I Won't Post Video of Amateur Actor/Teacher's Mock Chippendale Routine in Review: Campbell Brown Might See It

Sometimes people take off their shirts, and I don't personally see anything awfully wrong with that. It's certainly not grounds for dismissal... NYC Educator.

Paranoia will destroya.

Guilty!

I taped the wonderful Rockaway Theatre Company's review, "Rockaway

Cafe: The Comeback" a moving performance of storm-related and uplifting songs, many with exquisite dance routines. There are many NYC teachers involved in the RTC, which is led by two retired teachers and most of the band teach at a NYC high school.

One of the young teacher/actors was part of a group of 3 bare-chested male dancers performing a mock Chippendale's stripper routine. I immediately thought, given stories like these, the hundreds of DOE lawyers trying to justify their jobs scouring the world for anything teachers might do in private life that could be used against them for a witch hunt trial might just glom onto this.

After the show the teacher asked me what I thought. "That could get you fired," I told him and another teacher-performer, both young and in the system for less than 10 years. I said I was going to put up the entire video, but not for public consumption. (Though I will put up individual numbers.)

They looked at me like I was nuts. "Not for doing that," his female companion said. Both are wonderful, top-level teachers in decent schools and loved by their students and their administration. It is beyond their conception. "You don't know how nuts they are in the DOE," I said.

I hate to be the Grinch and maybe the chances of this happening are infinitesimal but being an activist in World War T keeps you looking over your shoulder.

Besides, Campbell Brown might just be at the beach in Riis Park and wander into the theater. Which by the way, you all should do too. Get tickets here: http://www.rockawaytheatrecompany.org/lorem-ipsum-event1/

Afterburn
NYC Educator reported on this the other day.

Apparently a teacher in Merrick, Long Island appeared shirtless in some stupid reality show, and resigned under pressure from administration. The News appears sympathetic to his cause, as am I. Sometimes people take off their shirts, and I don't personally see anything awfully wrong with that. It's certainly not grounds for dismissal.

High Turnout at MORE Summer Event Overflows the Space

One new attendee chapter leader said she wishes school was on now so she could share this with her chapter. The presenters really explained the different viewpoints of how to view union leadership so well...

They just kept coming and coming last night to see our UFT: Friend or Foe event on the lower east side. To such an extent that some of the MORE crew went out to the bar to make room for newcomers attending a MORE event for the first time. Well over 60 people I hear. I won't go into the  details -- MORE will post text of the presentations while I process the video -- I had some audio problems and will see how it comes out.

Last year we had 60 people for the History of NYC Teacher Unions event Michael and I did. (See [CORRECTED LINK]  video here.) With little historical context or info out there, the people in ICE who lived that history are important voices to counter whatever spin the UFT/AFT puts on things.

When we post yesterday's text/video I hope people take a good look at it. What was great about yesterday was the variety of views we had.

And of course, Gotham Schools continues its boycott of MORE events so bogus E$E can be promoted as the alternative to Unity, which when push comes to shove is really closer to them than to MORE.

After all, they both support most of the following:

-->

• supporting the teacher accountability ed deform mantra - the evaluation mess
• signing on to "we must get rid of bad teachers" as a solution
• variations of merit pay schemes
• mayoral control
• common core
• charters and co-locations
• rating and grading schools and generation of phony statistics on graduation rates, dropouts, all resulting in….
• Closing schools (which the UFT supported through the end of 2009 and still supports to some extent), destroying neighborhood schools, dezoning, eliminating comprehensive HS and availability of electives for the vast majority of HS students. Forcing children to travel longer distances.
• tepid defense of reducing class size, which ed deformers disparage as a solution
• the contract and agreements in 2005 that coupled school closings with the burgeoning population of ATRs who started off as in-house subs and ended up as the wandering unwanted. Leading to the forcing out of thousands of older and experienced teachers.
• charter schools, co-location (the union had 2 co-located charters), unequal treatment from DOE. The growing corps of temporary, non-unionized at-will teachers.
• the growing segregation of the student body—the wanted vs. the unwanted
• denial of tenure to newer teachers (year after year extensions, discontinues from principals with a grudge -- no rights for non-tenured and increasingly restrictive rights for tenured teachers who are now facing even the end of that protection
• a grievance procedure in the toilet
• multi pension tiers

July 25 4-7PM - MORE Summer Series: How Should We View the UFT/AFT Leadership?

I helped organize this discussion based on what I see as various points of view regarding the union leadership in the UFT/AFT. It will take place at Local 138 (138 Ludlow St, a block and a half north of Delancey.)

There have been internal debates for years in ICE, GEM and MORE on this issue. How far does an opposition caucus go in criticizing the leadership? Does it risk blow back -- feeding into a sense of anti-unionism, especially from the newer generation of teachers who often enter with an anti-union bias? How do you try to compete for power in the UFT without being critical? How does MORE manage to counter the so-far successful propaganda campaign over the last 2 decades that it is the mayors (Giuliani and Bloomberg) who are the problem, not the people running our union?

One MORE member sent me this question:

How do we connect our members to our union and help them to understand its importance and galvanize them to get involved-- how do we overcome the disenfranchisement and disconnectedness and instead convince people our union is actually a force for good and justice locally, nationally, and globally?

My thoughts are how do we do the above with a union leadership that at best can be considered ineffective and at worst collusive with our enemies? I won't get into the whys and wherefores of this time but maybe some answers will emerge later today.

Other questions that have come up:

What strategies and tactics should an opposition caucus use in relating to the union leadership? Should the opposition work with the leadership? If so, when, how and under what terms? If it's going to be critical, what kind of tone should be maintained? If the decision is to criticize/attack the leadership, then how should it be done, while making it clear to all that The Union is always to be supported? In other words, how can the leadership be separated from the Union in the eyes of the rank and file? And should it?

Given the power balances in the UFT do you attempt to lobby the leadership towards better policies? That's pretty much what New Action does. They have no grassroots and they play the role of a loyal opposition -- not even an opposition given that they could not win one position in an election without Unity support.

Some in MORE think that the leadership can be pressured, but instead of playing the inside New Action game, organize enough rank and file and the leadership will be forced to respond.

Some think the UFT leadership cannot really be pressured to change direction, given their history of capitulation and even when they look like they are doing something right, that is only on the surface. In fact they coopt the language of the critics (what they say) but don't actually do anything very much different (what they do).

Peter Lamphere, formerly from TJC and now a major cog in MORE, will be giving us the benefit of his long-time activism in the UFT and will touch on many of these issues in his presentation.

I hear all the time, even from newbies: if only we had Al Shanker instead of Randi and we would have a militant fighting union. As a 43 year activist I don't buy that line and in fact believe that there is a direct line ideologically from Shanker, through Sandy Feldman through Randi and Mulgrew.

Ira Goldfine, my colleague from the 70s and a founder of ICE in 2003 will do a presentation going back to the late 60s through the 90s pre-Randi to show this connection. That Randi did not in fact take the union in another direction. Shanker started the give back ball rolling as far back as 1972, the last time we got a good contract.

The UFT/AFT/Unity leadership has made it easy to be critical based on their support for so much of ed deform. Here is a partial list compiled by Vera Pavone who is doing one of the presentations later today focusing on the UFT since mayoral control.

• supporting the teacher accountability ed deform mantra - the evaluation mess
• signing on to "we must get rid of bad teachers" as a solution
• variations of merit pay schemes
• mayoral control
• common core
• charters and co-locations
• rating and grading schools and generation of phony statistics on graduation rates, dropouts, all resulting in….
• Closing schools (which the UFT supported through the end of 2009 and still supports to some extent), destroying neighborhood schools, dezoning, eliminating comprehensive HS and availability of electives for the vast majority of HS students. Forcing children to travel longer distances.
• tepid defense of reducing class size, which ed deformers disparage as a solution
• the contract and agreements in 2005 that coupled school closings with the burgeoning population of ATRs who started off as in-house subs and ended up as the wandering unwanted. Leading to the forcing out of thousands of older and experienced teachers.
• charter schools, co-location (the union had 2 co-located charters), unequal treatment from DOE. The growing corps of temporary, non-unionized at-will teachers.
• the growing segregation of the student body—the wanted vs. the unwanted
• denial of tenure to newer teachers (year after year extensions, discontinues from principals with a grudge -- no rights for non-tenured and increasingly restrictive rights for tenured teachers who are now facing even the end of that protection
• a grievance procedure in the toilet
• multi pension tiers
• paying lip service to the big

I bet you can add some more. How can this be? That a union leadership can be either so tone-deaf or

Remember, the early attacks under BloomKlein in 2002 led to the alliance between Randi and New Action which accepted the "we must support the union leaders in this time of crisis," thus ending their role as the leading opposition caucus in the UFT after 12 years since they merged in 1990 when Teachers Action Caucus (founded in 1968) and New Directions (1976) merged. Thus in reality, the dirty deal ended 35 years of history of there being a recognized opposition that proved throughout the 90s through the 2001 election that they could win at least some executive board seats on their own without Unity support. Now there is hope that MORE can rise from the ashes to create a vibrant challenge to the leadership.

Recently there have been blogs on this issue by people like Diane Ravitch and Unity flack Peter Goodman who left a comment on the NYC Educator blog (To Bobblehead, or Not to Bobblehead)

Unfortunately the union movement has spent too much time fighting internally rather than concentrating on their enemies...

This is the constant Unity line to kill internal criticism for 50 years.

In Diane's post, My Friend Randi Weingarten which garnered over 250 comments, mostly critical of Randi and some of Diane for posting this (I think it was a good thing she did), she said:

It serves no purpose for those of us opposed to teacher-bashing and corporate reform to fight among ourselves. We must stand together so that we will one day prevail over those who want to destroy public education and the teaching profession. We can’t win if we are divided. I will do nothing to help those who pursue a strategy of divide and conquer. They want us to fight among ourselves. I won’t help them.

There is no little irony in that this very post served to unleash a storm of comments critical of Randi. But some still seem to think deserves to be classified as someone we must stand together with given the enormous attacks on teachers and their unions. And by the way, I don't separate Mulgrew from Randi no matter how hard Unity people say they are different (style over substance in my view) -- watch what they do, not what they say.

I found one interesting comment supporting Diane's post (which also do) saying that maybe Randi will listen to Diane and stand up more for us due to Diane's influence.

This is an astounding statement, hoping an academic and advocate not connected to the union is supposed to influence the national leader of one of the two national teacher unions to stand up for us rather than sit on the fence (at best) or at worst, stand on the other side. Witness her most recent call for the "bad" teachers to get out of the profession, which NYC Educator (Getting Rid of "Bad Teachers") and Perdido (It's Time To Fire "Bad" Union Leaders Like Randi W) dealt with.

So, come on down later today if you are interested in jumping into this discussion, which I am sure will not be the end of it.

Randi Weingarten Proves She's an Ed Deformer, Mulgrew and UFT Should Condemn Her...

...but it will not happen because Mulgrew and Unity are totally aligned with her.

I won't get into the details given other bloggers hammering Randi:
Pissed off teacher: Union Should Stick To Defending Teachers -     When a person hires a lawyer, the lawyer does not decide whether the person is guilty or innocent. The lawyer just defends that person to the bes..

Perdido St: It's Time To Fire "Bad" Union Leaders Like Randi Weingarten

Randi Weingarten led the attack on firing "bad teachers" yesterday, giving more ammunition to the "Bash Teachers" movement by saying that teachers who are ineffective at their craft do not deserve to be defended and should be fired.

NYC Educator: 

Getting Rid of "Bad Teachers" - That's what AFT President Randi Weingarten focused on in some sort of AFT gathering. I don't get invited to AFT gatherings in my lowly capacity as repres...

I have always maintained that our union leaders are on the other side and really support ed deform.

Come to the MORE summer event Thursday from 4-7 that I have helped organize: UFT Leadership: Friend or Foe to explore this issue in depth.

Thurs. 7/25 UFT Leadership: Friend or Foe: An analysis of the leadership of our union and how a caucus such as MORE views them Our summer series continues at Local 138 on Ludlow st, Lower East Side, NYC. 4-7pm $3 beer and drink specials.

Video of our 1st summer series on high stakes testing and a preview of this one can be found at here

Support Teacher/Parent Marie Corfield for Assembly in New Jersey

JJ is one of the awesome bloggers out there. I'm not big on political campaigns but if he asks I am there. I am heading over to donate to Marie right now.

Dear friends of Jersey Jazzman,

I promise I'll keep it short, and I promise this will be the only time you will hear from me about this:

My good friend, Marie Corfield, is running for Assembly here in New Jersey. I don't have to tell any of you what a slog we've had here going up against Chris Christie and his war on public education. Marie is a teacher, a mother, and our best hope of having a real educator's voice be heard in the fight to save New Jersey's public school system. She is in a competitive district, and there is no doubt she can win this election - IF she has enough money.

I know you are all in different positions and capable of different levels of support. I'd ask you to consider the following:

1) Marie is having an on-line fundraiser this Thursday, July 25: a "money bomb," where she hopes to raise sorely needed revenues for her campaign. Please consider contributing:

http://www.corfieldforassembly.com/

I wrote a blog post about the "money bomb" here:

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/07/marie-corfield-money-bomb-thursday-july.html

2) If you are in a position to do so, please consider sharing the details of this fundraiser with your audience (I understand many of you cannot, but Marie would still appreciate your personal support). The Facebook page for the "money bomb" is here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/178282025685540/?fref=ts

Any social media traffic you can contribute would help: blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, etc.

Believe me when I say I have never written an email like this before. But this is a special circumstance, and Marie is a special person. When she wins, she will make us all proud.

Many thanks,

Mark (aka JJ)

Joe Williams' DFER Propaganda Laugh Riot, Lauding E4E, Ignoring MORE Support

...new organizations like Educators for Excellence are increasingly giving voice to teachers who have a totally different framework for social justice...... 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president... Joe Williams, DFER, in DN.

Message to Joe Williams: Those one in five voted for MORE whose members mock and despise E4E as your astro-turf creation. In case you missed it E4E didn't have the chops to put itself out there in the UFT elections even with their millions of dollars to run a campaign. They would have been exposed as the joke they are. In fact they barely have a presence left here in NYC with their events dwindling to nothing. Hey Joe, I have an idea. Why doesn't DFER sponsor a debate between MORE and E4E and watch them run for the hills. Or rather they have already run for the hills -- the Beverly Hills.

Perdido Street School made this cogent point:

Many of us in the UFT rank and file despise the UFT leadership because they cave to much to the DFER/hedge fund/Bloomberg/Gates/Obama agenda, not because they don't cave enough to it.

DFER propaganda-meister Joe Williams mocks UFT President Michael Mulgrew 

Now Williams does have a few interesting things to say.

Once upon a time, city teachers were united in a social justice battle for better pay, benefits and working conditions. They fought hard and they fought together, because the benefits of doing so were obvious.

The internal dynamics of the UFT expose the stark disconnect.
Inside the union, the old guard is still holding on strong – and that has become a nightmare for Mulgrew. The men and women who made the UFT, now retired, still serve as the most active voting bloc within the union. (Retirees are allowed to vote in UFT elections.) The problem is: Most of them left NYC long ago, for warmer environs down south and a lower cost of living.
In union elections this spring, for example, only 18% of the city’s teaching force cared enough about what the UFT was doing that they even bothered to vote. (And of the 18% of active teachers who actually voted, one out of five of those teachers voted for someone other than Mulgrew to be president.)

It has gotten so bad that the UFT is considering launching an internal task force to find out why the overwhelming majority of active classroom teachers are disconnected from the union.

Yes, that internal task force, which MORE is/will be invited to take part in. Which I adamantly oppose -- I am in the minority. Here's what will happen. They will be sworn to secrecy so our own reps can't come back and report to us. The TF will be dominated by Unity -- and New Action -- all caucuses, even phony bogus ones like NA are supposed to be part of this. And I can predict what they will come up with. 

And the lack of a democratic union where nothing much can be at stake given the way the elections are structured will NOT be part of the discussions. They will recommend more outreach/advertizing etc. 

Frankly, if I am still around I will argue for MORE to boycott the election farce next time in 2016 -- campaign yes, but against the way elections are run -- and the resulting campaign will actually have a bigger impact. I will lose that argument inside MORE and if the numbers don't change much - oh, maybe MORE wins the 7 high school exec board seats and MORE will be where New Action was in the 90s. Ho hum.

Newark's NEW Caucus on Chicago Layoffs

Some of them were union activists, trying to make their public schools and their union better.... NEW Caucus

The Chicago layoff story while hiring Teach For America scabs (Mark Naison: Teach for America-Our Modern Day Pinkertons) is a declaration of nuclear war.

RBE did a good job the other day in branding Rahm Emanuel a murderer (Rahm Emanuel's School Closings Put Children's Live). In a fair society Rhambo would be on death row, along with his pals who murder innocent civilians (Obama: I Could Be My Own Drone Bombing Victim.)

NEW Caucus, which basically won the Newark union elections last month, is predicting that Cami Anderson will be doing her own version of Rhambo next year once Rosemary's Randi's baby -- the contract she brokered -- hits full force.

Despite it being the summer, NEW Caucus has been busy.  More on that in a later email...

But for now, we wanted to share some recent articles that are relevant to all Newark education workers and public education in general.  So those articles are toward the bottom.

But the huge, terrible news today is what has been taking place in Chicago since Friday.

Chicago has begun laying off 2,100 education

workers!!!  MANY OF THEM ARE (were) TENURED!  

Some of them were union activists, trying to make their public schools and their union better.  

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-07-19/news/chi-cps-more-layoffs-coming-20130718_1_pension-reform-cps-new-teachers-contract

PLEASE READ!  This is what is coming to Newark!  We have already heard rumors that because our Superintendent did not close any schools this past year (an election year for her employer) she WILL close schools in large numbers next year if Christie wins a second term.    

Newark education workers MUST begin mobilizing to protect our students, our public schools, our city, and our profession!  

The corporate education reformers are willing to destroy schools, communities, student lives, and 

the lives of education workers in their push for markets and profit.  

It's up to US to stop them.

Below are more articles, further driving home the damage caused by the corporate "reform" agenda:

1)  article on Philly school closings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/education/budget-cuts-reach-bone-for-philadelphia-schools.html?emc=eta1

2)  Jersey City Public Schools outsourcing substitutes.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2013/07/jersey_city_schools_to_outsource_substitute_teachers_at_4m_cost.html

3)  Corporate reformer push to "reform" schools of education.

 http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/07/09/alternative-grad-school-raises-concerns-about-who-s-teaching-nj-s-teachers/

and another critiquing the "reform" agenda for schools of education.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/are-schools-of-education-_b_3563103.html

4)  GREAT article on the disruptive and negative results of "renew" or "turnaround" schools

in Washington, DC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/with-reconstitution-dc-officials-hope-for-school-turnaround/2013/06/10/9c998a44-cb0a-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

In Solidarity,

Newark Education Workers Caucus

(NEW Caucus)

 

NewarkEducationWorkersCaucus.com

862-367-9211 

Facebook.com/NEWCaucus

Twitter.com/NEWCaucus

YouTube.com/user/NEWCaucus

Google Calendar: NewarkEducationWorkersCaucus@gmail.com

Jeff Kaufman Covers Trayvon Martin Protest in Los Angelos

Jeff is spending the month in LA attending the National Academy on Constitutional and Political Theory. He was at the Trayvon Martin rally and send these videos and pics. He said, "The woman with the cut out paper is, of course, a teacher from East LA (middle school math). We met teachers from various schools in LA United included one who had been in the rubber room 3 times."

This Was The Week That Was: Norms Social Notes

It's been a busy week at the ole homestead. So, given my disappearing

Mighty Max: 7 weeks old

memory, I'm doing a day by day chronicle of the last week so I don't do the same things this upcoming week where the only thing on the agenda is going to see Dirty Wars Monday and the MORE summer series: UFT leadership, Friend or Foe on Thurs. (Come on down -- $3 happy hour beers -- I may have a few BEFORE the meeting.

Saturday July 13

Brother, sister love

Brother in law birthday. Go to Jersey, the Highlands, for party. Hot. Hit lots of traffic in SI and on Garden State. Eat lots of hot dogs (one was fat free), cheeseburgers, drink lots of beer. Play Boce on lawn with 29 year old cousin Dan as partner while bro-in-law gets stuck with my wife who throws ball sideways-- see pic for reaction. I'm not bad and have a Boce future.

See niece's daughters (28 months and 5) get more interesting with every visit -- they lobby parents for another child, 5 year old complaining what hard work it is to be a big sister -- she has to do all the work. Wife ends up alone with them taking care for about 15 minutes. Nothing like watching her chase a 2 year old around.

See benefits of being only child as my wife and her brother do a love pose.

Sunday, July 14
Celebrate future testing opt-outer Jack Cavanagh's first birthday with Julie and Glen - and about 50 others. Jack has had quite a year, attending DAs, MORE meetings, etc -- if this kid becomes a teacher I will be shocked. Looked like great food -- but  still full from all the crap from Sat so miss out and eat little -- which I regret an hour later when I get home and am starving.  Mollie and Darren are there and we get to meet 6-week old Max for first time. (I gotta find some of the great Max --- another future opt-outer.) And how great to see Lisa Donlan who I don't see often enough. The whole Real Reform crew was there except for Brian. Making the Inconvenient Truth Behind WFS was one of the richest experiences of my life and the team will be bonded forever. Now let's get all those kids grown up so we can do another one.

Monday, July 15
Stay home and stare at garden of the future while smoking a pipe and reading "Dirty Wars" (looking for drones from Bill Gates) while doing no work. Too bad you can't dream a garden into life. I have all these grandiose plans to build, build, build but so far all I do is cut vines, brush - my inner George Bush -- and take down old trellises. At night I don't even watch the home run hitting event, which bores me to hell. So I sit on deck and smoke and read.

Tuesday, July 16
Ditto Monday (with a visit to gym) until leave for Change the Stakes steering comm meeting at 4:30 followed by regular meeting at 6. My fave group of people -- maybe because most are parents and not teachers. Screw the all-star game though I do get home to watch some of it. Snore.

Wednesday, July 17
College pal Dan and Australian wife Robyn do insane thing. Took a bus from Washington DC where they now live to Manhattan where they took the Jitney to East
Hampton for a few days. That entire process takes almost 8-10 hours and they get in Monday night. (Love this week's NY Jitney cover.)

So we do a more insane thing. Rather than go to our beach 3 blocks away, we drive 2 and a half hours to the Hamptons to go to the beach there -- which frankly didn't impress me much. We manage to eat lunch before the beach and dinner later (no missing meals in my wife's world), though we choked on the outrageously expensive food and surly service for dinner. Still a great view of sunset followed by another 2.5 hour trip home in the dark - can't they afford lights in EastHampton? No baseball to miss tonight so all is good. Love that XM radio.

Thursday, July 18
Julie comes to beach with 2 pals and no kids. I never go to the beach unless people come. So I head over to meet them in 95 degrees at noon. Surprisingly there is a nice breeze and it feels pretty good. Get 2 hour harangue about what a sexist I am -- I need to send her pics of my junk in my underwear and then ask for rehabilitation  -- hey, it worked for some people. It was fun to chat given how busy Julie has been and also get over to the beach and see the progress in repairing the wall.

Get home at 2:30 and head for deck to smoke and read more "Dirty Wars" while looking up for incoming drone from the AFT while checking back fence for signs of CIA assassination teams. At 4 wife says, "Hey, want to go to the beach?" So off we go for another 2 hours. More beach time over last 2 days than I've had in a year. My face is RED!

David, Gloria, Liza, Lisa, Moi, Pat

Still no baseball so stay up for Letterman and Craig Ferguson.

Friday, July 19
The big MORE air-it-out meeting where we get to bitch about the good, the bad and the ugly. Sorry, can't speak about it without worrying about a MORE drone. But kudos to Seku and Jia, 2 of the emerging leaders of MORE for doing a spectacular job.
Aside: Too bad people think of a caucus only in terms of elections. Most important: 30 people care enough give up a hot Friday afternoon (if people weren't away it would have been 60) to shlep into the city for what could have turned out to be a difficult meeting and to have 2 relatively new people a) be trusted to handle this and b) to have that trust reinforced beyond conception is what makes this work so rewarding.

Liza can make anyone feel happy- even me

Then it was party time as some of us headed over to a bar in Williamsburg for Liza and Vanessa's bachelorette party. I've never been to a bachelorette party before. "Don't worry," Gloria told me. "No one thinks of you as a guy." Gee thanks. David came along with Pat to make sure I wasn't the only guy.

Vanessa and Liza

The official wedding is in Maine next week which we can't attend. Turns out they got married officially on Friday so this was a very special evening for us all. Those who know Liza's awesome history of activism in GEM, NYCORE and the early stages of MORE miss her terribly since she and Vanessa moved to Seattle, where Liza has jumped into the test resistance movement.

Saturday, July 20
Last day of heat wave. So instead of going to the beach we head into Brooklyn to our friends' daughter and hubby's new apartment they moved into yesterday in Fort Greene near Washington Av and Greene St. Nice place in a gentrifying neighborhood. I can't get my head around an

at the ice cream stand minutes before downpour

apartment that costs 7 times what I paid for my house 34 years ago. (You can get an entire house in Rockaway for the price of an apt in Bklyn now). Then we walk over to a nice little restaurant a few blocks away, followed by a walk over to Dekalb near Vanderbilt for some ice cream. Where we get caught in a massive downpour and my wife has the only umbrella. While waiting it out under an overhang we meet a British/Scottish couple with a 4 month old and a dog. We all make friends very quickly before heading off into the rain, trying to walk between the drops.
Stay up till 2 watching Bourne something or other followed by The Newsroom.

Sunday, July 21
Gym and a day of just hanging out -maybe a movie and afternoon nap---

Newark Schools for Sale: Cami Anderson, Cerf Keep Turnaround Board Member Campbell Brown Under the Sheets

Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange schools. Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right? Wrong. ...Newark Schools for Sale

Ted Cohen sent this follow-up report after his last post here (Newark Confidential - Turnaround Children Inc. Tr...) on secrecy laden Turnaround Schools move into the Newark schools as a "reward" for failing. Slimebucket Campbell Brown is on their board.

He posted at http://newarkschoolsforsale.wordpress.com/

Turnaround Children, Campbell Brown: kissin’ cousins?

Posted on July 20, 2013 by newarkschool

 

By Ted Cohen

The top school official in a major American city as part of an education-reform initiative is bringing in yet another nonprofit foundation, yet as little is known about Turnaround for Children Inc. as is known about how it fits into Supt. Cami Anderson’s plan to modernize Newark, New Jersey’s schools.

Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for information, and Turnaround officials  - where the secretive ex-newsie Campbell Brown sleeps on the board (http://gawker.com/5936190/campbell-brown-is-incapable-of-understanding-the-concept-of-disclosure) – are equally evasive.

Brown’s lackings also caught the sharp eye of Karoli Kuns. (http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/campbell-brown-crawls-out-under-her-rock-sl)

Attempts to contact New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf have been met with similar silence.

As a longtime newspaper reporter, I find transparency hard to come by. Nonprofits should make transparency their middle name.

In fact, Guidestar.org is helping promote transparency, announcing recently its intent to “encourage nonprofit transparency on a national scale.”

A bit of history: Anderson arrived in New Jersey’s largest school district  in 2011. She brought with her an education-reform movement. The city’s public schools are among the lowest-performing in the state, even after the state government took over their management in 1995.

Although the school district continues to struggle with low high school-graduation rates and low standardized-test scores, the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, insists, “Newark, New Jersey can become one of the first American cities to solve the crisis in public education.”This vision for better school district is also shared by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who made a $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools in 2010.

HuffPost’s Joy Resmovits called Newark  “a national test case for the fixing of troubled urban schools and the use of major philanthropic dollars in an educational system.”

Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right?

Wrong.

Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange schools and whether that experience foretells problems in Newark. That’s not the way to run a nonprofit. Obfuscation begets journalistic cynicism – and scrutiny.

Turnaround’s entry into the reform movement began with Orange, N.J., as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. But as soon as the Orange effort began, it failed, according to Turnaround’s nonprofit filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Tax documents filed with the IRS by Turnaround – accessible through Guidestar.org – disclose the program’s unexpected suspension. The documents, a public record, also reveal that Turnaround was forced to return the remaining part of the grant that funded the program.

“Management decided to terminate its three-school program earlier than planned,” Turnaround officials told the IRS. In their IRS filing, Turnaround officials blamed the short-lived program’s demise on what they vaguely described as a “shift in organizational priorities.”

But officials failed to disclose what they meant by the change or who instigated it.

Turnaround officials say they suspended their request for the remaining funding they were to receive for the Orange project, but they made no mention of the amount of funding they had already received and the amount they were still due.

Turnaround officials issued a prepared statement defending their Orange pullout. “Our hope was to expand the partnership, to deliver a significant amount of professional development to teachers and to increase our engagement district-wide,” said Kate Felsen, vice president of communications. “Unfortunately, Orange Public Schools did not have the capacity to take on the professional development we had to offer during the 2011-12 year. For this reason, we ended our partnership amicably.”

Though Turnaround proudly announced the Orange project in its September 2010 newsletter, there is no evidence on the organization’s web site that Turnaround officials ever notified the public of the program’s suspension.
If Orange school officials are to blame for Turnaround’s failure in their schools, then they are apparently taking the accusations in stride. Orange Supt. Ronald Lee refused to respond to questions. He submitted a statement finally after receiving a formal open-records request.

He said, “Turnaround proposed to expand its program to a transformational model that encompassed academic, foundational and behavioral elements in the 2011-2012 school year. At the same time, the district was continuing or launching a number of significant initiatives to improve instruction and student outcomes. We mutually concluded that the district’s initiatives would require and deserved the full focus of the district staff, principals and teachers. Therefore, we discontinued the program in Orange at that time to allow these innovations to take hold.”

Felsen, too, will not go beyond her prepared statement. When asked who funded the Orange effort and who will be funding the Newark plan, Felsen replied, “You have my statement.”

More to the point, attempts by journalists to procure information from this so-called “transparent” group – as described by GuideStar.org – have been met with silence, stalling and arrogance.

To garner and cultivate pubic support, i.e., more dollars, nonprofits need to be open, accessible. Not hiding. What language do they understand – “lawsuit?”

Ted Cohen of Maine is a veteran newspaper and radio reporter who follows trending national issues. He can be reached at tedcohen@hotmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Tedcohen1.

Reposted: Kerrie Dalman, president of Colorado teachers association writes pro-inBloom oped as metastasizing cancer keeps eating away at the NEA and AFT

Kerrie Dalman is President of the Colorado Education Association, the state affiliate of the NEA.  She’s also head honcho of Southwest TURN, a branch of the metastasizing cancer eating away at the NEA and AFT. ......

@theChalkface exposes another turncoat union leader

Colorado Educators Alert: TURNcoat, Kerrie Dalman, Promotes InBloom Student Data Mining and Storage

I'm reposting this as new links have come in. Want to discuss the internal cancer eating away at teacher unions? Come to the MORE summer weekly series this Thursday I'm helping organize: UFT Leadership; Friend or Foe.

For documentation of Gates grant to Colorado Education Association: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2013/02/OPP1081527

Diane Ravitch posted this Colorado teacher response:

This Teacher Does Not Love inBloom by dianerav

Peg Robertson read the article in the Denver Post in which the president of the Colorado Education Association praised inBloom and said that it would provide great learning tools.

Peg is a teacher and parent in Colorado, and she is a leader of United OptOut. She is opposed to inBloom. Here she explains why.

Read her article in its entirety.

 Another comment

10:33am Jul 20 Kerrie Dalman the president of the Colorado teachers union just wrote a pro-inBloom oped in the Denver Post; saying how the sharing of personal student data with inBloom and for-profit vendors will help teachers reach students more effectively. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23688519/inbloom-great-teaching-tool If you are a teacher and disagree leave a comment on the oped, and on the CEA Facebook page where they have linked to the article https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoEA?fref=ts Also, if any Colorado teacher wants to write on this -- about how sharing students' personal data with vendors is likely to hurt rather than help -- as well as the fact that inBloom is also collecting data for teachers, including your name, address, SSN, and the reason you were let go of your last teaching job, all linked to your students' test scores, in a way that puts your privacy at risk (and could jeopardize your future professional prospects), please let me know. You could offer it to the Denver Post and if they don't publish I'd be happy to feature it on my blog and ask Diane to link to it to make sure it gets maximum readership Finally, the CEA did get $300K from Gates Foundation in Feb. 2013 http://shar.es/krIDM Hope you all read the terrific expose of the Gates effect and how they use their huge wealth to buy assent in higher ed at http://chronicle.com/article/The-Gates-Effect/140323/ InBloom enables great teaching tools www.denverpost.com For a teacher, nothing beats that moment when the light goes on, when a student says,

Call for Waiver from teacher evaluations in NY

This came in an email as a suggestion for MORE to take up the cause and I think it should. But I wonder if the UFT which supports and vehemently defends the new evaluation system will be calling for a waiver.

It is now possible for states to request a waiver from teacher evaluations for the upcoming school year.  Randi Weingarten and the AFT (parent body of the UFT) has asked for it and, in an astonishing about-face, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education and the person responsible for tying federal funding to teacher evaluations, has followed with the offer of a one-year moratorium.

This makes sense!  Many states have already applied for their waivers, but not New York.  Cities and districts throughout the state need time to make their way through the incredibly complex process (over 200 pages in NYC) of implementing a teacher evaluation system.  We need to rally behind Randi and the AFT. Unions upstate--NYSUT and Rochester, in particular--have been outspoken in their support for the moratorium.  In fact, there's been a lot of agreement among many different interests that a moratorium is needed.

Now is the time to call on our union and help make the request for a waiver an issue.  Speak to the mayoral candidates, let them know this matters to you.  Let your colleagues and friends know that an option is there for the taking, and New York has not jumped on the chance to give our school systems the time they need to do this right.

Call the UFT, 212-777-7500.  Share with your colleagues and union members on Facebook and Twitter!

Gotham Schools Funders: You Get What You Pay For

Yesterday I posted hits from my fellow bloggers to Gotham Schools' increasingly pro ed deform agenda (NYC Teacher Bloggers on the Loose: Slam Gotham Schools Coverage) -- they don't even bother defending themselves against these charges. NYC Educator hit them hard:

when an astroturf group like Students First NY holds a rally to announce something that's not actually going to happen, there's a picture right there so everyone can see. Gotham Schools readers can ask one another, "Gee, what is Michelle Rhee's NY branch going to not do next? Are they going to not tape kids' mouths shut? After all, Rhee found it hilarious when she herself did it." But no, the [UFT] rally itself did not make the Gotham cut. Perhaps it was because the UFT is actually going to go through with this. Or maybe it was due to the vital nature of covering every little thing reformy, real, imaginary, or whatever. This notion is supported by the fact that, while Gotham didn't bother to cover the UFT/ parent rally, they saw fit to cover how charter supporters felt about the UFT lawsuit. There are extensive quotes from astroturf folks, but not a single one from any of the varied speakers at yesterday's rally.

Gotham headline: Charter advocates criticize UFT’s lawsuit against city’s planning.

NYC just doesn't get it. Come up with the bucks like Students First NY to buy coverage and you have a shot. 

I once gave $50 and Randi also gave and when the ed deform funding issue came up they said something like, "Oh, lookie here, we get funding from all sides. See that makes us impartial."

So what if they get funding from the Walton Family Foundation, well known for its support for privatization, vouchers & charter expansion, all relevant to the co-location UFT rally Gotham didn't cover?

Gotham is part of Education News Network. Here are the announcements about the Denver-based ENN and Gotham itself.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-02-25-education-news-network-comes-together

The group has received funding from some foundations, including the Walton Family Foundation, SeaChange Capital Partners and the New York-based Arabella Advisors.  

http://gothamschools.org/2013/03/01/why-were-creating-an-education-news-network-and-how-to-help/

Elizabeth Green left this comment in response to the funding question:

Updated March 3: I’ve already responded to one question, about ENN’s funding sources, in the comments section. Leonie Haimson asked whether our grants, including one from the Walton Foundation mentioned in this news story about ENN, come with strings attached.  She also asked, “even if not, how will you insulate yourself from the fear of losing funding” if we write critically about causes the Walton Foundation supports?
I responded in this comment, explaining that, in brief, the answers are “No and Carefully.” The comment elaborates further so please read it if you are interested! And bring on more questions as you have them.

When a comment raised the question about the influence of the funding ("I'm bit worried about that you might lose some of that quality in a larger "corporate" model", Elizabeth responded:

I don't mean to minimize the challenge here. Business matters (in particular, how much money a news organization has, from where, and with what conditions) will always influence editorial decisions; that is the unavoidable reality. (See this great essay on how this relationship has played out throughout the history of the American press: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/.... ) Given that reality, we have two options: (1) Cease to exist, proclaiming any funding source polluted or (2) Do our best to create a business that supports editorial independence and reporting of the sort we believe is important, rather than threatening it. Obviously, we are choosing (2).

 Actually, I'm getting closer to choosing (1). I know I am a hard liner but we are in a war and it can be disingenuous to claim impartiality in covering stories while the important thing it what stories you choose to cover. I barely skim GS now while getting much more info from other bloggers.

A funder of Gotham Schools expansion is SeaChange Capital Partners.

SeaChange makes loans to charters including the New York City Montessori Charter School, http://shar.es/kp24c and organized a fund to expand Uncommon Charters in NYC and beyond.

“SeaChange arranged a $6.5 million Expansion Fund, to provide the necessary financial foundation for Uncommon’s planned growth over the next five years, which will allow the organization to educate thousands more low-income students, while demonstrating the viability of a scaled solution for improving urban education. We committed $2 million from our own Catalyst Fund toward this effort.” http://seachangecap.org/about/investments/

Here is a 2010  “confidential memo” by SeaChange for “investors” to lure them to contribute to their fund to expand Uncommon Charters and grow in size 5X w/ public funding leveraged 7-10X.  There’s a lot in this document about the need to secure facilities to ensure this expansion; very relevant to the co-location issue.

http://seachangecap.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/UncommonFundingMemorandum.pdf .

Only 48% grad rate?

Also a funder: New York-based Arabella Advisors.  Very pro-charter issue brief for potential investors here:

http://www.arabellaadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IssueBrief-CharterSchool.pdf

NYC Teacher Bloggers on the Loose: Slam Gotham Schools Coverage And TFA

Another blogger slams Gotham Schools, more and more a wholly owned subsidiary of the charter school movement.

I spend much more time reading other bloggers than writing my own -- that should be painfully obvious in terms of the deteriorating quality over here. Blame the heat. Or lower mental capacity. Or too many social things going on. I'm going to blog tonight listing details of my busy social life so I can get a "lack of blogging" pass -- or "we don't give a shit if you blog or not" messages. I've got to head into town for a MORE meeting today at 2 -- yes we are crazy.

If you look at the fabulous blogroll on ed notes it is clear that there is almost no need for me to blog much anymore given the quality of work so many people are doing. What great news for a lazy guy. Just collate and link.What a life -- allows me to sit outside on my deck reading "Dirty Wars" and smoking my pipe, a renewed hobby after 30 years.

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NYC Educator slams Gotham schools on coverage - or lack thereof - of UFT protest on charter co-locos, pointing out that when Student First farts Gotham is there to sniff. (Well, he said it more genteelly than that.)

Gotham Schools Values

But then again Student First pays for their coverage at Gotham.

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Perdido St S goes into some depth on the Bloomberg 4th term intent to lock in charter co-locos.

Bloomberg Announces Charter School Locations To Continue "In Perpetuity"

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Raging Horse also comments:

Raginghorseblog

Bloomberg Again Attempts to Extend his Education Policies into Successor’s Term -

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Gary Rubinstein slams TFA leader over hackneyed use of "status quo" terminology. Don't the deformers know they are now the new status quo? Gary calls the guy clueless -- he doesn't even know that the slickster ed deformers are not using the old SQ term anymore -- even Joel Klein who used it every other word has backed off it realizing that using SQ 12 years of running the schools is a self-indictment.

TFA co-CEO’s vs. The Boogeyman

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Chaz nails the DOE again on favoritism for newbie teachers. Can't wait to hear Walcott defend the use of select newbie pilots and doctors over experience by going up in a plane and having his next medical procedure done by one of them.

Chaz's School Daze

The City Pulls All Stops To Get "Select" Newbie Teachers Hired While Trying To Kick ATRs To The Curb. - The DOE has shown once again how they will go to great lengths to get *"newbie teachers" *hired while making it difficult for schools to hire better qua...

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Another blogger slams Gotham Schools, more and more a wholly owned subsidiary of the charter school movement.

Urban Ed

Celebrating America's Best Teacher (and Why You'll NEVER read About That on GothamSchools.org) - Some time ago, a guy named Steve Brill -a non-teacher, non-education and virtual know-nothing to the entire education discussion in America- wrote a book e...