Are You Up for Robotics This Weekend?

Body Forward Competition mat (8x4)

COME ON DOWN AND SEE WHY YOU WANT YOUR SCHOOL INVOLVED NEXT YEAR.

From almost the minute I retired in 2002, I have been involved with FIRST LEGO League (FLL) in New York City, one of three tournaments going on at the Jacobs Javits center this weekend. The ages of kids involved are 9-14, which covers elementary, middle school and 9th graders in high school. All competing at the same level.

There is even a Junior FIRST LEGO League exhibition for kids aged 6-9.

I have run a blog devoted to NYC FLL robotics for years: http://normsrobotics.blogspot.com/

FIRST (http://usfirst.org/) is an orgnization that promotes Science and Technology among school age children. This weekend is the NYC Championship Tournament at Jacob Javits Center.

There will be several competitions going on simultaneously.

Friday will be FRC's (FIRST Robotics Competition) practice competition day.

Saturday will be FRC qualification matches and FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) championship matches.

Sunday will be be FRC's championship matches as well as FLL (FIRST Lego League) and Jr. FLL champioship matches.

I work with FLL on Sunday. This year we had 200 teams from NYC - public, private, charter, home-schooled, community centers start out. We held qualifying borough tournaments in January to choose the final 80 teams going to the NYC championship on Sunday. The winner goes on to the World Festival in St. Louis in April. If you show up on Sunday, look for me near the FLL pit area. You might see schools like Dalton seated next to schools from Bed-Stuy. This is one of the great social mixing events you can find.

What is FLL? Each year there is a theme. This year is Body Forward: engineering meets medicine. Check it out here. I have a kit in my house - there is an 8x4 mat with a giant human body on it and the robots have to navigate and accomplish tasks like putting a stint in. Great stuff.

The "game" is played on a table with about 15 teams trying to gain as many points as possible in 2 and a half minutes. But that is only a part of the event. Each team does research on the topic and present to a panel of judges. And they also present a technical presentation telling the judges how they solved the problems.

Teams are 10 kids but many schools bring cheerleaders and boosters and lots of parents. who often gaze in wonder at the energy of the day. Lots of awards and trophies given out. And a medal to each participant. Want to see kids, teachers and parents having a blast? BE THERE!

Check out this article on the Brooklyn qualifier.

The 3 day FRC high school event attracts 66 teams, some from around the world (Brazil, Hawaii). These are big robots, 6 on the giant field at the same time - 3 against 3. See these high schoolers from elite schools mix and work with kids from all over the place. (Check out the list and the heavyweight sponsors).


I won't go on. I'm too excited. I'm heading down to Javits to hang out today (my wife's mah jhong crew has arrived is the real reason) before the heavy lifting on Sunday. Here is some info if you want to check it out. All free and open to the public.

Oh, has there been any support from the NYC DOE for this amazing event that involves so many NYC schools and students doing the very opposite of test prep? Go ask them.

Here is some info from my robotics blog.

See lists of all the teams and the sponsors:

NYC First Mega Robotics Celebration Program

NYC LEGO Teams for Javits 2011 With Pit Table Assignments (where you can find them)

Javits 2011 FLL Championaship, Sunday March 13 - Floor Plan and Schedule

Solar Powered Bike Will Be At Javits Robo Event March 13

See bike on NY1 news. Size of a large adult bike....

http://statenisland.ny1.com/content/top_stories/132679/lego-champs-to-head-to-first-robotics-competition?ap=1&MP4

 
An event this big need a lot of people to pull it off. We have hundreds of volunteers already but we are still in need of more. We would greatly appreciate your help. Registration closes tomorrow, however we do take walk-ins on each day of the event. We also welcome spectators. If you you dont desire to volunteer then please do come to any of the events and observe the cheer intelligence and creativity of children younger than 8 years to 18 years doing things most engineers didn't learn until college.

Please join us.

To those who volunteer you will be given a free t-shirt for the event, as well as breakfast and lunch. Further information can be found via http://nycnjfirst.org/ or directly via http://nycnjfirst.org/blog/2010/12/29/11th-annual-nyc-first-robotics-regional-competition-frc-week-2-event/

Hope to see you all there!

Email Norm if you want to help: normsco@gmail.com

The Answer Man

I have all the answers at  Introducing GothamSchools’ first advice column, by a principal

* What do I do when I have a student whose stated purpose in the classroom is to disrupt my lessons? -  
He/she was probably thrown out of a charter school.
* Where can I find more paper?! -  
Go teach in a charter school

* How do I teach reading to fifth-grade students who are reading at a pre-primer reading level?-
Go teach in a charter school- all those kids were sent to public schools.

* What should I do when a student throws a chair or desk?-
He/she was probably thrown out of a charter school.

* When and how do I tell my principal that other teachers aren’t doing their job, and it’s affecting mine?- First - the principal should know - if he/she doesn't, the teacher is probably a pal. Second - Join E4E and they'll tell you exactly how to snitch.
* How do I work with my principal to address school-wide safety concerns?
Go teach in a charter school- they ignore safety concerns.

* When is it appropriate to ask for outside help in dealing with a disruptive student? How do I do it?
- Go teach in a charter school - they remove disruptive students

* How will I know, as a first-year teacher, if I’m doing a good job?- 
You're doing a much better job than any teacher making more money than you. Ask Black and Bloom -

Can You Have Dialogue With Ed Deformers?

At our film (The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) preview at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn last Saturday, during the discussion afterwards someone said there was an attitude in the film demonizing charter school backers. "There are some good charters," he said. Sam Anderson, who is in the film, was on the panel and said something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing):

The charter school movement at the macro level will result in the destruction of the public school system, the draining of enormous resources out of the hands of public control and into private hands, and enormous harm to the majority of children over the long run. They should be demonized.

My response (to myself) was: fuck 'em.

Now, Michael Fiorillo, made a similar, but more eloquent than my expletive (as expected) statement in response to a thoughtful essay by Mark Anderson at the Gotham Schools Community board. Anderson talks about Labor and Management. Though Anderson comes from a business background and understands the points of view:

I often find the debates that are ongoing in the education policy world suffer from a lack of explicit acknowledgement of underlying values, even as those debates are really just a fundamental clash of values. As I read articles heralding the decline in union power and calling for budgetary bloodletting in public services, I might posit that some values that the authors would hold are that of efficiency, expediency, and force as an agent of change. As someone who has been in positions of management, I can understand the perspectives that channel from such values. We seek immediate and replicable solutions to problems, to make systems run more smoothly and efficiently, and to increase performance and productivity.

As Diane Ravitch explains in “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” education leaders such as Joel Klein and Alan Bersin seemed to turn a deaf ears to their employee base as they rammed through reforms, as if this were effective leadership. Michelle Rhee has also most famously exemplified this style of leadership. Problem is, this is not effective leadership. Not in the business world, and most certainly not in the realm of education. At least, not in any sort of sustainable way. It might seemingly work for a few years — in that people conform because they have to —until the results start trickling in. Turnover will be high. Motivation will be low. And increasingly hostile rhetoric and a culture of mistrust will develop between labor and management.

Anderson seems to be scratching his head as to why these so-called business leaders would be using a tactic that will fail in motivating teachers and is calling for a dialogue. between the two sides. What he is missing in that the intentions of the ed deformers is NOT to improve the schools but to take them over, turn over the massive amount of money into private hands while running the rudimentary school system left over on the cheap. THEY HAVE NO GOOD INTENTIONS AND YOU CANNOT ENGAGE IN DIALOGUE WITH PEOPLE WITH NO GOOD INTENTIONS. EVIL MOSKOWITZ INDEED!!!

Phew! I feel better.

Now, on to Michael's much more reasoned response:

When the balance of forces so overwhelmingly favors management and capital, as it currently does in this country, and when those unregulated forces are literally sociopathic, as is the case with the DOE and all urban education systems under mayoral control, then to speak about "building relationships" is naive and preposterous. It's hard to build relationships with people who are trying to kill you. I suggest you ask teachers in Wisconsin about how "dialogue" works in the middle of a class war.


Management's reflex to control labor as a cost and a factor of production, and to make it as fungible as possible, is axiomatic. Rather than reading the fairy tales contained in management how-to manuals found in airport bookracks, I suggest you carefully observe management behavior. In the social darwinist swamp that is the neoliberal economy (and Michael Bloomberg's New York City), behavior is the most honest form of communication. That behavior includes de-skilling labor, eliminating whatever vestiges of autonomy it has, and using that as leverage to reduce its wages, its benefits and maintain unilateral control over the terms of employment. Labor's status in this "partnership" is akin to that of school principal and student council president. They may listen to each other, respect and like each other, but the dynamics of power make it impossible to call it a true partnership. Sure you'll get your meeting, and maybe they'll even agree to serve chocolate milk in the lunchroom, but the parameters of power are set.


Additionally, your analogy about the woman on the subway is false, since as a civilized human being you responded appropriately to her established position by the door. Had you been the DOE (as a proxy for all corporate ed deformers), however, you (and your cronies, contractors, consultants, subsidized researchers, politically-connected vendors, advocacy satellites and astroturf shills) would have grabbed her handbag and pushed her and the people around her out of the way. In fact, you would have grabbed as much of that public space as you could, used it as your own, and proclaimed your munificence to the people you had just evicted.


Take a look around the world we live in, and especially the regime too many teachers in New York work under: can you say with a straight face that those in positions of policy-making and power are "building relationships" and "listening?"


The reality is that management and labor have intrinsically opposing interests, and that only in those rare periods when labor is able to counterbalance management and capital's inherent advantage (which does not exist at the moment) can we achieve the best we can hope for, which is a wary accommodation. Without that, the situation is the one we currently find ourselves in, that of one-sided aggression, deception (and self-deception) and contempt for the public good.

Afterburn
Here are some related blog posts for you to check out if you have time:

Filmmaker Michael Galinsky, a public school parent who I have run into at various events, is going to do a film on education. Here are some of his thoughts.

NYC Educator has 2 must reads over the last few days:

I'm Not Against Tenure, But...

So says faux-Democrat Cory Booker in his love letter to the reformers who put him where he is today. Sure, let's not abolish tenure. Let's simply make it meaningless. The Wal-Mart family did not finance Booker so as to help working people. Wal-Mart money subverts public schools because union is a scourge that must be stopped, so that people can do as they're told, shut the hell up, and work until they die. MORE

The Value of a Teacher

There is no question in my mind that the path we're embarking upon is littered with, reeking of, completely composed of sheer nonsense. We're moving into an evaluation system that relies on "value-added" information, information that can make an exemplary teacher look like an utter incompetent. And we're also playing right into the hands of "reformers," yet again. MORE

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Leonie Defends Class Size Reduction - Like the UFT Won't While Liu Rejects New Teacher Project Contract

UPDATED: Friday, March 11, 7AM

NYC Comptroller John Liu causes much joy in Mudville today with his rejection of the phony New Teacher Project 20 million smacker contract - to recruit new teachers - in the midst of the threat to layoff 4500 and lose another 1800 by attrition. Now Tim Daly may have to work for a living. And Andy Jacob too. Hey, guys, try teaching. In Wisconsin.

See NY Times article here. (Good to see you back safe from Cairo Sharon). And more links:
(GothamSchools, Post, Daily News)

Remember Liu's predecessor? Some guy who ended up running for mayor against Bloomberg? A guy who we later found out was Bloomberg's choice to run against him? A guy whose wife got lots of money goodies from Bloomberg for her museum? A guy who NEVER rejected these phony contracts?

------
While the UFT/AFT plays footsie with Bill Gates, Leonie goes into his own back yard and calls him out. Hey chickie, come out an play with Leonie:

1.    I will be on Seattle Public radio 94.9 FM tomorrow Friday March 11 at 3:40 ET (12:40 PT) debating class size.  

They are trying to find someone from the Gates foundation to debate me (but finding it hard).  This is Bill Gates’ hometown.

Listen live online and please call in!  http://www.kuow.org/conversation  with Ross Reynolds.

Live Call–in: 206.543.KUOW (800.289.KUOW); Email: conversation@kuow.org

2. For what Bill Gates said recently about class size (later echoed by Arne Duncan) check out my Huff Post column:  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/arne-duncan-and-bill-gate_b_829094.html
 

For what the Seattle Times reported about Gates’ hypocrisy on this issue, click here:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2014437975_danny09.html

Check out what students themselves said about class size on the NYT blog here: http://nyti.ms/g57JcR 

3.For my class size debate on Tuesday on the NPR Diane Rehm show, along with Diane Ravitch and Eric Hanushek, star of Waiting for Superman, see

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-08/class-size-and-student-achievement

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director

Class Size Matters

ON ANOTHER FRONT -

************

LIU STATEMENT ON DOE CONTRACT REJECTION

******************************************

NEW YORK, NY – City Comptroller John C. Liu stated the following in response to inquiries about his rejection of a $20 million teacher recruitment contract for the Department of Education (DOE):

“Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious at best,” said Comptroller Liu.

The five-year contract, with the “New Teacher Project,” was submitted in early February. The DOE was seeking the contract to “recruit, select, train and provide job search support to non-traditional candidates to become public school teachers.”

The contract submission comes at a time when agencies are being asked to cut services, including the DOE’s plan to lay off 4,600 teachers.

UFT Resolution in Support of Puerto Rican Teachers

Passed at UFT Delegate Assembly March 9, 2011

WHEREAS, the entire leadership of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) were fired from their teaching positions, and

WHEREAS, the teaching licenses of the FMPR leadership were permanently revoked; and

WHEREAS, the Government has taken repressive measures with the goal of destroying the unions and intimidating the teachers from struggling against the current administration’s plans to privatize the schools and liquidate the teachers retirement fund; and

WHEREAS, Governor Fortuno of Puerto Rico is out to destroy the teachers’ union much like Governor Walker of Wisconsin is out to destroy collective bargaining for public workers in this state; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT express our solidarity with the Puerto Rican Teachers, and be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT inform Governor Fortuno that we oppose his repressive measures and stand in solidarity with all union workers.

Who Needs Bargaining Rights?

If they take away bargaining rights, dues checkoff, force an election every year to even have a union, what is left to take away if there are sick-outs and wildcat actions?

At the Delegate Assembly yesterday, Joan Heymont, inspired by missives from Miami teacher Paul Moore similar to the one below, made a resolution calling for a sick-out on Brooklyn Day when there will be no children in school. As expected, the UFT leadership shot it down, making the point that such an action would render the contract null and leave us wide open to just about anything. Naturally, it lost. I didn't see the point of shutting schools down on a day when they were empty of kids, though maybe from a PR point it made sense. If schools are to be shut down, it must happen with parent support. Maybe when class sizes reach 60.

Let's be clear: a union leadership has a major fear of taking such action because the power of the state is squarely lined up against them. Crippling fines, removal of checkoff, etc can destroy a union. As we've seen in Puerto Rico, the union leaders can be fired (come hear PR teachers union president Rafael Feliciano tell the story at the next GEM meeting on March 21). 

From the leaders' perspective, the gravy train would be over and going back to the classrooms they have so allowed to deteriorate is not appetizing at all. So union leaders play a role in trying to kill any insurgencies not only because of the punishments but because once the militancy cat is out of the bag, their control of the union could be as much threatened from below - the rank and file - as from above - the government.

That was why when Bloomberg in an op ed in the Times defended bargaining rights - sort of - what he really meant was "I am smarter than that yokel in Madison - I work with the union leadership itself to control the members. Imagine if there were no UFT and Randi Weingarten to assist with our reforms?"

So, what if there is nothing left to lose? I was just with another retiree in the gym who talked about the National Football League players association decertifying itself and forcing the NFL to face a loss of protection as a monopoly - a very interesting strategy.

If Wisconsin teachers went on strike they could be fired. But so could any teachers anytime in history before collective bargaining. Yet they did it often enough to win bargaining rights.

Now a sickout in say NYC led by wildcatters might be difficult to pin on the union. What if people followed Paul Moore's advice?

This will help destroy the illusion that workers in Wisconsin and across the US have any recourse to legislative or electoral remedies. Government and all of its branches are under corporate control.


Teachers, shut down the schools of Wisconsin tomorrow. You will be urged to rely on the courts. You will be urged to rely on the recall process. You will be urged down all manner of dead ends. Be not deceived though, you are now in an openly declared class war. Fight fire with fire!


"Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6." This pressure included a massive demonstration in Tallahassee, volumes of testimony before committees of the Legislature, visits to the Legislator's home offices, a well-funded lobbying campaign run through the Florida Education Association (FEA), a mountain of e-mail and other communications to the lawmakers, the creation by parents of powerful YouTube videos that went viral on the Internet, and the wearing of red T-shirts in public schools around the State.


And SB6 sailed through both chambers of the Florida Legislature. Not a vote was changed!


As the legislation worked its way to the governor's office, Charlie Crist made nothing but supportive statements. He repeatedly assured the bill's prime sponsor, Sen. John Thrasher, that he intended to sign it. Never was heard a discouraging word from Crist on SB6.


Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred.


I'm not at liberty to reveal the teacher's name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. "You have a doctor's appointment Monday" went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010.


Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.


But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade's 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District's public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did an about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write "thank you notes" to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.


Very few thank you notes went to the now retired Gov. Crist from Miami-Dade. Teachers there knew better. We had done it! We had the power! When we moved together, nothing could stop us! And they knew it too! Not a single teacher among the 6,300 MDCPS teachers from the illegal strike was fired or disciplined in any form or fashion. Administrators, union bureaucrats, teachers, parents and students just celebrated the defeat of SB6 and President Obama's new friend Jeb Bush.


Much the same dynamic is playing itself out on a larger scale in Wisconsin today. The teachers united, an irresistible force, has become conscious of itself. Teachers shut down schools in Madison and several other districts for three days when Gov. Scott Walker's machinations became clear. He even threatened them with the National Guard but they remain unbowed. They have Walker stopped cold unless he decides to escalate the conflict.


As with Charlie Crist in Florida, some are determined to give the lion's share of credit in Wisconsin to 14 Democratic politicians who crossed the state line into Illinois. It is critical that someone else get the credit because their power is the secret that must be kept from teachers around the country if the public schools are to be destroyed.


Paul A. Moore

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS FED UP WITH BUDGET CUT THREATS AND MAYOR’S AGENDA

Updated: 3PM
NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release: March 10, 2011
Contacts:
Michelle Ciulla Lipkin - 917-494-9155 - ciulla@mac.com
Rebecca Woodard - 646-295-3528 - rmw2010@gmail.com
Noah E. Gotbaum - 917-658-3213 - noah@gotbaum.com

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS FED UP WITH
BUDGET CUT THREATS AND MAYOR’S AGENDA

(New York, NY) - Concerned NYC Public School parents spoke out today at City
Hall regarding the state’s proposed $1.5 billion education budget cuts. In
strongly worded statements, parents expressed their collective frustration and
displeasure regarding the rising class sizes, program cuts, and teacher layoffs
that would happen if budgets are slashed. Parents directed most of their anger
not at their Governor in Albany, but rather at their long lost education mayor.
“NYC cannot afford to allow Mayor Bloomberg to cut our education budget and
get rid of our teachers,” said parent organizer Rebecca Woodard. “As parents,
we are fighting for our children and teachers to receive the funding they need to
be successful. We must stop him from exercising his ridiculous power and
demand he lives up to his self-proclaimed title as the “Education Mayor”. I am
here on the steps of City Hall letting him know that we will NOT go away, we will
NOT stop and we will keep coming back.”
Parents are particularly angry at the threats Mayor Bloomberg is making about
their teachers’ job security and fed up with the Mayor trying to draw them into a
collective bargaining negotiation concerning LIFO. High School parent, Larry
Wood comments, “What's particularly outrageous to me is that the Mayor has
spun the teacher lay-offs into a debate on HOW the lay-offs should be
conducted. That's NOT the issue. The issue should be WHY are we laying off
thousands of teachers at all!! We should be focused on stopping the cuts not a
better process to implement them.”
Having experienced last year’s cuts, including the loss of some 4000 teachers
through attrition and mid-year in-school reductions averaging 6%, parents
voiced anger at additional proposed reductions on kids and schools: “My fourth
grader now gets gym once every six days, my 5th grader’s combined music and
drama program takes place with 60 other kids on a piece of a shared auditorium
stage, and my special needs Kindergartener was placed in a class of 27 kids even
though the DOE’s own Committee on Special Education recommended a program
no larger than 12 kids,” said Noah E Gotbaum, President of Manhattan’s
Community Education Council for District 3. “At the classroom and school level,
the fat has been cut; now the Mayor wants to go after the bone.”
Why these cuts are necessary, however, was not clear to the parents, who
offered up some alternatives: “Despite the Mayor’s fear mongering and layoff
threats, New York City will see an almost $2 billion budget surplus in 2011,
primarily due to higher Wall Street revenues. Allocating just 15% of this will
prevent all teacher layoffs,” said Stefanie Goldblatt, public school parent of two.
“And at a time when services for our most vulnerable are being decimated, it is
unconscionable to be offering tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. The
Millionaire’s tax alone could generate enough to make up for all education cuts –
statewide.”
Some wondered where the mayor’s business expertise has gone. Shino
Tanikawa, District 2 Community Education Council Member, said:
“The Mayor, who prides himself as a business leader, apparently is unable to
manage the City's budget. He threatens to lay off teachers while increasing the
budget for IT related contracts for the DOE, because the DOE did not budget
properly. Are computer consultants more important to education than teachers?
Our children need teachers before they need high-priced consultants, many hired
on no-bid contracts.”
Parents also shared their observation that weak schools drive families out of the
city faster than anything else, something that seemed lost on Mayor Bloomberg,
whose PlaNYC invited new residential development, full of family amenities and
multi-bedroom apartments, but did not address the long term needs of the city’s
school system.
"It is uncertainty about what will be left of our public schools after the education
budget is slashed yet again, and not the extension of a modest existing tax, that
will drive families and their tax dollars from our City and State. Preserving the
existing source of funding in a budget shortfall is both good policy and good
business,” said Mark Diller, public high school parent.
There is a citywide schools meeting at 6pm this evening at The High School of
Fashion Industries (225 West 24th Street) to continue the discussion about
education budget cuts and determine next action steps for parents.

Parents, unite!

It's time to fight for funding!

For our schools

For our kids

For everyone’s future

If you are a parent in the NYC Public School System,

you need to come to City Hall for this important event ORGANIZED by parents, FOR parents

Thursday, March 10 1PM City Hall*

·       Say "no" to education budget cuts

·       Say "no" to bigger class sizes

·       Say "no" to program cuts

·       Say "no" to teacher layoffs

We need parents from

every borough & every district!

We need to make our voices heard!

Our children depend on us!

Contact parent organizers with questions:

Rebecca Woodard - rmw2010@gmail.com - 646-295-3528

Carlos Ruiz - hotcarlos106@yahoo.com - 646-334-1145

*City Hall is located in City Hall Park.By Subway:
#4, #5, #6 trains to City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge
#2, #3 trains to Park Place
W, R trains to City Hall
C, A trains to Chambers Street By Bus:
M15 to City Hall/Park Row

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

We've been saying this for years. That the UFT plays the role of mediator between the rank and file members and the people managing the school system. What the members need is a strong advocate, a role that is increasingly being played by people like Diane Ravitch and NYC parent activist Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters and a new national group, Parents Across America (PAA).

I wrote a piece on Feb. 13 titled: Why Won't Mulgrew Defend LIFO?  I know the answer but don't want to scare you so early in this article.

Remember: 110 schools have been closed under the stewardship of the UFT leadership. Schools have become test prep factories (Ed Notes sponsored resolutions at DA's on the evils of standardized testing as far back as the late 90's were ignored). And charters are running rampant inside public schools but the UFT can't say a word because it has its own two charters running rampant inside two public schools. Where's the advocacy on the part of the UFT other than selective words at selective times? Show some results. The scary thing was yesterday's missive to send Governor Cuomo a "thank you" message. Lucky I ate a few hours before.

A new crop of young teachers who have come out of the woodwork recently and become active in groups like Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), NY Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) and Teachers Unite (TU). These voices have become important to counteract the message of the anti-union Bill Gates/DFER funded group Educators for Excellence (E4E which ICE's Jeff Kaufman renamed "ME4ME. I just call them ME$ME.) GEM's Julie Cavanagh debated a ME$ME on NY1 the same night Ravitch appeared on Jon Stewart's show. [Diane Ravitch and Julie Cavanagh Kick Butt].
A principal, Brian De Vale, did as good a job as could be done defending seniority face to face with Cathie Black at a District 14 CEC meeting last week. [Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cath...]

I was at the viewing party with Ravitch (Eadie Shanker was there too) sponsored by Leonie and PAA and we also watched Julie eloquently defend LIFO, seniority and tenure in a way that I haven't heard anyone from the UFT or AFT do. Julie tied her advocacy for her students (her school has been invaded by a charter controlled by a billionaire) to the protections she has from tenure. Ravitch was so so impressed she commented, "Julie, you were spectacular, also beautiful!"

Another thing we have been saying is that the UFT for years obfuscated - acting like Joel Klein was the bad guy and Bloomberg was the good guy. Funny how an article in The Observer claims that relations have deteriorated because Randi and Joel have left the room, while also talking about how Klein and Bloomberg played "bad cop, good cop." We maintained that the UFT was trying to fool the membership into believing this was about personalities, not a national attack on teachers, their unions and the entire public school system. EdNotes has been saying that since around 2001.

But I guess Mulgrew hasn't been reading Ed Notes. For in the Observer piece he says:

"I thought it was because of Joel Klein," Mr. Mulgrew said. "I honestly did. But that's not the case anymore. It's just [Mr. Bloomberg] there and it's become worse. ... He has a whole new team around him. ... Everything is carpet bomb and toxicity.

He has to be kidding. Randi fooled him too? We're in more to trouble than I thought. Then Mulgrew comes up with this goody:

"Since I know Deputy Mayor Wolfson's strategy is this when he runs a campaign, I'm assuming it's his influence on [the mayor]," said Mr. Mulgrew. Mr. Wolfson is of course the mayor's hard-driving senior adviser, who notably fought against Barack Obama's campaign long after Mr. Wolfson's candidate, Hillary Clinton, seemed to abandon the 2008 Democratic primary.

Mulgrew and the Observer declined to mention that Howard Wolfson was (and still may be for all we know) on the UFT payroll for years. (Just check the LM-2 reports of past years.)

And then we come to the NY Times piece today (New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools) about the cozy relationship between the UFT and Green Dot charter maven/scoundrel Steve Barr who will partner together in shutting down a public school but making it look like something else. You see, you can believe in magic. Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

The plan would also involve forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs and using a committee of teachers, school administrators and parents to pick who got to stay. The teachers’ contract would give them some measure of job protection, but it would be easier to fire them. The teachers also would work under more flexible rules, including longer hours in exchange for higher pay. “It’s about, what do we need to get this staff in order for them to meet the needs of the children and stop with this one-size-fits-all stuff?” said Michael Mulgrew...

Right Mike! One size fits all. If I were teaching in one of these schools,  I would be scared, very scared.

Let me tell you a few things about Steve Barr:

You know that the school in LA - Locke HS mentioned in the Times article?

Results on the standardized tests were lackluster, but the school gets high marks in other indicators of progress.The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, and only a few percent tested at the next level down, basic.

How interesting what the Times leaves out. GEM/ICE's Lisa North commented:
BUT this is how NYC schools are closed...based on test scores....but I guess a charter school can be judged by "other" means.

Oakland teacher Jack Gerson wrote in Substance:

Two years ago, Steve Barr and his Green Dot charter schools group engineered a hostile takeover of Locke High School, a large public high school in Los Angeles. Despite the opposition of United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA Unified School District, Barr was able to convince a bare majority of Locke's permanent faculty (37 of 73) to opt for Green Dot." Barr promptly dismissed the entire staff, forcing them to reapply for their jobs. Over 70 percent were not rehired.

And then there is this side of Barr: According to the Green Dot website, he is no longer on staff either.

Barr stepped aside this fall as board chairman of Green Dot but remains on the board and on staff. The expense problem had nothing to do with Barr's change of role, said Shane Martin, who replaced Barr as chairman.

Green Dot charter schools founder repays group $50,866
The nonprofit's tax return shows that Steve Barr repaid the organization after an internal review found that expenses he had charged were undocumented or unjustified.

Lie down with privatization dogs and you get fleeced. Can't wait to hear the spin at the DA today.
----------------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Bloomberg Lets the Cat Out of the Bag: We Need the UFT to Help Manage the Members- oops - the Schools

I missed the radio program starring the two Michaels the other day but I hear Bloomberg said he was not anti-union - and in fact needs the union. And so he does. What if the membership starts going wilding - like taking mass sickouts or other wildcat actions? The UFT  leadership will be right there to help reign them in.

With tonight's buzz of the UFT giving up on --- you name it ----- here are some email leads coming in:

Mulgrew has been quietly lobbying for the turnaround plan behind the scenes.

WNYC WNYC News Blog
RecommendSharePrintEmail Bill to End Last In, First Out Narrowly Clears Senate
Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 12:43 PM
By Beth Fertig

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said before Cuomo's bill was released that the teachers union and state education department are already working on a policy to replace LIFO as part of the requirements for receiving federal Race to the Top funding in time for the 2012-2013 school year

It seems that the UFT has agreed to a turnaround plan that not only involves charter conversion to Green Dot (whose teachers, while unionized have less job security that public school teachers), but also would mean at least half of the school's teachers would lose their position and become ATRs, outside of any seniority order. 

A major concession, if true.  Given that the UFT appears to be the major source for this article and then DOE remains noncommittal, it appears that the union is committed to this. I hope it raises major questions at tomorrow's Delegate Assembly.

New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/nyregion/09greendot.html?src=me&ref=nyregion

From The New York Times:

City Eyes New Tactic for Failing Schools: The Turnaround

Rather than closing two Bronx schools, the Bloomberg administration may try to overhaul them with help from a charter school network.

http://nyti.ms/einOwx

(And lots of talk about the UFT's fave charterites: Steve Barr and Green Dot. Too much info to put up here but here are some links at Norms Notes: Green Dot and Steve Barr Updates.)

Here's the best:

From: UFT Political Action Department <noreply@uft.org>
Subject: Take action: Thank the governor

Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:50 PM

Take action: Thank the governor
Dear colleagues,
When our elected officials do the right thing by our schools and our students, we want them to know.
Please take a moment to call Governor Cuomo to tell him that we appreciate his leadership on workers’ rights and our schools.
Call him at 518-474-8390.
Here’s what you can say:
Governor Cuomo, because of your efforts, everyone knows that New York is not Wisconsin.
I want to thank you for standing up for both the city’s children and the rights of union members by insisting that the state budget should not require local layoffs, despite Mayor Bloomberg's threat to lay off thousands of teachers and send class sizes skyrocketing.
In addition, while the system you are developing can lead to more objective teacher evaluations, the mayor's proposals would return our system to the days of cronyism and discrimination on the basis of race, age and gender.
Your leadership stands as an example to other states where workers' rights and critical services for children are under assault.
Sincerely,
UFT Political Action Department

 "Shameless!" was one comment. I just gagged.

Well, you know the drill. The Delegate Assembly Weds afternoon should be a bowl of laughs. I better get there early to get the banana. Join a bunch of us to drown your sorrows post-DA:

From Teachers Unite - POST-D.A. DRINKS! 3/9 Happy Hour: Send Support to Wisconsin workers!

Join fellow teachers and allies following the UFT Delegate Assembly in writing solidarity/thank you cards to Wisconsin workers standing up for collective bargaining.

Wed., 3/9, 6pm
Killarney Rose Bar (Upstairs Lounge)
127 Pearl St.
$4 drafts and bottles

Directions from UFT Headquarters:
Broad St. to Pearl St. and make a right

Link to Killarney Rose Bar with map: http://bit.ly/htUzAn

(A monthly affair after every DA)

THIS JUST IN:
READ A GREAT PIECE AT GOTHAM COMMUNITY BY GEMer Liza Campbell, a third year teacher who I've been working with on a bunch of projects. Democracy And Reform: A View From A PEP Newbie

I was at an ad hoc meeting organizing for Fight Back Friday (March 25 - get your school to join) on Monday with Liza, Julie Cavanagh and about 15 other mostly young teachers, all of whose ages don't add up to mine. What an amazing crew. I'm starting to feel sorry for the ed deformers. And for ME$ME. They don' need no stinkn' full time organizers paid for by Bill Gates and DFER.

See where all this is going: Social Justice Unionism

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

The Resistance Strikes Back: Major Hits Undermine Ed Deform Platform

...there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade. 

So if we want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn’t the answer — we’ll have to go about building that society directly. We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen.  
 

- Paul Krugman, NY Times, March 8, 2011

Despite their billionaire supporters and massive control of the media, the ed deformers are starting to take a number of hits. Last week with Ravitch on Jon Stewart and Cavanagh debating ME$ME on NY1 and principals standing up to Tweed and Matt Damon speaking out against high-stakes testing was a good week. Leonie Haimson catalogued some of the victories at the NYC Parent blog: This week, the real reformers finally broke through!

This week is also starting out well. First, let's review some of the major planks of ed deform, all of which will be debunked in this post (and I won't even touch on the testing/charter/choice crap- for now).

• Going to college is necessary to get a good job (the centerpiece of ed deform)
• Merit pay will improve results
• Experience and class size don't matter  
• All we need is harder working teachers to overcome poverty and turn failing schools into wildly successful ones 
• Teacher effectiveness can be determined by value-added formulas

Where shall we start? At the beginning


Going to college is necessary to get a good job

Whenever I hear people yapping about how we have to remain competetive in the tech age - yada, yada, yada - my response is "Tell 'em to become a plumber - if you try to outsource plumbing it takes days for the guy to get to your house from India." John Lawhead 8 years ago was pointing out that less than 30% of the new jobs expected to be created would require a college degree - the bulk of jobs would be McDonald's and Walmart.

Paul Krugman is finally delving into the ed deform bullshit. His Monday's (March 8) NY Times piece Degrees and Dollars: The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers, Krugman corroborates my "be a plumber" line and lays waste to the central tenet being pushed by Obama and translated into charter schools calling their kids "scholars" and having teachers post the name of the college they graduated from (don't look for CUNY colleges) on their classroom doors. Here are a few excerpts in addition to the quotes above- but read it all.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That’s why, in an appearance Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Obama declared that “If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education.” But what everyone knows is wrong. ....that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it’s actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated.

Why is this happening? The belief that education is becoming ever more important rests on the plausible-sounding notion that advances in technology increase job opportunities for those who work with information — loosely speaking, that computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands.... Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate.

...there are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade. 

 CHECK

Merit pay will improve results

Roland Fryer at http://www.nber.org/papers/w16850.    If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools. Third paper showing no gains in NYC; at least fifth or sixth study overall. And yet the US Govt. under Duncan seems intent on throwing away millions in our tax payer funds on this nonsense.  

Financial incentives for teachers to increase student performance is an increasingly popular education policy around the world. This paper describes a school-based randomized trial in over two-hundred New York City public schools designed to better understand the impact of teacher incentives on student achievement.

I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior. If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of theories that may explain these stark results.

 CHECK

Experience doesn't matter

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg,  Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters.

In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.

Generally speaking the corporate reformers argue that only the first few years of experience matter, though you can see from these charts from a study by Thomas J. Kane, now at the Gates foundation, Jonah E. Rockoff and Douglas O. Staiger  that at year five, effectiveness is still going up for all categories other than uncertified teachers.

MORE at How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

CHECK

Class size doesn't matter 

NY Times: Class Size Rising 

Leonie Haimson debating class size on MSNBC

All we need is harder working teachers to overcome poverty and turn failing schools into wildly successful ones 

Same Kids, Same Building, Same Lies

One of the highlights of the TFA 20th anniversary summit was certainly when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made a rousing speech at the closing ceremony. The most impressive part of his speech was when he described the transformation of Englewood High School in Chicago while he was heading that school district. He said that they shut it down because 60% of the students were not graduating. They replaced it with three charter schools. One of those charters, the all boys Urban Prep, just graduated their first class and 107 out of 107 graduated and got accepted to college. He says then “Same children, same community, same poverty, same violence, same building, different adults, different expectations, different sense of what’s possible and that made all the difference”

it was not the ‘same children’ attending Urban Prep as would have attended Englewood High School.  They had the typical lottery which excludes certain families.  It also had a mandatory three week program for students who got accepted, which eliminated even more students.  And then, they did the typical ‘weeding out’ of kids who weren’t performing.

CHECK

Teacher effectiveness can be determined by value-added formulas


Michael Winerip has a powerful story about Ms. Isaacson, who looks to be a good teacher by all counts but will probably be denied tenure. Ms. Eyre writes about it at NYC Educator: A Note to Ms. Isaacson
Here are some excerpts from Winerip, who has always been a champion of true reform - if he keeps this up look for him to once again be move from the ed beat to something like covering real estate.

Evaluating New York Teachers, Perhaps the Numbers Do Lie- NYTimes

You would think the Department of Education would want to replicate Ms. Isaacson — who has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia — and sprinkle Ms. Isaacsons all over town. Instead, the department’s accountability experts have developed a complex formula to calculate how much academic progress a teacher’s students make in a year — the teacher’s value-added score — and that formula indicates that Ms. Isaacson is one of the city’s worst teachers.
According to the formula, Ms. Isaacson ranks in the 7th percentile among her teaching peers — meaning 93 per cent are better.
This may seem disconnected from reality, but it has real ramifications. Because of her 7th percentile, Ms. Isaacson was told in February that it was virtually certain that she would not be getting tenure this year. “My principal said that given the opportunity, she would advocate for me,” Ms. Isaacson said. “But she said don’t get your hopes up, with a 7th percentile, there wasn’t much she could do.”
That’s not the only problem Ms. Isaacson’s 7th percentile has caused. If the mayor and governor have their way, and layoffs are no longer based on seniority but instead are based on the city’s formulas that scientifically identify good teachers, Ms. Isaacson is pretty sure she’d be cooked.
She may leave anyway. She is 33 and had a successful career in advertising and finance before taking the teaching job, at half the pay.
“I love teaching,” she said. “I love my principal, I feel so lucky to work for her. But the people at the Department of Education — you feel demoralized.”
How could this happen to Ms. Isaacson? It took a lot of hard work by the accountability experts.

Now look at this idiot response from the DOE

In an e-mail, Matthew Mittenthal, a department spokesman said: “We are saying that a teacher’s tenure decision should simply be delayed (not denied) until that teacher has demonstrated effective practice for consecutive years in all three categories. The alternative is what we’ve had in the past — 90-plus percent of teachers who are up for tenure receive it. Do you think journalists deserve lifetime jobs after their third year in the business?”

Hey Matt, guess what?  Stacey Isaacson is OUTAHERE! and much better off for it. The second the economy improves she will be joined by a mass exodus. See: REPORT CARD: “Who Wants to be a Teacher Now?” from the Brooklyn Rail. Also see Stephen Lazar at Gotham: Turnover ideas from a teacher whose colleagues keep leaving.

DOUBLE CHECK

There's even a piece from the venerable Sol Stern: Bloomy's bubble bursts:
Nothing illuminates the vacancy of Bloomberg’s mayoralty more than the false narrative that depicted him as America’s “education mayor.”

TRIPLE CHECK
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Are School Closing Choices Being Made on Basis of Costs of Teachers?

It certainly would seem to be obvious without even looking at the data. Think of the strategy. End LIFO, go after the ATRs, create lots more relatively senior ATRs by under resourcing schools selected for closing on the basis of teacher costs, create a phony layoff crisis, lay off these people and then turn around and hire lots of newbies after declaring crisis is over- exactly what Michelle Rhee did in DC, but this will be on a massive scale. For the UFT to declare victory after this onslaught will take superb PR skills, but watch them try.

Gotham reported today: The city said it wants to close two more schools, both transfer schools. (NY1, Brooklyn Daily Eagle). Here's a job for an enterprising investigative journalist.

One source emailed me:

With the closure of the two transfer schools, announced yesterday, Pacific and Bronx Academy it is pretty clear that the decision to close a school has more to do with the average cost of teachers at that school than anything else. While they cite progress reports and other criteria Pacific had an average teacher salary of 78,000 and Bronx Academy, 76,000. If a correlation could be made between closing and opening schools using average teacher salaries, cost of administration one could predict which schools will be on the chopping block. The info is all on the DOE web site under Budget Summary for each school. The average teacher cost varies a little by license and there are a number of other additions and subtractions to this amount but this measure does seem predictable.

 Are there schools in the same category with lower ratings and lower average salaries that were not closed?

-----------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

The Sunday Funnies: Ed Notes Week in Review

The last two weeks have become a blur, so if you don't mind I'll use this blog on a rainy Sunday to review some of the political and personal events so I don't lose track of where I live. Or what century this is.

Vacation
The school vacation was surprisingly busy. A number of teachers were still in town and were fairly active. The Independent Community of Educators (ICE) held a weekday meeting and did what ICE does best: drill down deep on the last in first out issue.

Film update
I spent parts of two days with two teachers and parent activist Lisa Donlan working on re-editing our "Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" film, trying to incorporate valuable suggestions from the 60 people who saw a Feb. 17 preview at Blue Stockings bookstore. We did some more editing last Wednesday to get version 2.0 ready for yesterday's showing at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. The newly burned CD was just finished around 10 AM yesterday and rushed over in time for the 11AM event. And the almost one hour follow-up discussion with lots more ideas on how to make our message as clear as possible will lead to a 3.0 version. People who saw 1.0 and 2.0 unanimously agreed the film is getting sharper.

Sam Anderson of the CPE was on the panel yesterday and said so many important things that I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera to tape the QandA. When someone questioned the extent we should be demonizing the charter school movement Sam said they deserved to be demonized. He also made some great points about how Bloomberg's legal maneuverings to set up the privatization model. I've got to track him down and get his comments on tape. We don't want the movie to get longer than 50 minutes but these points are worth adding.

We've been getting emails from around the nation asking for copies. Middlebury College is showing WFS this Weds (Mar. 9) and wants to show our film on March 16 to about 200 people. Looks like a ROAD TRIP!

We are holding a raffle for those who are willing to host a school or house party for the ITBWFS - and the winner gets: Diane Ravitch Makes an Offer We Cannot Refuse as "...

Co-blogger M.A.B. joins Ed Notes "staff"
One of my colleagues in the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) who edits the GEM newsletter with me, in addition to assisting with the film, is a Teach for America alum. She did the live blogging from the TFA Summit on Feb. 12 – 4 separate posts during the day featured on Ed Notes. She followed up with a summation of her experiences and an analysis of TFA that is one of the best I have read (a must read published at Ed Notes on March 2).

So I made her an offer she could not refuse: join me in this venture so I can get to the gym and yoga more often. I figure her being 40 years younger, there might be a tad more energy. But more important, in the almost two years I've known M.A.B. I have been incredibly impressed with her wisdom, organizational ability, intelligence, commitment to teaching and the children, her views on education, on the union and best of all, we are both Bikram yoga fans. How often do I feel like a child in the presence of a real adult when I'm gently reminded, "focus Norm, focus?"

The announcement: Teach for America Summit Blogger to Co-Blog at Ed ...
CA.B.'s first blog post: Teach for America 20th Anniversary Alumni Summit: ...

Cathie Black in Williamsburg
On the first day after the vacation I headed up to my old hangouts in Williamsburg for a Town Hall meeting with Cathie Black. People came out in droves, with pro-union and anti-charter signs. There was palpable outrage from all quarters of the community over the inundation of the neighborhood by Moskowitz' fliers.

There was definitely a degree of organizing going on here. Principal Brian De Vale galvanized crowd with a spectacular statement directed right at Black. See the video: Must See Video: Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cath...

Interesting that I saw 3 reporters: Yoav Gonen of the Post, Lindsay Christ of NY1 and Anna Philips of Gotham but the only report I saw was from Christ. Oh, and of course me. Here's one piece I did.
Cathie Black District 14 Town Hall: No Sex, but Pl...

I have more great video to process from this event.

Ravitch on "Daily Show" and Cavanagh debates E4E on "Inside City Hall" on NY1.
On March 3 I went to the viewing party organized by Leonie Haimson with Ravitch as the guest and Al Shanker's widow was there too. We watched Julie's appearance from 10-10:30 on NY1 debating an E4E person on seniority and and she got raves. It was my birthday and my wife likes to keep these days reserved, so I had to negotiate just a bit to make the party. (See Goin' to a Party.) I reported with some analysis, Diane Ravitch and Julie Cavanagh Kick Butt. Stewart has been standing up and defending teachers. Accountable Talk has a link.  And Leonie has a good report: This week, the real reformers finally broke through!

More Meetings
Then on March 4 there were 2 meetings: ICE and NYCORE. So I split the baby and went to both. Not much I want to report on these due to some delicate matters being discussed. On Sunday, March 6 GEM had a meeting of the core group and again I am impressed by how many people are so pumped up they come out on a Sunday rainy afternoon. Since the meeting was internal, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

The Personals
I did not just do political stuff but actually had social interactions with non-ed people. On Feb. 18 I went so see a former 4th grade student perform his one man show about growing up in "Da Burg." I wrote about it here: What I Learned From a Former Student: Ernie Silva ...

The next eve we went into the city to meet some friends to see "Of Gods and Men" at the Sunshine but first we went looking for food. We found a Mexican place on 2nd Ave and they served Happy Hour drinks very cheap. So I had a giant Margarita, followed by a giant Mojito. Did I laugh my way through the ultra serious movie? Well, after the movie we found a dessert place on 10th Street where I got my regular eclair.

We got home at 12:30AM and had to head out the next day to meet a batch of young cousins who we celebrate all the birthdays with at one time. They are from both our sides of the family so it is a fun few hours. But first I had to stop in for a half hour at the theater lighting class I'm taking at the Rockaway Theatre Company. Before I knew it I was standing at the top of a 15 foot ladder wrestling with a light. After surviving that we went to East of 8th for brunch. Here we are after stuffing ourselves: The twenty-somethings and the sixty-somethings.

Yesterday I missed this Rockaway event:


Bloomberg Booed in Rockaway
Darn, the parade started just a block away from my house and I could have filmed the booing all the way but I was at the film showing. Leonie posted this at the NYC Parent blog. Here is an excerpt:

Video: Bloomberg booed and excoriated for his attack on teachers and kids

Must See Video: Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cathie Black Face to Face on Unions and Seniority

Principals, 80% (according to scuttlebutt) of whom have been appointed under the Bloomberg regime, are increasingly becoming a Trojan horse for Black & Bloom as they see the favored charter schools inundating their neighborhoods with flyers and expensive ads while their schools are cut to the bone. Black came to a Williamsburg District 14 Community Education Council meeting on February 28 at a particularly sensitive time. The entire neighborhood has been inundated with Harlem Success Academy fliers, ads at every subway stop and on every doorknob while public schools are starved. There are many charters in District 14 but as usual Eva has pushed the buttons a bit too far. She doesn't know just what she is in for and it will be fun to watch this develop as Eve puts young children into the IS 33 building in the middle of one of the most dangerous areas - a point people made at this meeting (video of this in a few days.)

Many of the old guard people who have worked and lived in the district for years are outraged. Not only at the charters, but at the attack on seniority and LIFO. I worked in the area for over 35 years and saw many old friends at the meeting at IS 71. Many teachers and supervisors were neighborhood people and they came out in force.

Here is a video of principal and community leader Brian De Vale going one on one with Black over seniority rights, all while holding a Teddy Bear. Black tried to make a joke - "Don't I get the bear" but when De Vale came up to offer it to her she refused it, saying "give it to a child." What a humanitarian she is - most likely she was afraid of touching it.

Direct link to you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibwyGXD3CI4




I'm including a letter to parents from another Brooklyn principal from another district as another  example of the outrage.

Dear Families:

We can’t help but comment briefly on the debate about teacher seniority that is all over the news. I  remember my mother, Rose Barr's stories of pre-union teaching. Behind closed doors, and with a promise to keep her salary a secret, each year she negotiated her contract. She could not be hired for one position because she would have been a second Jew, and the quota allowed only one per school. She could not wear shorts in public, could not be pregnant and could not ask about her colleagues’ salaries. Most schools don't teach much about labor history and many Americans seem to have no notion of how unions have improved the quality of life for generations of Americans. My father, an early 20th century labor organizer, spent many months of his life in prison, fighting for the rights we are now expected to silently surrender.

Over and over we read about countries where students out-perform Americans. What we need to ask is how educators and education are regarded in those countries. Are teachers vilified or venerated? Are students sent to school with the message that schools, teachers, and educational leaders are to be respected, that education is of great value? Read our newspapers and see what is said about our teachers, people who have committed their professional lives to helping young people learn. Today's New York Times provides an excellent example of the effect of such negative publicity on our profession.

Seniority is a complex issue. First and foremost, there is a big difference between the city cutting positions throughout the city and cutting budgets at the school level. A citywide cut of positions would be unconscionable and should not under any circumstances occur. As bad as cuts to school budgets are, it is much better when we at the school level decide what to cut.

But what about this seniority question? There is no doubt that our system for teacher tenure could use a little tweaking and it would be great if the UFT and the DOE could agree on some changes to this system. But make no mistake about it, it is a dangerous thing when it is said that the difference between a brand new teacher and an experienced one is irrelevant. It takes time to develop your teaching practice and one of the wonderful things about the profession is that you can always learn more as a teacher. There is so much to learn and know when it comes to supporting others in the learning process. When we think back to our first years of teaching, we remember our energy and our commitment, wonderful qualities for new teachers. But when we recall later years, we remember our wisdom and how much we could do for both our students and our newer colleagues. That’s part of what makes teaching such a rewarding profession. We need both the experienced and learned teachers and the thoughtful, new and energetic teachers. In fact, you can’t have one without the other!

Let’s remember to keep on thanking these teachers for their intelligence, integrity, commitment to young people, and love of learning.

Anna Allanbrook    Brooklyn New School (BNS)
Alyce Barr             Brookyn  School for Collaborative Studies (BCS)

UPDATE Diane Ravitch and Julie Cavanagh Kick Butt

Last Update: Friday, March 4, 10:45 PM

I had to run out this morning before finishing this post. Check below for the follow-up.

I was at the viewing party last night for Diane Ravitch's appearance on Jon Stewart with Diane as the guest and we all enjoyed not only watching her appearance but Stewart's wonderful defense of teachers and take down of the ed deformers. No time to find the links now but will update later.

We were also treated to GEM's Julie Cavanagh's kicking of an E4E member's butt from one end of the NY1 studio to the next on "Inside City Hall". And all the while doing it with civility and grace.

Here is the link to Julie:  http://www.ny1.com/?ArID=134963


Let me point out that Julie did what the UFT won't do: defend LIFO and seniority in a strong and well-thought out way. Was that the best E4E has? She contradicted herself time after time.

Here's a link to Ravitch on Stewart show. But watch the first part of the show too where Stewart lays out the ed deformers in a brilliant way.

From Leonie to those who attended the viewing party (I have some tape). (Yes, we survived One if by Land wonderful meal and headed uptown after I sobered up.)

Thanks to all of you who came last night to our viewing party, at such short notice, especially Diane, for being our hero and working so hard every day to advocate for rational policies in public education. 

The conversation and company was terrific and it was great to share it with all of you. 

I have posted links to all of yesterday’s shows on the NYC parent blog, including Inside City Hall with Julie Cavanagh about LIFO, the Daily show with Diane, and the NPR radio show that Diane and I were on yesterday here:

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/03/yesterday-was-great-day-for-real.html

Julie Cavanagh told me today that Errol Louis , the host of Inside City Hall, had a print out of our Parents Across America fact sheet on “why experience matters” in front of him during her debate.

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/how-teaching-experience-makes-a-difference/

If you haven’t yet subscribed to our Parents Across America newsletter, please do on the website at www.parentsacrossamerica.org

Thanks so much, and pl. keep in touch!

Leonie Haimson