School Closing Poison Pills: Jane Addams Under Attack and Columbus HS Doomed?

COME TO THE GEM CLOSING SCHOOLS MEETING TO START TO FIGHT BACK: OCT. 26

The school closing, reorganization, reconstitution, turn-around - whatever you want to call it - game is starting up early this year. Brian Lehrer had Beth Fertig and Gotham's Maura Walz and Anna Philips on this morning with their new joint project of following 3 schools for the year. They're calling it The Big Fix when it should be called "The Fix Is In". Just listen to what they has to say about Columbus HS which Anna is covering as the DOE starves it of resources and squeezes it to death like a Python's prey.

Or Inside Job if you want to see what the Ed Deform mentality did to the economy.

See the WNYC web site and leave comments.

This morning we heard from old pal Glenn Tepper at Jane Addams HS
 

Please forward:

Chancellor Klein and the rubber-stamping DoE deliberately force-fed Jane Addams a series of poison pills, over a period of several years, all with the intended outcome of causing the school to implode over time.  And now all the band-aids in the world can't stop the hemorrhaging.  All along, the plan was to destroy the school.

Right to the end, the DoE continues to get the name of the school wrong:  It's Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers, not Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers (which makes no sense).  Although I brought this to the attention of several DoE honchos, over several years, the error has continued.  Why admit fallibility?  Why bother to fix something when the plan has been to cause the school's slow demise?

-Glenn

Friends,
From a teacher at Jane Addams HS where I worked from 1980-2007. The best and most compassionate teachers in the world taught at Jane Addams, for decades an oasis  in the infamous south Bronx, a school my colleagues and I truly loved.

The DOE is indeed going mad.
Dana Lehrman

Hello Dana,
They are coming after us...  The superintendent came to school on Thursday and Friday. The report below is what they plan for us.  They are blaming the teachers. . .  it is crazy. This week we are having both the quality review and people from the state to look at our school and decide what to do.  But, they pretty much have their minds made up.  They know that the parents won't speak up.  We only had 3 parents at the meeting.  It was supposed to be at 3pm and we had 6 parents.  But, the superintendent said she was told it was 5pm.  So the 3 of the parents left.  We are an easy school to close because parents aren't going to fight.

Anyway, please forward this information on to people who care because we need to speak out.
We need to be heard.

Thanks - a teacher at the school

FACTS? 
http://schools.nyc.gov/community/planning/changes/bronx/addams
 
If you look at the numbers - that despite the fact that we have 500 fewer students in the last 5 years. . . we have more special ed students.  We also now have more ELL learners with IEPs and about the same number of overage students.  In 2006 we had 19 kids in temporary housing, last year we had 105.  

http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2009-10/cepdata_X650.pdf
http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2008-09/cepdata_X650.pdf
http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2007-08/cepdata_X650.pdf
 
They are comparing our results to a "peer group."  If you look at the demographics of the schools below it's crazy that they consider these schools equal to Jane Addams.  

One of the schools they are comparing us to is New World High School
http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2009-10/cepdata_X513.pdf

Belmont Preparatory High School
http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/oaosi/cepdata/2009-10/cepdata_X434.pdf

Thd New Mareketplace report predicted what would happen as Bloomberg and Klein started shutting down schools.

http://www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/publications_schools_thenewmarketplace.aspx

GEM Focuses on Closing Schools

The Grassroots Education Movement is holding a meeting focused on the closing schools on Oct. 26.
Last year the UFT never tried to organize all the closing schools into a strong body of resistance but took each case individually, arguing that some schools should be closed no matter what poison pills were fed to the school.

That is the focus behind the meeting - to try to bring this year's target list together before the ax falls.
We are developing a fightback toolkit modeled on the toolkit developed last year to fight back against charter school co-locations.

We are flyering as many of these target schools as we can get too - yours was on our list.

GEM General Open Meeting on School Closings:
Tuesday, Oct. 26

**** please forward widely ****


School Closings
An Educational Solution or a Political Attack on Public Education?

Tuesday, October 26 4:30-7 pm
CUNY Graduate Center
34th and 5th Ave. Room 5414 (Bring ID)
Trains:  N, R, D, F, Q, B, W, V, 6, 1/2/3
Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc@gmail.com
www.grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com

·            What is the impact of closing schools on students, parents and teachers?
·            How is closing schools being used to dismantle and undermine the public education system?
·            What is the effect of closing schools on our educational system?
·            Can schools under threat band together to fight back en masse?
·            How can GEM and others work within the UFT and schools to create an effective fightback movement?
·            Help put together a toolkit that schools can use to fight back. See a draft at the GEM blog.

President Obama has called for the closing down of 5000 supposedly failing schools nationwide. Here in NYC the Bloomberg/Klein administration has closed over 100 schools, with dozens more slated to get the ax. Smaller public schools or charters have replaced many. In both instances, there is some proof that through various means students with the most intense needs are not accepted with the same frequency as the traditional public schools.

School closings, reorganizations, reconstitutions, and "turn arounds" have become a mainstay of the so-called education reformers, code words used by edubusiness free marketeers. Are the educational needs of students the main consideration? Or, lurking in the background, is this merely a tactic to empty school buildings of tenured, unionized, and higher-cost more senior teachers, as well as the most at risk students, and to replace these schools with charter schools run by privatized interests with the right political connections?

What can schools in NYC do to fight back? The UFT has shown it can be a force in mobilizing thousands of people (PEP, Jan. 2010) and win the high ground, but has relied on a court case which was won based on narrow procedural grounds instead of the broader issue of whether closing down schools is sound educational policy. While the 19 schools were ordered kept open for one more year (Klein has made it clear he will attempt to close them this year) the DOE undermined attempts to recruit entering freshmen.  Meanwhile, the UFT and the DOE agreed to allow new schools to open in some of these buildings, thus further undermining them.

In Chicago, the actions of teachers, parents and students managed to reverse decisions to close six schools. Can an alliance between schools under attack be forged to create a strong response? Bring your experiences and ideas to a discussion with the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM).  Join with others in attempting to analyze what is behind the mania for closing down public schools and destabilizing education in low-income neighborhoods.

Was Davis Guggenheim a Dupe or Dope or a Willing PARTICIPANT?

Is Guggenheim Leni Riefenstahl in drag?


Participant Media's CEO (maker of W4S)

Guggenheim and Riefenstahl: Separated at birth?

See below about Jim Berk, CEO of Participant Media who joined the company in 2006. Participant Media came up w/ idea for Waiting for Superman, helped produce it and is now running the “campaign” to promote its ideas to policymakers.

Gryphon Colleges Corporation part of Gryphon Investors, a $700 million San Francisco-based private equity fund which operates Gryphon Colleges Corporation, which invests in and owns for-profit EMOs.

Gryphon Investors, through Gryphon Colleges Corporation, acquired Delta Educational Systems, which operated 16 for-profit vocational schools in Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_May_15/ai_n16361472/

More at Norms Notes: Was Davis Guggenheim a Dupe or a Willing PARTICIPANT?

and at


http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/01/philanthrocapitalists-go-hollywood-with.html

 

MORE ON W4S

A great piece at The Answer Sheet by teacher Susan Graham (MUST READ), who concludes with:

And that brings me back to Waiting for Superman. Education stakeholders, like the staff of the Daily Planet, aren’t paying much attention.

There is an army of Supermen and Superwomen among us disguised in alphabet sweaters, apple jewelry and UNICEF/Save the Children ties.

Teachers are intervening in the lives of children every day and some of them have been doing it for 35 and 40 years under conditions that would crush the spirit of a mere mortal.

They’re not out there trying to "fix" children so that they look more like little Bruce Wayne Juniors. Most teachers are doing all they can to empower children to define and pursue their own understanding of truth, justice and the American Way.

All we ask is that we be allowed to do our job without being weakened by the Kryptonite of manipulation by power brokers, without exploitation by politicians, and without denigration by the media.

We’d prefer to stay in our classrooms with the kids, but there are over 4 million of us out there and before this is over, some of us just may have to take off our glasses and put on our tights.

Rothstein: Why teacher quality can't be only centerpiece of reform

Another Real Reformer stands up!

Posted by Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/rothstein-on-the-manifestos-ma.html#more

Richard Rothstein is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. This appeared on the institute's website. It is long, but worth the time.

By Richard Rothstein
Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public school system, and Michelle Rhee, who resigned October 13 as Washington, D.C. chancellor, published a “manifesto” in The Washington Post claiming that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers “has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.” The solution, they say, is to end the “glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher” and give superintendents like themselves the authority to pay higher salaries to teachers whose students do well academically. Otherwise, children will remain “stuck in failing schools” across the country.

Klein, Rhee, and the 14 other school superintendents who co-signed their statement base this call on a claim that, “as President Obama has emphasized, the single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents’ income — it is the quality of their teacher.” [Note: After this was written, Philadelphia Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said she had not approved the manifesto and issued her own statement.]

Sunday Oct. 17, 3pm - PUBLIC EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK!

Please circulate widely....

The Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) Presents its
2010 Education Forum
PUBLIC EDUCATION
UNDER   ATTACK !

- Chris Owens, Facilitator -
District Leader,  52nd Assembly District 

DOE Test Score Scam
Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters,

Under Receivers, Not Under Achievers
Akinlabi Mackall, Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence, S.E.E.D.S/SISDS, CPE/CEP
 
Charter School Idea Hijacked
Mona Davids, New York Charter School Parents Association

Corporate Big-Bucks Takeover
John Tarleton, The Indypendent Newspaper

Misguided Federal, State & City Policies
Martha Foote, Time Out From Testing

   Sunday, October 17th
 3:00 to 5:00 pm
 Union Temple
 17 Eastern Parkway
 Across from the Brooklyn Public Library (Main Branch). 
 #2 train at the Brooklyn Museum Station.

Co-Sponsors: • Brooklyn Soc. For Ethical Culture’s (EA Comm.), 

• Central Brooklyn Martin Luther King Commission, • Coalition for Public Education (Brooklyn Chapter)

•Independent Commission on Public Education (iCOPE),  

• The MANY (Mothers' Agenda, New York),

•Olaniki Alibi, 57th AD Leader , 

• Assemblywoman Inez Barron, 40th AD, • Councilperson Tish James, 52nd CD, 

• Senator Velmanette Montgomery, 18th SD

More Baltimore from a Teacher Who Said "No"!

Hi,

I'm a teacher in Baltimore, and I read some of your recent edition of Education Notes Online.

Here's an Op Ed piece that was published in the main newspaper here just prior to the voting (when the proposed contract was rejected). 

Best regards,

Bill Bleich

More from Bill:

Hi Peace & Justice Friends,

Just want to let you know that the proposed contract for Baltimore City teachers was defeated this past Thursday - 1540 to 1107!

It's an interesting situation. It seems, in a modest way, that teachers in Baltimore have essentially just handed a defeat to the education direction of the national government, our national union leadership, our local union leadership, the public schools CEO here in Baltimore, the Baltimore School Board, and The Sun newspaper. 

Rather historic. 

On the other hand, a significant portion of the opposition to the contract was based, not on substantive disagreement, but on the fact that the proposed contract was quite vague, leaving many new details to be worked out by new union/management committees, after adoption of the contract. 

The CEO, Board, and union leaders are taking advantage of this, planning a second vote soon, with few if any changes to the proposed contract. Instead, they are focusing on efforts to simply "clarify" the proposed contract to teachers. 

Below, I'm including an Op Ed piece that was published in the main newspaper here (side-by-side with an editorial strongly urging support for the contract) on Wednesday, just before the voting.  

All my best,
Bill Bleich

baltimoresun.com

A teacher's case against the Baltimore union contract

The proposed agreement would empower principals, not teachers

By Bill Bleich

10:21 AM EDT, October 12, 2010

What's not to like about the proposed contract for Baltimore city schoolteachers? Plenty.

Start with "merit" pay, which will encourage rivalry among teachers. Currently, teachers share pedagogical insights, teaching materials and effective lessons. For most of us, our support for one another is a reflection of our profound concern for maximizing the intellectual growth of the young people for whom we're responsible.

With "merit" pay, there will be pressure on teachers to be less supportive of each other and to act in a more self-centered way. We are modeling the adult world to our students. Do we want our young people to learn — from observing our behavior — that backstabbing and unbridled ambition are the best way for humanity to conduct itself? Shouldn't our goal be to uplift all of humanity, not just a small portion of it?

Often, teachers are more highly motivated than administrators to serve our young people. The attitude that motivates some people to become principals causes them to focus their time on the requisite coursework for becoming administrators. In contrast, a dedicated teacher may selflessly devote large amounts of time to being the voluntary adviser for a school club, helping to organize social and academic events for the students after school, getting to know parents, and refining teaching strategies and instructional materials with the goal of becoming more effective each year.

But the proposed contract gives principals tremendous power to choose which teachers advance and which get sidelined. Won't that lead, in many schools, to a situation where a principal's favorites are cultivated and rewarded, with little regard for effectiveness, while anyone who opposes the principal on any matter at all — even when doing so for the benefit of the students, like fighting for smaller class sizes — is largely excluded from advancement?

Baltimore Teachers: STAND UP AND TAKE A BOW!

Is rejection of contract a sign of emerging teacher rebellion?

{NOTE: If you are a teacher or connected with education in the Baltimore area leave a comment or email me off line with info: normsco@gmail.com}

Back in 1995, when Randi Weingarten was years away from taking over the UFT presidency, she negotiated a five year contract with double zero raises and other onerous provisions. You see, Mayor Giuliani was claiming the city didn't have any money and Randi and crew went right along with it. Thus, no raises. And some other provisions that would eat the young teachers and extend to 25 years before you could reach maximum, which many women who had lost years for childcare said was a form of discrimination.

They were so sure of ratification that Unity didn't bother sending out the hordes to the schools to sell it. It went down in defeat (credit to New Action at the time and to independents like Bruce Markens), sending shock waves through the UFT (they learned their lesson in the 2005 contract). So they made some minor changes - and then sent out the Unity hordes to spread fear and loathing and the contract passed on the second round. Within a year, Giuliani was bragging how rich the city was.

So yesterday's news about the Baltimore teachers voting down a contract Randi helped negotiate was so deja vu.

Baltimore City teachers rejected a contract Thursday that would have provided six-figure salaries for an elite corps of teachers but would have tied the pay of all educators to how they performed in the classroom, a vague provision that caused discomfort for many union members. More than 2,000 educators represented by the Baltimore Teachers Union voted on the tentative agreement, which had been hailed as the most innovative in the nation since its details emerged two weeks ago. However, it proved to be one of the most contentious ever in Baltimore, with its overhaul of how teachers are compensated, promoted and evaluated. The new contract would have eliminated the traditional system of "step increases," under which teachers are paid based on seniority and education degrees. It would have instead paid teachers based, in large part, on how effective they are in the classroom and their pursuit of professional development. On Wednesday and Thursday,1,540 union members voted against the tentative agreement and 1,107 in favor. The union represents about 6,500 educators.

Oh, they were so sure. Randi and friends. That they could shove another Washington DC/Harford/Detroit/etc. contract down the throats of teachers in Baltimore. So sure that Harold Myerson wrote in the Washington Post a short time ago:

Baltimore teachers union is the hero, not a villain

....the narrative that education reformers and teachers unions are eternal and implacable enemies is a hardy one, and one that Washingtonians in particular may well believe after four years of pitched battle between Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the D.C. teachers union. The intensity of the local battle might blind them to the experience of cities where the school district and the union have jointly embraced a reform agenda, even including a version of merit pay. And yet, such an agreement -- an impossibility, if we are to believe the conventional narrative -- was reached just two weeks ago in the faraway city of Baltimore.

Yes, they are heroes. But not of the Myerson and Weingarten kind.

Even Valerie Strauss wrote (I can't locate it now) that there would be a more benign atmosphere in Baltimore due to the milder form of Klein/Rhee in the face of Superintendent Andres Alonso, who used to carry Klein's water bottle. We knew Alonso a bit and no matter what cloth they where, an ed deformer is an ed deformer. Besides, I think Alonso couldn't be Rhee if he wanted too since there is some kind of school board instead of mayoral control.

There were warning signs. Mike Antonucci (one of the earliest anti-union sirens of ed deform) sent this out on his blog yesterday:

Last Tuesday, I noted there was some opposition brewing to the new Baltimore teachers’ contract, but I wrote:

“Since the much more controversial DC teachers contract passed, it’s hard to imagine this one being defeated.”

Oops.
City teachers voted it down – 1,540 to 1,107. Union president Marietta English blamed the defeat on the rumor that “some charter school operators have encouraged their teachers not to vote for this agreement.”
So it’s back to the drawing board for the negotiators. I’ll avoid predicting the outcome of ratification votes in the future, and I hope Harold Meyerson will think twice before he writes another column like this one.

Randi on front page in Times
Today's NY Times has a front page article on Randi which reveals so much.

Both friends and foes describe Ms. Weingarten, 52, who became president of the 1.5-million member American Federation of Teachers in 2008 after a decade leading the New York City local, as a superb tactician who cares deeply about being seen as a reformer.
“We have spent a lot of time in the last two years looking at ourselves in a mirror, trying to figure out what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong, and we’re trying to reform,” Ms. Weingarten said in an interview.
Early this year, she delivered a major policy speech that embraced tying teachers’ evaluations in part to students’ scores on standardized tests, a formula that teachers — and Ms. Weingarten herself — once resisted. 

----
Yet one scene that the director filmed, but left on the cutting-room floor, showed Ms. Weingarten signing a contract on behalf of teachers at Green Dot, which has had impressive results since it opened in 2008.
Steve Barr, who founded the Green Dot charter school network, lamented that the film ignored examples of charters and unions working together. “It doesn’t help to take the one true open-minded union leader and bash her,” he said.

Yes, we've been claiming all along that Randi wants to be an ed deformer, not a Real reformer. Lest you think Randi came up with this all on her own, we have been pointing out for years that Albert Shanker started leading the UFT/AFT in this direction in 1982 with his support for the now tainted "Nation at Risk" report. (I won't go into details her but you can follow some of it by reading the review of the Kahlenberg Shanker bio Vera Pavone and I wrote a few years ago - read it online here.)

NYC teacher Reality-Based Educator was overjoyed at Perdido Street School over the situation in Baltimore:

Next thing to do is vote out the sell-out leadership who tried to sell Baltimore teachers on the "Salary Commensurate With Test Scores and PD" jive.

Then take aim at Randi Weingarten and the rest of the sell-outs in the AFT leadership who touted this piece of shit contract as a model for contracts all across the country.
Hey, Randi, hope you can read lips!!!!
You too, Arne!!!

 Well, not maybe overjoyed. But RBE's post and the vote in Baltimore, along with the Chicago election, turmoil in Detroit and Washington DC, expresses the increasing revolt of the rank and file teacher, something Weingarten and MulGarten will try their best to manage.

They have the best shot at control in our own hometown here in NYC where Unity Caucus machine reigns supreme. There are stirrings for sure and I will use Ed Notes to support any movement that makes sense.

Today, Teachers Unite is sponsoring the first of a series of monthly forums focused on teacher unionism. I can't make it because we are working on our film response to WfS. But if you are around head on down.

A new union movement starts Saturday, Oct. 16

Saturday, October 16
Rank and File Leadership Program
11am-1pm
Community Resource Exchange, 42 Broadway, 20th Floor

Facilitator: Dr. Lois Weiner, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University
Pushing back on testing, merit pay, charter schools, and de-professionalization of teaching: How can we use teacher unions?

We will share strategies with participants for leading reading groups with colleagues about these issues. Participants will be provided with reading materials to distribute and action steps for organizing teachers in their school building.

Yes, boys and girls. All you people who decry the Unity machine - there will be no change in the UFT - or the AFT which is controlled by the UFT -  until you get actively involved in the struggle. And organizing in your own building is where it starts because Unity actively controls most schools and those they don't control they do so by default due to lack of interest.

There are enough active groups out there for you to jump in: ICE(which met last night), TJC, Teachers Unite, GEM. Or go start your own group at the school level like CAPE did and link in with the other groups.

AFTER BURN
More Teachers Unite: Go see Leonie Haimson speak on mayoral control on Tuesday:

Tuesday, October 19
Right to the City Schools Leadership Program
5:00-7:00PM
Urban Justice Center, 123 William St.

Guest speaker: Leonie Haimson

How has mayoral control impacted your classroom? What does school governance model have to do with the overemphasis on testing and lack of attention to class size?

The WAVE: NY Times Gets Louis Renault "Shocked, Shocked" Award

www.rockawave.com

Oct. 15, 2010

by Norm Scott

The October 11 NY Times front page story on the testing score fiasco in NY City and State led me to take a look at the famous Claude Rains clip in Casablanca where his character, Louis Renault, is "shocked, shocked" to find there's gambling going on at Rick's place – while collecting his winnings just as Bloomberg collected his winnings - a third term as Mayor - based on phony test results.

The story was titled, "On New York School Tests, Warning Signs Ignored," ironic since it was the Times that did so much ignoring of the warning signs from teachers, parents and other commentators. Parent activist and leader of Class Size Matters Leonie Haimson even published letters she had sent to the paper regarding their distorted reporting favoring BloomKlein on the issue. Haimson commented on her NYC Public School Parent blog:

"Anyone who was paying attention knew at least as far back as 2007 that there was rampant test score inflation...The article also offers a rather irrelevant story, relating how Joel Klein earnestly tried to convince the state to change its scoring system to use a value-added method instead, as though that would have addressed any of the problems regarding the score inflation...The Times itself had plenty of reason to know about concerns about the state test score inflation throughout this period but not only failed to report on it, but generally toed the company line."

For those not familiar with the term "value-added", that is the method being pushed like a magic drug to cure all educational ills by trying to measure how "effective" individual teachers are based on the test scores of students over time. VA has been attacked as a faulty system due to the number of variations that creep into the testing process – the background of the students, the nature of the particular class, etc. And then there is all that cheating on so many levels, especially at the top where they play with the cut scores – one year 5 out of 10 correct passes, the next 3 out of 10.

State Regent head Merryl Tisch - whose educational expertise is based on having taught pre-k Hebrew school briefly - certainly was shocked, shocked. Leonie wasn't buying any of it: The article also gives Regent Merryl Tisch a pass, letting her have the last word, saying "We came in here saying we have to stop lying to our kids," without mentioning that throughout the test score inflation period, she was Deputy Chancellor of the Regents, and yet reliably supported Bloomberg and Klein's claims of great improvement.

Our own former Region 5 Superintendent Kathleen Cashin was also shocked, shocked and is quoted in the Times article.

As a superintendent in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Kathleen Cashin had seen several schools improve throughout the early part of the decade. But when she saw the sudden jump, she said, she was shocked. “I said to my intimate circle of staff, this cannot be possible,” Ms. Cashin recalled. “I knew how much effort and how much planning any little improvement would take, and not all of these schools had done any of it.” But Ms. Cashin, who retired in February, held her tongue at the time. Asked why she did not take up her concerns with Mr. Klein or his deputies, she said, “I didn’t have their ear.” 

I know, I know, all you Region 5ers out there - and former District 23ers from pre-Klein days - are shocked, shocked at Renault's – er – Cashin's being shocked, shocked. She also collected her winnings based on test scores in rising almost to the top of the BloomKlein phony ed house of cards. There were even rumors that she might one day replace Klein. Then she was cast aside because she had a semblance of ed credentials, which when it happened just shocked, shocked me.

Rhee in DC Resigns

Teachers all over the nation weren't shocked, shocked but were cheering the resignation of Michelle Rhee, Superintendent of schools in Washington DC. Rhee came out of the Joel Klein School of running public school systems into oblivion, but with an even more vicious snarl. Everyone understands she was the cause of Mayor Fenty's loss in the DC primary. Her famous Time magazine cover photo holding a broom now has true meaning as she flies out of town on Halloween. One blog commented:

The recent defeat of DC mayor Adrian Fenty spells the end to the damaging career of dilettante school reformer, Michele Rhee, originally recommended to Fenty by Joel Klein, a close friend of Bill Gates and Eli Broad and described by people experienced in the teaching profession as edubusiness entrepreneurs’ attack dog. Lacking any discernible qualifications, her shocking appointment, can be understood only when you realize that Rhee was brought in to inflict maximum damage on the district’s public schools. And as a cultist (Teach For America, New Teacher Project) and true believer she came at a bargain basement salary. Real superintendents were courted (Fenty visited Miami with several members of the D.C. commission to interview Dr. Rudolph Crew) but those candidates could not be counted on to mindlessly take a club to D.C.’s public schools. The havoc and disruption that Rhee has caused was no accident. It was the plan! ---http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/73608

Well, I'm off on my own broom – to see the Rockaway Cafe at the Rockaway Theatre Company's Halloween extravaganza this weekend and the following two weekends. Then off to rehearsals for the December production of The Odd Couple in which I'll be making my acting debut. I was shocked, shocked that such a professionally operated theater company with access to immense talent would give a role to a rank amateur.

When Norm is not flying around on his broom he blogs at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.

Do Teacher Unions Have the Cooties? - Julie Cavanagh at the Huffington Post

A Real Reformer has a few things to say

If not for NYC teachers like Julie Cavanagh I would most likely be out grazing in the pasture of early bird specials and daytime bus trips to Atlantic City.

Having met Julie only 15 months ago through her work with Concerned Advocates for Public Education (CAPE) in Red Hook, I have to say that I have been more than impressed - impressed at the idea that a teacher just a shade over 30 with a decade of experience is out there with a whole bunch of other same gen Real Reformers doing what so many older teachers who I hear putting down the younger gen of colleagues do not believe is possible – mounting a defense of teacher unions from the perspective of a teacher in the trenches. And with a social justice twist.

One thing I have come to know. My usual habits of meandering around issues at tasks and at meetings and losing focus is not something to be tolerated. The constant refrains: "Is that the most productive use of your time?" and "Stop interrupting people." Nice to be lectured to by someone over half your age. But I am definitely more productive – when prodded. Fear does work.

Julie has helped CAPE organize a wonderful crew of teachers aligned with parents in the Red Hook community to fight off the invasions of the PAVE charter school clones. CAPE's work has impressed the activist education community throughout NYC with its passionate defense and pride in their public school. Many consider their school and community one of the most successful examples of a truly organized teacher/parent advocacy group. The 50 page "Advocacy Toolkit" that emerged from their own experience was produced to assist other schools facing charter co-locations had people dropping their jaws in awe. Check out the index:

1. Educating and Advertising…
· Create a press release
· Create a blog
· Contact the media
· Create a newsletter
· Advocacy Resources
2. Organizing…
· Create an advocacy group
· Community Organizing
3. Mobilizing...
· Create a petition
· Create a form letter
· Contact Policymakers
· Community Mobilizing
4. Information to share

(I can send you a copy if interested.)
 
Julie and some other CAPEers have jumped into the work of GEM. In a relatively short time, Julie has emerged as a prominent voice for the classroom teacher in the NYC ed real reform community: a major force behind the rally at Bloomberg's house in January (she co-signed the court papers along with Seung Ok) and the film we are working on to respond to WfS (http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org). An organizer for the rally in front of the movie theater on Sept. 24, she even wrote the words for the song "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up!" A passionate advocate for many of the push button issues so many of us care about, she provides real leadership, which has so often been absent. Julie's appearance on Fox and Friends on Sept. 26 gave her an opportunity to defend teachers and tenure in the very brief time she had ("Without tenure I wouldn't be sitting here....tenure allows teachers to advocate with parents for children.")

My proudest moment: introducing Julie to Leonie Haimson.
This dynamic duo should make the ed deformers very scared indeed.

When we add some of the great people in the NY Collection of Radical Educators (NYCORE), Teachers Unite and other activists in Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), there is some hope for a movement to emerge from the new generation of teachers (please, please so I can be put out to pasture).

The common theme: Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up!

Going national
Recently, Julie began a column at the Huffington Post. Look for it weekly.

Her first post: Do Teacher Unions Have the Cooties?

Excerpts:

Each week it is my hope to bring to you a teacher's perspective, highlighting the latest issues in educational policy with anecdotes from the everyday classroom. Please join me, in the comments section, by sharing your personal stories that bring to life the unintended, or perhaps intended, consequences of education policy and reform.

-------
We all remember "the cooties", and we expect this kind of behavior and name calling from young children. Millions of parents and teachers hide their laughter (at least I do) when the subject is perennially breached. As we engaged in a brief discussion of "the cooties" and treating each other nicely, I couldn't help but think of the national dialogue about teachers and their unions right now, and the very clear message that teacher unions "have the cooties". The assault on teacher unions has reached a fever pitch. The conversation surrounding education policy, and millions in taxpayer dollars in the form of Race to the Top, is focused not only on attacking our unions, but weakening them, if not dismantling them altogether.
--------

I am interested in reform. However, I seek real reform. Attacking teachers and their unions will not result in real reform. Let's turn our sights not on those "wealthy middle class teachers, with their cushy jobs, who retire on pensions that are a fraction of their salary," instead, we should focus on our policy makers and the corporate interests that drive their decision making. Let's stop playing schoolyard games with teachers and their unions and get real. Teachers and their unions do not have 'the cooties', we simply have and want to keep what all workers in this country should have: fair wages, health care, protections from arbitrary firing, safe working conditions, and a reasonable pension so we can live and retire at a fair wage and age.

Our children deserve real reform right now! Write to your policy makers and demand:
- Smaller class sizes
- Public Schools that are Community Centers and Serve ALL Children
- More Teaching -- Less Testing
- Parent and Teacher Empowerment and Leadership
- Equitable funding for ALL schools
- Anti-Racist Education Policies
- Culturally Relevant Curriculum
- Expanded Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs

Read the full piece at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-cavanagh/post_955_b_742752.html

Arthur Goldstein too
Speaking of Huffington, another great teacher activist leader - but a bit closer to my generation - is Arthur Goldstein, chapter leader at Francis Lewis HS, also has his first post up and running - a love letter to Bill Gates at the Huffington Post and a letter in the Daily News today (scroll down to see it).

Here's an excerpt from: Garrulous Mr. Gates

It's been a busy year for Bill Gates. He's been spreading his gospel far and wide. He spent 2 million dollars promoting Waiting for Superman, yet its alleged villainess, AFT President Randi Weingarten and company chose Gates to address her convention, an unlikely choice, to say the least. I'm not an education expert like Gates, so I'll comment only on a TED talk he gave last year. My experience is limited to teaching 25 years in New York City.  Still, even a layperson such as myself has to wonder where the influential Gates gets his information:

After burn
Check out the post below this for upcoming Teacher Unite events this week, starting with Lois Weiner tomorrow.

A new union movement starts Saturday, Oct. 16

RSVP IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND!

Saturday, October 16
Rank and File Leadership Program
11am-1pm
Community Resource Exchange, 42 Broadway, 20th Floor

Facilitator: Dr. Lois Weiner, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University
Pushing back on testing, merit pay, charter schools, and de-professionalization of teaching: How can we use teacher unions?

We will share strategies with participants for leading reading groups with colleagues about these issues. Participants will be provided with reading materials to distribute and action steps for organizing teachers in their school building.

Think teachers and families are getting pushed aside in decisions about schools?

Do you want to do more than just attend meetings about education?

We are seeking leaders for two projects:

1) Rank and File Leaders will build a new movement within the UFT for educational and social justice.

2) Right to the City Schools Leaders will build a grassroots campaign that demands real power for teachers, students and parents in our school system.

Monthly sessions for each project will provide information and leadership education.
Each session is free for Teachers Unite members and $5-$10 (sliding scale) for non-members.
Space is limited! Register at http://www.teachersunite.net/register

OCTOBER

Saturday, October 16
Rank and File Leadership Program
11am-1pm
Community Resource Exchange, 42 Broadway, 20th Floor

Facilitator: Dr. Lois Weiner, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University
Pushing back on testing, merit pay, charter schools, and de-professionalization of teaching: How can we use teacher unions?

We will share strategies with participants for leading reading groups with colleagues about these issues. Participants will be provided with reading materials to distribute and action steps for organizing teachers in their school building.


Tuesday, October 19
Right to the City Schools Leadership Program
5:00-7:00PM
Urban Justice Center, 123 William St.

Guest speaker: Leonie Haimson

How has mayoral control impacted your classroom? What does school governance model have to do with the overemphasis on testing and lack of attention to class size?

Participants in this session will help shape the survey that they will use in the research project that gives voice to teachers, parents and students and their experiences under mayoral control of schools. We will review the goals of this research project and the plan for the year in making it happen.

Learn more at: http://teachersunite.net/register

--212-675-4790
http://www.teachersunite.net

Think Teachers Unite is doing great work? We need your support! Please visit http://www.teachersunite.net/signup to become a member or
http://www.teachersunite.net/node/339 to make a donation.

Do Teachers Need Tenure?

Perdido Street School on the NY Post article:

This Is Why We Need Tenure

Next time Oprah, Arianna Huffington or some other ed deformer says getting rid of tenure is the most important "reform" needed to improve public education, refer them to this case:

A judge tore into city investigators Thursday for a shoddy probe that cost a teacher his job at a Manhattan school for kids with emotional and legal problems.

The decision means Charles Bryant can reclaim his teaching license and possibly get his job back at Public School 35M.

One of my former colleagues in elem school had a child, a second grader I believe, who ran out of class 2 times one day. The child was supposed to not be in the room but with a counselor during that time. The teacher called the father and told him to come up during the class. When the child ran a third time the teacher stopped her (think of consequences if she runs into the street) and sat her in her seat. In doing so her finger caught the collar and a button was ripped off. At least that is what is alleged.

The principal, a Lead Acad grad, was known for putting people in the rubber room. She hated this teacher because the year before she had run for chapter leader against the princ favored candidate and lost by only 1 vote - a real vote of no confidence to the principal.

The principal called up the child’s mother and incited her to call the cops and charged the teacher with assault. 5 cops came and arrested the teacher and took her out in handcuffs in front of the entire community. The teacher had taught in the school for 22 years with no marks on her record. Even the cops were sympathetic and one went back and investigated. I called him and he told me it was clearly a case incited by the principal.

The teacher and parent and child were in the police station until 1 in the morning as the cops tried to convince the parent to drop charges. The teachers was so hot about it all she refused to apologize. The cops released her but the arrest is on record.

She went to the rubber room. For 3 years. She hired a lawyer who I thought was awful.

One of the reasons she hired a private lawyer was that the week after the incident I went to people in the UFT and pleaded with them to get to the cops and get them on record. They told me that was the teacher’s responsibility. “But she is in the rubber room all day,” I said. It was clear that they were more afraid of being charged with protecting a teacher who may be found guilty of abusing a child even in such an obviously rigged situation. She just didn't trust the UFT.

I was at some sessions of her 3020a hearing. She was shell shocked from what has been happening to her and that made her ineffective in her own defense. The DOE showed pictures the principal took of the child’s shoulder which was supposedly scratched. We all looked at them with disbelief. You couldn’t see anything. The photos were taken about 2 hours after the incident. I saw the parent and child testify. It was all about the parent’s pride - she also hated the principal but wouldn’t back down. (The child had been moved to special ed not long after the incident.)

The hearing officer of course never talked to the arresting police. The result: teacher suspended without pay for a year. That means that after a year she will be allowed to teach. They clearly just did this to force her out.

Do teachers need tenure? She has tenure and only that gave her a salary for the 3 years. By the way - the delay was not due to her. I was supposed to attend these hearings on more days but they kept postponing and changing dates.

Role Rheeversal

Last Update: Oct. 14, 11pm

I haven't seen Waiting for Superman yet because I don't want to give them my 9 bucks (senior citizen, ya know).

If you read my post yesterday (O Canada, So Inglorious and Untrue), it seems the movie is not doing as well as expected. I expect Broad/Gates/Murdoch to buy air time on every TV station in the world to show the movie in an endless loop for weeks at a time. Or have 10 billion dvds made and give them away in cereal boxes. Or have one mailed to every person in the world - and even to some of those new planets they are discovering. You wouldn't want any sign of life to miss the message that tenure has to end for anyone to learn anything in school.

If you find grammar or speling mistakes, that must be my problem - I was taught by tenured teachers.

When I get to see WfS for free, Michelle Rhee going down in flames will make the movie so delicious. As will the NY Times piece yesterday on Geoffrey Canada.

Inundated with Rhee speculation all over the place, we decided to do a small compilation from scattered sources.

Rethinking Schools

The Proving Grounds: School “Rheeform” in Washington, D.C.

Fall 2010
By Leigh Dingerson
Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her “power list” of “remarkable visionaries.”


GFBrandenburg's Blog

Rhee’s presence was extremely divisive here in DC, largely along class and racial lines. Many wealthy whites thought she was wonderful, because they thought she was ‘reforming’ a corrupt, incompetent, black-run and black-staffed school system, and because they saw her replacing black veteran teachers, staff members, and administrators with brand-new, young white and Asian replacements. (I am not exaggerating.)

 More at Rhee’s Legacy and the Future of Education in DCPS

Leonie Haimson on Rhee's performance compared to predecessors:

Pre-Rhee and Post-Rhee

For those of you who believe that Michelle Rhee’s resignation today will hurt the achievement gains experienced by the DC school system; take a look at these charts with DC NAEP scores from 2003-2009.

Read Leonie's entire post at:

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/10/pre-rhee-and-post-rhee.html

Candi is aways Dandy when it comes to Rhee

Breaking News!

Featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence and candidate for WTU General Vice President

The Washington Post reports that Chancellor Michelle Rhee will announce on Wednesday that she is resigning at the end of October. Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson will serve as the interim Chancellor. What do you think led to Rhee's abrupt resignation?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101205658.html

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to announce resignation Wednesday

Valerie Strauss (MUST READ EVERY DAY) at The Answer Sheet

Rhee’s big legacy: Being a whirlwind

She came in like a whirlwind, kicking up dust wherever she went, and now, Michelle Rhee, all-powerful chancellor of D.C. public schools, is leaving after three years, securing her place in the history of D.C. public education as, well, mostly a whirlwind.

Larry Cuban, the Stanford University educator and former superintendent, had it right when he predicted on this blog last month that Rhee would wind up being no more than a footnote in a doctoral dissertation, just like Hugh Scott, the first African American superintendent in Washington D.C., who served in the early 1970s.
Why?
Continue reading this post »

Posted at 1:41 PM ET, 10/14/2010

Michelle Rhee's greatest hits

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee gave us many reasons to remember her when she is gone.
There's the schools she closed. The teachers she fired. The contract she signed with the Washington Teachers Union. Her frequent use of the word “crap.”
Here’s some quintessential statements that Rhee made as chancellor. Thanks for many of these to my colleague, Bill Turque, who often stood alone in his strong coverage of Rhee’s tenure.
I think my favorite is the one about taping students' mouths shut.
Let me know what I’ve missed.
Continue reading this post »

Gary Imhoff in themail:

October 13, 2010

Severance Pay

Dear Payers:

Michelle Rhee resigned today. See her resignation letter at http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/101013.htm. This, of course, leaves us with the top question on our minds: how much are the taxpayers on the hook for; how much do we have to pay her to go away? Bill Turque, the Post education reporter, says he’s trying to find out. Is there anything we can learn from her contract, http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/070703.htm? Not much.

Rhee was hired on July 3, 2007, at an annual salary of $275,000 a year. She was guaranteed an annual cost-of-living raise, so her salary is now considerably higher than that. Paragraph 6 of her contract says that, “should you choose to terminate your appointment for a good cause, you shall receive a severance payment of up to 12 weeks of your base salary, plus any accrued leave, as well as an additional 12 weeks of administrative pay.” That’s about a half-year’s salary, give or take. So has she terminated her appointment “for a good cause”? Does her not wanting to work with Gray count as a good cause? If Peter Nickles really wanted to protect the taxpayers from being fleeced — which is the excuse he uses for fighting so hard to deny equitable settlements to DC citizens who have been mistreated by the city — he would argue that her contract doesn’t call for her to be paid any severance allowance, and he would fight hard against paying her an extra dime. But Rhee is part of the Fenty team; Fenty will determine what she gets paid in severance; and Nickles will rubber-stamp whatever Fenty wants, even above the contractual ceiling.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com


More from Gary, though I don't necessarily agree about Baltimore since Alonso is from the Kloth of Klein -and Randi is working with him - which we know means teachers will get screwed - and I'm betting kids will too. But on the other hand, Baltimore doesn't have mayoral control - yet.

NEW FEATURE- I'm inserting a jump break for the first time to cut down on the length of this post - so click to read on.

O Canada, So Inglorious and Untrue

Hey, I get to sing the Canadian national anthem at hockey games when a Canadian team is in town. Now it has new meaning.

How interesting that the two big heroes in Waiting for Superman - Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada - have had their reps seriously tarnished since the release of the film. Rhee of course was the iceberg hitting the bad ship Fenty, as she proved she could take down entire political careers with a single bound. Superwoman indeed.

What is there to say about a guy who distorts - and I'll even go so far as to say lies - about the reasons for the claimed success of his school? Nothing is more revealing that Geoffrey Canada has a political and not an educational agenda than this statement: Successful charters have demonstrated that a longer school day and year, increased accountability and a reliance on data to drive instruction can help children who have fallen behind."

So, O Canada, who makes outrageous claims the Harlem Children's Zone "success" is due to his ability to fire any teacher he wants when in fact the major success is his concept of cradle to college services to the kids - health, social work, etc. And those low class sizes? And that second teacher in the room? Fagetaboutit.

We should all be celebrating the concept of increased services to the kids and Canada himself for having raised money to be able to do it. But when he then goes and negates that achievement - fagetabouthim.

Now that his test scores are not what they should be considering creaming and services, the edubusiness crowd is raising doubts. We shouldn't be cheering that these services would are questioned because of questionable test scores. But bottom liners are bottom liners. It's like saying if you don't get a month of cloudy days and no sun tan to show for it you might as well turn off the sun.

Canada is being hoisted on his own petard.

I'm not sad for him. Instead of making the case that all students should receive these services and fighting for them, he joined in the attack on public schools, their teachers and their unions, claiming it wasn't the fact that he had so much money at his disposal but because there was no union in his schools.

The NY Times' Sharon Otterman has an interesting piece on Canada's HCZ. Don't you love this one:

Last week, Mr. Canada was in Birmingham, England, addressing Prime Minister David Cameron and members of his Conservative Party about improving schools.

England? Aren't there problems here to solve? POLITICAL AGENDA!!!!

Now, here he actually contradicts his other message with something we can support as Otterman writes:

A drop-off occurred, in spite of private donations that keep class sizes small, allow for an extended school day and an 11-month school year, and offer students incentives for good performance like trips to the Galápagos Islands or Disney World.
The parent organization of the schools, the Harlem Children’s Zone, enjoys substantial largess, much of it from Wall Street. While its cradle-to-college approach, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty for all 10,000 children in a 97-block zone of Harlem, may be breathtaking in scope, the jury is still out on its overall impact. And its cost — around $16,000 per student in the classroom each year, as well as thousands of dollars in out-of-class spending — has raised questions about its utility as a nationwide model.
Mr. Canada, 58, who began putting his ideas into practice on a single block, on West 119th Street, in the mid-1990s, does not apologize for the cost of his model, saying his goals are wider than just fixing a school or two. His hope is to prove that if money is spent in a concentrated way to give poor children the things middle-class children take for granted — like high-quality schooling, a safe neighborhood, parents who read to them, and good medical care — they will not pass on the patterns of poverty to another generation.
“You could, in theory, figure out a less costly way of working with a small number of kids, and providing them with an education,” Mr. Canada said. “But that is not what we are attempting to do. We are attempting to save a community and its kids all at the same time.”

I would say bravo to this last statement. So why try to make it seem like something else when talking out of the other side of his mouth?

Accountable Talk gets into this in his post: Superman Gets Riddled With Bullets

the Harlem Children's Zone schools didn't fare so well with the recalibrated ELA and math tests. They also didn't score well on the city's report card, with one school scoring a C and the other a B. Remember, these are the schools touted ad nauseum by Waiting for Superman and the Oprah show as the model we all should follow. Here's some reporting by the Times that makes the point a bit sharper:

But most of the seventh graders, now starting their third year in the school, are still struggling. Just 15 percent passed the 2010 state English test, a number that Mr. Canada said was “unacceptably low” but not out of line with the school’s experience in lifting student performance over time. Several teachers have been fired as a result of the low scores, and others were reassigned, he said.

Even more shocking than these pitiful results is the fact that these schools are blessed with advantages that city public school teachers can only dream of, to wit:

In the tiny high school of the zone’s Promise Academy I, which teaches 66 sophomores and 65 juniors (it grows by one grade per year), the average class size is under 15, generally with two licensed teachers in every room. There are three student advocates to provide guidance and advice, as well as a social worker, a guidance counselor and a college counselor, and one-on-one tutoring after school. 

I remember reading that O Canada responded with the same "At least we're better than Rochester" excuse BloomKlein have been using to defend their test scores as being better than the rest of the state. The NY Post even made this point again the other day in it's confused meandering over the test score issue, running around like headless chickens trying to attack everyone but BloomKlein. Oh, Canada said that his school did better than the surrounding public schools, giving me a stitch in my side from laughing too hard.

Mr. Talk is also astounded:

Are you kidding me? Two teachers in a class? Class sizes of 15? And you get those dismal results? This is a disgrace. THIS is the solution to all our educational problems? This is the model the entire nation is supposed to follow? And let's not forget that in order to get even these awful results, Canada dismissed an entire grade that wasn't meeting his "standards".

In my school, we have class sizes that range from 28 to 35, with just one teacher per room. We don't have any huge grants from billionaires or backing from Oprah, but our passing percentage was over four times higher than the results posted by the Times. And yes--we are those dreaded public school teachers who must be gotten rid of in favor of the charter school teachers that Mr. Canada prefers.

I left this comment at AT's Blog:

Let's not confuse Canada's educational vision, which I would think we want for all our kids, with his craven political attempts to vilify teachers and the unions. On the NBC Education Nation Harlem teacher Brian Jones went straight at Canada and he got real nasty - attributing his "results" to his ability to fire teachers instead of providing cradle to grave support. I don't care if his results are crappy - support for teachers and kids is what we want and if the scores don't show it right away we still should be fighting the bottom liners who want "results." Shame on Canada for playing this game and getting hoisted on his own petard.

Make sure to read the Amsterdam News take down of O Canada.

Leonie posted this: "Canada rebuts NY Times in Daily News"
Boy, the corporate reformers have a steady (and immediate!) pipeline into the oped page on the Daily news. They should rename the page in their honor.

 Oh, Canada has the nerve to say: "Successful charters have demonstrated that a longer school day and year, increased accountability and a reliance on data to drive instruction can help children who have fallen behind." 

Right, It's not the smaller class sizes or the 2nd teacher in the room. Nothing exposes Oh, C as a political operator rather than an educator than his blatant attempt to disguise what is really working in his own schools. "You see, we can get poor kids to do well with the same money," is the major refrain of the ed deformers. But I am repeating myself.

WfS Impact: Gates/Broad/ deformers aim for a WfS DVD in every pot
I think that the impact of Waiting for Superman has not been all that bad for the Real Reformers as it has forced people to take at closer look at the ed deform movement. WfS itself is a highly paid for (Gates just gave 2 million for promotion - the new Gates initiative will be a WfS DVD in every pot.

Here's a lovely update from Leonie on the progress of the WfS film:

Thankfully not doing so well and perhaps will be out of theaters soon…doing about as well as Aristocrats, movie about a dirty joke.  Perhaps that’s why they are giving out free tickets to CEC members etc. 

Waiting for Superman to Profit

Oct 12 2010, 2:49 PM ET 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/waiting-for-superman-to-profit/64392

Seventeen days after its debut, Davis Guggenheim's "Inconvenient Truth," starring Al Gore, had grossed $2,921,406 -- not huge, but a respectable amount of money for a documentary that would go on to win an Academy Award.

Guggenheim's latest effort on education policy, "Waiting for Superman," isn't fairing as well. Seventeen days after its debut, it has grossed $1.4 million. 

It's a great film, and it had all the buzz in the world, including major magazine cover stories, a tie-in election (the Washington, D.C. mayoral race), and an extensive media engagement campaign. But it isn't making a splash. 

By way of comparison, Michael Moore's "Farenheit 911" grossed more than $72 million. By comparison, "Waiting for Superman" is keeping pace with "The Aristocrats," a film about the dirtiest joke every told.

For those in the industry, the per-screen averages show the same twist. 

One big difference is that "Waiting for Superman"'s producers seem to have made a dedicated decision to screen the film for elite audiences. When you're grossing $50,000 a day, private screenings for teachers and education bureaucrats take away from your target audience.

Also, there's no Al Gore.

Leonie Haimson