Success Academy Bensonhurst Golden Plunger Award/Info on Phony Signatures

Another reason to love Eva

I have seen it for myself. They walk around and get signatures. They recently asked me and gave me a flyer in front of my house. I know for a fact, that application workshops were set up in Brighton Beach Private Prek's for success academy in bensonhurst. Many of the children currently attending SA Bensonhurst are from these private mostly Russian daycares..... A Parent

And then this gem came in - the facebook page was taken down
-->

https://www.facebook.com/SABensonhurst

Success Academy Bensonhurst

September 12

Today we launched our Golden Plunger Award. Each week, the boys or girls will have a chance to win the Golden Plunger Award for keeping the cleanest bathrooms! The weekly winners will have the award displayed by their bathroom as a reminder of all their hard work!

We want to make sure that our bathrooms are clean and sanitary for your scholars all day long. Please speak with your scholars about putting toilet paper in the toilet, flushing the toilets after use, washing their hands completely after use, and throwing the paper towels in the wastebaskets. Hygiene and cleanliness are extremely important for keeping healthy!

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Reign of Terror at Murry Bergtraum as Chapter Fights Back - Updated

John Elfrank-Dana has led a valiant effort to defend the teaching staff. They have also been hammering the union leadership for more support.

Murry Bergtraum chapter should be quite proud. Myself and about six other chapter representatives came and spoke quite articulately about the hell we've been living through and the unfair ratings of almost 40% of the staff. Mulgrew was there along with the vice president of high schools and special reps. We know the tricky part is trying to get  ratings changed en mass. That's going to be hard but our fight is worth it. The meeting lasted two hours.

John just sent in this update:

The Danielson framework and Advance in general are not abusive principal-proof. The truth is they can rate your Measures of Teaching Practice so low that even if your MOSL (student test performance) is Effective it will drop you down into Developing or Ineffective territory. Principals and APs can cherry pick facts on observations justifying a lower rating. They don't want to video teachers because they don't want facts that contradict their version of events. It was a mistake for the UFT to agree to leave videoing these lessons at the discretion of the administration. A downright blunder.

And make no mistake about it, while a Developing rated teacher is supposed to get the same treatment as an Effective teacher, short of the Teacher Improvement Plan, we have more and more evidence they are being discriminated against in hiring, for per-session opportunities and C6 activities. Yet, these Developing rated teachers have no direct recourse like those rated Ineffective.

It's a work in progress but our meeting with the UFT yesterday was informative for BOTH sides of the table- the rank and file and the UFT leadership.

John posted this to the MORE chapter leader listserve recently.

Chapter Leaders:

We have a new principal at Murry Bergtraum after ousting the last two for being bullies. The year started off with some optimism. I didn't have to file Art. 19 grievances for basic information like program masters, teacher grids or Galaxy Table of Organization budgets. Even got her to reverse herself on a Step 1. That doesn't happen very often.

But, the other day a former and much beloved teacher came by the school to visit an expectant teacher on her prep during 8th period. The principal told security not to let him in and emailed his principal to inform him that, to the effect, "Were you aware Mr. X, was visiting our school during school hours?" She assumed this teacher was on a PI or was cheating on school time somehow. The teacher, it so happened, was done with moot court and was on his duty-free lunch. This is actually the third time this kind of thing happened where someone invited by staff was not allowed in, escorted out and/or had their principal notified. That was the last straw.

Any of you have similar stories?

I sent the following to the Chancellor and Superintendent as well as the staff.

Chancellor, Colleagues, Friends, Expats:

Today one of our most beloved former teachers was turned away at the door. He was visiting one our colleagues on her free period. This is someone who did his student teaching here, was a student of mine at Fordham getting his masters, served several years here as a teacher and was a lead teacher whom the Superintendent was very impressed by.

He was coming from Moot Court 8th period on his duty free lunch at the end of the day. Not only was he told to leave but the administration emailed his principal to report that he was here, trying to get him in trouble. How low can you go?

A short selection of previous posts on Bergtraum below the break.

Hey Ben Chapman, Do Some Real Reporing - Ask Eva to see her list of 16,000 families

-- make some calls to see if they weren't just walking by and signed something on a subway station. Report on how many vacant slots in Success charters.

And since the link to this DN piece by Chapman was posted on Chalkbeat, let's see a bit of that kind of reporting from them too.

I've maintained from the very beginning that these numbers are bogus and that part of charter transparency is making these lists available. Since charters get public funding why are these demands lists not foilable?

Success Academy charter schools see 56% rise in applications

Ben Chapman

More than 6,000 families have already applied to Success Academy, which operates 32 city schools. The demand for a charter school reached an all-time high last year, with more than 16,400 families vying for fewer than 3,000 spots.

Show Us the Money? When Charter Schools Are Nonprofit in Name Only

The contracts are an example of how the charter schools sometimes cede control of public dollars to private companies that have no legal obligation to act in the best interests of the schools or taxpayers. When the agreement is with a for-profit firm like National Heritage Academies, it’s also a chance for such firms to turn taxpayer money into tidy profits....“It’s really just a pass-through for for-profit entities,” said Eric Hall, an attorney in Colorado Springs.....When Charter Schools Are Nonprofit in Name Only

Perdido Street posted about the charter lobby in Albany spending $3 million: Pro Charter Group Families For Excellent Schools On Tap To Have Most Expensive Lobbying Campaign In New York History

Lobbying is an investment. Break the charter cap in NYC and it's "Katy bar the door" time. Using the word "excellent" = charter slugs.

http://www.alternet.org/education/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-name-only?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

When Charter Schools Are Nonprofit in Name Only

Trying to open the books of pro-profit management companies hired by charter schools is a difficult task.

Exposing Tactics Charters Use to Control Admissions

I sardonically joke during trainings, that I can give school leaders the 2 step secret to the high test score performance; recruit high achievers and kick out the “bad” kids.   Unfortunately, there is truth underlying the joke, which echoes across all sectors of American education.  And while some laugh at the joke, others frown, and a third group is taking notes.I am a lawyer and I wrote or reviewed many of the sections of this charter years back, including admissions, and I know there is no fracking admissions test, and as a fairly empowered Black man, I have learned its best to just listen sometimes, without betraying my credentials, and see how far people will go.... As someone who has worked with charter schools for the better part of two decades, I do see the subtle and not so subtle ways that schools can and sometimes do manipulate the student bodies coming in to increase the test scores coming out, or to more generally serve “their kids”.... charterspook

This link came to me through an email. I'm not sure who wrote it but this guy pretty much lists just about every method charters use to control admissions.

http://charterspook.blogspot.com/

A long time ago in a land far away, I went to enroll a foster child, let’s call her Keasha, in a charter school.  She needed a good school; that was smaller, more personalized.  Brushing aside the fact that I did not have any legal authority, we asked the woman at the desk about enrollment.  She explained that the school may not have any spots for the particular grade, described the school culture in fairly negative terms, under-emphasizing the clubs and after school, and noting that many students resented the closed campus, where they could not leave for lunch.  I still asked for an application.  She then told Keasha that she needed to take an “admissions test”, a series of math problems.  An “admission test” or other preconditions to enrollment in a charter school is illegal, they are public schools and, by law, must admit any student who applies if there is space, holding a lottery if there are more students than spots.  Full disclosure, I am a lawyer and I wrote or reviewed many of the sections of this charter years back, including admissions, and I know there is no fracking admissions test, and as a fairly empowered Black man, I have learned its best to just listen sometimes, without betraying my credentials, and see how far people will go.

NYSAPE Calls Parents & Educators Call for a New Direction from the Regents and Demand NO Interference from Governor Cuomo After King Resignation

With so much anti-John King stuff floating around the blogs:
B-LoEdScene : How Governor Cuomo Unloaded John King for a Palm Pilot and Cash

Perdido St: Board Of Regents Will Choose "Dr" Ted Morris Jr. To Replace Dr John King As NYSED Commissioner

Raginghorseblog: Expect No Change: King Will Be Replaced by a Facsimile Thereof

Here is another shot from a leading NY State (real) parent group.

http://www.nysape.org/john-king-resigns-parents--educators-call-for-a-new-direction-from-the-regents-and-demand-no-interference-from-governor-cuomo.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  December 11, 2014

More information contact:

Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com

Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com

NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) – www.nysape.org

NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) – www.nysape.org

John King Resigns: Parents & Educators Call for a New Direction from the Regents and

Demand NO Interference from Governor Cuomo

Late Wednesday, the New York State Education Department announced that Commissioner John King is resigning effective the end of this year to accept a new post in Washington as an advisor to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Last year NYSAPE, parents, and educators from around the state called for Commissioner King to step down.  After many months of frustration and outrage from parents and educators across New York State, the chapter closes on an embattled commissioner who failed to address legitimate serious concerns. 

Eyes from all corners of the Empire State now turn on Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, the Board of Regents, and the legislature to ensure the next commissioner represents the substantial change in direction that public school parents demand from a responsive government that serves the people.  NYSAPE calls for the Regents to adopt an open, inclusive selection process and stresses the importance of input from parents, educators, and other stakeholder groups in appointing a commissioner who will be more accountable to the public at large.

Governor Andrew Cuomo will also be watched very closely to ensure he does not overstep the constitutional authority of the Regents and interfere in any manner with the selection of a new commissioner of education.  For innumerable reasons, New Yorkers are very glad to live within a NYS Constitution that does not grant Governor Andrew Cuomo authority when it comes to oversight of education in New York.  They will be watching very closely both Governor Cuomo, who called public schools a "monopoly" to be broken, and his private backers with financial interests in the privatization of our public schools.

.

Westchester County

“It is time for the Board of Regents to move in a very different direction.  The Regents dismal track record of refusing to heed warnings and address significant parental concerns with excessive testing, student data privacy, and school privatization leaves no room for error with the selection of the next commissioner and must not allow for any interference from Governor Andrew Cuomo or his backers,” said Lisa Rudley, founding member of NYSAPE and Westchester County public school parent.

New York City

“John King was the most unpopular commissioner in the history of NY State.  He showed no respect for parents, teachers or student privacy.  Ironically, he was intent on protecting his own privacy, and routinely withheld public documents; our Freedom of Information request of his communications with inBloom and the Gates foundation is more than 1 ½ years overdue.  His resignation is good news for New York state; hopefully he will be unable to do as much damage at the US Department of Education,” Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters.

FULL COURT PRESS: Spend Saturday With Teachers Unite: Educate, Don't Incarcerate

FULL COURT PRESS AGAINST  

#SchoolPushout #Criminalization #School2Prison  

#PoliceViolence #MassIncarceration #PrisonIndustrialComplex  

#Apathy #Racism #WhiteSupremacy

 

Saturday, December 13th

2-6pm

Manny Cantor Center

197 East Broadway, NYC

Thanks to your incredible support, we have surpassed our goal of $10,000 to help schools practice transformative justice and decrease the suspensions that lead young people into the School-to-Prison Pipeline.

Can you help us to reach $12,000 by Saturday's FULL COURT PRESS Event?  

 

We know that many of you will be heading out to the Millions March NYC happening on Saturday, and we hope you can also  

come by the FULL COURT PRESS Against #SchoolPushout with friends & family to cheer on all of the teams and win prizes!

RSVP on Facebook  

   

Volunteer to work at the event! email Katie@teachersunite.net for information

Can't attend but want to support? 

You can make a donation at teachersunite.causevox.com 

Thank you!

=====

Dignity in Schools Statements on Ferguson + Eric Garner Decisions

John King Departure, New Fed Job Linked to Failure of CIA Torture Program

Ed Notes has learned that the CIA was behind the move of John King. Having demonstrated he could run an effective torture program for students and teachers based on high stakes testing and tortuous standards, the CIA jumped at the opportunity to embrace his skills as a way to recover public standing from the recent revelations about their torture program, especially given the fact that so much of it failed to gain useful information.

"This is a win-win," said a CIA source. "Water boarding and rectal infusions never worked but a constant barrage of testing is guaranteed to get results. With so many teachers running screaming out of the profession and so many kids throwing up during testing, it was clear that we've been barking up the wrong torture tree.

"We also looked at John King's success in pushing charters to destroy the public school system. He will be devising charter terrorist groups. Every terrorist deserves a choice.

"And who better than John King to make this work? If I were in ISIS and Al Qaueda I would be packing up and leaving - fast."

ISIS And Eva Moskowitz Join Heads on her 10-year, 100-school plan

Given the difficulties poor besieged Eva Moskowitz expects to face in getting space from Mayor deBlasio, she search for space for her ambitious 100 school plan has led her to an agreement with ISIS for space in Syria, Iraq and who knows where else?

"Eva is a perfect fit for us," said an ISIS (ISIL, IS) spokesman - "you didn't expect a spokeswoman, did you" he said? But while we were on the subject we reminded the ISIS (ISIL, IS) representative that - shhh - Eva is a woman. "She won't even have to wear a burka. For our compadre, Eva, whose tactics we study religiously, everything is possible. But we need to move fast as Kim Jon-un is also hot on the trail with a serious offer. His only condition is that she must stop calling herself 'Jon-un Maximus' when she stops by to visit."

======================"

Eva Moskowitz on her 10-year, 100-school plan

Moskowitz at American Enterprise Institute. (AEI)

Capital NY:

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/12/8558199/eva-moskowitz-her-10-year-100-school-plan 

 

John Dewey's Principal Kathleen Elvin Screws Young Kids Out of Baskeball Program

The Ed Notes June 26, 2014 post about much despised John Dewey HS Principal Kathleen Elvin (No Change of Tone at John Dewey HS: Principal Kat...) has made the top 10 all-time posts on Ed Notes with 5495 hits of as today, with 151 comments.

Today this story surfaced about the queen of mean sticking her fingers into a 40 year after school basketball program for inner city kids. Reuven Blau in the DN does a pretty good job of telling the story. She claimed the gym was in use Sat. from 9-12 but it was stone cold empty the entire time. One must wonder why she would put the screws on a program that has been at John Dewey HS for 40 years. But it is in the DNA of queens of mean.

But then again there was this Dec 6 comment:

Why was the Department of Education’s Office of Investigations (OSI) in the building all day Wednesday interviewing so many people?

Why indeed? (head on over and read some of the love notes to Ms Elvin.)

The Flames have developed enormous community and political support. If Elvin continues to peddle her bullshit there may be a bigger backlash than she expects, especially if OSI - which we all know is a politically oriented operation - is sticking its nose into her operations.

Foul! Brooklyn hoops group says it's getting booted from home court

The leader of a well-known Brooklyn youth basketball group is whistling a foul on a city principal, saying the kids were abruptly tossed out of their longtime home in a Bensonhurst high school in the middle of the season.

BY Reuven Blau

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 6:13 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/foul-ball-brooklyn-hoops-group-booted-article-1.2041004

Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News Gerard Papa, leader of Flames, a community basketball group that says they are being kicked out of their practice gym.

The leader of a well-known Brooklyn youth basketball group is whistling a foul on a city principal, saying the kids were abruptly tossed out of their longtime home in a Bensonhurst high school.
Gerard Papa, 61, who runs Flames, a basketball tournament and mentoring program for 700 kids ages 8 to 19, says Kathleen Elvin, the principal of John Dewey High School, closed off the school’s secondary gym last Saturday morning, leaving 90 youngsters stranded.
And she’s blocking future Saturday morning games due to a scheduling conflict.
“It’s our home,” Papa said. “What am I supposed to do with these kids for the balance of the season?”
Elvin told the group the space was needed for use by the Public Schools Athletic League.
“We will continue to juggle our Dewey schedule when possible to accommodate the Flames, but right now there just is not enough gym space to handle all of our needs at the same time,” Elvin told Papa in a Dec. 5 email.
Papa said the auxiliary gym was actually empty Saturday morning.
“They practice in the big gym,” he said of the school’s teams.
The school is also hosting a robotics competition on Dec. 20, which will use most of the first floor, including the two basketball courts and the cafeteria, Elvin said.
The school is required to give priority to its own programs and activities, said Department of Education spokeswoman Yuridia Pe na, adding that the city would work to accommodate the basketball program as best it could.
Papa said he should have been warned about the scheduling conflict before the season started in November, rather than finding out on the day itself.

Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News Flames, a community basketball group led by Gerard Papa (top right). The group’s alums include former NBA star Stephon Marbury and current Charlotte Hornets shooting guard Lance Stephenson.

“At the beginning of the school year, she should have called us in — and maybe we could have figured something out,” he said. “She let me send out thousands of cards announcing registration.”
The retired lawyer started the basketball tournament in 1974, and has been using Dewey’s gym as its home for 40 years. The group pays about $10,000 in fees to rent the gym each year, operating on a week-to-week schedule.
The group’s alums include former NBA star Stephon Marbury and current Charlotte Hornets shooting guard Lance Stephenson, who both attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island.
Flames brings together kids from low-income families and various city housing projects throughout Brooklyn .
Some travel more than an hour to attend the two-month training program and tournament.
Officials from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office and City Councilman Mark Treyger’s office are trying to broker an agreement.
“Everybody is trying to make this work,” said a source familiar with those talks.
Papa has no plans to look for a new location in middle of the season.
“If your wife doesn’t let you in the house tonight you can go to a hotel, but it’s not your house,” he said. “They don’t legitimately need the space.”
rblau@nydailynews.com

Criticizing Opportunist Protesters

Everyone should be skeptical of any person or group running to the front claiming to speak for, and have the demands of, a rising movement barely two weeks old. 

Included in a reposting from MORE (How One School and One Teacher Addressed the Garner/Brown Situation) was a comment from a friend regarding some groups using the rallies and protests to promote their own agendas.  

I find it distasteful that at a march for a murdered man, I couldn't go two feet or longer than 5 minutes without someone trying to give me a political newspaper or flyer."

This writer comes from a different angle at a different class but it has the same passion as above. I find myself in tune with the author.

Posted on Facebook (I haven't checked in with the author yet, so for now it's anon.)

Everyone should be skeptical of any person or group running to the front claiming to speak for, and have the demands of, a rising movement barely two weeks old.
A lot of these people are simply the non-profits rebranding themselves and creating believers by dominating Twitter and social media.
I've always been creeped out by control freaks and there are no bigger control freaks than these types. They shame radical activists. They pretend no other voice exists. They hated on us for our aiming at Bratton from day 1 because it put them in a weird position with Mayor de Blasio--with whom they had close links. They shared the same goddamn PR firm as him, for christs sake.

You'll now see them claiming to speak for all of us, just like Sharpton (who they've supported numerous times). But they won't attack the Mayor or the city council--at all--and that'll be your first clue. They're the gatekeepers who protect the political institutions right in front of our faces.
There is no one solution or one set of demands to this problem with police and the system it protects. Everyone should take a piece and dismantle it. We'll work on Bratton & Broken Windows for now. But whatever you do, don't let these nonprofits run the show.

Lucentis Scam Costs Medicare a Billion a Year

When the drug maker Genentech introduced a major product in 2006, it found itself in an awkward position: persuading eye doctors to start using its new more expensive drug instead of a popular cheaper version that the company already sold. Ophthalmologists had been enthusiastically using the company’s cancer drug Avastin, which cost about $50 a dose, to treat a common eye disease in the elderly, wet macular degeneration. Then Genentech introduced Lucentis, a nearly equivalent drug that cost $2,000 a dose and was approved specifically to treat the disease. Use of Lucentis took off, and it has become one of Medicare’s most expensive treatments — costing the federal government about $1 billion a year — even though several studies have concluded Lucentis has no significant advantage over its cheaper alternative..... Paid to Promote Eye Drug, and Prescribing It Widely, New York Times‎  

My dad suffered from wet macular degeneration and was practically blind for years but very functional in most ways. For years I took him to a retina specialist who injected his better functioning eye 3 times with Lucentis. It didn't cost us a thing but hoo boy - when the medicare statements arrived I was astounded at the over $1800 bill - for each injection. I had heard Lucentis was a sort of miracle for macular degeneration - it in effect cauterizes the area where the leakage is taking place. It doesn't reverse macular though.

So the NY Times article in yesterday's business section of the NY Times was, excuse the expression, an eye opener. But I should have known as a simple search shows a long history of exposing the story.

Eye Doctors Say Their Profits Are Smaller Than Data Makes ...

www.nytimes.com/.../eye-doctors-say-their-profits-are...

The New York Times

Apr 9, 2014 - Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times ... The most expensive drug, Lucentis, which is used for macular degeneration, as well as for ...

Genentech Offers Secret Rebates to Promote Lucentis ...

www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/.../04eye.html?...all

The New York Times

Nov 3, 2010 - The rebates were used to promote the drug Lucentis even though another ... outlining the program that was obtained by The New York Times.

Paid to Promote Eye Drug, and Prescribing It Widely - The ...

www.nytimes.com/.../paid-to-promote-eye-drug-and-...

The New York Times

20 hours ago - Lucentis, at $2,000 a dose, is similar to Avastin, at $50 a dose. Continue reading ... Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times .... He says he is not influenced by the money he receives in compensation for his time. “People ...

Doctors Grow Wary of Avastin for Eye Treatment - NYTimes ...

prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/.../doctors-grow-wary-of-avastin-for-ey...

Oct 4, 2011 - asked Dr. Feig. So even though he laments it, he is starting to use more of the expensive product, Lucentis, instead of the cheaper one, Avastin ...

Clinical Trial Says Avastin as Effective as Lucentis for ...

www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/.../29eye.html

The New York Times

Apr 28, 2011 - New York Times ... The trial compared the effectiveness of Lucentis, a drug approved to treat one ... While this did not translate into a difference in vision at the end of one year, the time point measured in the trial, it might do so ...

Italy Fines Novartis and Roche in Collusion Case - NYTimes ...

www.nytimes.com/.../italy-fines-novartis-and-roche...

The New York Times

Mar 5, 2014 - Instead, they said, the companies had tried to “channel demand toward the much more expensive drug Lucentis, through an artificial distinction ...

Price Difference Lucentis And Avastin - Business Insider

www.businessinsider.com/price-difference-lucentis-and-a...

Business Insider

Jun 6, 2014 - Ranibizumab, more commonly known by its brand name Lucentis, .... In November 2010, The New York Times reported that Genentech was ...

Medicare Data Reveals $1 Billion a Year for Costly Eye Drug

www.bu.edu/.../medicare-data-reveals-1-billion-a-year-...

Boston University

Apr 11, 2014 - The Globe reports that Lucentis is more than six times more costly than an ... BU Today: The New York Times analysis of recently released ...

How One School and One Teacher Addressed the Garner/Brown Situation

Some teachers didn't go to rallies last Thursday afternoon, instead using the opportunity to organize a teachable moment after the school day ended.  I'm not going to put a value on what this teacher did vs others. Many people I know felt it imperative to get to some of the rallies. They had deep seated reactions to what happened and had to express them. Kudos to all of them. Unfortunately, some seemed interested in using the rallies to promote their tiny sectarian organizations. As someone commented, "I find it distasteful that at a march for a murdered man, I couldn't go two feet or longer than 5 minutes without someone trying to give me a political newspaper or flyer. Makes me want to scream!"

Here is a report from a teacher on how he dealt with the story in his school. Wish I had been there.

By Brooklyn High School teacher Mr. S

After the grand jury decision was released on the Mike Brown case and following the protests that have taken place in new York, a few of the teachers decided we have to do something. Actually the decision to do something about racism began a few years ago when teaching my criminal law class a young lady broke down and began crying about how she was stopped and frisked on a regular basis. From that moment until now we have been struggling with what we can do to try to bring some racial justice to our school, our city, our world.

This past Thursday, the day after the grand jury decision in the Garner case was announced, we decided to have an after-school discussion where our students were welcome to express their feeling on recent events in Staten Island, Ferguson, and their thoughts on race relations. I sent my principal an email Wednesday night asking to have this after-school discussion. He promptly answered back "let's have a meeting in the morning." The meeting went well, we set norms and created some questions we would use in facilitation. I did sense some hesitancy to have this after school from my administration, understandably so. They wanted to make sure it was handled in manner that would make all our children representing various view points feel safe. Carmen Farina had written a letter on Wednesday night to principals encouraging schools to have events like the one we were planning. That letter helped tremendously in allowing this event to take place as I was able to refer to it several times in our planning session.

The principal asked me to make the announcement over the loudspeaker. We wanted to let our students know that teachers were having an open forum addressing this situation. I think the announcement  was really critical. It let the entire school community, from students to school aides to other teachers, know that we were doing something to address the great injustice that had just occurred. In fact one teacher said when the words "Mike Brown and Eric Garner" came over the loudspeakers, many students look puzzled. After my announcement was over, the students in Ms. C's class asked what this was all about. She stopped her class and began to explain what had happened. She later told me it was the perfect teachable moment and could care less if she finished her lesson on Byzantine. This was much more important. A few English and Social Studies teachers preempted their lessons through-out the day to discuss the Brown and Garner decisions.

When 3:00 came we went up to the assigned room. I was going to facilitate along with my friend Mr. G, another social studies teacher who has been very involved with all of social justice initiatives at our school. Twenty-five students walked in, a diverse group, different genders, races, and grade. Surprisingly three other teachers, one paraprofessional, the assistant principal, and the principal came as well. We made sure to greet everyone and make the atmosphere as welcoming as possible. We explained we were holding this discussion in order to have a forum where you can express yourselves, because your voice counts.

The discussion was extremely passionate, engaging, and as in any good class, I learned more from the students then they could ever learn from me. One student said she was upset that her parents were arguing with her because they did not believe either case was about race. Our African-American students explained why it was about race and some of the feelings they have in dealing with police. Some students discussed how economics played a role in this, that poor people are forced to do illegal actions in order to survive. Some of our students discussed how the justice system is not just at all. Many of students there were actually most upset that their classmates did not know what had happened. We discussed what positive steps we can take as a school community. The students said they need to be better informed and do more reading, some wanted to organize or at least attend protests, and they want to really focus our school on restorative justice. An initiative that me, the dean, the Black Student union and their faculty adviser have been actively pursuing.

All in all, I'm not sure if we changed anything, but hopefully at the very least we empowered our students that their voices matter. They were happy to have adults in the room listening to them and answering their questions. We need to have more discussions like this in our classes and outside of them too.

Profitship! Cashing In On Public Schools - Animation Video from "The Progressive"

Jon Pelto from Educators Bloggers Network sent this along. You can support their work by subscribing: the brand new December/January issue of The Progressive is all about this crucial subject. Subscribers can access the digital edition here.

Fellow Education Bloggers,

Check out the great new video by Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Mark Fiore: "ProfitShip! Cashing in on Public Schools."

The Progressive commissioned the short, sharable cartoon to help get the word out about the attack on public education.

This animated feature on school privatization stars little Timmy, a kindergartner who likes his public school. Timmy gets a confusing lesson in corporate education reform, starting with the right-wing mantra "Public Schools have failed."

(The Bradley Foundation, a top right-wing think tank, has devoted more than $30 million to label public education as "failing" and promote privatization as the "solution.")

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore uses his trademark humor to show the absurdity of this argument. Despite poor results, charter chains like Rocketship are replacing real teachers and classes like art, social studies, and gym with a computer-aided test-prep curriculum straight out of science fiction.

In addition, the brand new December/January issue of The Progressive is all about this crucial subject. Subscribers can access the digital edition here.



Published on Dec 8, 2014

This animated feature on school privatization stars little Timmy, a kindergartner who likes his public school. Timmy gets a confusing lesson in corporate education reform, starting with the rightwing mantra "Public Schools have failed."

(The Bradley Foundation, a top rightwing think tank, has devoted more than $30 million to label public education as "failing" and promote privatization as the "solution.")

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore uses his trademark humor to show the absurdity of this argument. Despite poor results, charter chains like Rocketship are replacing real teachers and classes like art, social studies, and gym with a computer-aided test-prep curriculum straight out of science fiction.

Read more at progressive.org and check out our powerful public school activism site, publicschoolshakedown.org.

http://youtu.be/opcHQ_v6PuU

Eterno Off ATR Rotation Pool But Still An ATR - Time for UFT to Establish an ATR Chapter

For those of you who are following my travelogue around the high schools of Queens, I have some news. I am being taken off the Absent Teacher Reserve Rotation train wreck by Middle College High School for the rest of the 2014-15 school year. Middle College was one of the schools I wandered through this fall.  Apparently, I did something right there as they called me in for an interview for a Leave Replacement Teacher position.  I don't know how to say thank you enough to Principal Linda Siegmund and her faculty for rescuing me from ATR rotations to let me actually teach again. The new trimester starts today.  Middle College is a very progressive school that I am looking forward to working in... James Eterno on the ICE blog.

It is not often we have cause to celebrate the actions of principals but let's hail Linda Siegmund for giving James an opportunity despite his notoriety as a union activist and former opposition presidential candidate (2010) against Mulgrew. Given that James and Camille saw the birth of their 2nd child back in July this is also a much-needed stability factor in their lives.

Arthur Goldstein at NYC Educator blog has a strong piece on the ATR situation today: An ATR by Any Other Name

"If you aren't treated the same as every other working teacher, it's ludicrous to say you're the same as every other working teacher."

I'd like to get a list of the limits on ATRs even when they get a year-long provisional appointment. We know that they can never accumulate school seniority or even put in a preference sheet and in some cases can't get per session. In fact a provisional who would like permanent placement has to be very well behaved and pretty much give up any protections in the contract. And imagine their VAM ratings - do provisional ATRs get rated and observed by their admins the same way?

Isn't it time for the UFT to stop stonewalling and establish an ATR chapter? MORE brought this up at the October DA and it was turned down by Unity.

Resolution  for  Full  Union  Representation  for  ATRs  

 Whereas,  the  Delegate  Assembly  is  the  highest  policy  making  body  in  the  United  Federation  of   Teachers,  and

 Whereas,  federal  labor  law  requires  that  policy  making  bodies  within  a  union  be  democratically   elected  with  each  member  entitled  to  a  vote,  and
 Whereas,  Absent  Teacher  Reserves  (ATRs)  are  not  entitled  to  vote  in  Chapter  Elections  unless  they   happen  to  be  working  in  a  school  that  has  a  Chapter  Election  during  a  particular  week  that  the  ATR  is   working  in  a  school,  and
 Whereas,  unions  can  set  up  reasonable  rules  as  to  who  can  run  for  office,  but  it  is  not  reasonable  that   ATRs  including  Leave  Replacement  Teachers  and  Provisional  Teachers  cannot  run  or  serve  as   Delegates  or  Chapter  Leaders  simply  because  they  belong  to  no  Chapter,  and
Whereas,  the  ATR  position  has  now  been  embedded  in  the  UFT  contract  in  Section  16  of  the  2014   Memorandum  of  Agreement,  therefore  be  it

Resolved,  that  the  UFT  will  immediately  create  a  Functional  Chapter  to  represent  the  interests  of   ATRs,  Leave  Replacement  Teachers  and  Provisional  Teachers.

 Here is James' full post:

I'M BEING LET OFF THE INSANE ATR ROTATION TRAIN FOR NOW

Unfortunately, this experienced teacher may very well be back on the train next year due to his max salary. 

 

PS 399K Principal Marion Brown Accused of Running School With Concentration Camp Mentality

A concentration camp and a slave plantation: this is how PS 399 the elementary school where Marion Brown is the principal has been described.

This principal is a master at using fear and intimidation to strip teachers of their self-confidence, harasses them until they are mentally and physical ill and in some cases has been the catalyst that caused them to forfeit their chief means of making a living. Witnessing these results, most teachers are reluctant to take any action that will direct her reign of terror on them. And those who have the audacity to speak out and take action are assured of receiving an ineffective/developing rating.

One of the most infamous examples of her successful reign of terror is that of a teacher who after being harassed constantly (and who was actually told that she would be given a hard time if she returned last school year) decided to take some time off because she was so mentally stressed. Alas, when the teacher returned, the harassment ensued again with even more vigor causing the teacher to resign two months before the school year ended.

Using divide and conquer and the teacher evaluation process, this principal is continuing to wreak havoc with both teachers’ and students’ growth and development. This madness will only end when the teachers and parents find the courage to speak up, stand up and get the principal out!

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: The Police in America Are Becoming Illegitimate

...if Eric Garner had been selling naked credit default swaps instead of cigarettes – if in other words he'd set up a bookmaking operation in which passersby could bet on whether people made their home mortgage payments or companies paid off their bonds – the police by virtue of a federal law called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act would have been barred from even approaching him....This policy of constantly badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in "hot spot" neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling and killing a man for selling a 75-cent cigarette.

This stuff is so good I want to munch on the screen.

There were more cops surrounding Eric Garner on a Staten Island street this past July 17th then there were surrounding all of AIG during the period when the company was making the toxic bets that nearly destroyed the world economy years ago. Back then AIG's regulator, the OTS, had just one insurance expert on staff, policing a company with over 180,000 employees.
This is the crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed. We flood poor minority neighborhoods with police and tell unwitting officers to aggressively pursue an interventionist strategy that sounds like good solid policing in a vacuum......

You can make the argument that the policies work, as multiple studies have cited "hot spot" policing as a cause of urban crime-rate declines (other studies disagree, but let's stipulate). But the psychic impact of these policies on the massive pool of everyone else in the target neighborhoods is a rising sense of being seriously pissed off. They're tired of being manhandled and searched once a week or more for riding bikes the wrong way down the sidewalk (about 25,000 summonses a year here in New York), smoking in the wrong spot, selling loosies, or just "obstructing pedestrian traffic," a.k.a. walking while black. This is exactly what you hear Eric Garner complaining about in the last moments of his life. "Every time you see me, you want to mess with me," he says. "It stops today!" ...... Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

Taibbi, the man. So many points here it is hard to pick out the best. This is not about individual cops - there are always bad apples. But the good apples protect the bad apples. When the cop leaped up and put Garner in a choke hold while colleagues looked on not one grabbed his arm and told him to let go. Taibbi takes the story beyond the posturing we see going on, particularly from some of my friends on the left who are breast beating about how anti-racist they are and calling out people who do not follow their lead.

Sometimes I wonder what they would do with themselves if white police stopped killing black men. No rallies to organize for so they can give out their newspapers and leaflets where a bunch of white people tell black people what is wrong.

Law-enforcement resources are now distributed so unevenly, and justice is being administered with such brazen inconsistency, that people everywhere are going to start questioning the basic political authority of law enforcement. And they're mostly going to be right to do it, and when they do, it's going to create problems that will make the post-Ferguson unrest seem minor.

The Garner case was a perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with the proactive police tactics that are now baseline policy in most inner cities. Police surrounded the 43-year-old Garner after he broke up a fight. The officers who responded to that call then decided to get in Garner's face for the preposterous crime of selling "loosies," i.e. single cigarettes from a pack.
When the police announced that they were taking him in to run him for the illegal tobacco sale, Garner balked and demanded to be left alone. A few minutes later he was in a choke hold, gasping "I can't breathe," and en route to fatal cardiac arrest.

On the tape you can actually hear the echo of Garner's years of experience with Broken Windows-style policing, a strategy based on a never-ending stream of small intrusive confrontations between police and residents in target neighborhoods.

The ostensible goal of Broken Windows is to quickly and efficiently weed out people with guns or outstanding warrants. You flood neighborhoods with police, you stop people for anything and everything and demand to see IDs, and before long you've both amassed mountains of intelligence about who hangs with whom, and made it genuinely difficult for fugitives and gunwielders to walk around unmolested.

This is the part white Middle American news audiences aren't hearing about these stories. News commentators like the New York Post's Bob McManus ("Blame Only the Man Who Tragically Decided to Resist"), predictably in full-on blame-the-victim mode, are telling readers that the mistake made by Eric Garner was resisting the police in a single moment of obstinacy over what admittedly was not a major offense, but a crime nonetheless. McManus writes:

He was on the street July 17, selling untaxed cigarettes one at a time — which, as inconsequential as it seems, happens to be a crime.
The press and the people who don't live in these places want you to focus only on the incidents in question. It was technically a crime! Annoying, but he should have complied! His fault for dying – and he was a fat guy with asthma besides!

But the real issue is almost always the hundreds of police interactions that take place before that single spotlight moment, the countless aggravations large and small that pump up the rage gland over time.

Over the last three years, while working on a book about the criminal justice gap that ended up being called The Divide, I spent a lot of time with people like Eric Garner. There's a shabby little courthouse at 346 Broadway in lower Manhattan that's set up as the place you go to be sentenced and fined for the kind of ticket Staten Island cops were probably planning on giving Garner.


I sat in that courtroom over and over again for weeks and listened to the stories. I met one guy, named Andre Finley, who kept showing up to court in an attempt to talk his way into jail as a way out of the $100 fine he'd got for riding a bike on a sidewalk in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He couldn't afford the hundred bucks. It took a year and multiple all-day court visits to clear up.
I met a woman who had to hire a sitter so she could spend all day in court waiting to be fined for drinking wine on her own front porch. And in the case of a Bed-Stuy bus driver named Andrew Brown, it was that old "obstructing traffic" saw: the same "offense" that first flagged Ferguson police to stop Michael Brown. 

In Andrew's case, police thought the sight of two black men standing in front of a project tower at 1 a.m. was suspicious and stopped them. In reality, Andrew was listening to music on headphones with a friend on his way home after a long shift driving a casino shuttle. When he balked at being stopped, just like Garner balked, cops wrote him up for "obstructing" a street completely empty of pedestrians, and the court demanded 50 bucks for his crime.

This policy of constantly badgering people for trifles generates bloodcurdling anger in "hot spot" neighborhoods with industrial efficiency. And then something like the Garner case happens and it all comes into relief. Six armed police officers tackling and killing a man for selling a 75-cent cigarette.

That was economic regulation turned lethal, a situation made all the more ridiculous by the fact that we no longer prosecute the countless serious economic crimes committed in this same city. A ferry ride away from Staten Island, on Wall Street, the pure unmolested freedom to fleece whoever you want is considered the sacred birthright of every rake with a briefcase.
If Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon had come up with the concept of selling loosies, they'd go to their graves defending it as free economic expression that "creates liquidity" and should never be regulated.

Taking it one step further, if Eric Garner had been selling naked credit default swaps instead of cigarettes – if in other words he'd set up a bookmaking operation in which passersby could bet on whether people made their home mortgage payments or companies paid off their bonds – the police by virtue of a federal law called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act would have been barred from even approaching him.

There were more cops surrounding Eric Garner on a Staten Island street this past July 17th then there were surrounding all of AIG during the period when the company was making the toxic bets that nearly destroyed the world economy years ago. Back then AIG's regulator, the OTS, had just one insurance expert on staff, policing a company with over 180,000 employees.
This is the crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed. We flood poor minority neighborhoods with police and tell unwitting officers to aggressively pursue an interventionist strategy that sounds like good solid policing in a vacuum.

But the policy looks worse when a white yuppie like me can live in the same city as Garner for 15 years and never even be asked the time by someone in uniform. And at the very highest levels of society, where corruption has demonstrably been soaring in recent years, the police have almost been legislated out of existence.

The counter-argument to all this is that the police are sent where there's the most crime. But that argument doesn't hold up for long in a city that not only has recently become the unpunished economic corruption capital of the Western world – it's also a place where white professionals on the Upper East and West Sides can have their coke and weed safely home-delivered with their Chinese food, while minorities in Bed-Stuy and Harlem are catching real charges and jail time for the same thing.
City police have tough, brutal, dangerous jobs. Even in the "hot spots," residents know this and will cut officers a little slack for being paranoid and quick to escalate.

Still, being quick to draw in a dark alley in a gang chase is one thing. But if some overzealous patrolman chokes a guy all the way to death, on video, in a six-on-one broad daylight situation, for selling a cigarette, forget about a conviction – someone at least has to go to trial.

Because you can't send hundreds of thousands of people to court every year on broken-taillight-type misdemeanors and expect people to sit still while yet another coroner-declared homicide goes unindicted. It just won't hold. If the law isn't the same everywhere, it's not legitimate. And in these neighborhoods, what we have doesn't come close to looking like one single set of laws anymore.

When that perception sinks in, it's not just going to be one Eric Garner deciding that listening to police orders "ends today." It's going to be everyone. And man, what a mess that's going to be.  

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205#ixzz3LB8s2Dnq
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The Hottest Love Scene in Film History - UPDATED

I'm a sucker for "It's a Wonderful Life" - I watch it every year with all the commercials. Watching it right now. (And I watch Casablanca every time. And the Magnificent 7. Do I have a weird combination of tastes or what?)

UPDATE FOR FREAKS LIKE ME: (Thanks to Dave P)
http://metropolitanplayhouse.org/IAWL2014

It's A Wonderful Life
~ ActAlong ~

Every year, Metropolitan invites its friends and supporters to a reading of Frank Capra's sentimental favorite,
It's A Wonderful Life. With sound and costume and holiday fare, it is our favorite way to ring in the season.

Better yet, you do the reading! Everyone who comes is welcome to draw lots for a part, and away we go.

George! Mary! Burt! Ernie! Mr. Potter! Clarence! YOU!

(Of course, you are welcome just to watch.)

When:	Sunday, December 21st, 2014
	2:30  Holiday Cheer
	3:00 Parts Chosen and Reading Begins
Where:	Metropolitan Playhouse 220A East 4th Street

This scene was considered so hot for 1946 they had to cut some of it out. The art of movie-making - not one piece of clothing was shed.



Of course, some clothing was shed in this scene.



Uncle Billy just lost the money - the heavy action is about to begin.