every student when those students refuse to aspire to anything more than class disruption.

Michael Fiorillo at NYC Educator blog: Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

There is a history of tensions between college educated elite and the labor movement. Michael Fiorillo provides a good history lesson tying the Teach For America mentality towards unions today in the context of the past. For those who read it at NYC Educator but tend to forgot history, I'm cross posting to make sure you are not condemned to repeat it.

Michael's piece elicited this comment from Pogue at NYC's blog:
Wow, great piece. What a fascinating historical perspective. So, the TFA'ers aren't the first to be a part of union busting policies. Strange how past anti-war demonstrations were led by college students where nowadays we have a president whose conservative-like policies are given a pass by our youth.

 

Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

By special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo

Conventional wisdom holds that universities are repositories of liberalism and progressive politics, in which innocent students are indoctrinated into holding borderline deviant, un-American beliefs. Right wing authors, pundits and politicians are forever bemoaning how American universities are controlled by a liberal/left wing/anti-free market orthodoxy. And in marginal and declining humanities departments that may be the case. But a review of US labor history and current labor issues shows that in reality elite universities have often been a source of reactionary, anti-labor attitudes, policies and actions. A brief look at early 20^th century labor history, and current academic efforts associated with so-called educational reform, bear this out. While the recruitment of student strikebreakers one hundred years ago was couched in the explicit language of class warfare, today anti-labor ideologies and recruitment is spoken in the superficially milder, pseudo-scientific language of ideologically-framed education research, economics and human capital deployment. One hundred years ago, largely unorganized manual workers bore the brunt of this assault; today it is teachers and their unions.

Ralph Fasanella: “Lawrence,1912:The Bread and Roses Strike”

In one of the paintings that Ralph Fasanella did of the great Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile strike of 1912, a detail shows the state militia entering the city to help break the strike, while the strikers and their supporters are massed along the sidewalks. Standing there are three little boys, each holding signs that together read “Go Back to School.”

While the meaning of those signs may not be so clear today, at the time it was obvious to all concerned what they meant: that students from Harvard, Tufts and other elite universities in the region had willingly joined the state militia, with the support of their school’s presidents, to break the strike.

Indeed, according to Stephen Norwood, whose “The Student as Strikebreaker: College Youth and the Crisis of Masculinity in the Early 20^th  Century” (Journal of Social History, Winter, 1994), “…college students represented a major and often critically important source of strikebreakers in a wide range of industries and services.”  Student strikebreakers, often but not limited to athletes and engineering students, were involved in strikebreaking in the 1901 dockworkers strike in San Francisco (Berkeley), the 1903 Great Lakes seaman’s strike of 1903 (U of Chicago), 1903 teamster and railroad strikes in Connecticut (Yale), the 1905 IRT strike in New York City (Columbia), and many, many others. During the great strike wave that followed WWI, Princeton president John Grier Hibben told officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad that his students were “ready to serve” in the event of a railroad strike. The Boston and Maine Railroad actually placed an engine and rails on the MIT campus to help train student strikebreakers.

Today, elite colleges produce endless studies and turn out cadre to facilitate the privatization of the public schools, which occurs under catch phrases such as “the business model in education,” “school choice,” “market-friendly policies,” “social entrepreneurialism” and others. These efforts presuppose the avoidance, neutralization and ultimate elimination of teacher unions.

The fact of student strikebreaking in the early 20^th century is not so hard to understand. Unlike today, a university education was limited to a tiny percentage of the population, and the student body was composed of a homogenous group composed almost entirely of wealthy, white males who aspired to and identified with the interests and ideologies of the captains of industry at the time. According to Norwood, there was an additional overlay of obsessive concern with toughness, strength, and the “cult of masculinity” associated with Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully” persona. These tendencies combined to make it easy to see why “Employers considered students to be the most reliable strikebreakers of the period,” since their complete remove from the conditions under which working people lived at the time, combined with the prevailing attitudes of Social Darwinism, combined to make their antagonism to labor unions of a piece.

“Fight Fiercely, Harvard:” Massachusetts Militia (composed  largely of Harvard students) confronts Lawrence strikers in 1912

In fact, public and private universities at the time were so identified with monopoly capital that their very nicknames stand as signposts of their class identification: “Standard Oil University” (U of Chicago), “Southern Pacific University” (Stanford), “Pillsbury University (U of Minnesota).

Today, with the near-total collapse of private sector unionization, the last bastion of organized labor in the US is in the public sector. And among public sector unions, teacher unions have become a major focus in the effort to “reform” or “rationalize” the educational workplace, and to shape and form the “product” (aka students, according to NYC Department of education consultant and management avatar Jack Welch)) that is to be delivered to employers upon graduation. While this effort is always couched in the language of “Children First,” “The Civil Rights Movement of Our Time” or other such PR and focus group-generated slogans, the reality is that recent efforts to change public education are largely motivated by a desire to control the labor process and labor markets within and outside the schools. The language of corporate education reform rarely, and then only half-heartedly, invokes the now-quaint language of citizenship or democracy. Instead, it openly discusses the purpose of education as producing students who meet the needs of employer-dominated labor markets and a globalized, neo-liberal economy.

So, having taken a peek at the Ivy League (and other) union-busting efforts of one hundred years ago, what do we see today?

Let’s (to use only one of numerous examples) briefly look at Harvard, where in 1904 university president Charles W. Eliot described strikebreakers as “a fair type of hero.” Harvard is the currently the home of The Program on Educational Policy and Governance (PEPG), which is affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, and has notable alumni such as Michelle Rhee (whose anti-teacher and anti-labor behavior needs no introduction) and Cami Anderson (who is currently busy privatizing and charterizing NYC’s District 79/alternative high schools).

PEPG describes itself as “a significant player in the educational reform movement” that provides “high-level training for young scholars who can make independent contributions to scholarly research… foster a national community of reform-minded scientific researchers… and produce path-breaking studies that provide a scientific basis for school reform policy.” (I’ll have some more to say on the ideological basis of the pseudo-science that forms their “scientific research”)

A quick look at their Advisory Committee and major funders, shows it to be made up almost entirely of pro-privatization and anti-labor individuals and groups. Its funders include foundations such as the Walton Family Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Olin Foundation, Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation and the William E. Simon Foundation. Its Advisory Committee includes Jeb Bush and a host of investment bank, hedge fund and private equity interests. Its affiliates include the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, The Hoover Institute and The Heritage Foundation (with the Brookings Institute thrown in for a bi-partisan gloss). While claiming to be independent and non-partisan, it in fact espouses and is dominated by the free-market fundamentalism that has served the US so very well in recent years, and is now (to use a term from the Wall Street backers of corporate ed reform)) engaging in a hostile takeover of the public schools.

Studies and reports by the PEPG show an obsession with vouchers, charters, merit pay, the “inefficiencies” and failures of collective bargaining, and other “market friendly” topics and policies. While ostensibly using the scientific method, the entire premise of their research is based on assuming as a given the existence of so-called self-regulating markets: in other words, unquestioned assumptions and ideology masked as science, and a latter-day counterpart to the 19^th century medical “science” that strove to “prove” the efficacy of bleeding as a medical procedure.  A 2009 paper co-authored by PEPG director Paul Peterson purported to “scientifically” show how for-profit school management companies were superior to both traditional public schools and non-profit school management entities. Independent and non-partisan, indeed.

The PEPG’s 1998-99 Annual Report, in a prominent sidebar to an article entitled “Do Unions Aid Education Reform?” (I bet you can guess their answer to that one), stated that collective bargaining and unions “reduce the diversity of instructional methods, reduce low-and high-ability test scores” and “increase high school dropout rates.” Sounds scientific, no?

Unlike the early 20^th century, union busting emerging from the academy no longer takes place at the (literal) point of a gun, as in Lawrence. At least, not yet. Instead, it is done in calm, measured, reasonable-sounding tones, using the façade of faux scientific inquiry, and by creating an academic, philanthropic (or in this case, malanthropic might be a more accurate term) and media echo chamber that endlessly repeats its unexamined assumptions, half-truths and outright distortions. Additionally, in the realm of real world practice we have the union-busting efforts of Teach For America (founded by Princeton grad Wendy Kopp, and recruiting exclusively among graduates of elite colleges and universities), which happily supplied replacement workers (aka scabs) for the schools in post-Katrina New Orleans, where the entire teaching force was summarily fired.

While it would be grossly inaccurate, and is nowhere near my intention, to tar all college students, professors and administrators with an anti-labor, anti-humanistic brush, the reflexive assumption that universities are always exemplars of social progress is due for some revision and skepticism. That elite universities should be so complicit in the ongoing destruction of public education is a cruel paradox that exemplifies the many dilemmas teachers face today.

History, however, should teach us not to be too surprised.

Why Not Value Added in Health? Or Policing?

It is almost laughable, the national hysteria over finding bad teachers and rooting them out. And the use of value added test scores to do so.

The LA Times revealing of teacher ratings and the even more laughable piece that “Waiting for Superman” director Davis Guggenheim wrote at Huffington.

He claims we can't have great schools without great teachers? You've got to read this. How many schools are considered "great" because all the kids are smart to start with no matter what the teaching? And he and his wife and daughter are so excited over getting a favored 4th grade teacher. Do you think that was because the teacher had a good value added number? I would bet they never even checked that info if it was available. That the real reason they wanted that teacher had absolutely nothing to do with test scores but with the way that person treated kids and taught them in ways that have nothing to do with testing or the kinds of test prep maniacs Guggenheim's film is promoting.

The ed deformers make it seem like a matter of life and death. But when it really comes to life and death - like policing and health - and add the military (imagine rating individual soldiers in Afghanistan based on the success or failure of the daily missions - there is precious little push for some sort of value added.

But today in the NY Times there is an article about providing information to the public on surgeons.

Medical groups that perform heart bypass surgery are now being rated alongside cars and toaster ovens in Consumer Reports.
In most parts of the country, data-based ratings of doctors are not available to patients. Only a few states, including New York, provide them.
The magazine published ratings of 221 surgical groups from 42 states online on Tuesday and will print them in its October issue. Groups are rated, not individual doctors. The groups receive one, two or three stars, for below average, average or above average. The scores were based on complication and survival rates, whether the groups used the best surgical technique and whether patients were being sent home with certain medicines that research has shown to be beneficial after this type of surgery.

Groups are rated, not individual doctors? Where are NY or LA Times editorials, which call for teachers to be evaluated individually?

You have to love this point:

if a surgical group performs bypass surgery mostly on low-risk patients, its statistics may look great. Another group may perform just as well or better, but have worse outcomes because it accepts sicker patients. But a high-risk patient needing surgery might see the seemingly better results from the first group and choose it.
“What if you’re the sickest patient they’ve seen in three years?” Dr. Edwards asked, and explained that the data in the ratings were adjusted to take into account the patient’s overall health and degree of risk before the surgery. 

Adjusted to other factors? Class size anyone?

Revealing Wash Post and Kaplan Scams

Hi norm,

 

I'm chemtchr.  I put a blog diary up on Daily Kos yesterday that I think you might link to.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/6/899241/-The-Washington-Post-and-its-Kaplan-Education-Scams

 

It's really about connecting the vile revelations about Kaplan college scams, with Kaplan's (and thus the Washington Posts) K-12 for-profit involvement.  It exposes the reasons behind the Posts rabid advocacy of everything Michelle Rhee does.  The links open a new and unexpected avenue of counter-attack, and are a little funny.

 

Here's the intro paragraph- it is a long piece;

 

On Tuesday, Sept 7, Senator Durbin of Illinois opens  long-promised congressional hearings to investigate predatory, illegal practices by for-profit college chains, including Kaplan Higher Education, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Washington Post. Kaplan Higher Education derives 85% of its revenues from federal funds, and we the people have been robbed; but that is only the tip of an iceberg.  Kaplan has also penetrated into local public education, in for-profit markets the public doesn't even know exist.  Because the Washington Post relies on Kaplan for 62% of its total revenues and almost all of its profits, it is agressive and brutal in its retaliation against any politicians who oppose its education-profit agenda.  It will take courage for senators to turn over these rocks, and determination for citizens to find accurate reports.

 

There is a full page of connect-the dots, and then finally, here are the links:

 

Wall Street Journal on Wpo investments
Secret Shopper investigation
California colleges cut Kaplan tie
Stock traders survey damage to WPo
Mercenary Traders offer moral guidance
Kaplan creates venture subsidiary
Rafael offers context for Kaplan venture arm
Kaplan K12 Learning Services
Kaplin online in public schools, at public expense
Washington Post fails to disclose interest
Find the hidden partner in the Louisiana "Association of School Administrators"

 

Still Waiting for Superman

Things are heating up over the upcoming release of the pro-charter, anti teacher union Waiting for Superman film. A bunch of us had a conference call tonight to discuss a reaction for teachers and parents calling for real reform.

Here are some links I put up on Norms Notes.

Dan Brown on Waiting For Superman

This is the most important part of his essay-- the part that might actually influence what happens in American classrooms-- and it's simplistic to the point of uselessness. I know that Guggenheim is a movie director and not necessarily a policy wonk, but by making Waiting For Superman he should assume responsibility for the reforms he's pressing. His recommendations are so vague that many would-be reformers can and are using the same language to promote untested, potentially dangerous initiatives.

Susan Sawyer's Waiting for the Truth

 the film's conclusion is as simplistic as it is misleading: charter schools are good, and public schools, as they stand currently, are bankrupt. We knew from some of our own reporting that New York City was home to a collection of successful and innovative public schools that could challenge this assumption. But even more curious, the film undercuts its own message midstream by reporting that "only one in five charters is producing good results."

charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private funds, but they are independently run. They are not subject to the same level of scrutiny or accountability as traditional public schools.
Furthermore, many charters have been criticized over the years for making little to no room for students with special needs or English language learners. These students tend to be sent instead to low-performing public schools, further eroding their chances for success and the school's ability to improve.
Other school success factors go unmentioned, such as access to healthy food, exposure to rich language, a safe neighborhood, a stable home life and a supportive community. As in any story, there's only so much space or time to make a point, but still.

 his film promises to enlighten audiences about the educational injustices school kids face. It will inevitably leave viewers moved by the plight of the children, yet also unable to see any workable solutions beyond creating more charter schools.
That's more than inconvenient. It's tragic.

From Gotham Schools

• “Waiting for Superman” director Davis Guggenheim thinks teachers are most important. (HuffPost) - 

At my house the other night, the suspense was more intense than a thriller. My wife, daughter and I were huddled over a computer in the kitchen. I had control of the mouse, but clearly I wasn't going fast enough scrolling down the list, because my wife snatched it from my hand. Then my daughter shrieked, "Mom!, it's right there! See!!!" There it was, the list of fourth graders and which teacher was assigned to each student -- her little nine year old finger, hunting for her name. She saw it first and starting squealing, then my wife jumping up and down (I've always been the slow reader) But yes, yes!!!! It was there. We got the teacher we wanted. I joined in the celebration high five-ing my daughter, but more importantly my wife because we knew the single most important factor in determining her success this year would be the teacher she sees at the front of the classroom each day.

I wonder if Guggenheim's daughter would be so excited at the teacher she is getting if she went to a KIPP school? Then again, is he saying that the school he sends his daughter to has teachers who are not all excellent? What is it about this particular teacher they are so excited about? High test scores? How does he define "success"?

Waiting for Superman - Charter School Porn

ED Notes Ad: Don't miss this issue of The Indypendent. See sidebar for pdf link. GEM is ordering a batch to hand out in schools. Contact gemnyc@gmail.com for copies.

Charter School Porn.
What a lovely description by Leonie Haimson.

Teachers who have seen the porn trailer in theaters have been averting their eyes but them emerge hopping mad. These are not old grizzled vets like me, but some the younger and newer public school teachers.

So some of them decided to make their own film and ye old camera toting guy is assisting. It will be a serious film but with lots of interesting hi jinx to promote it. Can't say more yet.

Here is are posts on the film by Steve Koss and Leonie:

Waiting for Superman: the book

I predicted this sort of publicity push seven or eight months ago in my posting, "Coming Soon: The "An Inconvenient Truth' of Ed Reform?" (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/02/coming-soon-an-inconvenient-truth-of-ed.html ), based entirely on this movie's reception at the Sundance Film Festival and the gathering crowd of supporters behind it at that time.

Hardly a surprise to see it now; it was inevitable.

Steve Koss

Leonie said:
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Waiting for Superman: the book

 

Get ready for a huge publicity push as Waiting for Superman opens in movie theaters throughout the country on Sept. 24.

There is also going to be a book; featuring “powerful insights” from those “at the leading edge of educational innovation”. 

My favorite of the below is Eric Hanushek, the leading academic opponent to providing inner city schools w/ equitable resources and smaller classes :

Waiting for "Superman" : How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/thebook

Available September 14, 2010. Each book includes a $15 gift card from DonorsChoose.org to give to a classroom in need.

Some teachers are calling for a boycott of Donor's Choice for supporting the film.

Here is a response at Leonie's parent blog:

Would Superman really stand in the way of improving the system as a whole?

See the NY magazine article by John Heilemann about “Waiting for Superman,” the new documentary by Davis Guggenheim and the latest example of charter school porn.

The article retreads the well-worn points made by countless other articles in the mainstream media, predictably focusing on the teacher unions as the scapegoats, adds in the tired nostrum of how "adults" are being favored over the kids, ignores all the factors that go into low-performance in our urban schools, and drools all over Geoffrey Canada.

But it also contains a startling quotation from Joel Klein, about the students who remain in the regular public schools:

“It’s gonna grab people much deeper than An Inconvenient Truth, because watching ice caps melt doesn’t have the human quality of watching these kids being denied something you know will change their lives,” Klein says. “It grabs at you. It should grab at you. Those kids are dying."

It's amazing to me that Joel Klein says the kids in the schools that he is responsible for running are "dying." If he feels that way he should resign immediately and let someone else be in charge -- preferably an educator who knows something about how to improve schools.

Geoffrey Canada's charter schools have class sizes of twenty or fewer in all grades, and yet the administration refuses to reduce class size to similar levels.

The Bloomberg/Klein administration has consistently refused to provide class sizes comparable to those in Canada's charters, despite hundreds of millions in state funds supposed to be used for that purpose. Essentially, by Klein's own malfeasance, he is creating a system in which many charters will outperform the schools he is responsible for improving.

Canada also claims that teacher unions have not added anything to the quality of education, yet without unions, class sizes in NYC would be essentially uncontrollable -- rising to 30 or more in all grades. The only thing that is keeping them from exploding are the union contractual limits.

Charter schools enroll far fewer special education, immigrant, poor and homeless kids than the districts in which they are located -- another reason for their relative success. Teacher attrition rates at charter schools tend to be sky high, because of lousy working conditions. This is not a model we want to replicate, as experience matters hugely in terms of teacher effectiveness. Student attrition also tends to be very high. I doubt that the Guggenheim film explores any of these factors.

Altogether this article, like the movie it profiles, is a simplistic and one-sided look at a complicated problem. For a far more informative and balanced perspective, check out Prof. Bruce Baker's analysis of charter schools at "Searching for Superguy in Gotham". As he concludes:

"...we might be better off spending this time, effort and our resources investing in the improvement of the quality of the system as a whole. Yeah, we can still give Superguy a chance to show himself (or herself), but let’s not hold our breath, and let’s do our part on behalf of the masses (not just the few) in the meantime."

Republican Dirty Tricks Copied from Randi's New Action Caper

Today's NY Times has a story today about Republicans in Arizona using street people to run as Green Party candidates to drain votes from Democrats:

Benjamin Pearcy, a candidate for statewide office in Arizona, lists his campaign office as a Starbucks. The small business he refers to in his campaign statement is him strumming his guitar on the street. The internal debate he is having in advance of his coming televised debate is whether he ought to gel his hair into his trademark faux Mohawk.

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats.

Steve May, the Republican strategist, clearly used the playbook Randi Weingarten used in creating a phony opposition by buying off New Action in 2003, the oldest opposition party to Unity Caucus in the UFT. Randi had the advantage of course of being able to offer jobs and Executive Board seats to New Action.

Look for New Action leaders in faux Mohawks.


Not to miss
Fenty/Rhee Going Down in Flames?
The Answer Sheet - this guest blog by Sam Chaltain is so delicious I won't have to eat for a week as he compares th Fenty/Rhee to a Greek tragedy - with selected passages like:
“We came to grief through our own senseless stupidity.”


MORE ON FENTY RHEE FROM DCWATCH:

Counting Votes
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

On Saturday morning, September 4, Mayor Fenty held a press conference and political rally with Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee at the Broad Branch Market across from Lafayette Elementary School in Chevy Chase. Despite an E-mail alert sent to Fenty supporters through the District, urging them to attend the press conference and to “wear green” (Fenty’s campaign color), the 150 attendees were almost exclusively white Ward 3 residents. After Rhee was introduced to the crowd by Councilmember Muriel Bowser as the District’s school chancellor, and after Mayor Fenty referred to her repeatedly as the chancellor, she prefaced her remarks by stating that she was attending the rally as a “private citizens.” In her remarks, Rhee went out of her way to appeal to the basest fears of those in attendance. First, she explained how one of her daughters, who is attending Alice Deal Middle School this year, has a classmate who had transferred there from the private Maret School. According to Rhee, the student had transferred to Deal because her mother “was tired of paying $30,000 a year” in tuition. Rhee went on to tell the assembled parents and students that school reform “is not done yet. The only way we are going to continue the progress we’ve seen is to reelect this man here,” Adrian Fenty.
After the press conference, I approached Rhee and asked her if she were violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their official authority or influence to interfere with an election, or from using their official titles when engaging in political activity. In response, Rhee reiterated that she was attending the political rally as a private citizen, and said that “I consulted with my lawyer, and he told me it was okay to be here as a private citizen.” When I tried to press her as to who her attorney was (e.g., a DCPS attorney; an attorney from Perkins Coie, which is the legal counsel for the Fenty 2010 Committee, or Peter Nickles), she refused to answer, turned her back, and simply walked away. John Falcicchio, Fenty’s campaign guru, overheard my conversation. He indicated that he was not familiar with the Hatch Act, but said he would get back to me with the name of the attorney. To date, Mayor Fenty and his campaign, in typical fashion, have not provided the lawyer’s name.

MIKE GIVES PARENTS THE 311

Idiotic advice from Mayor saying parents should call 311 when they have a problem w/ schools; whenever you do, they just transfer you to Tweed, and there you fall into a black hole of non-responsiveness. 

My experience is they don’t take down your complaint, give you a number,  promise to follow up or anything else.

The Post should follow up with some test calls to 311 w/ school problems and see how far that gets them.

New York Post

Public-school parents who need help navigating the Department of Education's massive bureaucracy should call the city's central help line rather than reach out directly to school-district offices, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

His advice came in response to a Post probe that found that nearly half of the city's 34 school districts were not responsive to phone calls made by reporters posing as parents who had enrollment issues.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mike_gives_parents_the_hOkBP7VhUs9NoVcRRwbxKP

Where in the contract does it say that an excessed teacher has to call principals, go door to door, check on line for vacancies, apply and give demonstration lessons as if they are a new hire?

Below is a section of a piece on the ATR situation put up by James Eterno on the ICE blog. James seems to think it would be suicide for the UFT to give up the ATRs so they could be fired if they don't get a job within a certain specified time period. Note that Klein recently called for their salaries to be frozen, a new wrinkle. Is it out of the question that the UFT might agree to some version of this plan to help the city save money? There are other examples of salary freezes I believe - license, U-ratings. ATRs are prevented from getting certain extra jobs, which is a from of a salary cut.

In the horrible 2005 contract, the Board and the UFT added a Rule 11 to Article 17B that says: "Unless a principal denies the placement, an excessed teacher will be placed by the Board into a vacancy within his/her district/superintendency. The Board will place the excessed teacher who is not so placed in an ATR position in the school from which he/she is excessed, or in another school in the same district or superintendency."

These are the only changes from Rule 4 that were added by the new Rule 11:

First, to the fullest degree possible is out so excessed people must stay in their district/superintendency.

Second, now principals can deny placements and then the teacher becomes an ATR who has to stay in his/her district.

Where in the contract does it say that an excessed teacher has to call principals, go door to door, check on line for vacancies, apply and give demonstration lessons as if they are a new hire? It doesn't; the responsibility to place teachers belongs to the Board of Education, not the teacher. Case closed. It says it in the contract.

The fact that the Board no longer places excessed employees but instead tells people in excess to go to job fairs or pound the pavement as if these are laid off workers or new people looking for a job is a violation of the contract. The Board is supposed to place excessed employees. The fact that the UFT allows this to go on and gives classes to veteran teachers in polishing up their resumes shows how the UFT is basically in sync with the Board of Ed.

The UFT has allowed so much to go on. Why stop here?

Read James' entire piece and the comments at ICE:

CONTRACT CHECK: BOARD OF ED RESPONSIBLE FOR PLACING TEACHERS

Crash Proof Motorbike – As well engineered as the Ed Deform movement

http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=21816

Paul Moore: Rhee to Campaign for Mayor Bill Gates, er Fenty in DC

Paul Moore's stuff is Michelle Rhee's worst nightmare. 

Oh this is wonderful news!

I do hope everyone gets the chance now to be entertained with Chancellor Rhee's minstrel show. It does Al Jolson proud. She doesn't blacken her face but she does Black dialect as part of her routine. It was a big hit at this year's opening of school meeting.

The new white Teach For America missionary teachers just hooted when Rhee described a field trip she botched in her few days of teaching. She did her impression of one of her panic stricken children. "Lawwwd Ms.Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??" Rhee boomed, drawing a big laugh. "Lawwwd Ms. Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??"

But a transcription doesn't do Michelle's racist comedy justice. You got to listen to it here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/08/13/VI2010081305444.html

I know recent events have really tested people's confidence in Chancellor Rhee. I mean everyone seems to be calling her a pathological liar or a degenerate sociopath incapable of human warmth or an enabler of sex with underage girls or a bumbling incompetent who was never qualified to run a convenience store much less the DCPS.

Oh for those days when national attention flowed to Michelle and she didn't have to seek it out so cravenly or supply praise to herself. Remember the lovely picture of Michelle on the cover of Time magazine gently sweeping a classroom with a broom? And isn't that where she shines? Those incomparable people skills! The leadership by example! How many $275,000 a year Chancellors will get in there with the custodians to keep things in order.

And remember how loyal she can be when her man, chicken-hawk charter school operator and Mayor Kevin Johnson, gives special tutoring to 16-year-old girls, lots of 16-year-old girls. You know when Michelle falls, she falls hard. How many other women in a position of great power would risk it all to cover up child molestation? It's the stuff of romance novels and indictments. Thankfully the one DC teacher that she said had sex with the student wasn't her betrothed and he could be let go along with 265 other teachers several months after the incident.

DC voters can let the greatest source of confidence be that celebrated but mysterious period of Michelle's life that has only been explained by one man. Through an uncommon talent for fiction writing, the WAPO's education maven Jay Mathews, has constructed a fairy tale to chase away all the doubts. Thank you Jay, how sweet to recite your fantasy against those troubling poll numbers for Mayor Bill Gates, er I mean Adrian Fenty!

"The Fable of Michelle Rhee" by Jay Mathews.

Once upon a time, there was a young Ivy League missionary with a couple years to kill before getting on with her life's work. Rather than backpacking through Europe or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro after a safari in Africa, our intrepid heroine plunged into the mean streets of Baltimore where children who live in poverty test poorly.

One day the missionary-princess was struck down like St. Paul on the way to Damascus. "Sit the poor children in a circle," the voice told her. And sit them in a circle she did.

Her students forevermore scored like rich children on tests. And they all lived happily ever after.

Just take my word on that. I swear its true. No, no really, stop laughing. How rude. Ok, that's enough, get up off the floor. Geez, its a fairy tale. You know like Pinocchio?

Paul Moore, Miami