Posted to The Wave for publication, Friday. November 12, 2010
www.rockawave.com
By Norm Scott
Joel Klein is so accommodating. I was just about to sit down and write another inconsequential and undecipherable column as deadline approached when the phone rang. "Norm, it's Joel. I'm thinking of resigning. Am I too late to make your column? I'll hold off for two weeks if I missed your deadline." (That guy doesn't make a move without consulting me first.) Despite my overwhelming sadness, I told him it was fine to resign.
"What's your next move Joel? Why not try brain surgery? You know as much about that as you do about education." Joel went on and on about his options before dropping the Big One. "Rupert? Rupert who?" I said. "Oh, that Rupert. But you know nothing about business or effective management or inspiring people. I mean, Joel, you know I love ya, but frankly, in 8 years you have taken the NYC public school system down a hell hole."
"Yeah, I know. Test scores and grad rates and the achievement gap and all that crap. I hate to tell you this Joel, but it was all false by just about every piece of data we have. Ha, ha, ha, ha - I know you love it when I use the D word."
Joel hung up happy while I cried my eyes out. I must have been the only one who was sad as cell phones all over the city exploded with shouts of joy emanating from the ranks of NYC parents and teachers. He was so polarizing and despised by all, we had no better organizing force.
My biggest fears were that Bloomberg would appoint someone with heavy credentials, like a Black or a Latino/a with a PhD. An ed deformer in drag who would fool communities into thinking they were going to be represented. But not to worry. Bloomberg came through and picked a white businesswoman who ran magazines and worked for Hearst. Phew! What a relief. Cathie Black - which do you like better - BloomBlack or BlackBloom - will be just a new face with the same old agenda. Sort of an Arne Duncan, less polarizing type, which to my mind as an organizer of opposition to the ed deform agenda, is a negative.
Black has even less educational experience than Joel (he actually taught briefly in the 60's when so many men entered teaching to avoid the draft) and she also needs a waiver from the State Ed Department since she is not qualified to be left alone with a class of children. Calls have already begun to deny her a waiver. Good luck with that as Regents head Meryl Tisch and State Ed head David Steiner are in Bloomies' pocket. But go ahead and sign the petition just to make a point. [See note below]
There is lots of speculation out there about whether Joel was pushed or jumped on his own. One person wrote, The only theory I've heard so far, from a DOE employee, was he saw the thing was falling apart and got out while the money was good. But others say that even Bloomberg had enough. The NY Times said, One of the first concrete signs that Mr. Klein was not long for the job was the appointment of Sharon L. Greenberger as the Education Department’s chief operating officer in April — something that, according to the official, “was imposed over Joel’s objection.”
Leave it to Leonie Haimson to sum up Joel's eight years as quoted in the Times article:
“He is leaving us with a legacy of classroom overcrowding, communities fighting over co-located schools, kindergarten waiting lists, unreliable school grades based on bad data, substandard credit recovery programs and our children starved of art, music and science — all replaced with test prep,” said Leonie Haimson, the head of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group and a critic of Mr. Klein’s.
With the next Panel for Educational Policy meeting coming up at Brooklyn Tech on November 16, Joel's intemperate leaving leaves us with a feeling of loss since the Real Reformers (as opposed to the phony reformers Joel Klein led) planned to appear with their red capes stamped with the RR Real Reformer logo to perform their rap song, "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?" Well, the show will go on with a performance scheduled in front of the entrance to Tech at 5:30.
Klein leaves school closing mayhem
Joel isn't leaving without starting the ball rolling on the crop of 47 schools on the closing list that are coming under attack. Of course we know that Beach Channel is cooked, as is Jamaica HS, whose chapter leader James Eterno is still fighting mad. He posted an excerpt from his chapter newsletter on the ICE blog. Titled "Department Of Ed Starves Jamaica And Then Sends Reviewers To Criticize Us For Being Malnourished," Eterno says, "I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny." Of course the same analogy applies to Beach Channel.
I went to an early morning rally/demo at targeted John Dewey High School in Coney Island, a school once a jewel of the system that attracted students from all over the city. Dewey and the recently closed Lafayette HS bear similarities to the Far Rocakway/Beach Channel situation where one school is closed and the next school down the line becomes the target for starvation and closure, part of strategy of intentionally destroying large high schools –a falling domino effect of destruction. Expect John Adams HS in Ozone Park to be the next target. I made a short 4-minute video of the Dewey demo that in just a few days received 3000 hits. You can see a bunch of videos in addition to an advocacy toolkit for fighting back at the GEM blog. http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com/
How Odd
Well, I have become increasingly immersed in rehearsals at the Rockaway Theatre Company for my first acting performance as "Vinny the card player" in the upcoming production of "The Odd Couple." I even ride the subways muttering my lines. The other day, a young fellow sat down catty corner to me. On the surface he appeared a bit menacing so I nudged away a bit. I took out my playbook and started studying. I practically leaped out of my seat when he tapped me. "Are you in 'The Odd Couple,'" he asked? I told him I was an amateur and it was my first role. He broke out into the biggest smile, "It's 'The Odd Couple' man. That is wonderful." He seemed so happy for me. Turns out he is an actor who just moved to NY. I told him about the great work at the RTC and he should check it out. My stop came up and I had to get off but I'm sure we would have had a great chat. "Check it out. The play is at the great community theater at the RTC in Rockaway at Fort Tilden," I called as the door closed.
When Norm is not riding the subway trying out his lines on strangers, he blogs at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/. His email is normsco@gmail.com
Addendum
Check out the NY Times article and compare what Randi has to say with what Leonie said. I feel the same frustration with the weak-kneed UFT/AFT response to ed deform as I feel with Obama's similar cowering in front of the Republicans.
NO WAIVER letter:
Dear Commissioner David M. Steiner,
Today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his appointment of Cathie Black to replace Joel Klein as Chancellor of New York City Schools. Ms. Black, currently executive vice president of Hearst Magazines, lacks the required educational and professional qualifications for the position of Schools Chancellor as determined by state law. As a result, she will require a waiver from your office in order to accept the appointment.
The children, parents, and educational community of New York City deserve a leader with experience in education. Ms. Black's corporate experience may well qualify her for executive positions in business, but the education of our children and the training of our teachers is not corporate business. We urge you, as an educator, to:
~Deny the necessary waiver for Ms. Black's appointment
~Reaffirm the qualification requirements for NYC Schools Chancellor
This is the link: http://www.petitiononline.com/DenyWaiv/
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Jeff Kaufman Asks the Question of the day: Which News is Better?
From Brooklyn HS UFT District Rep Charlie Turner:
HS Committee meeting canceled
Ladies and Gentlemen:
By now you may have heard that Klein has resigned. What great news!
Also, the high school committee meeting has been cancelled. Have a great holiday.
HS Committee meeting canceled
Ladies and Gentlemen:
By now you may have heard that Klein has resigned. What great news!
Also, the high school committee meeting has been cancelled. Have a great holiday.
Bergtraum Chapter Leader John Elfrank-Dana on Joel Klein
I wasn't going to wait for Michael Mulgrew's take on Chancellor Klein's resignation. But, chose instead to give you the heads up and quote a friend and colleague (below) in the struggle to give our students what they really need- small class sizes and social work supports adequate to meet their needs. It appears the Mayor has chosen another shoe-maker, someone with no background as an educator to succeed Klein.
I have always said Klein was just the symptom; that the problem is the concentration of power in the executive (Mayor) along with a thinly veiled agenda to privatize schools via union busting and parent disenfranchisement. As a person with 3 children in suburban schools I know there's no way BloomKlein could have gotten away with what they have thus far where my kids go to school because the parents have great political clout. Our students are the victims of the corporate-privatizers tinkering with the educational system. Our profession has paid through the nose because of concessions our union has made with these corporate bureaucrats in contract rights giveaways who want to see a swift end to us as an organized labor force with rights.
While I must say the Chancellor on a few occasions has come through for Bergtraum on some relatively small matters (your new phone system, increased Internet capacity), we have been the victims of his misguided educational policies of dumping on large schools like ours of large numbers of high need student populations without providing the necessary supports. I have personally seen Bergtraum go from one of the most desirable schools in the city to one where nobody wants to be.
No folks, the fight is not over with the exiting of Klein. His successor will have the same marching orders from the corporate elites- crush the unions and privatize the schools. I hope the UFT leadership realizes this.
John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
I have always said Klein was just the symptom; that the problem is the concentration of power in the executive (Mayor) along with a thinly veiled agenda to privatize schools via union busting and parent disenfranchisement. As a person with 3 children in suburban schools I know there's no way BloomKlein could have gotten away with what they have thus far where my kids go to school because the parents have great political clout. Our students are the victims of the corporate-privatizers tinkering with the educational system. Our profession has paid through the nose because of concessions our union has made with these corporate bureaucrats in contract rights giveaways who want to see a swift end to us as an organized labor force with rights.
While I must say the Chancellor on a few occasions has come through for Bergtraum on some relatively small matters (your new phone system, increased Internet capacity), we have been the victims of his misguided educational policies of dumping on large schools like ours of large numbers of high need student populations without providing the necessary supports. I have personally seen Bergtraum go from one of the most desirable schools in the city to one where nobody wants to be.
No folks, the fight is not over with the exiting of Klein. His successor will have the same marching orders from the corporate elites- crush the unions and privatize the schools. I hope the UFT leadership realizes this.
John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Resigning NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein Wants To Be The Yanks 5th Starter
Resigning NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein Wants To Be The Yanks 5th Starter
Just Discovered: Joel Klein's Prior Baseball Experience
Am I the Only One Sad to See Him Go (Other than Eva?), My Advice - Sell Your Newscorps Stock ASAP
Yes, run don't walk to sell your Newscorp stocks. Joel Klein is one of the most incompetent people on earth - don't you think he wasn't kicked out of Bertlesman and jumped into the Chancellorship to save face - and as a tech guru in the 90's I didn't think all that much of him at the Justice Dept - remember he had to hire David Boies to prosecute Microsoft and Bill Gates and though spin made it look like they won, they really didn't - the over decade ago version of phony reading scores and phony grad rates.
I hope none of the people at Newscorp ever give Joel the job of getting buses there on time to pick up their kids.
I'm not singing, "Ding, Dong"
Teacher and education activist cell phones were practically exploding with joy this afternoon as Joel Klein announced his resignation. I was practically in tears over the organizing potential we lost with his departure. The only thing we have to be thankful for is that Mayor Mike didn't appoint a PhD phony educator with credentials so he could say we have an educator in charge. And even worse would be if it was someone Black or Latino/a which might have just turned away some of the growing opposition to BloomKlein ----ooops! Crap, can't use that anymore.
But wait. Bloomie did appoint someone Black. Catherine Black. I just can't wait to go to those PEP meetings and flash my red Real Reformer cape at her.
Just a minute - phone's ringing.
What!!? What did you say? Oh!
Never mind.
Well, the real Cathie Black is my age and yet seems 20 years younger than me. Ahhh, the good life. Maybe it was putting her kids in boarding school. As one parent told a principal at Open School Night tonight:
Well, clearly the appointment of Cathleen Black bodes no good for the NYC schools but watch all the calls to give her a chance to blah, blah, blah. And that is not good for building the anti ed deform movement.
Hey, someone just suggested at ICE Mail that we oppose granting Black a waiver since she is unqualified. How about the UFT showing some balls? We may just put that up as a reso at the DA next week.
And then there is this from some mag:
Ms. Black, who was demoted this summer at Hearst, said that she was “very excited about this incredible opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our young people.”
Wait a minute. Demoted? Like Joel Klein was chased out of Bertelsman and into our lives? Oy!
Here is some stuff from the NYCEd Listserve. Lots more floating around.
Paul Moore from Miami just sent in this joyous message:
The Business Roundtable's unholy scheme to destroy the public schools hatched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1989 is now in full-scale collapse along with the global capitalist economy. The oligarchs and their henchmen and hatchet women are defeated. But the fight is only beginning because Gates, Broad, Bloomberg and the Waltons are replaced by a more powerful and vicious enemy of working people--the banks.
By way of a victory lap, this was written a month ago today.
One chancellor down, one to go.
New York City Chancellor Joel Klink*, I sincerely want you to enjoy your warm fuzzy delusions about "Waiting For Superman" because they may not last very long. I mean, did you hear what happened to Michelle Rhee? She's plays a "chancellor" just like you right? And she was one of the stars of your movie right?
I hope none of the people at Newscorp ever give Joel the job of getting buses there on time to pick up their kids.
I'm not singing, "Ding, Dong"
 |
| NOT the new chancellor |
But wait. Bloomie did appoint someone Black. Catherine Black. I just can't wait to go to those PEP meetings and flash my red Real Reformer cape at her.
Just a minute - phone's ringing.
What!!? What did you say? Oh!
Never mind.
Well, the real Cathie Black is my age and yet seems 20 years younger than me. Ahhh, the good life. Maybe it was putting her kids in boarding school. As one parent told a principal at Open School Night tonight:
"You know I was thinking about what you said about us having another Chancellor now who is not an educator. I heard she has never even worked in our schools and that her own kids went to boarding school. So I figure, not only doesn't she not know OUR kids-she doesn't even know her own kids!"
Well, clearly the appointment of Cathleen Black bodes no good for the NYC schools but watch all the calls to give her a chance to blah, blah, blah. And that is not good for building the anti ed deform movement.Hey, someone just suggested at ICE Mail that we oppose granting Black a waiver since she is unqualified. How about the UFT showing some balls? We may just put that up as a reso at the DA next week.
And then there is this from some mag:
Ms. Black, who was demoted this summer at Hearst, said that she was “very excited about this incredible opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our young people.”
Wait a minute. Demoted? Like Joel Klein was chased out of Bertelsman and into our lives? Oy!
Here is some stuff from the NYCEd Listserve. Lots more floating around.
First, the good news. The NY Times is now reporting that Joel Klein has resigned as Chancellor of NYC schools in order to take a position at (drum roll please)........
Rupert Murdoch's NEWS CORPORATION!!!!
That's right, Joel Klein is going exactly where he belongs, to work for Rupert Murdoch where he can lie and dissemble and spin to his heart's content along with all the other liars and spinners. Joel will fit right in with O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, and the rest of that disreputable crew. I can hardly imagine a better, more fitting place for him. If you can believe this, he stated that his EVP position responsibility would be to develop "strategy to put them [i.e., News Corporation] in the education marketplace." Heaven help us.
Now for the potentially bad news (only time will tell). Joel's replacement has apparently already been named, without any public input, of course. Her name is Cathleen Black. She's the former publisher of USA Today and chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, 66 years old and with zero experience in education. She is, however, according to Mike Bloomberg, a "superstar manager." Sounds great. I'm sure she just loves children and wants them all to have the best of all possible futures in this best of all possible worlds (my apologies to Voltaire). I'm sure we'll be hearing and learning more about Ms. Black in the near future.
Amazing that the lives of over one million children and their families are directly affected by these individuals, yet they have no say whatsoever, even through their elected representatives, as to who is given this job.
------------------------Steve Koss
------------------Assemblyman Perry Reacts to Mayor’s Chancellor Appointment“A quick review of what is known about the background of Mayor Bloomberg’s announced choice, raises a lot of questions as to the direction, and the real agenda for our public education system. It is of concern that the newly appointed chancellor appears to have no significant educational background, as required by NYS Education Law. Furthermore, she was raised in a private school system, and subsequently raised her children in a private school system, it is very difficult to believe that a person who has such a strong history steeped in private education, will be able to appreciate the diverse and difficult challenge of running the NYC Public School System. Under NYS Education Law, Ms. Black, will not be able to officially assume the position without a waiver by the NYS Board of Regents and just a quick glimpse at her profile raises significant questions as to how such a waiver might be justified.”
Well my bet is she already has the waiver. Tisch and Steiner should be embarrassed by this. How elite can the elite be?
Did she publish at Scholastic? maybe that's the credential that got her the waiver?
This is the time for a revolt folks. This is the time to be talking to every legislator and every member of the Board of Regents. This is the time for members of school communities to band together and reject this blatant power grab by the leading elite.
has anyone heard from Scott Stringer? Anthony Weiner? Bill De Blasio? I am not asking about Quinn as she was probably part of the deal.
__._,_.___
NOTE: LISTEN TO SOUTH BRONX RADIO TONIGHT AT 9 WITH MAGNIFICENT MONA AS GUEST. (Scroll sidebar for link.)
Paul Moore from Miami just sent in this joyous message:
The Business Roundtable's unholy scheme to destroy the public schools hatched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1989 is now in full-scale collapse along with the global capitalist economy. The oligarchs and their henchmen and hatchet women are defeated. But the fight is only beginning because Gates, Broad, Bloomberg and the Waltons are replaced by a more powerful and vicious enemy of working people--the banks.
By way of a victory lap, this was written a month ago today.
One chancellor down, one to go.
New York City Chancellor Joel Klink*, I sincerely want you to enjoy your warm fuzzy delusions about "Waiting For Superman" because they may not last very long. I mean, did you hear what happened to Michelle Rhee? She's plays a "chancellor" just like you right? And she was one of the stars of your movie right?
Changing Education Paradigms - Animated
Sir Ken Robinson- worth the time - his speech completely animated through RSA Animate. Check out more of their videos. http://www.thersa.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
HOT RUMOR: KLEIN TO RESIGN TODAY
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is preparing to leave office, according to multiple sources who tell NBCNewYork.com Klein's resignation could be announced as early as Tuesday afternoon.
Complete details from NBC New York:http://click1.nbclocal.com/
DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED: Eterno Slams Klein and DOE Over Jamaica HS
I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny. - James Eterno
James hits the bullseye in this excerpt from his chapter newsletter posted on the ICE blog.
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/
by James Eterno, Jamaica HS chapter leader
This post is extracted from Jamaica's weekly Chapter Newsletter and it is strictly my opinion. The story concerns Jamaica but is applicable to any school that is struggling and is reviewed by the DOE and State in the process.
-------------------------------
Another Queens chapter leader with another brilliant piece.
(How come all these smart people have been opposed to the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership? Please show me anything comparable to these posts by the geniuses who run our union.)
Arthur Goldstein at HufPo: No Leeches Left Behind
NOTE: COME TO THE Panel for Educational Policy AT BROOKLYN TECH ON TUESDAY, NOV. 16 to tell Joel Klein to his face what you think of his closing schools policies
- JOIN THE REAL REFORMERS AT 5:30- (Rehearsal at 4:30) - LOOK FOR MORE DETAILS AT ED NOTES AND GEM BLOGS.
James hits the bullseye in this excerpt from his chapter newsletter posted on the ICE blog.
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/
TAKE THE JAMAICA CHALLENGE
This post is extracted from Jamaica's weekly Chapter Newsletter and it is strictly my opinion. The story concerns Jamaica but is applicable to any school that is struggling and is reviewed by the DOE and State in the process.
DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED
Jamaica High School has been denied resources by the Department of Education over the last few years since we started downsizing but that does not stop DOE officials from coming to our school to tell us how we need to improve.
I ask any school in the world to take the Jamaica challenge: Cut 30% of the teaching staff (student enrollment drop is less than half of that) and take away roughly half of the school’s space, raise class sizes beyond what the union contract calls for in scores of classes, replace an excellent Programmer and Guidance Coordinator with assistant principals who are untrained in these areas and must still also do their previous jobs, while continuing to permit unlicensed non-secretaries to perform secretarial duties.
Then, place new schools in the corners of the building and equip those schools with up to date technology and provide their teachers with lower class sizes and a beautiful makeover for their parts of the building while students and staff of the old school that includes many at risk pupils are shoved into the middle of the building in obsolete rooms. Do all of this to the old school and then ask it to raise the graduation rate and promotion rate. Even set up the lunch schedule to favor the new schools. Their kids eat lunch during normal lunch hours between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. while the old school’s kids are eating lunch starting at 10:00 a.m. or after 1:00 p.m.
We at Jamaica challenge any school to thrive under these teaching and learning conditions. A Quality Review or Joint Intervention Team visit under these circumstances is a setup for failure. Separate and unequal schools are unfair and it is time for the DOE to be held accountable for mismanaging the education of our kids.
Last week Jamaica had a Quality Review-Joint Intervention Team (city-state) visit and it was a farce on a major scale. (I do not know the score we received on the QR.) I will say that the state people were quite professional in their review. From all reports they were very personable and listened to what we had to say. They did not call in the Chapter Leader for a formal discussion but we did exchange some pleasantries. It was the two quality reviewers from the city that interviewed me in one of the most bizarre interactions I have ever experienced.
I was trying to explain to these officials what we do in the Advanced Placement United States History class and how we have revived the program in the last three years and now have pupils scoring the top grades of 5 and 4 on the rigorous examination. We built up the program without the supports other schools have. The male quality reviewer cut me off in mid sentence and told me how we have an English Advanced Placement class that has 34 students in it and this is educationally unsound. He seemed to be criticizing me for this situation. I told him that I couldn’t agree more that it was unwise to have 34 in a college level class in a high school but that in actuality the class had 37 and as Chapter Leader I grieved it and 82 other oversize classes at Jamaica this fall. He would not even admit that we have oversize classes. I said the principal and DOE lawyer used the half class exception to justify them.
At this point, the two reviewers looked at me like I was from Mars and would not talk about the half class size exception.
What stunned me was that they seemed to be trying to put me on the spot for the oversize classes. Were they kidding? We were truly coming from two different worlds. I mentioned the Quality Review from two years back that said we need new technology but we have lost so much funding that we can barely afford a piece of chalk in this school while the new schools in the building have modern equipment and lower class sizes. I said the education in this building is separate and unequal and our kids deserve an equal education.
I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny.
THE DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD FOR JAMAICA
THE DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD FOR JAMAICA
There is no way around the conclusion that we believe strong forces from outside would like to destroy Jamaica High School. We clearly are being set up to fail by the Department of Education and our union’s response has not exactly been tough.
I read yesterday’s NY Post article about Jamaica High School giving away credits very closely. Even by adding over 1,000 credits to student transcripts, we still couldn’t get enough points on the DOE Progress Report for this year to get a C grade. That is hard to believe. Of course when administration took those credits away our grade became a lower D but I am still forced to conclude that they would have found a way to give us a D even if all of our students graduated in a week.
Isn’t it strange how Jamaica for at least two years in a row didn’t receive any credit on our progress report in a category called Additional Points even though our internal review shows that we have moved along English Language Learners who are obtaining Regents Diplomas? Where are our points? If DOE reviewed us fairly, they would have to admit we are performing miracles on a daily basis even with all of the obstacles they have placed in our way.
It looks like the DOE also undercounted our graduation rate just like they did last year. Therefore, it’s déjà vu or Ground Hog Day as we repeat the same scenario as last year. We must admit that many of us are tired of fighting with an employer that in my opinion does not play fair. However, we learned from last year’s experience and now is the time to wage another battle to keep going by exposing the truth. Hopefully, this blog piece will get the ball rolling.
As for the extra credit probe of jamaica High School for adding questionable credits to student transcripts that the NY Post is reporting on, I agree with Leonie Haimson that principals are cutting corners all over because of pressure to boost promotion and graduation rates.
High stakes decisions based on student progress are ridiculous when the school plays only a small part in determing student performance. Outside factors are far more important according to scholarly research and common sense. Hopefully, there will be a time when sanity returns to our schools.
-------------------------------
Another Queens chapter leader with another brilliant piece.
(How come all these smart people have been opposed to the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership? Please show me anything comparable to these posts by the geniuses who run our union.)
Arthur Goldstein at HufPo: No Leeches Left Behind
If I were a doctor, and Bill Gates suggested the use of bloodletting to improve medicine, I'd be skeptical. Still, Gates has all that money, so he must know something. He gives it away freely, and asks only that everyone follow the programs he starts (and pay to sustain them in perpetuity once his seed money runs out). Oh, and that institutions that don't meet his expectations be closed and replaced by others that more closely follow his methods.
Bloodletting is of no medical value, so it's understandably unpopular with modern medical practitioners. On the other hand, "value-added" evaluations, or judging teachers by scores of their students, is also highly questionable. Day by day, it appears as dubious as bloodletting.
MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-goldstein/no-leeches-left-behind_b_780026.html
Monday, November 8, 2010
In today's Daily News (see below), there is an article that reports you sent out a notice to all Community Education Councils at Eva Moskowitz's request informing them that their meetings are subject to Open Meetings Law and can be videotaped and recorded. I would like to know why you have complied with Ms. Moskowitz's request but have not complied with my request for the same notification but to charter leaders and their boards. I would hate to think that Ms. Moskowitz's request is more important than my request. It makes me feel like a second class citizen. Is a charter school leader more important than a charter parent?Check Norms Notes for Mona's letter:
OPEN EMAIL: Violation of General Municipal Law & Open Meetings Law by NYC DOE Authorized Charter Schools [2nd Request]
So the DOE finally did respond this morning - nothing like a little bit of embarrassing bad pub to get them off their asses:Dear Ms. Davids,Mona tossed this back:
We have received your email communication and we are working on crafting communication to our charters regarding requirements for Open Meeting Laws.
Aaron Listhaus
Chief Academic Officer | Charter Schools Office
NYC Department of Education| Room 413
Phone: 212.374.6883 | Fax: 212.374.5581
Charters are touted for their accountability. Where's the accountability in ensuring they follow the law?
It's beginning to seem like charters are above the law with their enablers being the authorizers who are supposed oversee them. Fiscal mismanagement - that's okay; corruption - that's okay; violating your charter - that's okay; violating Ed Law - that's okay; violating IDEA - that's okay; not serving Special Needs and ELL's - that's okay; violating Title 1 - that's okay; violating the charter schools act - that's okay; violating charter parents' civil rights - that's okay; abusing children - that's okay; nepotism - that's okay; ultimately destroying communities - that's okay...
It's not just DoE authorized charters violating the law but also Regents and SUNY CSI authorized charters as well. Charters funded with public money but privately managed are apparently above the law and not accountable to the public.
This is very wrong and not what charters were originally envisioned to become.
DOE progress reports: The Insane Elephant in the Room
Why is the media not scrutinizing the immense flaw in the DOE's methodology of its progress reports? In what other field of practice, do we keep increasing the standard of any measure of evaluation - and calling that valid?
The DOE every year, increases the "cut" score for determining the letter grade for each school's evaluation. So what would have been an A two years ago is now a C.
Really? To see the farcical nature of this system - let's just imagine hospitals were rated in this manner. So in one year, a hospital can be rated as a top notch hospital, but two years later be rated as a dangerous C, even though the raw scores may have improved?
In baseball, a good batting average is around .300 - which means that a batter manages a hit only 3 times out of 10. We can imagine Bloomberg taking over the Yankees and incrementally increasing that measure to .350, .400., .450,... every year until Alex Rodriguez is out of a job.
Legally speaking, a driver is DWAI, when the blood alcohol content is 0.05 % or higher. Leave it up to Bloomberg, and in a few years, you won't be able to eat that slice of grandma's rum cake before leaving Christmas dinner.
In Bloomberg's world, millions of more cars would fail their yearly inspection, a fever of 98.7 would require antibiotics, and if you happen to skip your vitamin C for the day your t-cell count would require you to be on AIDS medication.
The only rationale the DOE incessantly brings up is the idea of "competition" - that schools need to be evaluated based on how other schools perform. The only problem is - competition is not what's being evaluated here. Schools are not competing with each other, they are competing against a one-size-fits-all cut score - that's ever increasing.
An evaluation system of physicians currently being developed is running into similar problems. They are noticing that physicians in poorer areas have patients with longer recovery times and more complications. Of course, we know that patients with less access to health care will have more acute conditions before seeking treatment.
If Bloomberg were in charge of evaluating military doctor's in Iraq and Afghanistan - he'd fire every army surgeon for having terrible rates of limb loss during operations. Boston general would get an A (this year at least) and military units ...an F.
So, here's the danger. In a world where Bloombergs of the world threaten a professional's ability to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads, massive cheating ensues and real progress ceases - more doctor's will fudge their medical reports, more batters will take steroids, and anti-biotic resistant bacteria will take over.....oh. So much for the business model.
Seung Ok
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Message from the Trenches: A Little Bit of Personal History on School Organizing - Part I
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," or any version of the Santayana quote you like:
The word is out: with Unity Caucus controlling 3/4 of the schools in NYC, you can't build a force within the UFT unless you can organize at the school level. Duh! I've been trying to do that since 1970. And obviously have failed. I wish the pundits had dropped me a line to tell me what I was doing wrong.
What I try to tell my colleagues today is that each school community is unique and there are no blueprints you can use to define a theory of school level organizing.
I thought if I put out a bit of history someone out there might see the flaws, correct them and do it right this time. This is far from close to being comprehensive - there is enough material for a book. A very long book. I'm going to do this in 2 parts. Part 1 is based on my school experiences from 1970-1997 and part 2 on the founding of Ed Notes, ICE and GEM from 1997-today.
Part I: 1970's-1997
The 1970's
I became an activist in the union and in the community early in my 4th year of teaching. I was working in Williamsburg in District 14. I'll spare you all the details but one overriding fact was that a UFT chapter leader won the election for District rep around 1970 and became the major political power broker in the district, even hand-picking superintendents, principals, AP's and controlling a massive patronage machine. Want to be a teacher? school secretary? para? aide? A job was available if you played ball politically.
Some people tell me about fear in the schools today. But you should have seen how afraid people were then to buck this machine, which remained dominant through the death of the District Rep in the 90's - he had made himself Superintendent by then - and in fact elements of that 40 year old machine still operate today and control a number of schools. (So much for BloomKlein's dismantling of the old system.)
District organizing
In the fall of 1970 I was regularly appointed and in a new school and heard of a group of teachers based in a nearby middle school called Another View in District 14. We put out a newsletter that dealt with citywide and local educational issues and even touched on national issues (like tracking) almost every month and tried to get it into other schools. We attended school board meetings and challenged the local power structure while also building links to community activists. You know, we had just come out of the 60's. We were doing both school-wide and district organizing and attracted a following, but also a lot of enmity. Sixties type radicals in a very conservative district dominated by north Williamsburg/Greenpoint with only about 5% of the kids in the district, mostly white while the rest of the under represented district was Black and Latino.
UFT Chapter organizing
We also became active in our school UFT chapters, which were almost all run by Unity Caucus members or sympathizers. The District Rep made sure the chapter leadership was a conduit to eventually becoming a supervisor and at one point I believe most of the principals on the district were former CLs.
They were not exactly friendly to our organizing efforts over the rest of the 70's and one by one our people left the district or were nudged out until there were only two of us left - Loretta Prisco was the other one and she was moved around like a chess piece until she had a baby and left too.
Another View goes citywide
Eventually, Another View met up with people from other districts through various actions and we became a city-wide group called the Coalition of NYC School Workers, reaching the height of activity in the 1975 UFT strike over the massive budget cuts and 15,000 layoffs. We were very active at the Delegate Assembly and ran in UFT elections in various coalitions with other groups (Teachers Action Caucus and New Directions who eventually merged to form the current New Action) through the 80's.
Battling at the school, level and citywide levels
No one in the schools wanted to be a delegate- until one of us ran. I had some fierce election battles with some people telling me - "I personally want you to be at the Delegate Assembly but if you lose I can tell Mario (the district rep) that I voted against you and that might help me be an AP one day." I always won but sometimes it was close. At least in my school the admins in the 70's were not part of the machine and on my side - which didn't help their careers and in some cases actually killed their chances of becoming principal.
What I learned over the years was that Mario, though in Unity Caucus, was considered a rogue by the central union because he used to tell them to go fuck themselves - he even said that to Sandy Feldman I heard. (In later years he and I would find some peace and used to have laughs over the "wars." Believe me, there's a major book in Mario stories but most of his crew are dead, including Ken Shrednick one of my good friends who died last March, or won't talk.)
The District "Makes" my new principal
There were always hints that there were certain, let's say "influences" in the district. It was no accident that when someone became a principal they were referred to as "made" as they went out to celebrate at a well-known "connected" restaurant, whose owner actually was "elected" to the school board. Really, it was like working in the middle of a novel.
Things changed for me when the District machine forced the old principal and AP out and put in their own, a fairly young woman with little teaching experience who was "connected" though her hubbie. (One time on a Saturday night we were eating out at a restaurant when she walked in accompanied by 15 men - she was the only female - an Irishwoman in a sea of Italian men.) Can you say: Leadership Academy early prototype?
That was in late 1978 and now I was faced with a hostile admin for the first time and the wars began. I won't go into details now but we fought on and off for 20 years. My friends used to tell me I should start my car by remote control.
The new principal
Let me say this one thing - the daughter of a fireman, she never tried to take someone's job. But she knew how to exercise the power of a principal - not by force as much as using her political power. She was a political animal and active in Democratic Party politics in Queens.
She instituted a high stakes testing program with test prep all the time (which drove me out of the self-contained classroom in 1985) and really was innovative in terms of a Joel Klein type mentality. There is no little irony that she was forced out by Kleinites in 2003.
After I left the school in 1997 we actually became sort of pals - she once called Randi Weingarten a whore for selling out the UFT members because she (the principal) had a theoretical pro union sensitivity though not when faced with reality in the school. She used to slip me $20 for Ed Notes. In retrospect, she was an amazing woman who pushed her way into a strictly defined "man only" world in District 14 - they used to laugh at her but she was brazen and fearless. I didn't realize 'till later that she tapped into the mostly women staff feminist identity and some of them attributed anti-fem motives to men like me who were opposed to her.
And one more thing- no matter what happened in the classroom, she backed the teacher all the way, even when sometime she shouldn't have. But on the negative side she as no educator and we had the same kind of test-driven distorted curriculum you see today.
The CL was a Unity guy light and he fought her too - until she chopped his music program in the early 80's and threw him back in the classroom. He stopped fighting.
The 1980's
I basically missed the 80's as an activist. Bought a house in 1979 and fixing it up became a preoccupation and then went back go school for an MA in computer science starting in '83 and didn't really emerge from that process until the late 80's - with 2 years off mixed in for study.The 1990's
By 1994 it was clear that there was practically no union functioning in the school. The Unity chapter leader at times tried to fight the principal but he had become a part-time CL and even though we had a bunch of people who wouldn't take any crap I felt there was a need for a strong chapter to stand up to the principal so individuals who wanted to fight for their rights would have strong backing. So with much trepidation I took on the job of chapter leader for the 1994-95 school year with the primary aim of organizing an effective chapter.It is not enough to say the principal wasn't pleased. She was horrified. She had not been paying attention to the election in June 1994 as she was busy manipulating the PTA election and in fact there wasn't even an election since the Unity guy withdrew when I accepted the nomination. She went nuts, even sending the AP around to gather signatures from UFT members calling for a new election. That over 20 of my colleagues signed the petition was a sign I had a hell of a lot of organizing to do. The election committee duly certified the election and we went off for the summer.
[Section newly added]
[I didn't walk into the position cold but had spent some serious time thinking about how a UFT chapter should be run. One error was not gathering a group of supporters around me in advance. My decision to actually run came just as time was running out. Frankly, I was scared to death to take on this responsibility so I never did poll people. That left me weakened for the initial attacks that came but on the other hand it didn't give the principal a chance to organize against me. ]
Nuts and bolts of chapter organizing
Of course the wars began as soon as we came back in September 1994 and she refused to speak to me for that entire month - until I sent her a message that unless she held a consultation meeting as required by the contract I would file a grievance.
Up to that point these meetings if they took place at all were between the principal and chapter leaders.
I codified these meetings and invited the entire staff to attend at least one a year. I had a sort of cabinet - an exec bd with reps from all areas of the school. I really worked to get some of the younger teachers involved. The 2 most responsive were pals and the principal purposely split them up by giving them different lunch hours. But in one of those twists, a kindergarten teacher left and she had to move one of them back to K and the 2 of them ended up as next door neighbors. What guts these young ladies had.
Chapter meetings and the newsletter
The key instruments of organizing my chapter were: establishing as democratic an institution as possible by giving the most voice to as many people as feasible, the newsletter and focusing on holding productive UFT meetings, which I moved from a split lunch period to a regular once a month on a Friday before school. I got food paid for from my chapter leader stipend and the meetings became breakfast and were well-attended.
We issued DA and District and Consultation meeting reports in advance of the meetings and used the meetings to talk mostly about in-school matters. The old CL used to give long-winded reports and brought in UFT officials as guests. I refused to let the UFT send a guest to these meetings (until the district rep insisted he had to come to debate me on the 1995 contract, which in the first vote was rejected.) For important pension or safety issues I invited UFT people to come for the double lunch hour devoted solely to that issue. Thus, the important chapter meetings were left to us to debate important points.
I added a treasurer who kept strict books. (We arranged for a soda machine which the chapter controlled and used the profits to buy an air conditioner for the teachers room.)
The newsletter became a major instrument. I reported on everything (I had a little Apple laptop and was the only CL in the union to be using it at the time). The consultation meetings was "ours" - the chapter - with our agendas though I would ask the principal if there was anything she wanted on the agenda. Though she hated them she also got to like the give and take as we went back and forth in front of an audience - we were both performers. I reported on these meetings to the chapter. Once when I asked for paras to be relieved from lunch duty, she said, "fuck the paras." I told her I would leave that out of the minutes - and she owed me one. The people watching almost fell over with stifled laughter.
Every meeting was advertised numerous times - stuffed boxes and attached to bathroom doors and near the office. Constant reminders to busy people who often forgot. I felt that getting as many of them in one place once a month was a key organizing tool and hitting them with as much info as they could take would keep them informed between meetings.
I won't go into any more details other than to say that I put in an intense 3 years focused on building a democratic chapter that involved as many people as possible. I have to say that if I were not a cluster teacher but still in a self-contained class, this would have been an impossible job. While I developed tremendous skills in being chapter leader, my teaching suffered in many ways. But as a computer teacher I had some options that other teachers don't have. (More about this some other time.)
Working with parents
I didn't just focus on the chapter, I also used the fact that in my 25 years in the school I had built up an excellent relationship with many parents. The PTA presidents were always friendly but were in the pocket of the principal (relatives became aides and paras and their kids were always in the top class). I don't blame them. But many other parents on the PTA exec bd were openly in support of me because they hated the principal. At one graduation they secretly chipped in and bought me a plaque and had it presented to me without telling the principal at graduation ceremonies while she stood there and seethed. It is still one of my proudest possessions.
When the election came up in 1996 (there were 2 year terms) she barely put up a fight and I was re-elected overwhelmingly or ran unopposed (can't remember). In the 96-97 school year I put out out almost 50 newsletters and used them to control the debate in the school.
I went to monthly chapter leader meetings and though the district rep tried to control me, some of what I was doing began to infect some other chapter leaders. My principal friends told me my principal would go to district meetings and say she had the chapter leader from hell. An honor, of sorts. But a few other principals were complaining I was having a "bad" influence on their own CLs.
Then I took a sabbatical in 97-98. I asked 2 people to become co-chairs in my absence, though I continued to attend DAs. The Principal's lackeys were calling for an election but the procedure is to appoint a temp until you come back and I intended to run again in 98. I was very involved in the early fall but the principal used my absence to dismantle my computer program which I had spent 8 years building. I had had enough.
A district job
I was offered a district job computer job to begin in the fall of 98, which I always maintained was a way to keep me from challenging the District Rep in the next election or to cut my influence with other CLs. By bringing me inside the tent it was easy to control me. Expecting to retire in 2 years (I actually worked 4) it wasn't a difficult choice to make.
I saw almost all of my school organizing efforts end the minute I left.
I won a lot of battles but the principal won the war.
THE BIG LESSON
I tried to do too much myself. Not enough people were involved to make it sustainable when I left. It also takes a stable faculty and a longer period of time.
When my new boss stopped by the school to tell her the news that he was hiring, my principal said, "My car was stolen today but this makes up for it."
Ironically, I continued to cover my school out of the district over the next 4 years. I would get a big hug from her every time I came with invitations into her office to chat about district gossip. I think we were both relieved.
{ADDENDUM-
The issues
Since I posted this I was asked what were the issues. I had my agenda and other people in the school had theirs and I tried to represent as many of the points of view as possible. I was interested in how the principal was wasting enormous sums of money on test practice and how she was spending the budget generally and trying to get her to comply with the contract wherever she was going around it.Coming soon Part 2: 1997-2010
How the chapter leadership brought me back to central union issues, the chapter newsletter evolved into Delegate Assembly Notes and then Education Notes, trying to work with Unity, then becoming a critic and organizing a new opposition group and more.
Stuy student uncovers SAT score "secret"
Great story from Steve Koss on how to beat the SAT writing test: Volume
If you haven't seen this story, it's a gem, and well worth watching. A 14-year-old Stuyvesant HS student named Milo Beckman has taken the SAT twice and was disturbed when his Writing score on the second test was higher than on the first, even though he felt it was a weaker piece of writing that included (as he later confirmed for himself) a factual error that he himself termed a lie. The one thing that made his second Writing exam essay different was its longer length, which got him to thinking.
He managed to recruit other Stuy students to his inquiry and got from 115 of them their SAT Writing scores and the number of lines in their essays (he asked them to note this information when they took the exam). Sure enough, there was an exceedingly high correlation between number of lines in the essay and its score, so high that the probability of its being random was effectively zero. He cross-checked this finding by getting line counts and essay scores for two or more sittings of the SAT from the same students and found that, in NO cases did their scores for the longer essay fall below that of their shorter one.
An MIT professor has found similar results, claiming that he can predict 90% of the SAT Writing essay scores merely by their line counts. The College Board, of course, disputes these findings with at least a partially plausible counterargument.
To me, this is a perfect example of what education should be about, whether its math, science, social studies, or anything else. It's about questioning, about critical inquiry and creative yet intellectually sound exploration. About thinking not just outside the box, but about the box itself. What makes this story so great is the Milo did exactly that, and he did it by starting with his own direct experience, doubting the very efficacy of his own SAT Writing scores rather than just happily accepting the higher grade that he felt in his heart was somehow not valid.
So where in all of Joel Klein's vaunted education reforms, and in those of the rest of the ed deformers, does this sort of critical thinking and self-reflection and constructive exploration and analysis get taught, or at least cultivated? How does getting a 4 on an inane standardized exam translate into creative perception, critical introspection, and lateral thinking? Yet aren't these the skills we most admire in the true innovators and entrepreneurs, the ones who may or may not be perfect whiz-kids when it comes to their multiplication tables but who question or see what the rest of us fail to do?
The Milo Beckman story was presented on ABC and can be found at the following HuffPost link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Be sure to watch the video clip -- it's worth the three minutes just to see a NYC public school student who knows how to think, gather data, and analyze it.
Steve Koss
If you haven't seen this story, it's a gem, and well worth watching. A 14-year-old Stuyvesant HS student named Milo Beckman has taken the SAT twice and was disturbed when his Writing score on the second test was higher than on the first, even though he felt it was a weaker piece of writing that included (as he later confirmed for himself) a factual error that he himself termed a lie. The one thing that made his second Writing exam essay different was its longer length, which got him to thinking.
He managed to recruit other Stuy students to his inquiry and got from 115 of them their SAT Writing scores and the number of lines in their essays (he asked them to note this information when they took the exam). Sure enough, there was an exceedingly high correlation between number of lines in the essay and its score, so high that the probability of its being random was effectively zero. He cross-checked this finding by getting line counts and essay scores for two or more sittings of the SAT from the same students and found that, in NO cases did their scores for the longer essay fall below that of their shorter one.
An MIT professor has found similar results, claiming that he can predict 90% of the SAT Writing essay scores merely by their line counts. The College Board, of course, disputes these findings with at least a partially plausible counterargument.
To me, this is a perfect example of what education should be about, whether its math, science, social studies, or anything else. It's about questioning, about critical inquiry and creative yet intellectually sound exploration. About thinking not just outside the box, but about the box itself. What makes this story so great is the Milo did exactly that, and he did it by starting with his own direct experience, doubting the very efficacy of his own SAT Writing scores rather than just happily accepting the higher grade that he felt in his heart was somehow not valid.
So where in all of Joel Klein's vaunted education reforms, and in those of the rest of the ed deformers, does this sort of critical thinking and self-reflection and constructive exploration and analysis get taught, or at least cultivated? How does getting a 4 on an inane standardized exam translate into creative perception, critical introspection, and lateral thinking? Yet aren't these the skills we most admire in the true innovators and entrepreneurs, the ones who may or may not be perfect whiz-kids when it comes to their multiplication tables but who question or see what the rest of us fail to do?
The Milo Beckman story was presented on ABC and can be found at the following HuffPost link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Be sure to watch the video clip -- it's worth the three minutes just to see a NYC public school student who knows how to think, gather data, and analyze it.
Steve Koss
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Jane Addams Teacher Chronicles How NYCDOE Destroyed School With Poison Pill
Glenn Tepper gave this testimony at the GEM Oct. 26 meeting on school closings.
With this narrative, I bear witness to how, within the span of a decade, a school can go from being so good as to be a finalist in the national New American High School competition, to being named by the New York State Education Department as one of the “Persistently Lowest Achieving” schools in the entire state.
I worked for 36 years, teaching English at Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers in the South Bronx for the last 21 of those years. I immersed myself in the life of the school, and had the opportunity to serve as conflict resolution specialist, coordinator of student activities, recruiter, teacher mentor, chair of the school-based management team, professional developer, dean, and HIV/AIDS resource provider, and I was a member of my union’s chapter committee.
Addams is a CTE — Careers and Technical Education — school, what used to be called a Vocational High School. By state decree, the students all must qualify for the same Regents diploma as students in every other high school in the state.
So how does a school lose so much, so fast? By a series of deliberate decisions and acts — poison pills— by the New York City Department of Education, to cause the school to fail.
In the Brave New World of the NYC school system, all high schools are in competition with one another for students, especially competent students. As long as a school had something unique to offer, it could compete. Addams had certification programs for Nurse Assistant and for Cosmetology, and one of the first Virtual Enterprise business programs in the city. The school also had Advanced Placement, Honors, and remedial programs. For a decade, I served as the school's recruiter. Every school year during October, November, and May, I sought out prospective applicants, at high school fairs, and by going to the middle and junior high schools, speaking to students, speaking to their parents — during school, after school, sometimes nights and weekends.
Addams would attract students from throughout the city, looking for a safe school, a school that had a documented track record of graduating its students, prepared for both college and the workplace.
But then the DoE unleveled the playing field, putting Addams at a severe disadvantage.
Addams was a medium-size school. Under the influence of big money from the Gates Foundation and others, new little schools were created, in the borough and throughout the city, offering programs very similar to those offered at Addams.
The DoE organized so-called “small high school” recruiting events, to which Addams was not invited.
Enticed by real appealing-sounding, yet somewhat misleading names of some of these new schools, and promised the sun, the moon, and the stars, prospective students and their parents were lured into applying to these schools, over Addams.
Then the application process was changed. Under the former process, half of our students were those who actually indicated a high preference, listing us #1 or #2 on their applications, and the other half were randomly assigned to the school. It worked. We had a critical mass of students who were glad to be Addams students, and their enthusiasm rubbed off on many of the others.
But under the new application rules, most of our students turned out to have not chosen to attend Addams; they had been rejected by their schools of choice. For the last several school years, the DoE has admitted ever-smaller incoming 9th grade classes to Addams, causing the school’s enrollment to drop. However, while other so-called “traditional” schools were closing and/or being reorganized, Addams became a de facto dumping ground — the DoE’s place for low-performing, difficult, students.
Down the road, the Addams staff is going wind up as ATRs— day-to-day substitutes at other schools, maybe a different school every day. Many of them are never going to find permanent jobs with the DoE— Some have licenses that no other school will need, like Cosmetology, and Stenography, and Typing. And there is nothing the union can — or will be able to — do about that. In hindsight, these Addams people should have gone for recertification when they had the chance and the time.
Because for years Addams had a loyal staff in both the academic and the career license areas, many of these veteran teachers will find that they are either too old, or too experienced, or too high up the salary scale, to be attractive to other schools. One former colleague, with over twenty-five years with the DoE, has resigned herself to spending the last years of her career as an ATR.
The school will probably hang on as a dumping ground for three to five more years, with smaller and smaller enrollments and fewer and fewer staff on board.
And eventually, the DoE, in its infinite wisdom, will install three — or four, or five — new smaller schools where there once was one. Yet, neither individually nor collectively will these schools have the diverse experienced staff and the wide-ranging resources and programs that were the benchmarks of Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers.
-Glenn Tepper
Retired, 2009
Brainy Women
I was 20 minutes late for the meeting yesterday (Friday afternoon). When the hostess opened the door she proclaimed to the four other women in the room behind her "Finally, a man is here".
"Norm is in heaven," one of them proclaimed, "he just loves to be in a room full of women."
Guilty. You don't spend 30 years in an elementary school without getting used to being surrounded by women. And loving it.
"Who needs men?" I replied.
Well, it is not secret that I hang out mostly with women. But not just any women. Brainy women - BW's with incredible mental toughness. Women who create a look of panic on his face when Joel Klein sees them coming in his direction.
When you are involved with education issues there is a pretty good bet there will be a lot of activist women involved. Now, I know some say that I have not gone into total retirement from activism precisely because of that reason, the biggest accuser being my wife.
Gail Collin's The Grizzly Manifesto column in today's Times got me to thinking about our own NYC Real Reformer version of those Sarah Palin so-called Mama Grizzlies, some of the most amazing women I have met. Four of them at this meeting are parent activists with 10 children between them. The teacher activist is childless. We were joined later by 2 more men.
But as I said, "Who needs men?"
Well, for the next 3 hours my head swiveled back and forth as if I were watching a tennis match with some of the smartest people I know lobbing one great idea after another, with a few smashes down the line. The ed deformers better get out their helmets. I basically sat there silently, drinking beer and eating just about everything the hostess put out.
Then, when the meeting ended around 8pm, two of the women and I walked over to the apartment of another Brainy Women activist who was home with her year old. My neck was aching as the three BW's continued swatting away.
Really, who needs men?
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AFTER BURN
Just to let you know I am not such a nerd that I am solely turned on by women's gray matter, in terms of these particular 6 ladies, the B in BW has an additional meaning besides "brainy." Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/
Friday, November 5, 2010
John Dewey HS in Brooklyn, NY Initiates Fight Back Fridays
Threatened with being closed down after being fed a poison pill by the NYCDOE of having the very programs that have attracted generations of students eliminated, an influx of students from other large high schools in Brooklyn and budget cuts, the John Dewey school community has implemented a Fight Back Friday series of before school rallies on Stillwell Avenue beginning at 7:15. If you are in the neighborhood stop by or honk as you drive by.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3tXGAxCOs
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Join the Grassroots Education Movement and the Real Reformers at the November 16 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech at 5:30 as they perform the rap song "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up!" in front of the school as a prelude to the meeting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3tXGAxCOs
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Join the Grassroots Education Movement and the Real Reformers at the November 16 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech at 5:30 as they perform the rap song "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up!" in front of the school as a prelude to the meeting.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Value-Minus for Bill Gates
With the money Microsoft has spent on failed efforts to design hardware, you could finance a trip to Mars. Its failures make up quite a flop parade: WebTV. Spot Watch. Ultimate TV. Ultra Mobile PC. Tablet PC. Smart Display. Portable Media Center. Zune. Kin phone. If this were ancient Greece, you’d wonder what Microsoft had done to annoy the gods.So, isn't this the same guy who is telling everyone how to run the nation's schools? He looks familiar. I think I ran into him hanging out with Randi in Seattle at the AFT convention.
And then there's this: Office for Mac Isn’t an Improvement
Office 2011 for Mac, the first new version of Microsoft's software suite in several years, is disappointing.
Did Ravitch Review Derail the Waiting For ‘Superman’ Oscar Campaign?
And just like that, we have an Oscar knife fight on our hands. Fun! I’ll bring the nachos.
----Movie Line, by
Whoop Dee Do! I love that connection to the Ferguson "Inside Job." If only we could get him to do the ed deform exposure movie? The full piece is below but first time out for a commercial:
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The NYC DOE goes begging to give away free tickets to WfS as I posted at Norms Notes with the letter a DOE official sent out:
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Blockbuster headline at Movie Line regarding the Oscar push for Waiting for Superman.
Read Ravitch's full review: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false
----Movie Line, by
Diane Ravitch’s essay is the most important public-relations coup that Sony Pictures Classics, director Charles Ferguson and the rest of the Inside Job team will have at their disposal all year? Ravitch even points out the connection between the pro-charter camp and Wall Street, citing three New York Times stories “about how charter schools have become the favorite cause of hedge fund executives.” in language virtually borrowed from Ferguson’s excellent financial-meltdown exposé, she goes on to conclude:
Waiting for “Superman” is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the “free market” and privatization. It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.
Whoop Dee Do! I love that connection to the Ferguson "Inside Job." If only we could get him to do the ed deform exposure movie? The full piece is below but first time out for a commercial:
_________________________
The NYC DOE goes begging to give away free tickets to WfS as I posted at Norms Notes with the letter a DOE official sent out:
Psst, Hey Buddy, Want a Free Ticket to Waiting for Superman?
The DOE can't even give them away. As one pundit wrote:This is odd. Why is the NYC Department of Education promoting a film that claims the public schools managed by DOE are failures and children must flee DOE schools to enroll in a charter. I don't understand.
Another says:
And this:Why is an administrator with the NYC Department (Board) of Education offering to make tickets available (her words) "to those council members whom were unable to attend the movie previously"?
Why is it the same "crew" who support centralization (Mayoral control, control by test scores, etc) and libertarian decentralization (charters)??Commercial break over
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Blockbuster headline at Movie Line regarding the Oscar push for Waiting for Superman.
Did Scorching Critic Just Derail the Waiting For ‘Superman’ Oscar Campaign?
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I haven’t seen Waiting For “Superman”, director Davis Guggenheim’s documentary about America’s failing public school system — and the possible solutions that may be found in more exclusive, smaller charter schools, particularly in urban areas. But Lord knows I’ve heard about it, from rhapsodies at the Toronto Film Festival to stratospheric praise at Rotten Tomatoes to Oprah Winfrey’s two — two! — WFS showcases. Even the President is on the bandwagon, which has careened toward next February’s Oscar finish line at the front of the documentary pack. At least until this week, anyway.
Education historian Diane Ravitch takes Guggenheim and Co. to school (oof, sorry) at the New York Review of Books, where a meticulous reading of “Superman” yields a devastating takedown of the film roundly picked by many observers to sweep the year’s most coveted doc prizes — up to and including the Academy Award. Some of the film’s blind spots are alluded to in Michelle Orange’s cautious endorsement here at Movieline, but Ravitch goes deep — way deep — on what “Superman” not only elides but simply gets wrong [and I quote at length for maximum context]:
The proportion of charters that get amazing results is far smaller than 17 percent.Why did Davis Guggenheim pay no attention to the charter schools that are run by incompetent leaders or corporations mainly concerned to make money? Why propound to an unknowing public the myth that charter schools are the answer to our educational woes, when the filmmaker knows that there are twice as many failing charters as there are successful ones? Why not give an honest accounting?The propagandistic nature of Waiting for “Superman” is revealed by Guggenheim’s complete indifference to the wide variation among charter schools. There are excellent charter schools, just as there are excellent public schools. Why did he not also inquire into the charter chains that are mired in unsavory real estate deals, or take his camera to the charters where most students are getting lower scores than those in the neighborhood public schools? Why did he not report on the charter principals who have been indicted for embezzlement, or the charters that blur the line between church and state? Why did he not look into the charter schools whose leaders are paid $300,000-$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of schools and students?Guggenheim seems to believe that teachers alone can overcome the effects of student poverty, even though there are countless studies that demonstrate the link between income and test scores. He shows us footage of the pilot Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, to the amazement of people who said it couldn’t be done. Since Yeager broke the sound barrier, we should be prepared to believe that able teachers are all it takes to overcome the disadvantages of poverty, homelessness, joblessness, poor nutrition, absent parents, etc. […]Perhaps the greatest distortion in this film is its misrepresentation of data about student academic performance. The film claims that 70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level. This is flatly wrong. Guggenheim here relies on numbers drawn from the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). I served as a member of the governing board for the national tests for seven years, and I know how misleading Guggenheim’s figures are. NAEP doesn’t measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement. The highest level of performance, “advanced,” is equivalent to an A+, representing the highest possible academic performance. The next level, “proficient,” is equivalent to an A or a very strong B. The next level is “basic,” which probably translates into a C grade. The film assumes that any student below proficient is “below grade level.” But it would be far more fitting to worry about students who are “below basic,” who are 25 percent of the national sample, not 70 percent.Guggenheim didn’t bother to take a close look at the heroes of his documentary. Geoffrey Canada is justly celebrated for the creation of the Harlem Children’s Zone, which not only runs two charter schools but surrounds children and their families with a broad array of social and medical services. Canada has a board of wealthy philanthropists and a very successful fund-raising apparatus. With assets of more than $200 million, his organization has no shortage of funds. Canada himself is currently paid $400,000 annually. For Guggenheim to praise Canada while also claiming that public schools don’t need any more money is bizarre. Canada’s charter schools get better results than nearby public schools serving impoverished students. If all inner-city schools had the same resources as his, they might get the same good results.And on… and on… and on. “Waiting for ‘Superman’ is the most important public-relations coup that the critics of public education have made so far,” Ravitch writes. “Their power is not to be underestimated.” Ouch. More importantly for our admittedly frivolous purposes, though, can I just say Diane Ravitch’s essay is the most important public-relations coup that Sony Pictures Classics, director Charles Ferguson and the rest of the Inside Job team will have at their disposal all year? Ravitch even points out the connection between the pro-charter camp and Wall Street, citing three New York Times stories “about how charter schools have become the favorite cause of hedge fund executives.” in language virtually borrowed from Ferguson’s excellent financial-meltdown exposé, she goes on to conclude:
Waiting for “Superman” is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the “free market” and privatization. It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.And just like that, we have an Oscar knife fight on our hands. Fun! I’ll bring the nachos.
· The Myth of Charter Schools [NY Review of Books via The Awl]
Read Ravitch's full review: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Evil Eva Loses One - for now
Leonie Haimson writes:
Surprise; the organized opposition of the CEC in D3, the local electeds, and the parents and teachers at PS 145 seem to have beaten back the threatened co-location of the new Success Academy branch in their building.
Now the community and their leaders must do the same for PS 165, the new proposed home for that charter school, which already shares its building w/ Mott Hall II and suffers a similar dearth of seats.
To the D3 Community,
Elizabeth Rose informed the PS 145 School Leadership Team yesterday afternoon that the DOE would be siting our D3 middle school West Prep Academy at PS 145 instead of placing the Upper West Success Charter school there. Ms Rose continued that instead of freezing PS 145’s zone to accommodate Upper West Success as originally proposed, the DOE now will propose to increase the PS 145 zone while decreasing the PS 165 zone and in turn will find another D3 building in which to co-locate Upper West Success.
The new target building for Upper West Success clearly will be PS 165 on West 109th Street, and they were told as much earlier today via various channels. The M165 building, which PS 165 shares with the middle school Mott Hall II, has between 250 and 280 available seats according to the DOE’s 2009 numbers, still far too few to accommodate Success Charter’s proposed 689 K-5 enrollment. Ms. Rose wants to present the new outline zoning proposals at our Nov 17 Public CEC meeting at which point we assume she also will discuss the new plans for 145, West Prep and 165.
This new proposed plan is better news for PS 145, and for the other magnet schools, including West Prep which has been lacking a home (although they would far prefer to stay in the southern end of the district). It is decidedly bad news, however, for PS 165 and for the district as a whole as at best we would still stand to lose up to 300-400 sorely needed D3 seats over the next few years from an Upper West Success co-location. PS 165 also would be at risk of getting squeezed out of its own building by Upper West Success, much in the same way that PS 241 has been marginalized by Harlem Success IV, and PS 149 by Harlem Success I. We also would still need to ensure adequate growth space for the 8 magnet schools including West Prep and PS241, and to protect encroachment by HSA 1’s middle school in its proposed move to the Wadleigh and FDA II building. More generally, we still need to find additional NEW classroom space to deal with the district’s acute overcrowding situation, a problem which has only worsened since last Spring.
My colleagues and I will continue to fight Success Charter’s attempt to take over any additional seats in District 3, especially since the DOE still has yet to explain how it will accommodate our current and projected space demand for D3 students and schools next year, much less for the next 5 years. Additionally, the district-wide rezoning discussion, which is material to a number of our schools, and has been high jacked by the DOE’s desire to accommodate this unwanted Charter school, will need to find some resolution.
My colleagues and I will be discussing these and other district-wide overcrowding/space utilization issues – including the coming middle school shortage - at our working session tomorrow (Wednesday) evening at 6:30 at the Joan of Arc building on W 93rd, as well as at additional upcoming full Council and Committee meetings, the times of which will be posted on our web site cec3.org. We also will continue to work with the schools in question, with our elected officials, and with entire District 3 community to ensure that before any new schools are brought into the district the DOE clearly demonstrates how it will provide adequate resources and a proper educational environment for all of our excellent existing D3 schools and current students, now and going forward.
We hope you will join with us in this effort. Given the enormous power and money being channeled to compete against and to weaken our district schools - rather than to improve them - we all will need to work together on this.
All best,
Noah
Noah E. Gotbaum
President, Community District Education Council 3 (CEC3)
154 West 93rd Street, Room 204
New York, New York 10025
212 678 2789 office
Addendum
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
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