Straddling Fault Lines in New Zealand

Monday evening, Dec. 12, we returned from two weeks in New Zealand. I'm still a bit jet-lagged and not sure if it's yesterday or tomorrow. I slept over 8 hours last night and have been over the last week and I NEVER sleep much more than 6. All I know is we left on a Sunday, Nov. 27 and arrived on Tuesday, skipping Monday, Nov. 28. If you traveled that way and missed your birthday would you never get older? Then on the way home we left Wellington (the capital) on Monday at noon and got back to NYC on Monday at 6 after 28 hours of travel.

You would really have a hard time going much further than New Zealand from here. Just look at a globe and realize just how far south it is - the tip of the south island points right at Antarctica. Brrrr. Even Australia seems closer. (We have been there twice so skipped it this time.)

I really didn't do much homework for this trip, expecting to rely on the tour guide(s). And they certainly came through. I have a much greater understanding of NZ, a country I knew little about. We went with Overseas Adventure Tours (OAT), a branch of Grand Circle. These are small tours - we had 14 people - all roughly our age. Two couples from Wisconsin (not happy about the attempt to recall that putz), and couples from Baltimore and LA and a few singles from California.

NZ is basically on one big fault line with earthquakes threatening every part of both islands.

Bob Wilkerson, the tour guide, a rigorous typically active Kiwi, is close to 70 - a true outdoorsman and a passionate defender of New Zealand's social welfare system. He was not happy at the recent victory by conservatives, who actually took office on the day we left. We had a tour of Parliment the day before - an earthquake proof building that rests on flexible concrete pillars - probably one of the safest buildings in the world - even though Wellington is on a major earthquake fault. As a matter of fact, pretty much all of NZ is on a fault.

I can write about this trip in so many ways: the scenery, the meeting with Maori guides who gave us so much insight. I was surprised at how political the tour was. Bob said OAT tours don't hold anything back and give the full range of the good, bad and ugly. Bob is a strict environmentalist and was so proud of the rigid laws protecting and preserving and restoring the environment. He showed us trees thousands of years old that if they were cut down could fetch a hundred grand each. But they are never touched. Imagine where they would be in this nation. You'd see FOX News railing about how cutting them down could contribute to the economy.

We covered areas of both the north and south islands but spent more time in the south where the southern tip points right at Antarctica. Bob was from Christ Church which suffered 2 devastating earthquakes last year with the 2nd one in Feb. basically dropping all of the downtown into one big hole - just about every single historical building lost. (There was another one just the other day.) SO we only got to the city's airport to take off for Wellington.

We stared in Auckland on the north island  - the largest city with 1.4 million of the 4 millions people in the entire nation, where I connected up with the Occupy Auckland crew and actually filmed an important General Assembly and since I was the only one filming they were excited to have that footage. And also to have someone from NYC stop by. (I connected one of their tech guys to Justin from OWS here in NY.) There are probably more sheep. They hate possums which were imported and wrecked the environment but did discover they could be used for more than road kill - the fur fibers retain warmth and they mix them with merino sheep. I now have a possum/wool scarf to wear.

The treatment of the indigenous population has improved tremendously over the past 30 years and Bob was very proud of that - though as my dermatologist said after I told him that - "yeah, after they killed most of them off."

I took hundreds of photos and hours of film and will blog more about what is happening with education there another time. Happy holidays and here are just a few pics.

Nocera/Krugman Let Bloomberg Off Hook on Fannie/Freddie

Nocera and Krugman expose the fallacy and open lies the right and Republicans engage in with their making excuses for the corporate greed in pushing sub-prime mortgages by placing the blame in Fannie/Freddie Mae. But guess who also adhere's to the same lie? No less than our esteemed mayor.

I left a comment about their ignoring Bloomberg at Krugman's blog hours ago but so far it hasn't appeared. Maybe it's just Xmas eve and the moderators at the Times are doing last minute shopping  - let's see -  if you call Republicans idiots and liars and Bloomberg says exactly the same thing are you  protecting Bloomberg's idiocy?

Thanks to Leonie Haimson for making this connection with this tweet:

Nocera refutes Big Lie that FMacs caused the ec collapse goo.gl/qJjIs omits @MikeBloomberg repeats same myth goo.gl/cs0MY

Nocera also wrote about the FMac distortions in a previous column.

Not only Nocera but one of my idols, Paul Krugman who in commenting on and complimenting Nocera on Nocera's  column in today's NY Times says on his blog:

Joe Nocera Gets MadAnd it’s a beautiful thing to see.

Today Joe once again goes after the Big Lie — the claim that Fannie and Freddie caused the crisis — and drives home the point that the people advancing this story aren’t just wrong but are acting with intent, engaged in deliberate deception:

Basically, Joe is arriving where I’ve been since 2000: what’s going on in the discussion of economic affairs (and other matters, like justifications for war) isn’t just a case where different people look at the same facts but reach different conclusions. Instead, we’re looking at a situation in which one side of the debate just isn’t interested in the truth, in which alleged scholarship is actually just propaganda.

Saying this, of course, gets you declared “shrill”, denounced as partisan; you’re supposed to pretend that we’re having a civilized discussion between people with good intentions. And you’re supposed to match each attack on Republicans with an attack on Democrats, as if the mendacity were equal on both sides. Sorry, but it isn’t. Democrats aren’t angels; they’re human and sometimes corrupt — but they don’t operate a lie machine 24/7 the way modern Republicans do.

Ooops Paul. Not JUST Republicans operate a lie machine 24/7. We can name a whole lot of big city mayors who are so-called independents like Bloomberg and even Dems like Rahmbo Emanuel in Chicago who operate a lie machine 24/7.

Bloomberg: 'Plain and simple,' Congress caused the mortgage crisis, not the banks
Nov. 1, 2011

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this morning that if there is anyone to blame for the mortgage crisis that led the collapse of the financial industry, it's not the "big banks," but Congress.

Speaking at a business breakfast in midtown featuring Bloomberg and two former New York City mayors, Bloomberg was asked what he thought of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

"I hear your complaints," Bloomberg said. "Some of them are totally unfounded. It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp. Now, I'm not saying I'm sure that was terrible policy, because a lot of those people who got homes still have them and they wouldn't have gotten them without that.

"But they were the ones who pushed Fannie and Freddie to make a bunch of loans that were imprudent, if you will. They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it's one target, it's easy to blame them and congress certainly isn't going to blame themselves. At the same time, Congress is trying to pressure banks to loosen their lending standards to make more loans. This is exactly the same speech they criticized them for."

Read the entire Bloomberg piece: http://goo.gl/cs0MY
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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 the right for important bits.

Closing Schools Folly Exposed, So Why Was UFT In Favor For So Long?

“A lot of my good good teachers have left,” she said. “I hate the term jump ship, because of Columbus … But they told me they didn’t want to wait until the end and risk going into the Absent Teacher Reserve pool,” where teachers who have lost their jobs rove from school to school as substitutes. 
--- Linda Fuentes, Principal, Columbus HS from Gotham Schools.
http://goo.gl/hKqDQ

All the cards fall into place. We all know that the ed deform agenda is about destroying the career and pay track and the unions of teachers. But teachers cannot be teacher centric in this war. (See the Milwaukee Teacher Education President Bob Peterson on Reinventing the Union – Social Justice Unionism in Action).

Ed deform while claiming to be about children/student first is also about segregation and inequality of students.and is exposed by the number of push outs and disappeared kids which the privatized schools don't want to deal with. See (Segregated Charter Schools Evoke Separate But Equal Era in U.S. Education)

Any hope of claiming improved results is dependent on this and despite all kinds of games being played their results are still crappy as public schools with limited resources often perform as well or better. (See Gary Rubinstein's work on proving the fallacy of closing schools like Washington Irving High School — another school unfairly closed and Come Back To Jamaica HS.)

The master plan of the privtizers is hinged on destroying public schools building by building, creating a domino effect as the most difficult children to educate are moved around like chess pieces to the next school down the line to become a target. This was established as a plan decades ago by the free-marketeers. 

The UFT/AFT supported closing schools as a solution until recently
But no matter how clear this was to many of us and no matter how hard we screamed at the UFT leadership, they aided and abetted this policy. Remember Al Shanker? He was a cheerleader for closing down "failing" schools from the early 80's and Randi picked up on the policy (remember her" Lafayette HS should be closed" statement?) And UFT/Unity shills like Peter Goodman was being paid to go around and take part in the dismantling of schools like my own alma mata Thomas Jefferson in East NY Brooklyn.

Before 2005 it was not easy to close a school - because the teachers had some seniority rights. But after the 2005 contract with its free market and the creation of ATRs the DOE was freed to go full speed ahead.


After being patsies and enablers for so many years, Tweed spit in the face of the UFT in 2009 when they announced the closing of 19 schools and the UFT began to stir - a bit. 


An article at Gotham Schools focuses on closing school Columbus HS in the Bronx, one of the dominoes. At Columbus, students and staff grapple with looming closurehttp://goo.gl/hKqDQ 

 Leonie Haimson points out: "Yet DOE still sending them kids."

In response to questions of where they are stashing the kids, Leonie pointed people to various links:

There is a new law that says DOE has to report on what happens at closing schools.  There have been many reports on this as well. See our report which shows sharp spikes in the discharge rates:
http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/High_School_Discharge_Report_FINAL.pdf

also see:  http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/No-
Closer-to-College-Report.pdf

http://www2.flanbwayan.org/news/wpcontent/
uploads/2011/07/tcr1pdf1.pdf)

and: http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/Empty%20Promises%20Report%2
0%206-16-09.pdf.

There were lots of reports of substandard credit recovery programs at Tilden HS for example as it was phasing out. Ssee for example 

http://coveringeducation.org/schoolstories10/2010/05/a-race-for-diplomas-before-tilden-high-closes-for-good/

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters

Make a tax-deductible contribution to Class SizeMatters now!

Click on the link above to support Leonie's work (and for a hundred bucks get a prized Class Size Matters mug).

The Gotham Story below. Worth reading as students and teaches get screwed.

The Wave: Jumping From Kiwi-Land into Shadow of the Valley of the Panel for Educational Policy

The Wave: www.rockawave.com
Written Dec. 20, Published Dec. 23, 2011
By Norm Scott

I’ve been back a week after spending two weeks in New Zealand where summer is just beginning, so I’m not sure what is up and what is down or whether it is yesterday, today or tomorrow. But I do have beautiful photos of roses in bloom in December. Internet access was difficult – meaning the hotels charged way too much and with an active tour guide getting us up early and delivering us late there was little time to spend time online anyway. But I did try to keep up through my Blackberry, which was burning up with news from the education front lines. I did manage to get over to Occupy Auckland, where I videotaped what turned out to be an important General Assembly and they were going to use my tape as part of their court effort to remain in the park they were occupying. What is interesting is that New Zealand is a nation with fully socialized medical care, a very successful system indeed. More on some of the wonderful stuff we learned about that nation of 4 million people in future columns.

But, apparently, New Zealand, even with a top-notch education system, is not immune to attempts to push an education deform privatization agenda, with the just-elected conservative government springing the charter school option of school choice out of a hat. Boy, these corporate reformers are coming out from under rocks everywhere in the world.

I was contacted by a NZ principal who had heard of our filmed response (The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) to the supreme ed deform film “Waiting for Superman” – he was prepared to take a 2-hour car trip to meet up with me in Wellington (the capital and home to Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson who has his studios there) to get a copy. Apparently, our film is viewed as one of the most effective ways to counter the ed deform free market corporate agenda.

How thrilling that word of our movie has gone out to the far corners of the world (all 50 states and 6 continents) with letters pouring in from people making and distributing dozens of copies. I’m guessing that we have gone over 8000 dvds distributed with people setting up screenings all over the nation at colleges, unions and school boards. I was even invited up to SUNY Courtland (all expenses paid) to be on a panel discussing both films. (Of course our own UFT leadership here in NYC has been boycotting the film because, while defending teacher unions is a major portion of the film, we did have a few criticisms of the weakness of the UFT organizing efforts.)

We had lost an entire day travelling but got it back on our return on Dec. 12th. We left on a Monday, travelled 24 hours and came back on a Monday. Imagine travelling that way on your birthday – you’ll never get older.

Two days later, while still jet-lagged, I was ready for action at the Dec. 14th Panel for Educational Panel meeting being held in central Queens at Newtown HS. The meeting, which was focused on handing over more schools to Eva Moskowitz’ Success Charter Network in Brooklyn had been moved to Queens (even though there wasn’t one item on the agenda related to a Queens school) to make it difficult for the overwhelming number of parents and teachers, especially in gentrifying Cobble Hill, who used their two minutes at the mic to oppose the giveaway of school buildings to private interests, especially when there are a number of high quality and popular schools in the area. But under Bloomberg, it is all about political connections and not education.
(Did you hear this line from David Letterman commenting on the death of Kim Il Jong: “The only tiny tyrant left is Mayor Bloomberg.”)

As expected despite an overwhelming majority of people using their 2 minutes to speak against the Moskowitz invasion, the Panel dominated by Bloomberg appointees voted in favor of the Success co-location with only one vote against, the always-reliable Manhattan Borough Rep Patrick Sullivan. Many people showed up with puppets to mock the Bloomberg crew. But clearly, even most of the borough reps, appointed by the borough presidents, are also puppets. Brooklyn’s Marty Markowitz’ rep voted YES (Marty you are a puppet AND a buffoon) and our own Queens rep supposedly (I was long gone by then to catch up on the 18 hour time difference) abstained – say it ain’t so Dmytro Fedkowskyj. Is he a pathetic puppet too? I can say this: Helen Marshall is a Bloomberg shill and puppet. And Dmytro does what Helen wants. I wonder what guys like him get out of doing this sleazy suck-up job. I hope Dmytro isn’t fooling himself into believing he is doing a public service.

One of the notable events of the evening was the use of “mic check” before the meeting began by a branch of the Occupy movement calling itself Occupy the DOE. For the unfamiliar, “mic check” is a powerful tool that allows one to speak to a large crowd by making short statements that are repeated by the crowd, thus avoiding the need for amplification. After years of having the Bloomberg appointees control the mic and shut it off after 2 minutes, “mic check” gives the crowd a powerful weapon to take control of a meeting – as long as there is enough of a crowd to accomplish this.

Now the pro-Bloomberg press and some people who have not had their voices shut down and ignored for years charge that using “mic check” can be viewed as rude and counterproductive, which would be true if these public meetings really were about providing community input. But gone are the days of people passively using two minutes to describe decades of neglect or outright sabotage of their school communities while PEP members bemusedly sit back ignoring them, knowing full well they will vote as they are told no matter how deep the emotion asking them to keep schools open or to keep a politically connected charter school from eating up space in public school buildings like Pac Man.

So, at the PEP meeting, ODOE consisting mostly of NYC teachers, parents and some students intermittently used “mic check” to make their points without totally disrupting the meeting. After a few hours, they walked out en masse and held a brief meeting outside the school before heading home. ODOE is continuing to meet weekly to decide on actions at the upcoming January and February PEP meetings where closing schools will be voted on and is reaching out to these closing schools to offer support.

I put up videos of the meeting on you tube. Check the gemnyc1 channel.

Norm blogs at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/, Email: normsco@gmail.com

Losers Merryl Tisch and John B. King: Principal Revolt Against State Ed Teacher Evals

These two jokers keep pushing but are facing a major revolt not by teachers but by their bosses. Even Fox has a report:


NYS Teacher Evaluation Controversy from Rockville Centre Schools on Vimeo.

http://edupln.com/video/nys-teacher-evaluation-controversy

List of Protesting Principals Tops 1,000 

Dec. 15, 2011, 11:42 a.m.By SchoolBookNearly a quarter of all principals in New York State have signed a letter objecting to New York State’s system of teacher evaluations.The letter, which was posted online, voices objections to a new state evaluation system that will rate teachers and principals based on student scores on standardized tests.The principals’ complaints include: The system has not been field tested; there are scores to rate only English and math teachers; state tests have repeatedly been shown to be unreliable.While more than 1,000 principals have now signed the letter, the numbers remain heavy on Long Island principals, where the protest started. Here are the numbers, as of Wednesday:Total 1,019 principals (22.4 percent of the 4,511 principals listed by the state). As of Dec. 11, the total was 902 statewide.Westchester 107Long island 507Rockland 32New York City 47

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More scandal at State Ed: Testing Firm Faces Inquiry on Free Trips for Officials 

For commentary:  Perdido Street School

Pearson In Corruption Probe - Why Are The Regents And The NYSED Not Being Scrutinized Too?

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And here is some more commentary on Tisch from Reality-Based Educator:

She (Tisch) needs to be taken down.And then she ought to be taken to jail. 

reality-based educator has left a new comment on your post "Michael Winerip Lays Waste to NY State Ed Departme...": 

I have not seen Merry Merryl Tisch's name show up in the K12 Inc. articles that have surfaced lately - not in the Times article, not in the Wash Post article, not in Gail Collins' column on K12 and online ed. I even wrote Collins to say she should look into the Tisch connections so long as she is commenting on the political connections that the company has that enable it to finagle contracts. Never heard back from her, never saw her revisit the issue. I understand that the Tisch connection is through a subsidiary of K12 Inc. and the connection to Tisch is with her brother-in-law, not herself or her husband. Still, the thing stinks.
Somehow Merry Merryl never gets hammered in the press, even when she says stupid shit like state test results "have never, ever, ever exaggerated...” or the public hates teachers but will like them better when the new "objective" evaluation system is put into place...
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2011/11/merryl-tisch-public-hates-teachers-but.html
She really is as bad as Eva on this stuff - a self-centered, accountability for others/no accountability for me demagogue.
Steiner was a putz, but it's clear Tisch put the knife into him and brought her man King to the NYSED to consolidate her power.
It would be nice to see Winerip take a look at how the state has done since Tisch has been there and have him ask her why she thinks all the problems are other people's fault, never her own.
She needs to be taken down.
And then she ought to be taken to jail. 

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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 the right for important bits.

Bob Peterson on Reinventing the Union – Social Justice Unionism in Action

I met Bob Peterson in Chicago this past summer at the national educator's activist meetings. Here is an amazing educator who was one of the founders of Rethinking Schools, one of the most progressive journals for educators. (A perfect place to give a donation).

So Bob is a serious teacher. Given the mayhem in Wisconsin, Bob decides to run for president of the Milwaukee Teachers Association (NEA). And wins. Whoa. As unique a union leader as there is. And in the home of the largest voucher (failed) program in the nation. Just about everything Bob said in Chicago made oh so much sense. As it does here. You'll be hearing a lot more about social justice unionism from me in the next few months. Here is a good start.

This was sent to me a few months ago from another Rethinking Schools guy, Michael Charney, from Ohio I believe - another hot spot for anti-public employees with teachers in the eye of the storm.

Norm,
I have pasted below a talk by Bob Peterson, newly elected president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, gave to 250 Building Reps and members about his direction for reinventing the MTEA in the light of the new Wisconsin law regarding unions and collective bargaining. The MTEA has a contract for two years before all the implications of the attack on collective bargaining takes hold. I found the focus on site based organizing around contract protection, professional issues, community and parent out reach and a site based focused on democracy and political action compelling. I thought you might be interested in finding out about Bob's direction as president of the MTEA.
Michael Charney

It’s Time to Re-imagine and Reinvent the MTEABy Bob Peterson
MTEA Convocation, Milwaukee WI – September 21, 2011 

I’d like to explain in detail why we need to re-imagine and reinvent the MTEA.
First, let me be clear. We are facing a crisis of historic proportions. Public education is the foundation of any socially just, democratic society. Educators are the foundation of public education. Yet the survival of both teacher unions and public education is up for question.
Governor Walker, the Republican Legislature and their right-wing corporate supporters have laid down the gauntlet. ACT 10 is a direct attack on public workers, our unions and the entire public sector. Walker’s massive cutback of funding for public schools and other public services is an unprecedented assault on our community. Our challenge is to win greater public support for public education and to win greater identification to the MTEA and the MEAA from our own members. As a union, we will not be able to adequately respond to these new realities and challenges unless we re-imagine and reinvent the MTEA. 

First, I’d like to talk about some lessons from the past.
Milwaukee has been ground zero in the battle over public education for more than 20 years, ever since the private school voucher program began. Fundamentally, vouchers are based on a free-market, right-wing ideology that doesn’t support public education. At the same time, however, voucher proponents successfully convinced many people that vouchers were needed because MPS would not reform itself and that the union was an obstacle. 

Let’s be honest. The union did not adequately respond. Too often, when faced with criticisms we were reactive and defensive. We criticized the exaggerated charges against us but we did not differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate criticisms. So, lesson number one we need to learn. The union must be proactive. We can’t just circle the wagons and defensively dismiss all criticisms. 

A strong teachers’ union rests on a tripod of concerns. One leg is bread and butter unionism, which ensures quality wages, hours and working conditions and focuses on the contract. The second leg is professional unionism — understanding that we as educators take ownership of teaching and learning. The third leg is social justice unionism — the understanding that we must build strong relations with parents and community groups not just to ensure adequate support for public education, but so that we as a union are also involved in improving the community. 

During the era in which vouchers gained an increasing foothold in Milwaukee, too often the union’s energy was focused on bread and butter. The contract was king. When there was a problem in MPS, too often we said in essence, “That’s a problem for the administration. You fix it, but don’t you dare violate the contract.” As we look at the past, lesson number two is that being a union means more than defending the contract. 

Which brings me to lesson number three from the past. We can’t just change our rhetoric.
We have to change our practice. 

In recent years, the MTEA has clearly made progress and has better understood the need for professional unionism. We have talked about the need for educators to take ownership of teaching and learning. We began to understand the need to collaborate and work with the administration and school board, and not to view them merely as bosses and management. We started the TEAM program with the administration that addresses the problem of struggling teachers. 

We also recognized the need to build ties with parents and with the community.
Within the union, we talked about moving from a service model to an organizing model. Yet we were not able to fundamentally change our practice. We used some of the right rhetoric, but not enough changed. 

Today, in this era of Walker’s assault on teachers and the public sector, we don’t have the luxury of relying on past practice. 

So, what do we do? How do we build for the future?
This spring we participated in massive opposition to Walker’s policies. For many of us our Wisconsin Spring showed us what democracy looks like. It showed us the power of people – of regular people like you and me as we signed petitions, marched, traveled to Madison and picketed Governor Walker’s house in Wauwatosa. And many of you took that energy into the recall campaigns this summer, and while we just missed our goal, we won back two seats in the Senate. We will carry that energy into a recall campaign early next year against Walker himself. 

As we work on these broader political levels, we must also reinvent and re-imagine the MTEA. Today must be the first day of a process to change our union so we are able to thrive and be powerful in a non-contract world. Our educators’ voice has to be more powerful, more credible, and more focused on solutions if we are to win the hearts and minds of our own members and the broad public. 

We face several essential tasks.
The first task is to understand that the union is not just the staff and elected leaders. Too many members view the union as the staff and a few leaders on Vliet Street who they call if there is a problem. The staff in turn works hard to service hundreds of calls each week. But we are all responsible for building our future. We need to relocate union activity and power to the school level. 

Second, we must better understand who are our friends and who are our enemies. The MPS administration has many problems — we all know that. But in this era of anti-public education, they are not our enemy. We must continue to defend the rights of all educators. But we must also learn to work together with anyone who believes in and supports public education. 

Third we must adopt a social justice perspective and rebuild both our schools and communities. In the past, when we talked of a labor/community alliance it usually meant convincing the community to support labor’s demands. But an alliance must go both ways. We must also support and defend the needs of our families and communities — whether for quality jobs, against segregated housing patterns, or for improved healthcare. 

We are all in this together.
I have talked mostly of re-inventing the MTEA. I’ve outlined what I believe are essential tasks. But, together, I want us to re-imagine the MTEA. Please imagine with me… a union that has such active members that we’ve reclaimed the craft of teaching and taken ownership of teaching and learning in our schools. We have defeated the obsession with data-driven instruction, and have reaffirmed that we are child-driven and data-informed. Imagine that in each school, staff have identified which faith-based groups, neighborhood and community organizations they belong to. We are able to get our message out to tens of thousands of people without relying on mainstream media. 

Imagine our members, on behalf of the MTEA, work with community groups and faithbased groups in our common struggle to provide quality jobs, health care and housing for all.
Imagine a union that uses social media and the Internet to not only have vibrant discussions among members, but to reach non-educators across the city. 

Imagine a union, that even without a contract, has so much influence in the community and on the school board that when the school board adopts a “handbook,” it does so in collaboration with the union and empowers educators rather than stripping them of rights.
Imagine a union that works with the administration and other community allies to build a system of quality schools that become the envy of parents throughout the city. We have a number of quality schools right now — we know that. And we know that, working together, we can build more. 

Finally, imagine a union, so vibrant, so professional, that members unquestionably join. Not only because we defend their rights and working conditions, but because it is one the most respected organizations in our community — and the leading force in the city in building quality education for all children. 

Imagine. Re-imagine. And together we will reinvent the MTEA.

Washington Irving HS Protest - Monitored by Large (15) Police Presence

UPDATED: Thurs. Dec. 22, 11AM - See Gary Rubinstein analysis -  Washington Irving High School — another school unfairly closed

A peaceful gathering of teachers was watched by riot police and regular police and 2 white shirts from across the street.   - Teacher report

Now, there weren’t many police in riot helmets. Maybe 3 or 4, plus another 15 police (including two White Shirts) milling around. When I arrived there were two NYPD squad cars, two vans, and three mopeds. You might say to yourself, as someone responded to me on Twitter, Hey man, 3 or 4 riot-helmeted cops with their hands in their pockets, looking bored, isn’t such a big deal. Well, you’re wrong. It’s absolutely a big deal. Not because the police were going to beat up anybody, or arrest anybody, but simply because 50 teachers protesting the closing of their school do not deserve to be treated like potential rioters — even by 3 police officers. -----Political media

The above is from two separate reports. Note my last post (NYC Police Turn Ugly Since Occupy Movement Began) on the growing police state (with video) from Bloomberg's private army - the NYCPD. I pointed to the growing threat education-based protests are facing. After all, Bloomberg's legacy is steeped in the schools and the growing opposition movement will be met with increasing monitoring.

We have been doing Fight Back Friday events for a few years in front of schools. But to send 15 cops with 2 white shirt supervisors?

Here's an idea: Let's do these in front of 50 schools on the same day and see how they handle it. Or maybe 1500 schools one day.

I noticed in the video below a few UFT officials. They should be concerned at the presence of 15 police at a rally of 50 people.

DEMAND THE UFT LODGE A FORMAL COMPLAINT ON WASTE OF TAX PAYER MONEY  IN A TIME WHERE CLASS SIZE ARE RISING ON WASTED POLICE PRESENCE AT PEACEFUL EXPRESSIONS OF PROTEST.
 
Here is a report with video from a teacher who is at another school in the building:

The Department of Education (=Bloomberg) announced the closure of Washington Irving High School.  The school, the teachers, the parents, the students and the community who knows and cares about this school fight back!

A peaceful gathering of teachers was watched by 3 riot police and about 10 regular police and 2 white shirts from across the street.  What's the message? Figure!

The video sums it up beautifully. There is some inspirational testimony by one parent in this video. Great testimony by teachers as well.  Feel free to watch and share!

http://vimeo.com/34010240

And another from reporter John Knefel.

http://www.thefastertimes.com/politicalmedia/2011/12/20/teachers-protest-closing-hs-nypd-don-riot-helmets/

Teachers Protest, NYPD Officers Don Riot Helmets

NYC Police Turn Ugly Since Occupy Movement Began

I've generally been pretty supportive of the police, viewing them as fellow public workers and members of the same class - ergo - the 99%. But since Occupy Wall Street a switch seems to have been turned on for all too many cops who seem to take the Occupy movement as a personal affront. I understand as members of a paramilitary organization you have to follow orders. But when you do so with relish and glee that takes it to another place.

Now we are not just talking about how they treat protesters, We are talking about attempts to control the coverage by the press which just might document some of the transgressions that are taking place. I know of one guy who has been arrested twice - both times (luckily) on tape despite police attempts to stop journalists from documenting the story. Now this is a slight smallish guy who was using a cell phone to film and was beset upon but a load of police bullies.

I had my own minor wrestling match with some of the overwhelming security at the Dec. 14 PEP meeting where the press was more hassled than I've seen in almost a decade of covering PEP meetings. I was standing inside a white square for the press but leaving when there was something to cover in the auditorium and was continually warned, even threatened with being ordered to leave. At one point I was standing in the box when incredulously 2 security guys came out and penned me in. There was a look of intense satisfaction on their faces. The enemy was vanquished.

I heard one female cop say after people walked out, "Now they'll engage in civil disobedience outside" when nothing of the sort was occurring. I turned the camera on her and she walked away.
Since this was a PEP meeting I felt safe to photograph the cops, which seems to make many of them extremely nervous. After all, as NYC teacher Brian Jones said, "What public body has to meet to talk about our schools under armed guard....maybe some of that budget can be shifted over. No matter how many police you bring here that's a sign of your unpopularity."

Here is a video compilation I made to demonstrate the extent of police presence at the Dec. 14 PEP meeting including some of my interactions: http://youtu.be/xa-OQGuMXhI



The NYC police seem to be doing everything they can to deny people press passes. I have tried for years to get an official press pass as a reporter for The Wave. They give you a phone number to call, which I have numerous times but never get a response.

Here is a frightening account of a journalist who was arrested.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/19/snatched-for-photographing-michael-bloombergs-cops/

37 Hours in Lock Up

Snatched For Photographing Michael Bloomberg’s Cops

by STANLEY ROGOUSKI

I was taking photographs of the police arresting Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at the December 12 Winter Garden flash mob, which had been organized in solidarity with the port shutdowns on the west coast, when I found myself targeted. “That one,” I heard a voice say in a brutal “New Yawk” accent, realizing that a senior police official was pointing me out over a row of people, “he goes. He goes.”
All at once I felt like a high school quarterback getting blitzed by the 1970s Oakland Raiders. Five police officers, all much larger than my 5’11” and 190 pounds, crashed through a line of protesters, photographers, and Rude Mechanical Orchestra band members and slammed me to the marble floor of the Winter Garden. To my horror, I realized that they had body slammed me down on top of my Nikon D200 and bag of lenses, and, to my even greater horror, I also realized that they went out of their way to interpret my reflexive movements to protect my camera equipment as resisting arrest. “Stop resisting,” one police officer screamed at me as I lay pinned to the floor under 1700 pounds of New York City’s finest, “stop resisting.” “Metal cuffs,” I heard one of them scream. “Metal cuffs. Put the metal cuffs on this fucking guy.” Recovering from the initial shock, I realized that I was handcuffed to a chair with a row of 17 other people, 10 men and 7 women, under arrest for “criminal trespassing” and “resisting arrest.” Almost all of us were members of the Occupy Wall Street media team or independent photojournalists known by the police to be sympathetic to the Occupy movement.
The next 36 hours and 55 minutes would be aggressively impersonal, an attempt to use the tediously bureaucratic day-to-day operation of the criminal justice system to give legitimacy to a snatch and grab operation by Michael Bloomberg’s “personal army designed to cow the independent media into leaving the coverage of Occupy Wall Street to Fox, the New York Post, and The Daily News.
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Nobody save maybe a New York Post reporter or three believes that Occupy Wall Street is dangerous. At the very worst, New Yorkers unsympathetic to the Occupy movement see it as an aggressive nuisance, but therein lies the problem. Ray Kelly the crew cutted junior league Stalin who sometimes masquerades as a police commissioner in a democratic state, has milked the terrorist attacks of September 11 over the past decade in a way that makes George W. Bush and Dick Cheney look like amateurs.  In his mind, anything that even slightly inconveniences his department, the last defense against two more planes crashing into the skyline of Manhattan, needs to be gotten rid of, even if that thing is the First Amendment.
That New York is indeed a difficult city to govern, that it does have problems with traffic, sanitation, and crowding, problems that have to be managed by a very large and powerful city bureaucracy, means that threats to democratic liberty come not as blatant reaction, but as “necessity,” as the compromises we have to take to keep the overcrowded metropolis humming along. Creeping totalitarianism in what should be the most colorful city in America comes off as strangely gray and banal. Kelly, the police commissioner, whose department can now shoot down planes and conduct intelligence operations overseas, and Bloomberg, the Napoleonic little billionaire who was able to spread around enough cash to buy off all opposition to his stealing a third term in office, have successfully convinced most New Yorkers that they and only they can make the trains run on time.
The propagandists at Fox, the Daily News, and the New York Post have, in turn, seized upon this “necessity” as a way to attack Occupy Wall in the name of the financial industry. The interests of the authoritarian Bloomberg, the Stalinist Kelly, the “1%” and their PR departments in the corporate media converge into at least one important directive. The state, the municipal government of New York City, and the NYPD must hold veto power over who is and who is not a legitimate journalist, who can and who can not take photos at a public event. Ray Kelly, thus, becomes more important than the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School in determining what about Occupy Wall Street is reported on, and what is ignored. Anybody who even passively defies this de facto form of censorship risks getting thrown in jail.

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Michael Winerip Lays Waste to NY State Ed Department Testing Program

The headline in today's eagerly awaited Michael Winerip column in the NY Times – 10 Years of Assessing Students With Scientific Exactitude – probably tops all that went before in terms of how far Winerip's tongue is planted in his cheek in the use of the words "scientific exactitude" in describing a decade of NY State Ed Department testing.

He lays waste to former Commisioner Richard Mills - one of the worst people in the world - by capturing some of his rediculous comments after every single test fisaco.

He gives a little credit to current regent head Merryl Tisch – the 2nd worst person in the world – when he says:

Finally someone — Dr. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents — has the sense to stand up at a news conference and say that the state test scores are so ridiculously inflated that only a fool would take them seriously, thereby unmasking the mayor, the chancellor and the former state commissioner.

Tisch deminstrates she can count to two

Tisch is anything but a fool - though she may be a crook in the way the wives of billionaires can be - call her a moral crook. (Check her family connections below to the K12 online operation the Times exposed last week WITHOUT MENTIONING THE TISCH CONNECTION plus other exposures we have done over the years.) If she didn't do something she would have had zero credibility and zero reputation so she saved her ass, which has brought her into some mild conflicts with her next door neighbor Michael Bloomberg.

Winerip took a nice shot at Tisch back in August as chronicled in this Ed Notes piece:

Ed Notes Online: Is the Evil Meryl Tisch Even Eviler than Eva?

Aug 16, 2011

Michael Winerip wrote Monday on the evil and the good at State Board of Regents which ostensibly should control the absolutely evil NY State Ed Dept but even eviler (out eviling Eva) Regent boss Meryl Tisch has taken all ...

How well did her choice - David (Give Cathie Black a Waiver) Steiner do before running for the hills after just 2 years? His successor John (I love any charter no matter what) King also comes in for some biting satire in the Winerip piece:

NOVEMBER 2011 New York is one of two states in the nation to post statistically significant declines on the National Assessment tests. John B. King, the education commissioner, says the state is certainly going in the wrong direction, but has a plan to spur students’ achievement. “The new Common Core Learning Standards will help get them there,” he says.
DEC. 19, 2011 Nearly a quarter of the state’s principals — 1,046 — have signed an online letter protesting the plan to evaluate teachers and principals by test scores. Among the reasons cited is New York’s long tradition of creating tests that have little to do with reality.

But my favorite part of the article is this hit at Tweed slug Shael (I can find a way to justify ecery single bad policy decison we make) Polokow-Seransky

Mr. Polakow-Suransky says that even if city test scores were inflated, he is not aware of any credible research calling the city’s 64 percent graduation rate into question.

FEBRUARY 2011 The city’s 64 percent graduation rate is called into question. The state announces a new accountability measure: the percentage of high school seniors graduating who are ready for college or a career. By this standard, the graduation rate for New York City in 2009 was 23 percent.

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I've has the Merryl Tisch "I am not a crook" photo on the sidebar for quite some time. I was going to remove it but thought: It will always come in handy.

From Ed Notes May 4, 2011:

Tisch Family Connections to K12 Board and Charter School

K12’s board is headed by Andrew Tisch, co-chair of Loew’s Corp,  the brother in law of Merryl Tisch, who is in turn, the head of the NYS board of Regents. Meetings of the NY state education department are often held in the Loew’s headquarters, which is run by Merryl’s husband,  James.  http://www.loews.com/loews.nsf/OfficeOfPresident.pdf

The NYS Regents are currently considering eliminating all seat time requirements, and to allow the rapid and essentially unregulated expansion of online learning. In addition, K12 has submitted a charter application to the Regents/NYSED, called “NY Flex charter school” in D2, that has gone through the preliminary approval process by NYSED.  (EDNote: Pedro Noguera who is considered by many to be on the anti-ed deform side chairs the SUNY charter committee. There have been charges he approves every charter request.)

In  an earlier iteration/application, K12 was clearly running the school, now the application has been revised to indicate that the school will “contract” out with K12 for services, including curriculum, assessments, teacher training, and other support and services as requested by the Board and staff of the school.   

This recasting of the application is to avoid legal conflicts w/ the new NY state charter law which bars for-profit companies from operating charter schools. Here is an article about this controversial issue: http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4185/pedagogy-and-profits-charter-school-bid-raises-questions

MORE TISCH ON ED NOTES:

Ed Notes Online: Dishonor Among Thieves: Merryl Tisch Wrote ...

May 15, 2011

Ed Notes has learned that the letter Governor Cuomo supposedly wrote to Merryl Tisch and the State Board of Regents calling for a change from weighing teacher evaluations based on state tests from 20 to 40% was in fact ...

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Ed Notes Online: Is the Evil Meryl Tisch Even Eviler than Eva?

Aug 16, 2011

Michael Winerip wrote Monday on the evil and the good at State Board of Regents which ostensibly should control the absolutely evil NY State Ed Dept but even eviler (out eviling Eva) Regent boss Meryl Tisch has taken all ...

Ed Notes Online: The Political Underbelly of Ed Deform: Enormous ...

Nov 03, 2011

Now as an opponent of using tests to measure everything I hate to jump on the necks of Merryl Tisch and her neighbor Bloomberg - no, I really don't hate to do it - they lived by the sword and should die by the sword. ..

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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 the right for important bits.

Staten Island "Gets" DOE School Closing Irrationality

As the nationwide policy of using public school closings as a main cog in undermining and privatizing public education shows increasing signs of fracturing as the failures in New York and Chicago over a decade and more are emerging into the public consciousness. I know many people fighting these closings year after year often throw their hands up in frustration with a "what is the point in fighting" attitude, don't underestimate the value these fights have in raising public awareness even if we lose the battles. Over time I believe we will win the war. We may lose a generation of children. Think: by the time Bloomberg is gone a child will have gone from pre-k to high school with the "test prep/credit recovery ed deform regime.

Until now Staten Island was exempt from school closings by the WalBloomKlein administration. ICE's Loretta Prisco, a long-time SI resident and political activist on the Island wrote on ICE Mail:

This is the Sunday's editorial from our local paper. They get it! They have never shut a SI school.  Some feel that is why they are closing the school - to avoid the criticism that SI is never touched.  P.14 is next to the projects - and very troubled ones at that.   A charter school opened nearby.  I am sure the savvy parents will take their kids out of 14 and place their kids' names in the "lottery".  Loretta

The Advance I believe has been known as a fairly conservative paper. But this editorial is so good in that is exposes most of the fault lines in the school closure policy - excpet for the fact that the "change in school culture" the DOE claims is the reason for closing is really about dumping out the teachers. Teh principal too, but they can dump the principal at any time they want but with tenured teachers they just can't do that without closing the school and turning teachers into ATRs, with the hope they can ultimately end Last In First Out (LIFO) and fire them (with 25 more schools on the chopping block, watch the LIFO attacks intensify).

Let's do a bit of parsing:

Staten Isl Advance joins chorus vs. school closings 

http://goo.gl/K6Kms

Even though the city Department of Education’s plan to close PS 14 in Stapleton is proceeding, students, parents, teachers and other supporters of the embattled neighborhood school are not giving up the fight. Not by a long shot.

Hundreds demonstrated last week in front of Borough Hall and can be expected to make their opposition heard again at a Jan. 25 public hearing on the DOE’s plan and in other venues before the final vote of the Panel for Educational Policy on Feb. 9.

Nonetheless, the PEP, which is packed with mayoral appointees, is expected to approve the closure, which was ordered because of PS 14’s poor performance on tests and its low rating in the DOE’s new grading system for schools.

The other piece of the puzzle is a parallel plan to replace PS 14 with a “new” school, to be known as PS 78.

The DOE wants to phase out PS 14 over three years as successive classes move through it and move on to intermediate school, and, over the same period, successive new classes will be enrolled in PS 78. By 2015, PS 14 will have closed and PS 78 will have reached full enrollment of 653-713 students - the same number of students PS 14 now has enrolled.

This “new” school will occupy the same building on Tompkins Avenue, and, as a zoned elementary school, will serve exactly the same population that PS 14 served.

In other school closings they changed the teachers, admin and the students, so this might prove more tricky. But as Loretta points out there is a charter school in the area (not an accident) that might cream some of the top admits off the new school.

This year, 92 percent of PS 14’s students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches, which points to the entrenched poverty in this community. Of course, economic circumstances and their relation to family education and parental involvement, are generally known to be a critical factor in kids’ ability to do well in school.

So kids from the same stressed socioeconomic background and the same troubled neighborhood will make up the student population of PS 78 just as such kids make up the student population of PS 14 now.

****If that’s the case, what’s going to change?

****A DOE official insisted that phasing out the old school will result in “a pretty major change in school culture.”

THE FIRST MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION 

****Really? How so?

The official said, “We can get different leaders in there, some different teachers in there, sort of an updated program.”

OK, there will be a new principal, a number of new teachers and a revised curriculum.  IBut was PS 14’s poor showing solely a matter of administration and staff? If the students at PS 78 face the same day-to-day challenges in and out of school as the students at PS 14 face, it’s hard to see how PS 78 will do substantially better.

Now, the critical difference officials are pondering could be in the amount of support the DOE gives to the new school. Obviously, having taken this drastic step, the department will do whatever it takes to see that PS 78 succeeds.

But the question people who oppose the death sentence for PS 14 have is:

THE MONEY QUESTION IS COMING UP:

****Why couldn’t the DOE provide that high level support for PS 14? It might have made a big difference and avoided closure. After all, it was only in 2009 that PS 14 earned an A on its progress report. What happened?

“How does DOE phase out a school before providing the necessary support, while simultaneously bringing in a new, well-resourced school - PS 78?” asked City Councilwoman Debi Rose. “The closure of PS 14 is evidence of the continuing systemic failure of the DOE to manage resources for the education of the children in its care. It appears that they are relegating our students to separate and unequal learning environments.”

Speaking of which, we have to wonder what’s going to happen when PS 78 comes on line next September and it and PS 14 are operating simultaneously out of the same building. Are they going to be treated equally or is doomed PS 14, already deemed a failure, going to be relegated to a lower tier in DOE’s eyes?

Count Community Education Council 31 President Sam Pirozzolo among the skeptics. He says that if the DOE’s full commitment and resources are going to be put into supporting all five grades of PS 14/PS 78, “Then just fix the whole school.”

And call it PS 14, so no one has to go through the trauma of having their school pulled out from under them.

Too bad the DOE didn’t consider this option.  

Too bad, indeed. School closing hearings will commence in January and the following PEPs will vote to endorse these closings. But if the opposition keeps heating up we may begin to see a lot more editorials like these (unimaginable a short time ago) as the reality of the failures of ed deform sweep the nation. And yes, we do need your bodies there to swell the crowd and create the kind of disruptions and opposition that shows a growing movement. I say make then vote under police guard in front of a screaming crowd. (If you missed it see Brian Jones' speech at the PEP on the police presence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPiNqcKSDm4).

And would you have seen a story like this until recently?
In Miami, charter schools enroll a disproportionately low number of poor students. (Miami Herald)
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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 the right for important bits.