Time for a Change in Leadership: Rhee and Parker Gotta Go in 2010

by Candi Peterson
http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/

It is disgusting to me when unions do not look out for the interests of their members yet willingly take dues from workers who join and then act in the best interests of the employer. Unions can help level the playing field to prevent abusive practices by employers, but this is not our reality in Washington, DC, under the helm of George Parker, Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) President. Once again, Parker has given Chancellor Michelle Rhee another out after she sullied the reputation of 266 laid off teachers in her comments to Fast Company magazine in which she said: "I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had sex with children, who missed 78 days of school." Parker as a union leader barely seems indistinguishable from DCPS management and appears more interested in maintaining his good relationship with Rhee rather than upholding his legal obligation to protect longtime dues paying members from these ongoing acts of defamation and serial bullying. Failing to take Rhee's comments to task by asking for only an apology has gotten us nowhere with unsubstantiated allegations against 266 laid off teachers and now a shift in focus to more than two hundred new allegations of abuse (reported to occur in 2008-2009) against the entire workforce of DC teachers as reported by The Washington Post.

Not addressing the issue of Rhee's demonizing DC teachers has lead to negative and distorted media images throughout this country. Our union president has been unable to develop a strategic plan to address Rhee's frequent negative anecdotes about DC teachers and often is unresponsive to Rhee's ongoing claims in the press. Whether on local education blogs or in newspaper articles, teachers are willing to speak out and express their views but are reluctant now more than ever about identifying themselves, their schools, or the workplace atrocities that occur due to fear of retaliation and lack of support from our union. Teachers who stand up in the face of these types of adversities, like Hardy middle school English teacher Jann'l Henry, who had students write more than 150 letters to Mayor Fenty as part of a class assignment, defy the odds. Subsequently, Hardy students went to the DC city council when their letters went unanswered by the mayor, in an act of civil disobedience and support of their desire to have their principal (Patrick Pope) remain at Hardy. I agree with Nathan Saunders, WTU's General Vice President's, who commented, "We can't teach students to enforce their rights if we are afraid of enforcing ours."

Through our union, teachers should have a voice to lift up their concerns about working and learning conditions, best practices, professional development, wages, benefits, workplace bullying, and contractual violations so that we can have democracy in the workplace. It is a reasonable expectation that our union should take the lead in standing up and demanding accountability and the resignation if need be of a chancellor, Michelle Rhee, who, in the words of retired DC math teacher turned blogger, Guy Brandenburg, "denigrates DC Public Schools every chance she gets."

Editor Note:

Nathan Saunders is running against Parker for President. If you follow the story in Detroit which I printed two posts down and the fact that CORE is challenging in Chicago and other opposition forces are showing up strong in other cities, you can see something is afoot. Now I believe that Randi will use goonism in the AFT (as she did this summer in Portland) to keep local activists from getting control of the big cities.

Ed Notes Retro, Oct. 2003: We know it is going to be a disaster

When this was printed in Ed Notes over 6 years ago, most of the information we had came from George Schmidt in Chicago. Recent actions on the part of the UFT make it seem they just discovered this. But they knew all along and purposely did not educate the members as to what was coming. Even their recent "it's Klein mismanagement" campaign is part of their obfuscation of the national issues. The AFT, which is controlled by the UFT, is ready willing and able to make deals with the ed deformers. Some people think things have changed with a new leadership. Just watch what the AFT does in July in Seattle when the 800 members of NYC's Unity Caucus go there and vote as one to endorse every single policy of Randi Weingarten.

One of the successes of the resistance is that this story that was getting out to such few outlets 6 years ago is seeping into the mainstream. Note how many people at the Jan. 26 PEP meeting used so much of this terminology.


We know it is going to be a disaster
by Norm Scott

Some are comparing it to a hostile corporate takeover. But then George Schmidt has been warning us for years from Chicago about the impact of the corporate model and its companion, Mayoral control on a school system: That the top down corporate business model of running a school system with people who don’t have a clue about what goes on in a real school will never work. That control of education in the hands of politicians instead of educators leads to manipulation of the educational process for the purpose of winning elections. That attempts will be made to privatize. That blame would be placed on teachers for the problems. (It certainly can never be the fault of their faulty policies or the fact that some kids are really difficult to teach). That enormous funds would be put into staff development as a result of this philosophy instead of focusing on class size reduction (the “bad teachers will still be bad whether they have 35 or 10 in a class” argument.) That enormous numbers of high salaried “Executives,” many of whom are educational theorists or corporate bottom-line types, would be hired to “manage” the system. That there would be a shut down of information, a gag order on all employees and a system of lies and manipulation of data to put a good face on all that is happening. That employees will show their bosses the so-called “Potempkin Villages” where the face of things are made to look good (see: stress on bulletin boards) while the decay underneath is covered up. That kids would be pushed out of schools to make results look better. That dropout rates will be hidden. That test scores would be emphasized to the exclusion of all other learning like science and social studies...

Ed Notes, October 2003

Detroit Teachers Recall of Weingarten Ally Ignored

With UFT elections coming I've always maintained that if we were to win, Unity wouldn't let us take office. That they would find some way to invalidate the results. Watch what's going on in Detroit as we received this email from Steve Conn. If they do actually remove Johnson as Pres watch the AFT put the local into receivership and take over the local. - Norm


Fellow AFT members and defenders of public education!

Links below will take you to videos of the February 11 general membership meeting of the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

Detroit teachers have been fighting to recall DFT President (and major Randi Weingarten ally) Keith Johnson as part of the fight to stop the Arne Duncan / Rob Bobb dismanteling of public education in Detroit.

Watch as Johnson illegally rules all members' motions out of order to avoid the Recall Vote against him.

Watch as the Detroit Police Gang Squad tries to carry out Johnson's plan to remove a female teacher.

Watch the membership meeting erupt in anger and demand Johnson's recall.

Detroit Federation of Teachers union meeting of February 11, 2010: According to the DFT constitution, this meeting was supposed to hear the charges against President Johnson (brought by 1300 members' petition signatures on January 7), allow him an opportunity to respond, and then take a vote on removing him.

Instead of following the union constitution, Johnson asserted that he had the right to summarily dismiss the petitions, and came to the meeting seen here with his own agenda. You can watch and listen as Johnson rules out of order all our motions to include the trial in the agenda, further evidence of how he violates members' fundamental rights and why he needs to be removed.
Detroit teachers want to remove Johnson for failing to represent us in this summers contract negotiations with state-imposed Financial Manager Robert Bobb, as Bobb works to privatize and dismantle public education in Detroit, including school closings, mass lay-offs, and converting public schools to charter schools. Johnson and Bobb have been working together to carry out the Arne Duncan/Randi Weingarten attack on public education in Americas major cities.
Teachers and students demand resources and support to achieve equal, quality, integrated education!

http://www.youtube.com/user/DFTmembers

Also listen to a Michigan Public Radio report about the meeting that has been broadcast across the country:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1611414/Top.Stories/DFT.Meeting.Breaks.Down.Amid.Accusations.of.Vote-Rigging

1300 DFT members signed the recall petitions

The members alone have the right to decide whether the charges are valid

From the DFT Constitution & By-Laws:

Article VIII Recall of Officers

(a) Petition for the recall of any officer for violation of his obligation of office shall be initiated by a recall petition clearly stating the specific charges and signed by not fewer than one thousand (1000) members in good standing from not fewer than twenty percent (20%) of the schools or work locations.

(b) No officer shall be subjected to recall proceedings without being given at least 30 days written notice of the charges preferred against him and an opportunity to appear before the membership at a regular or special meeting. Two-thirds of those present and voting at the meeting shall be required to recall the officer.

Seung Ok on Charter Schools

Seung Ok, who is running on the ICE-TJC slate for Vocational HS VP (Mulgrew's old position) has been pretty active today in the charter school war room.

He posted a superb piece of MUST READ writing on how charter schools harm public schools which we posted at GEM and at the ICE UFT Election blog.

Then he found this article and made some important comments on where charter schools, which have roots in white supremacy in the south, are going to go eventually. Is it any wonder that the NAACP has woken up and seen the charters for what they are?

Seung Ok writes:

Here's an article from Georgia talking about the desire for private school parents to eye charter schools as an access for public money:

"In fighting approval of a regional charter school, southwest Georgia superintendents allege that the Pataula Charter Academy would signal a return to the era in Georgia when blacks and whites attended different schools.

The debate is re-opening old wounds of race and disparate education in districts still under court desegregation orders

One of seven charter schools — public schools that operate with greater autonomy in exchange for greater accountability — approved by a new state commission, Pataula plans to open in the fall as a regional public k-8 school. It will enroll 440 students from Randolph, Calhoun, Early, Clay and Baker counties. Some districts now want the state Board of Education to stop Pataula.

Along with drawing from the majority black schools in the region, Pataula is attracting students from two private academies, which are virtually all-white.

“Initially, you will see more urgency on the side of private school parents who are tired of paying tuition,” said Ben Dismukes, a Pataula founder and himself the parent of two private-school students.

The interest of private school parents has sparked worries that Pataula is a seg academy posing as a public charter school. To counter the innuendo that it is a “white school,” Pataula has held lotteries for slots in the grades that were oversubscribed and encouraged all families to apply. "

---good luck to those minorities winning lottery seats among a mass of white student candidates. Plus, the article goes on to say, that since charter schools are not mandated to provide buses, few of the black students can actually make it out to these charter schools in white districts.

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/02/06/new-regional-charter-school-not-a-blackwhite-issue/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog

Millot: Sound Decision or Censorship at TWIE (II)

by Marc Dean Millot


Please be assured that this isn't really about you or the substance of your post. 
Issues of transparency and accountability have been raised by several folks including hess and edweek…

you try and make it seem to yourself like this is about some higher issue, but it's really just ego and refusing to acknowledge your role.

Readers might reasonably guess that the first quote is from someone who supports the argument I made on February 10 in School Matters http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/02/millot-sound-decision-or-censorship-at.html; the second from someone who does not. Both quotes can be found here. In a sense they would be right. The first is part of This Week in Education (TWIE) http://www.thisweekineducation.com/ Editor Andrew Russo’s email to me of 11:06 AM (Saturday the day after he pulled “Three Data Points. Unconnected Dots or a Warning?” . (http://borderland.northernattitude.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/millot_warning.pdf) from his blog. The second, his email of 11:55 PM Monday, sent after firing me from TWIE. (A complete email record can be found here. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/26695687/Millot-Russo-Email-Communications-February-5-9-2010)) A new man can emerge over 60 hours – especially when he’s under pressure.

Why did Russo pull the post? The short answer, at least the short answer Russo offered over the phone Saturday, lies in his contract with Scholastic. TWIE is not editorially independent. Scholastic decides what will remain on his blog. On Friday afternoon, Russo’s point of contact at Scholastic (I was not taking notes and can’t remember his name) received a call from Andrew Rotherham with the charge he made on Eduwonk (LINK NOW BROKEN) (http://www.eduwonk.com/2010.02/hogworts-on-the-hudson.html)). Russo thought the relationship might have a personal dimension. The contact called Russo and told him to pull the post, a call Russo had received three times since he moved TWIE to Scholastic in late 2007. This was Friday afternoon, Russo was on his way to a mountain weekend, so he did what he was told, hoping to walk the cat back by Monday.

Why did Russo decide to keep my post off TWIE on Friday and fire me Monday? That’s a longer story.

As I’ve admitted before I have an interest in the case. This is why I released a complete record of our email communications to the education media and posted on the web. With the exception of a Saturday morning phone call - that I will do my best to recall in this post, email constitutes the complete record of our discussions. I also believe that there’s more at stake than my reputation. This case offers an unusual opportunity for readers to look at the sausage factory of debate over federal education policy, the role of the new philanthropy in education reform, and the idea of commercially viable, editorially independent “grass roots” or “small business” sites for news and commentary in public education – sites that are not the web extension of mainstream print media.

I’ve known Alexander Russo for several years. Our relationship has been conducted almost entirely by email. We’ve never met face-to-face, and rarely used the phone. We are not social acquaintances, but business colleagues, and asynchronous communications have worked well. We are different, yet similar. Aside from the usual differences in age and experience, our styles differ. Alexander once described his blog style as “snark,” I’d call it “edgy.” He didn’t define snark, but based on observations of his blog, I’d characterize it as brief comments, narrowly tailored “zings” that hit the best or weakest substantive point of the object of his writing and the very button of the object most likely to elicit pleasure or pain. I’d describe myself as more linear and formalistic, and more inclined to nail every point to the floor with every argument, form every perspective I can think of.

We manage to share something of a “bad boy” image, although he’s probably more in the style of Billy Idol (to date myself). There’s an insider quality, but also a flavor of the guy who slipped into the party through the back door, and allowed to stay because no one has to accept responsibility for his invitation. He’s the guy who portrays himself as part of the establishment but independent of it. I too have an inside/outside image. I’ve held reasonably senior positions in some well-established institutions on matters of market-based school reform since the early 1990s. I’ve been called “pugilistic.”

Russo and I also share a real interest in the commercial possibilities of web-based media in public education, its potential for opening up the communications infrastructure affecting policy decision fora, and enormous skepticism in what I’ve called the new philanthropy’s keiretsu.

(http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edbizbuzz/2008/02/deconstructing_a_social_keiret.html) I am not entirely sure of the basis for Russo’s doubts. Mine are based on strong doubts about the financial viability of the organizations and models that have received their investment, the broad implications of their failing investment strategy for the kind of market in public school improvement I’ve worked for and – strongly related to my business assessment, the social implications of their top-down centralized management philosophy.

Russo’s and my experimentation with business models led to different outcomes. Based on my experience at New American Schools, I started K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets, a low-cost (and of course high-quality) RFP reporting service for organizations providing school improvement and similar niche-market services. Russo developed This Week in Education into a web-based news and commentary business, ultimately sponsored by Scholastic.

Start: Friday, April 13, 2007

Move to Edweek, September 10

I tried to get a k-12 news and commentary business going, tried School Improvement Industry Weekly,” a web-enabled publication, tried a podcast, and wrote a market-oriented blog on my own (http://archive.edbizbuzz.com/blog )

and for edweek.org called edbizbuzz. (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edbizbuzz/2007/09/)

I enjoyed them immensely, but my style of blogging is simply too costly to be a hobby. In the end I could not find a plausible financial model, and wasn’t as savvy about the business as Russo.

I admire Russo’s entrepreneurship, and the way he’s built a business around his “edgy” style. The difference between TWIE and every other k-12 news aggregator has been Russo. I’d say he is edgy, chose to cultivate an edgy personae, attracted a growing readership that likes him edgy, and found a source of competitive advantage in the media business in the perception that he is edgy. Scholastic’s decision to invest in him surely had something to do with the fact his edgy approach has appealed to the demographic of young, internet-dependent educators that will be making the big purchasing decisions within the next decade.

I moved edbizbuzz to edweek.org in September 2007, When Russo announced his move from edweek.org to Scholastic in 2008, I posted a comment,

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edbizbuzz/2007/11/education_blogs_and_the_school.html

excerpted below:

What Russo has done, in effect, is to launch what I think is the first independent commercial blogsite sponsored by a direct relationship with one advertiser. … Over the next several years a teaching force that got its information via paper media is being replaced with one that relies far more on the internet. Buying into a blog like TWIE is cheap. If it takes off, the investment will have a disproportionate payoff….. (Uncompensated) unaligned bloggers' value-add/competitive advantage has been adopting the independent strategy. As the first professional k-12 blogger to choose free agency in our market, Russo has a special responsibility to stay on the straight and narrow.

Little did I know that I’d be a test case.

Over the years Russo and I read and occasionally cited and commented on each other’s blogs. I stopped blogging in October of 2008. My one-year agreement with edweek was up, I had several family issues taking a great deal of my energies, and the time required to maintain a daily blog had hurt my business. I decided to stop for a while, but Russo and I stayed in touch.

My agreement in November, 2009 to write a weekly or so column for TWIE was prompted by the fact that the original draft of Tom Toch’s report on CMOs for Education Sector had come into my possession. The differences between Toch’s draft and the final report issued by EdSector were so vast, the events leading to the second draft so unethical, and the fact both so well-hidden that I felt obligated to make the original draft public. I emailed Russo intending to provide him with a scoop, and ended up agreeing to his offer to write a weekly column, over which would have complete editorial control, for $200 a month, for six months.

Did I mention that I’m a lawyer? My view is that if people intend to do what they say, they’ll put it in writing. The monthly payment was relevant to me in that I did not want to write for free, but it was important to me to reinforce that we had a contract that gave me editorial control. The six-month period was enough time to see how this arrangement would work, and not long enough to stick one of us in a position we didn’t like. In my view, Russo’s willingness to do this was based on a sense that I might help keep his blog interesting with original content, that he knew my approach and trusted my judgment, and that it was another manifestation of his edgy style.

I proceeded to write a series of series on problems in the charter school markets the academic fraud of EdSectors CMOs report, Imagine Schools violation of state laws concerning charter a nonprofit governance, and the Massachusetts Board of Education’s abuse of the chartering process. All were pretty aggressive. I was under no illusion that opponents of charter schools, privatization, and Edsector would use them to advantage. But I’ve never thought that pretending bad actors don’t exist served a helpful role with the vast majority of people who have no made up their minds. Moreover, I don’t want a market dominated by bad actors, and I’m not going to sit on my hands and let it happen. None of my work led Russo to suggest he should have a formal role in the editorial process. And neither Russo nor I were naive – we expected push back from the subjects of my posts

This lengthy discussion provides a context for Russo’s decisions during the February 5-9 period. They are not isolated events, but a predictable point in the trajectory of his business model.

TWIE readers and I had every reason to believe Russo retained editorial control under his contract with Scholastic. He didn’t publish the contract, but TWIE seemed to operate pretty much as it had at edweek.org and as a standalone blog before. And there’s this November interview with Scholastic Administr@tor Executive Editor Kevin Hogan in Publishing Executive’s INBOX (http://www.pubexec.com/article/scholastic-administr-tor-enters-blogosphere-executive-editor-kevin-hogan-adding-popular-blogger-his-team-83070/2) column:

INBOX: What contractual/payment arrangements were made with Russo?

HOGAN: His arrangement is essentially the same as you would find for contributing editors in the print world.

INBOX: What process have you established for comments on the blog? Are they moderated by someone on the magazine staff, or does Russo handle the moderating/posting of comments?

HOGAN: People are free to leave comments, anonymous or not, on the blog page. Russo handles any moderating that needs to happen. Also, it’s important to note that Alexander is his own editor, and his blog is completely independent from the opinions of the rest of the magazine staff or of Scholastic at large. (Millot’s emphasis)

So why did Russo keep my post off TWIE and fire me from the blog? As a business matter he had no choice. His contract required him to pull it. He could not persuade his contact at Scholastic to change his mind. Forced between two contractual breeches, economics required him to breach mine. As he approached that point of decision he began to reconsider the substantive merits of the matter.

I understand his business decision. There’s a moral element to all this, but in so far as Alexander Russo is concerned I’m prepared to set that aside. I think he made a bad business decision. Russo cultivated an “edgy” independent image. TWIE’s popularity is based on Russo. Taking my post down on Scholastic's orders rather than the merits undermines Russo’s “bad boy” personae. People might see him as someone who did not demonstrate independence when it mattered, and gave way to Rotherham’s charge without a fight. That image offers no competitive advantage to TWIE.

Next: on Tuttle SVC (http://www.tuttlesvc.org/) – Andrew Rotherham’s role or, the tip of an iceberg.

Ed Note: by Norm Scott

See part 1 in this series at Schools Matter:
Millot: Sound Decision or Censorship at TWIE? (I)

Millot put up a complete email communication transcript between he and Russo at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/26695687/Millot-Russo-Email-Communications-February-5-9-2010

Background information on this story and how I came to be involved at Ed Notes:

Oh What a Tangled Web: Millot, Russo and Rotherham Battle As Millot Charges Arne with Conflict of Interest

This story is more important to regular Ed Notes readers than might appear on the surface. It exposes fault lines in the relationship between the education business model supporters and profiteers and their ability to control editorial content telling the story. Millot tells us exactly where he is coming from and exposes the leash Scholastic has on Alexander Russo (who I met for the first time at the Gotham Schools party in December).

Ed Notes reported on Millot's story at TWIE on Dec. 3, 2009 exposing the gap between the Toch original report and what was published at the Ed Deform EdSector as I tried to connect a bunch of dots for readers of this blog:

School Closings, ATRs, Charters, Rubber Rooms Are All Snakes in the Same Basket


Millot and I may be on different sides of the street (many readers will ask why we need more lawyers commenting on education) but he is not necessarily a narrow ideologue (like I am). He has

"enormous skepticism in the new philanthropy’s keiretsu" and has "strong doubts about the financial viability of the organizations and models that have received their investment, the broad implications of their failing investment strategy for the kind of market in public school improvement I’ve worked for and – strongly related to my business assessment, the social implications of their top-down centralized management philosophy."

This excerpt is extremely interesting and shows where Millot is coming from:

"I proceeded to write a series of series on problems in the charter school markets the academic fraud of EdSectors CMOs report, Imagine Schools violation of state laws concerning charter a nonprofit governance, and the Massachusetts Board of Education’s abuse of the chartering process. All were pretty aggressive. I was under no illusion that opponents of charter schools, privatization, andEdsector would use them to advantage. But I’ve never thought that pretending bad actors don’t exist served a helpful role with the vast majority of people who have no made up their minds. Moreover, I don’t want a market dominated by bad actors, and I’m not going to sit on my hands and let it happen."

Well, we think they are mostly all bad actors no matter how benign they may appear, with the NYCDOE being the baddest actor of all. And, yes. Ed Notes, GEM and so many others who are "opponents of charter schools, privatization, and Edsector" and yes, as the infantry of The Resistance movement, will use this to our advantage as we are in hand-to-hand combat. But how can we not appreciate Millot when he says: I don’t want a market dominated by bad actors, and I’m not going to sit on my hands and let it happen."


[One interesting side panel to this story is how some vehement charter school parent supporters have been coming to us anti-charter activists in NYC with stories of horrible treatment of kids by charter school operators and want it exposed because they feel the charter school movement as a whole will be compromised.]


[Second interesting side panel is the contrast between how these discussions at the policy level differ from those at Ed Notes, GEM, ICE, etc. where the rubber meets the road as we battle charter school invasions on a daily basis. Our latest is over Girls Prep -look for my video, see the parent video on the side panel and see accounts of that Feb. 11 meeting and some interesting stats I just published on the GEM blog (Girls Prep Charter and District One: Who is at risk?) put together by parent activist Lisa Donlan (no, not all people opposed to charters are union flunkies).

Alexander Russo actually lives in Brooklyn and has the opportunity to do some real reporting by attending the numerous charter school and school closing hearings and PEP meetings. But now we have to ask: could he really report on what he sees and still keep his gig?]

Andrew Rotherham, who Millot will savage (I hope) in part 3, is a Democratic party ed deformer who worked in the Clinton administration. 'Nuff said for education progressives who have a shred of hope in the Democrats for true ed reform.

When all parts of this story are out I'll put up links in the sidebar. It might turn into a book, especially if we don't lose sight of the fact that Millot's original post that was pulled exposed Arne Duncan's conflict of interest. Are we heading to Duncangate, Arnegate? Andy(Rotherham)gate, Russogate? I hope old buddy Eduwonkette is following this trail and getting a few chuckles.

More blogger reactions here and here.

ICEers Pass the Info: Goldstein at Gotham, Fiorillo On Obama, Lawhead on Charters, North on New Orleans Privatization, JW Emails

Ok, so I all too often wax poetic about my ICE colleagues. But the fact that so many thoughtful, independent voices work with ICE is meaningful to me. That they have a wide range of interests and play a major role in sharing information is what differentiates ICE, more than a caucus bit an education tool.

Make sure to check out ICE HS Ex Bd candidate, Francis Lewis HS CL Arthur Goldstein's brilliant piece at Gotham Schools. http://gothamschools.org/2010/02/11/the-kids-nobody-wants/

ICE stalwart JW and Ex Bd candidate at-large sends outamazingly informative emails on a regular basis which I post on Norms Notes. Get on her list. See her last 3: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/


Michael Fiorillo, also an ICE candidate for HS EB always goes deep an dug up this interesting factoid: Check out Adolph Reed on Barack Obama, circa 1996 (!!)

"In Chicago we've gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation- hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous to repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program, the point where identity politics converges with old- fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics."

Best,
Michael Fiorillo


John Lawhead, Tilden HS CL and our third HS EB candidate along with Fiorillo and Goldstein attended last night's Cyprus Hills charter school hearing, spoke and took pics. See them at GEM.
John sends this one: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/11/charter_study

Study: Charter Schools Increasing Racial Segregation in Classrooms Encouraged by the Obama administration, efforts to expand the number of charter schools are being organized around the country. But concerns are being raised about the system. We speak to UCLA’s Civil Rights Project co-director Gary Orfield about a new study that suggests charter school growth is increasing classroom segregation. [includes rush transcript].


Lisa North, ICE-TJC candidate for one of the 11 UFT Officer positions, sends this along from Lance Hill at Tulane:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf

This is an excellent publication on privatization and government prepared by the Congressional Research Service. It's definition of privatization places charters and vouchers clearly in the privatization category. I think that it is crucial in the debate on school reform to not allow charter advocates to obscure their free market theory theoretical foundation with the use of the word "charters" (Fannie Mae was not a "charter" mortgage company--it is a privatized public service).

The author defines privatization as the use of the private sector in the provision of good or service. Private sector is defined as any non-government entity, including non-profits, religious organizations, and volunteer groups. The heart of the definition is that with the transfer of services comes, to some degree, a transfer of power, i.e. the public loses some measure of control over the service.

I find it very useful that the author, Kevin Korsar, lists the preconditions of free market benefits to prevail, such as that the consumer has to have full knowledge of the quality of the service or good in order to make rational choices. Rational consumer behavior is what brings about efficiency in the market; consumers use services that deliver the most for the least cost. Thus, when we transfer a government service to a private entity (and non-profits are private entities by his definition) we have to have complete transparency, e.g. school operators can't hide special funding that gives them a temporary advantage in the market--which drives out better operators and results in inferior products.

Even food consumers have that kind of transparency necessary for free markets to produce the best product for the least cost: every can of beans has to list it's nutritional qualities on the label so that consumers can make rational, informed decisions on which brand is the best buy. In contrast, charter schools are not bound by that kind of transparency; they don't have to advertise test scores, low school evaluations, accurate teacher-student ratios, etc.

Competition breeds marketing and, as the author points out, while government does only what the law permits and proscribes, private entities may do whatever the law does not forbid. While we are in the midst of a revolution in cognitive science and neuroscience that is making tremendous advances in our understanding of how humans learn, little of this has made its way into the charter reform movement. Free market forces favor marketing over science.

I also like his notion that only government has the common weal at interest (ideally). Private entities, be they profit or non-profit, are driven by narrower goals such as profits, organizational mission, and bureaucratic self-preservation (no one likes putting themselves out of a job, even if they are doing a bad job.)

The issue at stake in New Orleans is privatization, not "chartering." To properly evaluate the charter reforms, as well as the privatization of teacher recruitment (TFA), we need to know the underlying "process change theory." In this case, it is privatization. Understanding the underlying change theory will help us understand the potential benefits and dangers of the reform strategy and how best to measure it against alternative strategies. As we have seen locally, when we privatize teacher recruitment, we lose the government's mandate for equitable employment with respect to race and age.

That outcome was a predictable outcome of free market theory emphasis on lowering overhead costs. The exclusion of special education children from charter schools was also a predictable free market outcome of the tendency of private entities to reduce services to increase profits or to operate within a limited revenue stream. BESE's mandate forcing charters to enroll special education students reflects their understanding that they, as an elected body, had to compensate for the narrow goal focus of privatized groups.

"Which activities are essential to the state and should remain directly accountable to the elected representatives and which may be carried out by the private sector." That's the central question of the public education debate. Children are not municipal services, like garbage collection or parking- fine collections. Bad schooling affects children for a lifetime and can consign them to a life of despair. Education is ultimately a social service that affects the equitable allocation of future resources. To what degree can we safely surrender accountability to the public in this realm?

So, I would propose that in the public debate on charter schools, the following definition is the most useful:

Charter schools are publicly funded schools operated by private businesses or non-profit organizations.

Hence the debate in New Orleans, on both school operation and teacher recruitment, is a debate on the privatization of public services. If the experiment in New Orleans succeeds in bringing about excellent and equitable education, then privatization deserves the credit and the theory can be replicated elsewhere. If it fails to achieve better and equitable outcomes for the same inputs, then privatization, as a theory of educational reform, must be reconsidered.

Lance

SUPPORT THE BRONX AE SMITH HS FIGHT BACK!

From Angel Gonzalez (Please forward)

GEM fights against school closings period and opposes the privatization of our public schools via charters.

It is the responsibility of the DOE to fix, improve all schools to the highest caliber possible.

We want equal quality democratic public schooling and not private corporate run private charters that will be selective and exclusive

• of the poorest,
• the English language learners,
• special education needs,
• and those unfortunately subjected to other higher social needs (e.g. homelessness, disease).

To convert all public schools and all the charters is the ultimate goal of the corporate profiteers behind Bloomberg and our city government. They are

Wall St. Hedge Funds who seek to turn our students into profitable commodities.

These corporates (such as Waltons, Gates, Broad) will ensure profits in the long term

• by skimming over time on all educational services to our children (just as they have done with private prisons)
• by expelling those students not conforming to their arbitrary school criteria,
• & by downsizing the social wages (e.g. pensions, medical, salaries) & labor rights (e.g. grievance, seniority, organizing) of all their school employees.

School closings & the privatization with charters ARE setting the stage for these aggressive and unscrupulous charter venture capitalists.

We've got to fight citywide against this racist drive to privatize which primarily right now target our communities of color. The ultimate corporate DOE goal is to shut down all public schools and to charterize them all. This semester it's your neighboring school; then next year it WILL BE yours!

Many school workers will be displaced and will lose their union rights & privileges. The majority of charters exclude union and fight viciously to keep them non-union.

Many educators will be displaced into the ATR pool where they will not be guaranteed a permanent job placement. Bloomberg's goal is to ultimately displace this ATR pool to the unemployment lines. AND ....Unfortunately, our UFT is a compliant partner to this charter privatization Bush/Obama agenda!!

Thus, the UFT thus can not and will not put up an effective fight back strategy which requires militant bottom-up organizing at each school and citywide.

Sounds like a conspiracy??? Our research and the actions of the Education Departments of NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other US major cities attest to these corporate privatization schemes. Check our sources. Check our websites. Post your experiences and opinions at our websites. Don't wait for the Klein hatchet to be swung down on your school.

Organize aggressively at your schools NOW and join GEM's citywide fight back. Push the UFT but expect only feeble support and ineffective strategies.

NO TO ALL SCHOOL CLOSINGS! FIX OUR SCHOOLS! NO TO PRIVATIZATION WITH CHARTERS!

SHUT DOWN THE DOE THAT IS SUCCEEDING ONLY IN DESTROYING OUR KIDS AND PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Angel Gonzalez, GEM

From: Nathaniel Thayer Wight

Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:33 AM

To: Grassroots- Education

Subject: Update_Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education (CTE) High School

On January 26th the NYC Department of Education voted to phase out 19 public city schools. Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical HS was one of the original 20 schools to be voted on. As you may know, we were taking off the list (temporarily) in part due to "feedback from the community and the demand for an automotive program to continue to exist in the Bronx." Despite this, we're still in a troubled situation where the DoE plans to phase out our Building Trades program and "move two existing schools into the building and co-locate with Alfred E. Smith" (Bronx Haven High School and the New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries)

We welcome change, however, phasing-out our Building Trades Program in one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States and replacing it with a for-profit, fragmented charter school (see attached letter or this link) that doesn't offer endorsed diplomas or hands on training is unambiguously a mistake. Not having a plan that involves educating the economically disadvantaged South Bronx students in plumbing, carpentry, electrical, HVAC, and architecture is an educational injustice.

To learn more about our school and this situation, see these links:

Jan 21st New York Times article, click here

AES Shop Classes, Music Video, click here

AES Student Voices, click here

Important websites and dates, click here

We need your support. If interested and available, please consider attending our public hearing, PEP vote and/or simply submit a public comment (instructions below) in support of keeping our Building Trades Program open. Your support is much appreciated!

Nate

Nathaniel Thayer Wight

Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education High School

I. Please attend the Public Hearing and Panel for Educational Policy Vote

Public Hearing:

February 12th, 2010, Friday, 5:30pm

Alfred E. Smith CTE High School

333 East 151st Street, Bronx, NY, 10451

Those who wish to speak will be given 2 minutes to provide their input regarding why Building Trades shouldn't be shut down. Our ability to show how important the school is to the students, parents and community will be considered by the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) when they vote on February 24th. Your attendance would be very appreciated and invaluable.

The PEP Vote on phasing out of AES Building Trades:

February 24, 2010, Wednesday, 6:00pm

The High School of Fashion Industries

225 West 24 Street, Manhattan

II. Submit a public comment to Samuel Sloves (HS.Proposals@schools.nyc.gov, 718-935-4414). TYPE Alfred E. Smith CTE High School Building Trade in the subject line. Public comments will be accepted through Feb 22 (and through March 21 for 08X381, 84X395). Feel free to use any of the below reasons (also attached in letter format with links to sources, and available at this link):

1. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School offers endorsed diplomas that enable graduates to obtain Master Licenses from the NYC Department of Buildings. Once licensed, graduates can open their own contracting firms. New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries (AECI) does not offer endorsed diplomas and resulting employment opportunities.

2. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School accepts all students who apply; AECI only takes students via lottery selection.

3. At Alfred E. Smith 71% of the students come from such low-income families that qualify for the federal free lunch program; compared with 47% for AECI.

4. Alfred E. Smith CTE High School provides CTE opportunities for special needs students. Specifically, 20 percent of the AES’ student body has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).3 Smith is one of the last standing schools in this city that provides self-contained classes and integrated CTE shop classes for a large IEP population. Many of these IEP students have excelled in their respective trades and have gone on to secure employment, something they would not be able to achieve in a non-CTE school. At AECI only 9 percent of the student body has special needs.

5. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS partners with Edward J. Molloy for Initiative for Construction Skills that provides students the unique opportunity to enter NYC Unions upon graduation. Since 2001 Alfred E. Smith CTE HS has repeatedly helped place over 20 percent of each graduating class5 in high-level union jobs, including MTA, Metro North, Long Island Railroad, Smalls Electrical Construction Inc., and New York City School Construction Authority to name a few. Many others find professional jobs in Plumbing, Electrical, Carpentry, Auto Mechanics, HVAC as well as Pre Engineering.

6. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is associated with the following professional organizations: New York Electrical Contracting Association, New York Building Congress, New York Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, Building Trades Employers Association, Architectural Construction and Engineering (ACE) Mentoring program

7. The DOE has justified phasing out AES is due to poor graduation rates, however, Alfred E. Smith CTE High School's 4-year graduation rate increased from 37.4 percent in 20086 to 45.7 percent in 20097, representing a 22.2% increase.

8. The DOE claims the Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is not making progress, however, our overall Progress Score has increased from 37.3 percent in 2006-20078 to 52.4 percent in 2008-20099, representing a 40.5 percent overall increase.

9. Since the 2006-2007 school year, Alfred E. Smith CTE HS has shown a 93.1 percent increase in the area of School Environment, 60 percent increase in Student Performance, and 18 percent increase in Student Progress as per NYC Department of Education’s Statistic page online.

10. Only 44 percent of Black and Latino students in NYC public schools graduate within six years12. Student population at Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is over 95% African-American and Hispanic13, yet Alfred E. Smith CTE HS had a much higher graduation rate in 200814 for this same subgroup, even though AES students are required to take 55 credits (minimum) to graduate, 11 more than what NYC public high schools require. Many AES students take as many as 14 more credits, which represents more than one additional year of classes. AES students have to squeeze five years of classes into four years of work!

11. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS is situated in The South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States. AES's certified Career and Technical Educational (CTE) programs allows economically disadvantaged students to get unparalleled hand-on instruction in the trades, thereby provide a way out of the poverty cycle. A majority of AES graduates find jobs upon graduation. Phasing out AES would be an act of giving up on the economically disadvantaged.

12. Alfred E. Smith CTE School’s 2009 Progress Score / Progress Grade (29.6) is only slightly below that of it's peer group average, suggesting that AES's students are progressing in a somewhat similar fashion as the average for the peer group.

13. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS provides free adult classes at night for the community; Smith is not only an educational facility for adolescents, but also for the community.

14. Alfred E. Smith CTE HS offers the training to put technical education to the test in regional and National competitions. Year after year Smith students practice what they've learned, compete, and consistently take home trophies from Skills USA and the National Automotive Technology Competition.

---

IS 302 Rallies in Cyprus Hills Feb. 11

CHARTER CO-LOCATION WILL STOP PROGRESS AT LOW-PERFORMING BROOKLYN SCHOOL ON THE RISE

Cypress Hills Advocates for Education: Low-performing I.S. 302 is on the rise and needs space to thrive. Charter school co-location will stop progress.

What: Several hundred parents from Cypress Hills and East New York, Brooklyn and City and State elected officials will gather at a press conference and DoE hearing to oppose the DoE’s proposal to co-locate a charter school, Achievement First, in I.S. 302.

I.S. 302 has hosted a K-8 school, PS89, for ten years, and that school will leave in September to move to its own building. I.S. 302 wants to use that space to reduce class size and expand its arts program. Over the past three years, I.S. 302 has gone from being one of the city’s lowest performing middle schools to a school on the rise:

Where: I.S. 302, 350 Linwood Street (between Atlantic and Liberty), Brooklyn

When: Thursday, February 11, 5pm press conference, 6pm DoE hearing

Who: Sponsored by Cypress Hills Advocates for Education

Media visuals: In press conference and public hearing, hundreds of parents and youth will present 1,000 petition postcards and testify about the direct effect that this co-location would have on student and school progress. Speakers will be available to speak to press in English and Spanish.

--
Julia Watt-Rosenfeld
Lead Education Organizer

Cypress Hills Advocates for Education

Future of Tomorrow

Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation

718-647-8100
917-572-1303
www.cypresshills.org

Slogans for Rally Girls Prep Expansion on Lower East Side Today

Hope some of you might drop by today's rally and hearings to try to protect some endangered Lower East Side schools from overcrowding by having charters foisted on them. (As their press release says, next time it could be you.) See blog post below this one.

Some slogans for home-made posters.

Save our neighborhood schools!

Whose schools? Our schools?

PS 188/94 united and growing together

NO more separate and unequal

All kids need room to grow

Don't starve our schools

We need MORE 6:1:1 Middle School seats

DOE Dictator on Education

OPP Office of Poor Planning

What is PC about GPCS?

Different is not less

Community= protects the most vulnerable

Robbing Pedro to pay Paula?

ELL’s and IEP students need schools too

188 – last LES community-based building on Ave D /Houston

Girls Prep Charter Invasion: The Battle for the Lower East Side Begins NOW

In case you didn't know, the same money is behind Girls Prep as is behind Pave in Red Hook with Spencer Robertson's wife being on the board. As is true with many charters, kids are bused in from outside the school zone. Graphics added by Ed Notes and are NOT part of the press release.

GEM and CAPE will be there to support our colleagues. Will you?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Councilwoman Mendez, PS94 (D75) PS/MS 188M To Protest New NYC DOE Girls Prep Charter Plans

- New DOE Proposal for Girls Prep Charter Middle School to Squeeze an additional 300 students into the PS 188M building at the Expense of District One Students-

- New Proposal Hurts PS 94M and PS/MS 188M -

- 4:30pm Protest, 5:00pm Press Briefing, and 6:00 Public Hearing will be on

Thursday, February 11 –

- Parents from District One Invited. Your School May Be Next!-

February 10, 2010, New York, NY – New York City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and the Parent Association Presidents of PS 94M and PS 188M today announced that they will speak out against New York City Department of Education’s revised plans to allow the Girls Preparatory School (“Girls Prep”) to expand. The new middle school will take more space inside the PS 188M building which Girls Prep currently shares with PS/MS 188M and PS 94M (a District 75 school). This plan does not address NYCDOE-identified shortage of space for District One’s Special Education students requiring 6:1:1 classrooms.

The 4:30pm protest and 5:00pm press briefing will precede the 6:00pm public hearing -- all scheduled for Thursday, February 11, 2010 at PS 188M to discuss this revised plan. People who wish to sign up for the hearing can do so from 5:30 - 6:30pm that evening.


City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, whose district includes the PS 188 building, said: “This plan causes a serious disruption to two schools that overwhelmingly serve low-income neighborhood youth. The expansion of a charter school should not come at the expense of any student, but especially those who face special challenges in a District 75 school.” She added, “I strongly disagree with the Department of Education’s (DOE’s) assessment that these buildings are underutilized. I fail to see how the additional classrooms necessary for Girls Prep to expand to include a middle school could be physically accommodated in PS 188. Nor can I support the sacrifice of educational quality and spacing needs at existing schools in order to make that happen.”

“PS/MS 188M, a K-8 school, and Girls Prep Charter Elementary School have developed a good relationship over the past few years. But we do not have space for another middle school with 300 students, said Yvonne Walker, PS/MS 188M Island School Co-PA President. She added, “Our school has very high numbers of special education students. Right now, we do not have space for the Individualized Education Programs (IEP)-mandated services like Speech & Language Therapy, Counseling and Occupational Therapy. Right now, our children eat in the Lobby. Right now, we do not have adequate gym space, and afterschool space. It’s frustrating for us as parents. PS/MS 188 was praised by Chancellor Klein in his Principal’s Weekly Memo as a high-needs school that not only earned an “A” on its Report Card, but has excellent arts and technology programs. Yet, the addition of a new Middle School in this building jeopardizes the programs that led to this success. What’s horrifying is the plan will put more people in the building than the Occupancy Certificate allows. For all these reasons, our parents are outraged at the DOE’s plan to add a Middle School with 300 students into our building.”

Jessica Santos, PA President and School Leadership Team Member of PS 94M – a District 75 school for children with special needs and whose children at the PS/MS 188 building are all autistic, said, “Our students are different but not less. Special education students deserve the same space and resources as their peers have in order to receive a proper education. We are against the new DOE plan to add 300 more Girls Prep Middle School students into our building especially at the cost of essential services and enrichment opportunities that are mandated on our children’s IEPs. These kids need the technology lab, sensory room and inclusion with general students in order to improve and strengthen their learning and social/emotional growth.”

For more information, please contact:

Jessica Santos for PS 94M, jessicaasantos@aol.com or (718) 664-7345

Yvonne Walker for PS/MS 188M, sheable1967@gmail.com or (917) 653-6755

Barbara Sherman for Rosie Mendez, bsherman@council.nyc.gov or (212) 677-1077

Additional Information

Written comments with respect to the NYCDOE revised proposed plan can be sent to D01Proposals@schools.nyc.gov. 52 Chambers Street Room 320 New York, NY 10007 Telephone: (212) 374-0209 Fax: (212) 374-5588. Oral comments can be left at (718) 935-4415.