UFT Unity Caucus Flack Attack and Diversion at Jane Addams HS

A smoking gun - or derringer - pointing to the UFT as ed deformers in drag.

Before you even start reading this, note that over 100 schools have been or are about to be closed by the DOE over the last 5 years while the UFT played twiddle and dee. It took the in your face outrage of closing 19 schools at one shot to get them to take any action at all and even that has not reversed any closings except for one component of AE Smith HS (the chapter leader will be speaking at the GEM meeting on Tuesday). And they are trying to come up with a plan for Columbus which will be tricky indeed.

I was sent this email that Unity Caucus' Anne Millman sent out to Jane Addams HS for Academics and Careers staff members in response to a call for people to attend the GEM meeting on closing schools. Aside from the personal attack on me, comparing me to Sarah Palin - they always resort to the personal when they don't have much else to stand on - there is inherent in the email a blame the people in the school for not getting parents involved. This quote from Millman in which she uses the ed deformer "status quo" expression is indicative as to where the UFT really stands -

if the statistics are not good, we can't argue that improvements are needed. Certainly one area that stands out is the lack of parental involvement, which is a key component that helps some schools improve. The UFT recognizes how important it is for teachers to work with the parents and community in any effort to save a school. For the teachers to protest school change -- even a school closing -- without that parental and community support can look like a self-serving demand for the status quo and that's not good for teachers or for students.

Millman and the UFT know full well that gathering parent support it difficult if not impossible for a school like Jane Addams but in essence dooms the school - the UFT will not fight for teachers because it looks bad - looks bad to the ed deformers who will attack the UFT for supporting the teachers. Note how she even defends the DOE:

I looked at the document the DOE put out and it follows the process the UFT helped negotiate. It doesn't really bash teachers...

Gag, gag, gag. Like the UFT doesn't know the major reason for closing schools is to dump out the teachers and often the students. Well, maybe the leadership never told Anne what is really going on.

It has been pointed out by Glenn Tepper, a teacher at Addams that they were handed a poison pill. I  printed Glenn's email which included information passed on by a teacher there who was outraged at the actions of the DOE. Glenn said

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.

The other teacher at the school had written:

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.

 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.

None of these facts count to the DOE/ed deformers not it seems to the UFT flacks like Anne Millman. Here is her email:

Norman Scott of Greenroots [sic] Education Movement has been a fixture for decades among anti-UFT factions on one issue after another. He used to belong to various anti-Unity caucuses in the union but he's such a maverick -- a la Sara Palin -- that even those anti-establishment groups have distanced themselves from him. He's a publicity seeker and tends to attract people who want to make noise, not get results.

The fact is that the UFT has taken the school closings very seriously, went to court in some instances and waged a publicity campaign that together prevented the DOE from closing schools unilaterally. The prime example was Christopher Columbus. [Ed Note: Hmmm Anne, that only leaves 18 schools from last year alone that didn't make your prime example cut.]

I looked at the document the DOE put out and it follows the process the UFT helped negotiate. It doesn't really bash teachers, even says that they have worked hard to make improvements. It provides for a comment period to respond to the DOE's plans, which are not yet set. As I read it, they could either leave the school open and try to help it improve OR close and restructure it. Maybe that's not a sincere alternative but you can't ignore it either. [Ed Note: I may vote for this as the funniest line- but oh so many choices, though the next two are in the running also.] If you and others who care about the school prefer one to the other, send in your comments to that effect. Even better, get parents and people in the community to send in comments of support.

There's no doubt that the DOE targets some schools as dumping grounds and JA may well have been one of them. Still, if the statistics are not good, we can't argue that improvements are needed. Certainly one area that stands out is the lack of parental involvement, which is a key component that helps some schools improve. The UFT recognizes how important it is for teachers to work with the parents and community in any effort to save a school. For the teachers to protest school change -- even a school closing -- without that parental and community support can look like a self-serving demand for the status quo and that's not good for teachers or for students.

-Anne Millman

 Note Millman's solution: If you and others who care about the school prefer one to the other, send in your comments to that effect. Even better, get parents and people in the community to send in comments of support.

She is trying to sell them on the idea that Joel Klein actually will hear the comments and they will make a difference, offering the hope that they can reverse things through the DOE's own fake process. More UFT ice water in the winter. 


AFTERBURN
What will it take? Only by organizing ALL the schools into a collective body instead of following the UFT policy as evidenced by Millman's comments of isolating each school can a movement be started to point out that closing or reorganizing schools is a political and not an educational move, can we begin to see reversals. It hasn't worked in Chicago or other urban centers and it is not working here in NYC. The GEM closing schools meeting on Tuesday Oct. 26 is designed to begin to forge such alliances, something the UFT and the DOE are desperate to stop, as evidenced by Millman's missive.

And oh yes, Anne, I am a noise maker and proud of it. I just love all those "solutions" you guys have come up with over the last 8 years. How's that teacher data report "solution" working out?
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

Antonucci Issues a Bogus Challenge to "The real effect of teachers union contracts"

In today's Answer Sheet:

The real effect of teachers union contracts

Teachers unions are a big target today of some school reformers who view these organizations as the biggest obstacle to improving student achievement. The film "Waiting for Superman" certainly did. So why are states without binding teacher contracts among the lowest-performing in the nation? Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C., looks at this issue. A version of this post originally appeared on the institute’s blog. A follow-up to this post presented a supplemental analysis of the data. MORE

 Then we get this ed deform response:


"Stating there is no significant difference between bargaining and non-bargaining states when it comes to student achievement is not a winning argument for unions. We pay a 20.7% premium to have unions. Isn’t the onus on them to demonstrate their worth to students, parents and taxpayers?"
---Mike Antouncci - right wing/libertarian critic of teacher unions at EIA- Intecepts

No Mike. The onus is on the ed deformers, who have blamed low achievement on teacher unions to come up with a response to why union states have higher NAEP test scores.

He is dealing from both sides of the deck. When we talk about other factors for low scores we are attacked as "excuse makers" but Antonucci jumps right in here and says agrees that there are "other factors" when it looks like a snapshot of a test makes unions look good.

Many of us are not happy using narrow test scores to make judgements even when these are in our favor. So we hesitate to go there.

Pretty sad that he has nothing more of a response than to dare unions to prove they are worth the 20%. But look for the ed deformers to come up with some convoluted reason.

It unions are going to come under attack as being the cause of low achievement, isn't the onus on the attackers to prove that there are factors other than the union that cause states with non-binding contracts to have poorer results?

And if he is talking about the 20% premium for binding contract states, what about the higher salary levels attracting a wider recruiting pool - and is that a factor?

I'm sure there is a lot more to say on this issue as a jumping off point for this response to WfS propaganda. Here is Antonucci's complete post:

Posted: 25 Oct 2010 09:50 AM PDT
Today’s The Answer Sheet features a column by Matthew Di Carlo of the Shanker Institute wherein he compares the NAEP math and reading scores of states “with binding teacher contracts” to states without. He finds the contract states to have scores an average of 2.65 points higher.
He concludes this way:

If anything, it seems that the presence of teacher contracts in a state has a positive effect on achievement.
Now, some may object to this conclusion. They might argue that I can’t possibly say that teacher contracts alone caused the higher scores in these states. They might say that there are dozens of other observed and unobserved factors that influence achievement, such as state laws, lack of resources, income, parents’ education, and curriculum, and that these factors are responsible for the lower scores in the 10 non-contract states.
My response: Exactly.

Di Carlo isn’t comfortable claiming flat out that collective bargaining increases student test scores, but emphasizes that the opposite argument – the absence of teacher contracts would benefit test scores – lacks evidence. In his follow-up blog post, Di Carlo delves deeper into the numbers, and finds:

Finally, in all four models, the association between scores and whether or not states have binding contracts is not statistically significant at any conventional level (even at the 90% confidence level).  So, while this analysis is far from conclusive, I certainly find no evidence that teacher union contracts are the among the biggest reasons why achievement is low, as Davis Guggenheim and countless others imply (see here and here for more thorough analyses, which actually show small positive benefits of unions).

It’s going to be difficult for some to resist the temptation to argue about what effect, if any, teacher contracts have on student test scores from state to state, but it entirely misses the salient point that the purpose of teacher contracts is not, and never has been, to increase student test scores. In states with collective bargaining, contracts define the salaries, benefits and working conditions of public education employees. Since compensation accounts for upwards of 80% of all public school expenditures, we might learn something about the “real effect of teachers’ union contracts” if we compare per-pupil spending in states with binding teacher contracts to states without. Here, I use U.S. Census Bureau figures for 2007-08:

Average per-pupil spending in AL, AR, AZ, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX, and VA – $8,904
Average per-pupil spending in the other 40 states and DC – $10,745

Stating there is no significant difference between bargaining and non-bargaining states when it comes to student achievement is not a winning argument for unions. We pay a 20.7% premium to have unions. Isn’t the onus on them to demonstrate their worth to students, parents and taxpayers?

_________________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

The UFT and Class Size: Thumbs Down

Once a union agrees that teacher quality is the  most important factor, class size gets moved so far down the line as a factor it become irrelevant.


No matter what the UFT says about class size, the reality is they gave up the ghost on this issue - like around 1971. Once the teacher unions began to buy into the idea that teacher quality is the key issue or that some schools can be way more "successful" than others with the same funding or demographics - all that has to be done is replicate, replicate, replicate - and do lots of professional development, class size faded. It has taken Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson to keep the class size issue glimmer of a flame burning.

Defiling class size as a factor is a major attack by the ed deformers - thus they push teacher quality. We all know that at almost every level of judging teacher quality you want to use - there is a direct relationship between the number of kids in a class and the ability to be more effective as a teacher (and I'm not using the narrow test score but real effectiveness that works for kids). I know plenty of great teachers at elite private schools who taught in public schools and left over the class size issue. One friend told me he couldn't survive and ended up teaching for decades at a top private school.

Ed Notes and class size
I will take a bow for Ed Notes which consistently has raised that issue over the 15 years of existence (in my rush to do the Ed Notes history on Weds for the DA, I actually left it off my list which I updated  (I added some new material about the founding of ICE and GEM, so take another look.)

I printed a picture of a button in every issue that said "Class Size Matters". It certainly attracted attention. At one DA a delegate came over and said, "Is that connected to Leonie Haimson's 'Class Size Matters""? "Who," I asked? Thus I first heard about Leonie, contacted her and began to promote her work in Ed Notes.

Class size vs. toilet paper
Ed Notes brought the issue to the DA numerous times, calling on the UFT to make class size reduction a key contract demand. Those of us calling for this were called "stupid" by Unity. Why take money out of our salary pile? We argued that parents and other forces weren't going to fight for our salary but would fight for class size and the pile of money could be expanded. I used to tell them "I don't see you counter posing that money for toilet paper comes out of our salary." After all, if teachers volunteer to bring their own Charmin (which many do anyway), we could get another 50 cents raise.

In the fall of 2000 I brought a reso to the DA calling on the NY Teacher to print every year a list of every over class size so we could track them. At that point Randi and I were at the height of a friendly relationship. "Come on up here and make your resolution," she said, offering me the podium, something unheard of at the time. I used her mic - and caught her cold. After that it was all downhill between us. (The NY Teacher did follow the reso and print the lists - in 2001 and in 2002 after I raised a point of order - by that time Randi and I were no longer on good term.)

Remember those UFT class size petition campaigns which chapter leaders were asked to get loads of names on - twice. I heard that a million bucks of our dues were thrown into this ditch. Naturally, Ed Notes attacked. "You are always so negative," I was told. Sure I'm negative when I see another obvious scam. "MAKE CLASS SIZE A PRIORITY CONTRACT DEMAND and show us one positive result and I will be leaping for joy." Outcomes, baby, outcomes. Not PR.

How about those class size grievances?
I'm not even going there at this time but will leave it for ICE's James Eterno, chapter leader of the apparently doomed Jamaica High School, one of the 19 target schools from last year that Klein made sure would have as little incoming freshmen while the UFT sold them out with a deal allowing Klein to put a competing school inside the building - which has some lovely real estate for future charter, by the way.


Cross post from James Eterno at the ICE blog

CLASS SIZE ARBITRATION IS A JOKE

The UFT contract gives principals the first ten school days of a semester to lower oversize classes. After that, the chapter leader grieves (I filed for 83 oversize classes for Jamaica High School) and a month later there is a hearing at the American Arbitration Association in Manhattan. It would be easy to assume that a month and a half is sufficient time to reduce all classes in a high school to the contractual limit of 34 pupils in a class. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen at Jamaica or many other schools that were also grieving oversize classes.

At the hearing this morning, the principal, who is represented by a DOE lawyer, said he can't fix many of the oversize classes. I don't think there is enough space to start new classes in part because two new schools opened inside our building that now occupy many rooms. But that is not the argument administration made. The DOE lawyer asserted over and over the half class size loophole in the contract as justification for oversize classes.

Ed Notes Report to the October UFT Delegate Assembly

UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Saturday, Oct. 23, 8am

When I woke up Wednesday morning I had no intention of handing out Ed Notes that day. But realizing not doing so would make me miss my 15th anniversary and also that there might be a whole new batch of delegates and chapter leaders (there really wasn't) I decided to put together a document chronicling the history of Ed Notes. It kept growing from one page into a second before I had to stop or go to 9 point type to get it all in.


I had been intending to write something like this since the summer when Ed Notes online completed its 4th year as a blog but never seemed to have the time. The time pressure of writing and getting it printed on the morning of the DA forced me to focus for a change and it was done in about 2 hours. There is a lot more to say but I need a deadline of sorts to actually get it done.
  
I remembered the push-button issues for me that got me re-started as a union activist (I had been active in the 70's): lower class size, high stakes testing which drove me out of the self-contained classroom, being under attack by my principal for being chapter leader, and union complicity or being oblivious to all of it.



Education Notes at the Delegate Assembly: October, 2010

As we begin the 15th year of Education Notes at the UFT Delegate Assembly and the 5th year of Ed Notes as a blog, there is much to reflect back on. When I began publishing in 1996 I was in my third year as a chapter leader at an elementary school in District 14 in Williamsburg. Facing a hostile principal who threw a hissy fit and punished the entire staff for “allowing” me into office, I threw myself into trying to organize the chapter into an effective force (with clearly mixed results). I made great use of the power of the press, putting out an enormous amount of material, aided by my little laptop that I took to all meetings to take notes. The output was enormous and my chapter was probably as well informed as any in the city as during the 1996 school year I put out over 45 newsletters, all of them with a few jokes (remember in the early days of email jokes flew around the internet) but none sent to me by Carl Paladino.

A brief history
The principal took over in 1978 and instituted one of the first high stakes testing/test prep-all-the-time regimes. As a progressive educator I fought her all the way through the early to mid 80’s, fighting to teach my way to my self-contained classes (4th, 5th or 6th grade) over the years. Eventually she wore me down and from 1985-87 I took time off to pursue an MA in computer science. Yes, I was thinking of leaving teaching after 19 years. Of course, needing one more at least to make a pension magic number of 20, I went back in ‘87 and remained in the school for another decade (I turned out to be a lousy computer programmer). But my years as a self-contained classroom teacher, which I loved, were over. You see, she didn’t want teachers who would not go along with the test prep regime to endanger her scores. So I became a computer cluster, which I also loved doing, but those intense relationships I had developed with children and their families in my 17 years as a self-contained teacher were over.

Over the next 8 years or so my relationship with the administration had ebbs and flows. I was openly critical of the school policies but not being directly involved in the testing program, I was able to stand aside. I guess things heated up when it was time to appoint an AP and her pal who was acting was clearly going to get the position. I ran for the committee and the principal spent 2 days going around the school lobbying (and threatening) people to vote against me. I got the highest vote total by far. That got me to thinking about running for chapter leader. When the principal crossed the old chapter leader he threatened her. He would stand aside and let me take over to make her life miserable. And so he did. And so I did (make her life miserable - my principal friends told me she would get up at meetings and say she had the chapter leader from hell).

Over the next 3 years I faced threats of retaliation - not in terms of my job - one thing about my principal – she didn’t go after people and in today’s world I would run over and hug her - but against my ability to build a computer program. When I appealed to the District 14 union leadership, I found they were tied in with the district admin, in essence, an alliance between the UFT and the people running my district. When I finally left the school in 1997 after 27 years for a district computer job (I always felt the only reason I was offered the job was to get me out of her hair) she told my new boss, “My car was stolen today but this makes up for it.” That she was thrilled to lose a teacher who put a lot of time and effort into the school in favor of a lackey who knew little made it clear that loyalty was valued over education. I saw that unfettered power in the hands of a principal was dangerous for teachers, children and parents (she constantly manipulated the PTA elections).

As chapter leader in those 3 years, I learned that you couldn’t get people organized unless you first give them the information they need to make a balanced decision. On school issues and beyond. They were getting one side from my school administration and on bigger issues from the UFT.

I had been an activist delegate throughout the 1970’s as a member of the opposition to Unity Caucus, the ruling party in the UFT since its inception in the early 1960’s, but had lost interest through most of the 80’s. I had also been part of an activist group of teachers in District 14 through those years, attending school board meetings to challenge the ruling powers, an alliance between local politicians and the UFT (the UFT District Rep eventually became the Superintendent as he built an unassailable machine. My principal came out of that machine, so our relationship was strained from the day she came to our school.)We put out a newsletter called "Another View in District 14" and were viewed as Public Enemy #1 throughout the 70's as we raised issues over the use of funds for political favors instead of going towards reducing class size. Sort of just like the BloomKlein regime.

Becoming chapter leader in 1994 brought me back into the fray both at the district and citywide level. I started attending school board meetings and Delegate Assemblies after over a decade of absence.

In terms of the opposition in the mid-90’s I wasn’t happy with what I saw (I won’t go into details.) So I began to function at DA’s as an independent voice, especially focusing on teacher rights, protection of chapter leaders, limiting the power of principals and high stakes testing. Mostly I was interested in getting the classroom teacher more influence over educational policy. Frustrated at not being able to get called on at the DA, I converted my chapter newsletter into DA Notes, later changed to Education Notes. By getting my positions out to the delegates before the meeting it wasn’t all that important to get called on. But because everyone seemed to be reading Ed Notes during the meeting, my position was significantly strengthened and I got called on fairly often. And I had a hell of a lot to say. Ed Notes grew over time from 1 page to a full-sized 16-page tabloid during the 2002-4 years. I was able to do that kind of work because I retired in July 2002.

Relationship to Unity caucus and the leadership
Having grown up under the Shanker/Feldman regime, I initially found Randi Weingarten a breath of fresh air. And she reached out to me with late night emails and friendly overtures (even an offer from an emissary to join Unity Caucus), at one point holding up Ed Notes at the beginning of a meeting and declaring, “I love to read Ed Notes.” Thus, from the late 90’s through 2001 I was a friendly critic of union policy but didn’t attack the leadership as my goal was to convince Unity to move the union in another direction, which Randi and her pals were giving me the impression they intended to do.

The education deform movement takes hold

Video of District 3 Press Conference Over HSA Invasion at PS 145

On 10/19/10 the District 3 Community Education Council (CEC3) held a press conference at PS 145 that included members of CEC 3, parents, teachers and students from PS 145 and elected officials who stood unanimously against the DoE's plan to give space at PS 145 to Eva Moskowitz's and Harlem Success Academy Charter School (HSA).

The DoE's planned co-location, according to Noah Gotbaum, who is the President of CEC 3, is taking place without any public comment, without any discussion with the schools or district and without a vote. This planned collocation by Joel Klein and the DoE puts an $11 million dollar grant for 8 Harlem public schools in serious jeopardy. The DoE is willing to sacrifice both PS 145's and the 7 other District 3 public school's share of the of the $11 million dollar grant. Watch the videos to learn all about it. They may be long, but the speakers speak powerfully about the hostile takeover and destruction of public education in the Harlem Community.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2TYzOCrQs

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZVGtDEg88

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncjAkC2NW9M

MORE INFO ON DIST 3/HSA BATTLE - check my posts over the past 5 days and

Community District Education Council 3 on the potential co-location of a new Success Charter Network School

See also Class Size Matters' Comments to SUNY board on the application of Success Academy charter in District 3 (pdf) and Comments to SUNY board on the application of the Bronx Success Academy charter in District 7 (pdf)
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

A Brief Encounter with Lindy's Cheese Cake

It was Thursday night out with TDF tickets to "Brief Encounter", one of the most creative plays you can see, especially delightful if you are familiar with the 1945 movie. There are so many fun surprises (the children played by puppets, for instance and the amazing use of multi-media - but I won't give anything more away). It is short play - starting at 7 last night and we were out of there by 8:45 - luckily since we were in nosebleed territory where the seats are too close together for most men to be able to sit without having legs up to your chin - but again luckily my wife came through for the umpteenth time by drawing seats that put me on the aisle. We hit the bathrooms before leaving and on the way down the stairs heard music and singing and were delighted to find the entire cast sitting and standing on the ledge at the back of the orchestra putting on a post-show little review, with audience members who were about to leave joining in. The spirit of the cast that had just put on a performance was wonderful and everyone left with a smile on their faces.

As we headed for the subway, we decided to try a slice of Lindy's "famous cheese cake". The place certainly looked shabby but in the interests of research we needed to do a comparison with Junior's cheese cake. So, almost $30 later - cappucino, milk shake and cheese cake, we discovered this: cheese cake delicious but no better than Junior's, while the size of the slice was almost half as large as Junior's. I was ready to walk on down to Junior's to take another sample and finalize the research but my wife had enough.

"Next time we go to Juniors," my wife said. "Size does matter."

More District 3 Parents vs Harlem Success at CEC Meeting Over Videotaping

This follow-up to our stories this week concerning this epic battle over HSA co-locations is just one more example of the current school wars, with Tweed always lining up on the side of the Charters. The UFT, which could be an organizing force is toothless due to its own charter co-locations and teachers and public school parents are getting more and more restless. Are there any more despicable people than the HSA crew? Even other charter schools despise them. As they continue to overreach, one day it will all come crashing down. Just imagine, HSA takes our public money but has enough money to pay videographers to tape all their meetings. And how much does their PR person Jenny Sedlis make? How much does the PR person in your public school make?

Make sure to see the video I posted of a parent with a special ed child rejected by HSA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHwZj8Y9Q7M

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I'm trying to sort out what happened last night at the District 3 (Upper West Side and parts of Harlem) CEC (Community Education Council) meeting. The report in the Daily News that Harlem Success Academy was stopped from taping the meeting by CEC chair Noah Gotbaum. I found it hard to believe this was simple story of cencorship even though it sent a chill down my spine for the rights of free speech, no matter how obnoxious HSA people can be. Knowing Noah I knew there had to be some back story. I left this comment on the NYCEd listserve:

Is this [Daily News] report a distortion of what really happened? Does this mean we can be barred from taping public meetings without permits? Why would they ever give a permit? When I went to tape the CEC 15 PS 15/PAVE hearing I was told by a charter school advocate that I couldn't tape. I stood my ground and Jim Devor backed me up.

Frightening to free speech and open access.

It turns out that someone from GEM filmed the CEC 3 event the other day with a pen camera and it will be going up on the net soon. Can people be forced not to use cell phones from taping? Reminds me of the hysteria in the UFT when I taped Randi's wine and cheese party that led to a ban on taping at UFT delegate Assemblies.

I saw video of another group that barred HSA videographers from filming during the summer by blocking the camera (an alternative tactic that I also don't agree with) and though outraged that Moskowitz takes public money while using other funding (supposedly) to hire videographers the idea that we are handing the DOE a weapon to stop filming is chilling. I think we ought to film them filming and show how they take our money and waste resources on political action.

We'll have to go out and buy those small cameras that attach to your glasses. But unless there is other info I'm missing I support the right of HSA and GEM to film these events. Do TV networks have to get individual permits to tape public meetings? I bet not.

This email came in from a parent activist:

ALL Public Meetings can be videotaped and are subject to the Open Meetings Law. This includes CEC meetings, PA/PTA meetings, SLT meetings, Charter Board meetings, Charter Committee meetings and Charter Sub-Committee meetings.

HSA has every right to videotape AND the public has every right to go to HSA board/committee/sub-committee meetings and videotape too.

Some more context from a D3 parent who prefers to remain anonymous:

At last night's CEC3 meeting at PS145, Elizabeth Rose presented on space planning in District 3. Harlem Success brought a crew of people in orange shirts who were aggressive and loud, for instance clapping and hooting when Elizabeth Rose said that parents want choice. Harlem Success also brought a photographer and camera man to record the meeting.

CEC3 President Noah Gotbaum asked them to put away their equipment, saying that the CEC itself had been forbidden from filming in meetings without a permit in the past, and the same rules should apply to everyone, not everyone except Eva Moscowitz. The photographer and camera man at first refused to stop, then put away their equipment until the meeting restarted but quickly took it out again. CEC3 members objected and stood in front of the camera to block it. The camera person held the lens high to keep taking pictures over their shoulders.

A woman in an orange HSA shirt came out and walked around the room with an iPhone, taking movies with a big "dare me" smile on her face, and even blew a kiss at the PS145 parents. Security was called. Soon there was a message delivered via a DOE rep to Noah Gotbaum. The message was, the Chancellor was speaking to Eva.

Later in the evening a tiny woman came up to speak, surrounded by her three small children. "I'm going to tell you something very personal," she said to Elizabeth Rose in a shaky voice. "I just escaped from 26 years of abuse. At PS145 I found a safe place where I feel welcome. I want to tell you, you remind me of my ex-husband."

Now it's beginning to make sense. One day there will be a massive confrontation at one of these meetings that will turn real ugly indeed.
_________________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

The Talk at the UFT Delegate Assembly - Mulgrew was not as annoying as usual

That was the take of one of one delegate - in her second year of attending these meetings - a fairly young, new breed of activist who never saw Randi run a meeting. To me, Mulgrew can never match her in the annoyance factor and if you scratch most Unity people, they will concur.

There is certainly a lot to talk about the first UFT Delegate Assembly, Oct. 20 with the big news being the upcoming Klein's greatest hits: Releasing Teacher Data Reports. Funny, but Maria Colon who was chapter leader of JFKennedy high school spent years in the rubber room and had her career destroyed when she was charged with faxing a student record whose grades had been changed by the principal to a reporter - and she redacted the kids personal info. Can she get a redo?


James Eterno has a preliminary report at ICE:  REPORT FROM OUTSIDE DA

I was there with a few leaflets. The GEM closing schools meeting announcement for next Tuesday.
And my 15th anniversary Ed Notes which I only decided to do this morning at around 8am as a short ad for this blog but ended up writing a 2-sided 1300 word historical piece related to the history of Ed Notes (I'll put it up later.) Actually, since the 4th anniversary of ed notes online passed in August I've wanted to do this piece but the first DA of the year seemed to turn out the right time.

The Unity caucus leaflet had some funny stuff:

Klein breaks his promise to teachers.

I swear, when I read that I fell over. It was followed by:

As soon as UFT learned that Chancellor Klein was breaking his word that teachers' 'Teacher Data Initiative' reports would be confidential, UFT President Michael MulGarten drew together a [crack] legal team to take the Chancellor and DoE to court."

Well, that one just knocked me off my chair. Lucky I have a new carpet in my man cave that hides the blood. Why does that old joke keep coming back whenever I see the UFT leadership in action?
They are like the guy who murders his parents and pleads mercy on the grounds he's an orphan.

I know I don't have to tell readers of this blog why I was laughing so hard. But if you don't get it look for my more serious pieces coming up over the next few days.

I spend most of my time down stairs handing stuff out - since I can't get in watching MulGarten on TV is almost as much fun as the Shopping Channel, where at least you can get a bargain once in a while.

I expected some overcrowding and a bunch of new chapter leaders and delegate at the first DA trying to squeeze into a room that holds only 850 people (there are over 3000 delegates). They just don't want people to come back.

Usually people have to be shunted off to different floors and the hallways are crowded with people watching on TV screens. Real democracy at work. (This was tragic since there was no chance to get a banana. But I did get an apple and a green orange.)

A bunch of people were out there to hand out resolutions. I put some up here(Loss of Black and Latino Educators) and here(Rikers). When I went upstairs to go to the bathroom - you can't even get away from Mulgrew's voice in there, I heard a discussion about a strike over the data testing. I don't know where that came from but it gave Unity a perfect opportunity to waste time over useless debate and the meeting ended I hear without getting much done.

Well, some of you know my feelings about these resos. Let's say they get passed. The Rikers one did while I don't think they got to the other one. What will the UFT actually DO to get it released - and why haven't they done something up to now? I know, I know, I'm just a gripe. But I have no faith in asking the UFT to do anything. But if people want to try I support them.

As one delegate said to me, "Why do you waste your time here? This is totally dominated by Unity and pretty much a useless body." I agreed but also feel it is the only opportunity once a month where it is theoretically possible to have someone from every school. Ed Notes being there for 15 years is an established entity and there are at least some people who read it regularly. But it is also an opportunity to drive some traffic to this blog from my target audience- NYC rank and file teachers.

But it certainly not worth a lot of effort. I did go with Ed Notes and a leaflet advertising the GEM meeting this Tuesday (Oct. 26) on closing schools where GEM is trying to build a coalition of the 19 schools from last year and the new crop coming up. This is not an anti-Unity thing and even Unity people involved in these schools have been invited to share their experience. The appearance of such a group might force the UFT into some concerted action on school closings instead of the weak-kneed approach they have taken in the past. Not holding my breath or anything.

Anyway, I left before 5:30 to head over to Brooklyn where we are editing "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman." My young delegate friend who thought Mulgrew wasn't as annoying got there about a half hour after I did and I reaped the benefit of the UFT Superman tee-shirt which they gave out at 6Pm for those lucky people who remained. She thought they should have put an RR for Real Reformer until I pointed out the UFT is far from being Real Reformers.



COMING NEXT: THE BATTLE OVER THE LITERATURE TABLE WITH UNITY HACK SANDRA DUNN-YULES.

Harlem Success Academy turns away parent of child with special needs, while battle over HSA invasion of upper West Side heats up

She "won" the lottery for Harlem Success Academy but when they found her child had an IEP and needed 12-1-1, they lost interest.
I interviewed this parent at the parent protest press conference at Rockefeller Center over the biased Education Nation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHwZj8Y9Q7M




Here is more from Leonie on the HSA battle in District 3 on the upper West Side.

Weird!!!!  Could that be an act of God?

The SUNY Trustee meeting that was scheduled for today to vote on the Success Charter Application has been postponed.  New date TBA

From the SUNY website:

10-20-10: Important Note: A power failure involving SUNY's technology hub in Albany has caused today's meeting of the Trustees' Executive Committee to be postponed. A new date will be announced shortly.

Good piece by Juan G. below, but these assurances from DOE that they haven’t yet decided to put charter in PS 145 are BS; they’ve already told the school that there’s a 95% chance that the charter will be sited in the building.

From Coaliton for Public Education (CPE) for today's Delegate Assembly: Resolution to Stop and Reverse the Disappearing of Black and Latino Educators

Resolution to Stop and Reverse the Disappearing of Black and Latino Educators

Submitted to the UFT Delegate Assembly, October 20, 2010 for consideration at the November DA.

 

Whereas the hiring of Black and Latino educators has declined steadily from 41.5% of new hires in 2002 to 25.8% in 2008, and

           

Whereas the hiring of white educators has risen steadily from 53.3% of the total of new hires in 2002 to 66% in 2008 and

 

Whereas tenured teachers, including a large percentage of Black and Latino educators have been excessed, and

 

Whereas the DOE’s hiring of white over Black and Latino educators, combined with their excessing of tenured educators is an about face on racial justice and labor solidarity,

 

Therefore be it resolved,

That the UFT take on the role of whistleblower to stop and reverse the disappearing of Black and Latino educators and publish complete and up to date hiring data disaggregated by race in the NY Teacher to raise awareness among the membership and public at large, and

That the officers and staff of the UFT not serve on the boards of or as consultants to agencies and contractors working under the direction of the Mayor including Teach for America and Teaching Fellows, until the Mayor and Chancellor implement credible affirmative measures to increase the percentage of Black and Latino educators actually hired to teach in NYC public schools and cease their attacks on the tenure system and contractual protections for senior educators, and 

That Chapter Leaders, Delegates, Parent’s Associations, Community Education Councils, School Leadership Teams and C-30 members, be encouraged and supported by the UFT officers and staff to attract and retain a racially diverse and  highly qualified pedagogical staff that reflects the composition of the city’s student population, and

 

That the UFT officers and staff take the lead and identify obstacles to the training, recruitment and retention of Black and Latino educators: propose corrective action; provide legal, legislative and other logistical supports to accomplish these goals and raise awareness and unity among the membership and with the school community at large, and

 

That President Mulgrew assign staff to review the NYSED teacher certification exam to determine the exam’s effects on; a) staff diversity, b) student achievement, c) teacher retention, d) teacher quality according to parents, peers and school based administrators, and e) to make appropriate recommendations after consulting with the membership based on these findings.

 (Partial list of endorsers;  Sean Ahern(Delegate), Ernestine Augustus (C/L), Peter Bronson (Ret),  Douglas Haynes(Executive Bd), Bryan Jones,  Ellen Fox(Ret.),  Don Murphy(C/L), Lisa North(C/L),  Francisco Pena (Executive Bd), Roberta Pikser,  John Powers(C/L),  Marjorie Stamberg (Delegate), Dr. Anna Maria Thomas,  Mark Torres (C/L), Joan Selino(ATR), 

For more info: School Staff Caucus/Coalition for Public Education (CPE) P.O Box 24086 cpe-cep@hotlmail.com, (212)-348-573, web site:  http://www.forpubliced.blogspot.com/

____________________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

Play Poker for Eva and Harlem Success

I'm signing right up for this  one. Ed Notes will take 2 – tables, Whitney. The check is in the mail. Leonie said:

Just like they’re gambling w/ kids lives; only $2,500 for a seat; only $20,000 for a table.

From: Whitney Tilson <wtilson@t2partnersllc.com>
Date: October 19, 2010 1:54:14 PM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Success Charter Network Poker Tournament in NYC tomorrow night

I hope you’ll join me tomorrow night at the 4^th Annual Charity Poker Tournament in NYC to benefit the Success Charter Network, which was founded by my friends Eva Moskowitz, John Petry and Joel Greenblatt.  I've been a supporter since Day 1 and I think that they are building one of the best school networks in the country.

I've attended this event for the last four years and I am certain that in addition to being an incredibly worthy cause, it will be a lot fun and there will be great networking among New York’s top investors. 

It’s at the W Hotel on 49^th and Lex.  Cocktails start at 6:30pm and the Texas Hold’em Tournament starts at 7:30pm.

It’s almost sold out (there are only 7 seats left for poker and 15 for cocktails), so if you’d like to come, please register at: www.scnschools.org/events/poker10

I hope to see you there!

AFTER BURN
New developments on the upper west side since yesterday's blog -

West Side Inflamed at Prospect of Eva Invasion

NOTE:

Pedro Noguera, who all too any view as one of the good guys, voted to grant the charter to HSA. 

How a NYC Teacher Gave Klein the Finger

Mr. Klein postured that, "... the debate between district schools and charter schools is a false one," and that anyone who engages in this debate is, "... just playing politics." He went on to say that good schools should be replicated, regardless of whether they are public or charter. To a person who may not be intimately associated with Chancellor Klein's policies and ideology, these may sound like benign statements. But, to those of us who have been the victims of his misguided infatuation with charter schools, these statements were astounding. His actions, sadly, have not and do not support this message.

My school was forced to co-locate with a charter school three years ago. The co-location has been nothing short of a disaster that has drained our resources in a myriad of ways. What is most troubling, is that my school is an "A" school, according to Klein's school report cards, and performs better than 95 percent of elementary schools in New York City by every measure. So, during public comment time, I had no choice but to approach the microphone, raise my finger, and explain to Chancellor Klein and the Panel that I had taught all day, took three trains to the Bronx to attend the meeting, and could guarantee that neither my interest nor my motivation was politics. I further pointed out to Mr. Klein that if his statements were true, he would be supporting and replicating the great accomplishments of my school, but instead, he is squeezing us out of our own building, stifling our growth, subordinating our students, and limiting our programs and services in favor of an untested charter school, that by the way, is run by the son of a hedge-fund billionaire who has donated millions to the school reform projects Mr. Klein holds dear. I charged, "That, is politics."

 GEM/CAPE member Julie Cavanagh with an excerpt from superb new post at Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-cavanagh/wagging-my-finger-while-m_b_763483.html
________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

West Side Inflamed at Prospect of Eva Invasion

"What’s particularly disgusting is the way she is using DOE’s own negligence to build enough seats as a way to recruit parents." - Leonie Haimson

"About 92% of the third- and fourth-graders who attend Harlem Success Academy I passed the state math and English tests, making it the top-performing nonselective school in District 3 this year, according to a Harlem Success spokeswoman, Jenny Sedlis.- The Wall Street Journal

Note the fate of the other 8%

Please Join Our Press Conference and Protest Today to Reject the Success Charter Network's Pending District 3 Application and Co-Location at PS 145: Tuesday 10/19, 3:45 PM at PS 145, 150 West 105th Street

For Immediate Release

Please Join Assemblyman Danny O'Donnell, Council Member Gale Brewer, Other
Elected Officials, Community and School Representatives, and District 3
Parents at a Press Conference Today, 10/19 at 3:45 pm at PS 145 (150 West
105th between Amsterdam and Columbus) to Reject the Success Charter
Network's "Upper West Success" Application and Instead Improve the Prospects
of All of Our District 3 Schools

Currently, the SUNY Board of Trustees is considering an application
submitted by Success Charter Networks for a new K-8 school to be co-located
within a district school building within Community School District 3.
Apparently, however, the legislated charter approval process and its public
input component do not apply to Eva Moscowitz and her Success Charter
Network Schools. While the SUNY Board of Trustees vote on her latest
Success Charter network application has yet to take place (it is planned for
tomorrow, 10/20), and no building location has been specified within her
pending 1000+ page charter application, Ms. Moscowitz has picked out a
public school building of her choice and already begun advertising her new
"Upper West Success" school at bus stops on the Upper West Side and on a
website.

 MORE

 AND READ THIS TOO

Community District Education Council 3 on the potential co-location of a new Success Charter Network School

See also Class Size Matters' Comments to SUNY board on the application of Success Academy charter in District 3 (pdf) and Comments to SUNY board on the application of the Bronx Success Academy charter in District 7 (pdf)

Firstly, elementary school overcrowding has become endemic to District 3 and there is no room for the co-location of Success Charter school without increasing this already dire situation. Overcrowding predominates in the Southern portion of the district and given the level of new development in Harlem, such overcrowding is moving uptown. Unfortunately, SCA and DOE projections have continually underestimated this enrollment growth - and overestimated existing capacity - leading to increased overcrowding.

Yet even if we use the SCA's own projections for 2012 showing a capacity of 4,043 middle school and elementary school seats and projected enrollment of 3,745 students in Harlem, the 298 available seats the DOE show will not suffice for the proposed new school planned by Harlem Success. And these numbers assume that all the students in the new HSA school would come from District 3, which - unlike the strict in-district policy being imposed by the DOE on all of our D3 elementary and middle schools - is not even the case for Harlem Success who will be drawing students from a number of districts.

More

Two articles on the press conference:
 
http://www.dnainfo.com/20101019/manhattan/angry-upper-west-siders-protest-harlem-success-academy-charter-schools-plan-move-into-neighborhood

and 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304510704575562693063956972.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

websites are both are accepting comments

Support Rikers' Resolution: First UFT Delegate Assembly of the year: Wed. Oct. 20, 4:15pm

Support Rikers' Resolution at DA Tomorrow!

by Marjorie Stamberg

Last Spring, the DOE decided to restructure the schools and programs on Rikers Island using the corporate model: close it down, excess the teachers, re-open with a far-reduced staff, and forget about the impact on the kids.

District 79 authorized an outside report by the Comer group at Yale University. But after the report was written, the district refused to release it. The teachers then filed a Freedom of Information Act demand to see the report.   Last week, it was finally released. But it is so heavily redacted (i.e., blacked-out) it is unreadable.  It looks like something the CIA would hand out when they're trying to cover up for U.S. war atrocities!

On Wednesday at the UFT Delegate Assembly, a motion will be put up requesting the union use it resources to demand the report be released in its entirety, which should bring some transparency to this whole nasty business.

Teachers at Rikers Island who work with incarcerated students are among the most dedicated in our system. Every day they come to work in very difficult conditions in order to teach the students who are most at-risk. These teachers deserve the thanks of all, not to be excessed and many thrown out of their classrooms into the ATR pool. 

What's happening in D79 casts light on the urgent situation of some 1,800 ATRs throughout the DOE.  As teachers are being made the scapegoats for every problem in this society, the  ATR teachers are the most vulnerable.   No one is "secure" in this era of privatization and public school closures.  As we all know, "if you're not an ATR now, you could be soon."

The reso is posted at the ICE blog.

The Great Deflation: Coming Soon to a Nation Near You

I woke up with a sore back. Some of the cash in my mattress must have shifted over night.

As a history major I studied The Great Depression. It seems I've been waiting for The Big One for 30 years. Or maybe 65 years as I saw the impact of the Depression in action every day growing up. My dad, born in 1918, was incredibly thrifty - OK, cheap. Still is. He's almost 93 with more than enough money and still calls up and asks me to drive 10 miles out of my way and pay 2 tolls so he can save 15 cents on a can of tuna. And to show how far the leaf doesn't fall, just watch me inaction when the check arrives.

Back in my college days in the 60's I used to think: "What a relief. They put controls to stop a replay of the porno film "Banks Gone Wild" to make sure it never happened again."

Ooops. Where have you gone Glass-Steagall? - Thank you Bill Clinton and the other Blue Dog Democrats and Real Dog Republicans - sorry for insulting canines.

Now one thing about the 1930's - there was a major deflationary spiral with prices falling through the floor.

So in the late 70's with Stagflation running rampant, who would have thought that deflation was ever going to be a threat again? I remember starting to look for a house in 1978 with interest rates at around 7.5% and feeling a state of panic as rates rose along with home prices. Thus when I closed on a house on Aug. 1, 1979 interest rates were 9.5% - my friend just a few years later paid 15%. It was insane. Then came the Reagan years and I remember starting to read early warnings about deflation, which of course turned out to look crazy. But I tracked these articles when they would appear over the past 30 years.

When Japan went "Boom" in the '90's - The Lost Decade - I read everything I could. As a stock market investor, I looked with horror as the Nikkei (their Dow) fell from almost 40,000 to around 7000 (it is 9500 today.) And apartments in Tokyo were being abandoned due to the real estate bubble. Sound familiar?

Before our own tech market crash around 2000 the Dow was over 14,000 and Nasdaq was around 5000. Soon after the crash I moved all my TDA from the market to fixed, taking a big bath but have not regretted it. Ten years later the Dow is a little over 11,000 today and Nasdaq is 2450. How's that for deflation in the stock market?

After the crash of 2008, we started to hear more and more about possible deflation returning. It seems very possible. Just think of the state of labor unions in this nation and how weak they are. Who else can get wages to rise so the majority of people have money to spend? As the assault on labor has taken place, we are in much greater danger of deflation as lower spending power drives the downward spiral.

Think of just the teachers and the attempt to make pay based on merit - the few - the bell curve - while the rest earn much less. Imagine a nation of mostly charter schools where they can keep salaries down. That's the end game. Charters now pay teachers somewhat of an equivalent salary to public schools - though they demand a pound of flesh - with probably poorer health care and no pensions. When public schools with teachers represented by unions barely exist, what will these schools pay teachers? Reduce the purchasing power of millions of teachers (except for the thousand bucks a year the average teacher spends out of pocket to support their students) and the spiral is sped up. Bank failures? FDIC gone to pot? Start stuffing your mattress

Now to get a good picture of what Japan after the lost 2 decades looks like, read this Sunday NY Times piece as I post a few excerpts:

Japan Goes From Dynamic to Disheartened

Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan. The original Asian success story, Japan rode one of the great speculative stock and property bubbles of all time in the 1980s to become the first Asian country to challenge the long dominance of the West.

But the bubbles popped in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Japan fell into a slow but relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.
Now, as the United States and other Western nations struggle to recover from a debt and property bubble of their own, a growing number of economists are pointing to Japan as a dark vision of the future.

----
Many economists remain confident that the United States will avoid the stagnation of Japan, largely because of the greater responsiveness of the American political system and Americans’ greater tolerance for capitalism’s creative destruction. Japanese leaders at first denied the severity of their nation’s problems and then spent heavily on job-creating public works projects that only postponed painful but necessary structural changes, economists say.

“We’re not Japan,” said Robert E. Hall, a professor of economics at Stanford. “In America, the bet is still that we will somehow find ways to get people spending and investing again.”

 Robert Hall? I thought he made suits. He was probably one of the optimists in 2007. He might as well start sewing now. The article goes on:

 Still, as political pressure builds to reduce federal spending and budget deficits, other economists are now warning of “Japanification” — of falling into the same deflationary trap of collapsed demand that occurs when consumers refuse to consume, corporations hold back on investments and banks sit on cash. It becomes a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle: as prices fall further and jobs disappear, consumers tighten their purse strings even more and companies cut back on spending and delay expansion plans.
“The U.S., the U.K., Spain, Ireland, they all are going through what Japan went through a decade or so ago,” said Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Securities who recently wrote a book about Japan’s lessons for the world. “Millions of individuals and companies see their balance sheets going underwater, so they are using their cash to pay down debt instead of borrowing and spending.”

So see the Times today about how many Democrats join Republicans in rejecting Keynes as a way out of economic downfall. Democrats Are at Odds on Relevance of Keynes

And then this: Largest Bank Will Resume Foreclosure Push in 23 States


All I want to know is: when can I get a deflationary apartment in Manhattan for around 10 grand so I can get those lumps out of my mattress?

ADDITIONS: UPDATED 5:30PM
After posting this I went on a treadmill with Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics" while at the same time listening to Leonard Lopate discuss the depression (can I multitask or not? But I couldn't chew gum at the same time)

Trying Times
Michael Perino tells the story of Ferdinand Pecora, the Senate lawyer who unmasked the financial misdeeds that caused the 1929 stock market crash, and how he forever changed the relationship between Washington and Wall Street. The Hellhound of Wall Street gives an account of the Pecora hearings that prompted Congress to rein in the freewheeling banking industry and led directly to the New Deal's landmark economic reforms.

Listen here: http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2010/oct/19/hellhound-wall-street/

Oh, Valerie!

Every day I check my fabulous blog roll. I look up and an hour (or more) has passed and the item I was going to blog about has turned to mush. So I often end up copying and pasting links.

Thus, my deterioration as a blogger with something of his own to say. Everybody else seems to be saying it first. And better.

Today, Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet, has such a delicious post that I have printed it out, shredded it and sprinkled the pieces all over my morning toast. Mmmm, Mmmm, Good!

Here are just a few tidbits from How billionaire donors harm public education to wet your appetite:

Today the foundation set up by billionaires Eli and Edythe Broad is giving away $2 million to an urban school district that has pursued education reform that they like. On Friday a Florida teacher is running 50 miles to raise money so that he and his fellow teachers don’t have to spend their own money to buy paper and pencils, binders (1- and 2-inch), spiral notebooks, composition books and printer ink.
Together the two events show the perverted way schools are funded in 2010.
-----
Very wealthy people are donating big private money to their own pet projects: charter schools, charter school management companies, teacher assessment systems.
-----
What this means is that these philanthropists -- and not local communities -- are determining the course of the country's school reform efforts and which education research projects get funded. As Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent James A. Williams said in an interview: "They should come out and tell the truth. If they want to privatize public education, they should say so.”
-----

That none of their projects is grounded in any research seems not to be a hindrance to these big donors. And they never try to explain why it is acceptable for them to donate to other causes -- the arts, medicine, etc. -- without telling doctors and artists what to do with the money. Only educators do they tell what to do.
-----
[$2 million] is the same amount of money that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave away earlier this year to a company simply to market the education film “Waiting for Superman,” which portrays a distorted idea of the root causes of the problems facing urban school districts as well as the solutions.
-----
Surely these philanthropists think they are helping. But they don't understand education and have been somehow led to believe that "the answer" is specific and around the corner: a longer school day; a longer school year; charter schools; technology; standardized tests in every subject; assessing teachers by standardized test scores; for-profit education; training new college graduates for five or six weeks as teachers and then sending them into the toughest schools in America.
The fact is that there is no strong research to show that any of those elements will do much to help education, and many will actually hurt.
-----
let’s not imagine for a minute that the millionaires and billionaires giving out all this money are doing anything other than making it harder to fix the public schools that America needs.

Now on get over there and read the whole thing.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/how-billionaire-donors-are-har.html#more

Ravitch in Houston Challenges KIPP and TFA

In Houston, Diane Ravitch challenges school reformers face to face

October 15th, 2010 8:32 pm CT http://www.examiner.com/education-reform-in-houston/in-houston-diane-ravitch-challenges-school-reformers-face-to-face

“You send out a false message,” Diane Ravitch, the nation’s premier education historian, told school reformers on Thursday night at Rice University. The event hosted by Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools, Teach For America (TFA), and the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program gave Dr. Ravitch the opportunity to speak directly to school reform leaders. Dr. Ravitch began by saying public-school teachers across the country were highly demoralized because school reformers were placing the blame for under-achievement entirely at their feet. “Please stop claiming Teach for America can close the achievement gap,” Ravitch urged. “Nobody who teaches for two or three years can close the achievement gap.” She asked them to think about their long-term impact on public schools, and recommended they “practice humility.” Dr. Ravitch said the “civic narrative” of traditonal public schools, rooted in neighborhood social networks, were under threat from a “market narrative” popularized by charter school financiers who want to privatize K-12 schooling. “Don’t compete,” Dr. Ravitch urged, “collaborate with public schools.” Questioning statistics used in the pro-charter documentary, Waiting for Superman, Dr. Ravitch picked up on that movie’s comparison of Finland’s educational success to our own relatively poor performance. She pointed out Finland has fewer tests, stronger unions and four times the level of social service spending for children as in the United States. Neither Dr. Ravitch, nor KIPP CEO Mike Feinberg who joined her in a panel discussion, addressed KIPP’s plan to recruit 20,000 students from the Houston Independent School District (HISD). While Mr. Feinberg lauded competition as the solution to urban education’s dilemmas, he failed to address why KIPP’s financiers have sponsored four successful school board candidates for the HISD Board of Trustees, or why they are currently backing a fifth candidate, which would give them a super-majority on the board. With the support they now have on the school board, and their influence in the community, KIPP’s backers, which include John and Laura Arnold, the nation’s youngest billionaire and his wife, and Leo Linbeck III, the scion of a local patrician family, the school reform coalition--if they wanted to improve rather than replace public schools--could win passage of any policies they desired. If John Arnold told the HISD board and Superintendent to jump out a second story window, the majority would probably do it; so why not fix the public schools now when we can, instead of replacing them with private charters unless they are doing this as a bizarre ideologically motivated experiment. This is the central issue underlying much of what Dr. Ravitch had to say--how if we as a community give up on an institution as central to neighborhood life as a public school, then can we maintain any sense of being part of a local, or a national community? What does it say about the United States, or at least about our cities, if we are the only wealthy nation that cannot create and manage good community public schools? Are we so divided on lines of race and income, and distrustful of elected leadership, that the only way to make progress in Houston is to shut down public schools and farm those services out to isolated, privately run entities? If we turn our public schools over to KIPP, who will be running them in twenty or thirty years after Mike Feinberg retires? The public has no say over these so-called public schools which receive taxpayer money, and there is no provision in their charters for public election of governing officers. So far, charter expansion, and HISD’s response to it, has been entirely under the table. We at least owe it to the notion we are still a democracy to have an open debate on the pros and cons or the long-term consequences of contracting out educational services for 20,000 of our public-school students.  

UFT Executive Board Notes

Monday, Oct. 18

A correspondent reports:

• Four people got up and requested reports:  one on the reorganization of D 75, another on the ATR agreement,  and the last on a report of the unionized charter schools.  The answers were in order were:  "yes, we will get it to out", "the DOE is having discussions and will get back to us", and to the last question "we'll look into it".  You know as much now as you knew before.
• But on the issue of the ATR's, perhaps there is a hint of what to expect in the longer answer which was:  the DOE is discussing whether or not they want to continue subsidies or something else.  They said they would get back to us in a few weeks.  The agreement expires on Nov. 31. One teacher who is an ATR said although the agreement says that they will be assigned in their districts, he was assigned 1 1/2 - 2 hours from his home and traveling is costing him $400 per month.  He was told to file a grievance and wondered of what use the agreement is with the grievance process going so slowly.
• It was clear that we will not be supporting a candidate for Governor.
  
• They gave out blue t-shirts, superman style with UFT written in the logo
• When a member asked why we are supporting Nicole Paultre-Bell for City Council as she supports charters, the response was that "charters are not the line in the sand, we have two of our own"!  The other candidates were labeled as "slick" candidates, turned down by voters in the past. (We predicted long ago that opening up two charters was dangerous for us.  And since when don't we support "slick" candidates?)
• There was a resolution on supporting Dignity for All in response to the recent bias attacks and suicides.  (The reality is that there once was an Office of Multicultural Education at the DOE that promoted anti-bias education  and were awarded Districts funds to conduct programs. The DOE ended the office.The reality is that at one time teachers had the time to teach values education.  The emphasis on test prep has stolen all of that time away. The resolution is a weak one in terms of prevention. )
  

Sabrina Finds the CRAP

Real Reformer Sabrina sent this to GEM last Monday.

Corporate Reform Action Pack!

From: TeacherSabrinaFSP | October 11, 2010  | 1,734 views

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While I try to find the proper (and markedly less snarky) words to fully address what I perceive to be the major shortcomings of Klein, Rhee & co's recent "manifesto", please enjoy this commercial for the kind of school reform they champion. By turning a deaf ear to the people they should be serving, and applying the most behaviorist, outdated ideals of business to schools, they're continuing the already devastating trend toward conformity and instability in schools.

For more serious, nuanced analyses of our current school reform climate, and first-person accounts of what goes on in so-called "failing schools", visit http://failingschools.wordpress.com. You can also follow me @TeacherSabrina on Twitter.

My thanks to the Real Reformers of the Grassroots Education Movement NYC for the protest footage! If you think America's kids deserve better than gimmicks and CRAP, be sure to check them out at http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com or http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org.

... (more info)  

I thought I already put this video up but guess I didn't.  Over 1700 hits. Keep it rolling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mciucQi-2GA&feature=player_embedded