On the Testing Fiasco, Closing Schools and Sex

I'll try anything to get traffic. What better way than mentioning "sex."

ICE founding members Loretta Prisco and James Eterno are out in force at the ICE blog.

Sex, Lies and Videotapes By Loretta Prisco 

I don't know about the sex, but there are plenty of lies, and videotapes to prove it!

Using rising test scores, Klein/Bloomberg have insisted that schools are improving and went to Washington to brag about the "miracle" of NY. The recent realistic NYS calibrations of the standardized test scores nixed that miracle. People of faith know that turning water into wine and curing leprosy requires Divine intervention. Educating children first requires an understanding of what it means to be educated. And that bears no relation to raising test scores.

• Klein/Bloomberg are still boasting about the increase in HS graduation rates.

 Oh – those noses are growing right before our eyes. You've just got to go to the videotape here. Go to ednotesonline. Watch the Chairperson of the PEP (sitting right next to Klein) refuse to allow parents to ask questions about the changed test scores and shut down the meeting. Watch the guards escort a young child, who was attempting to ask a question, right off the stage and down the stairs.

And there must be some sex in all of this – we just haven't heard about it.

 Read it all:  Sex, Lies and Videotapes

And Jamaica HS Chapter Leader James Eterno follows up with

WE ARE THE CASUALTIES OF SCHOOL REFORM

The school year opened this week with great uncertainty at the 19 schools that the city tried to close last year but were saved by six judges. The Daily News and NY 1 did stories that featured Jamaica High School as part of their coverage of the opening day of the school year. Since I am the chapter leader at Jamaica and know the situation very well, I think it would be informative to explain what is going on at our facility so that people can understand how kids in closing schools are the casualties of school reform.

Back in December 2009 the Department of Education introduced proposals to phase out 19 schools but their plan was flawed because they wrote inadequate Educational Impact Statements. After the Panel for Educational Policy voted at 3:00 a.m. on January 27, 2010 to close all of these schools, the UFT (with the complete support of ICE), NAACP and others sued and won to prevent the closings.

Judge Joan Lobis decided on March 26, 2010 that the UFT was right when she ruled that the 19 schools should remain open. On July 1, an appeals court agreed 5-0 with the original decision. What was left unclear was whether new schools could still start in our buildings even though the old schools still existed. We believed they could not and wanted the UFT to go back to court on the issue to prevent the new schools from invading our space. I spoke with the chapter leader from Beach Channel and he agreed with me on this issue. I also emailed President Michael Mulgrew to no avail.

We believed we had a strong case by just looking at the flawed Educational Impact Statements. For Jamaica, the impact statement said that by phasing out Jamaica it would create space for the two new schools. No phase out equals no space for the new schools right? Well the UFT disagreed and on July 14 they basically sold out many of the nineteen schools by agreeing to allow the new schools to start in our buildings. In exchange we were supposed to get support.

Not only have we not received any help from either UFT or DOE after their July 14 agreement, our pupils have had to suffer the indignity of returning to school and being squeezed into the middle of the building in an area that looks antiquated while two new schools and an expanding third on the east and west wings install modern equipment for their small schools. It's appalling how conditions in the same building are so vastly different between schools.

Then to hear the mayor and chancellor say on the first school day that schools such as Jamaica don't deserve support is unconscionable. The corporate mindset has gone overboard. Bloomberg and Klein want to close our school so they will compromise the education of our students to prove their point. Even I am having trouble believing that people can be that vindictive against innocent children.

If anyone is thinking that someone should have told Judge Lobis about how her decision has been violated by DOE and UFT, we did. A Jamaica teacher named Debbie Saal, and I along with a student and parent wrote up something called an Order to Show Cause asking the judge to intervene as opening up new schools appeared to us to be a violation of her decision. In our petition, we asked the judge to stop two new schools from opening in our building since the Educational Impact Statement that created these schools was flawed as their existence was predicated on Jamaica phasing out, which it no longer is. We had many strong arguments saying that Jamaica’s pupils were suffering irreparable harm because we were losing so much space and funding.

Unfortunately, Judge Lobis, when she saw our papers, said because the case was closed our papers were therefore not timely. Translation, when the UFT made their deal with the DOE to let the new schools co-locate in our facility, we had no legal recourse. Since it is up to the judge to decide whether or not to intervene in a case, it means our legal options are very limited.

That's where it stands right now. Our school is open as an entity but with very few freshmen and no help coming from anywhere. Our programs are either nonexistent or a shell of their former selves. Some Advanced Placement classes have been dropped; there are no music classes; science classes meet one fewer period per week, many electives no longer exist and all ninth graders in general education, whether they are in our Gateway Honors program, Law program or are English Language Learners, are all in the same subject classes. 25 teachers out of 84 were placed in excess and Absent Teacher Reserves who don't know our school are being sent here to cover classes while our excessed teachers are sent packing all over Queens.

We have been abandoned by Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Michael Mulgrew and Judge Lobis.

Our students and staff are casualties of school reform. Can anyone help us? 

Parent activists comment on James' piece at the NYC Ed Listserve:

The UFT makes a deal and students and teachers at Jamaica HS get the shaft.  As Lois Weiner aptly put it:

The UFT in its present state has neither the vocabulary nor the will to organize its members, parents and community activists to defend a system of public education that will provide New York’s kids with well-funded, well-run, socially and racially integrated schools. Its modus operands is making backroom deals with New York’s notoriously corrupt politicians.

A depressingly familiar story.  We trust people in power when they spout the right words and don’t look too closely at what they actually do until it’s too late—look at all the little surprises packed in the new and improved school governance law, not to mention the change we actually got after being besotted by the rhetoric of hope & change.

You have a bigger problem than the UFT selling you out: after all is said and done, the school governance law still gives one man and his sidekick the power to shut you down and give your school to more favored folks.  That law gives you procedural rights (EIS, public hearings and so forth); these will keep people busy for while, but they can only delay, not avoid,  that outcome.

The NY State Constitution, however, gives each citizen a substantive right to a “sound basic education,” and that right has reasonably well-defined parameters (definition here) .  There ought to be a remedy for the blatant violation of that right at Jamaica HS and elsewhere—unfortunately, it will not come in time to help your school.

Paola de Kock

Thank you Paola for saying it like it is;
How can we have bold bright reforms on one side and only incrementalist push back on the other?

The entire opposition that could correct and adjust this lens in the tihe honored multfacted dialectic based excercise that iis democracy has been neutered by the in-pouring and laying down over tons of hedge fund and government cash;

History will not be kind to those who settled for crumbs just to keep their place at the table!

Lisa Donlan

What about the students?

Can the discussion begin with the impact these decisions are having on the students? After meeting with the SLT members of Jamaica (those willing to attend a summer meeting) and further reviewing the CEP, I was left with many questions relating to the quality of the academic plan for Jamaica.

What are the 'resources' promised?

And again I challenge the DoE to track the educational path of all the student attending the proposed Phase-Out Schools (2010).

Monica

I have a bunch of back reading if you have time posted at Norms Notes:

Lois Weiner on Why Teachers Unions Matter

 

Why I don't believe in "reform": from former TFAer, KIPP teacher and admin, and charter school administrator

 

Dan Brown on Waiting For Superman

 

Yes We Need Great Teachers! (But Vague, Emotional Rhetoric Opens the Door for Counterproductive "Reformers")

What About Principal Accountability? Bronx High School of Science Redux

Sure, it's all about quality teachers.

Bob Drake responded to an article linked below on Ed Week about principal accountability. By the way, if you go to the link you will read about Leo McKaskill, the deposed principal of Brooklyn Tech, who by the way, was exposed by the investigative journalism of fired NY Teacher reporter Jim Callaghan (who has an article on this week's The Chief). All references to the stories Jim did on the case have disappeared from the UFT web site.

If you search this blog you will find loads of articles on the BHSS situation. Bob Drake was one of Bronx HS of Science principal Valerie Reidy's victims. Reidy had received an honorary PhD and called herself "doctor". Drake, a real PhD made some objections. At some point Reidy was called a "quack". Tee-shirts and cartoons appeared. Students would mutter "quack, quack" as they walked by. Revenge was swift on her part against students and teachers.

One sophomore student was accused of bringing up the cartoon below from my blog. He was threatened with suspension and even expulsion. His parents had to take off from work to come up. He appealed directly to Joel Klein. To no avail since he backs any principal actions short of eating babies (and that is also questionable.) He was suspended for a day. Years later when he was elected to a student council position as a senior he was tossed off by Reidy for that transgression. Nice citizenship they teach over there.

Back in Oct. 2007 I put up this post:

The Bronx High School of Science "Quack" story has been humming as the mainstream press seems to be getting involved after our post a few days ago. It has been interesting following the postings of the kids at the school as some seniors worry about revenge by school administrators and guidance counselors in relation to getting into college while others talk about leaving their legacy so future generations do not forget the "quacking" story. One former student commented that his favorite Reidy quote was "Asians speak Asian." The animosity towards Reidy by the kids seems to be more intense than that of teachers. And I received an email from a parent leader that indicates many of them feel the same. WOW! Reidy has united parents, teachers and students.

Call it for the revenge of Bob Drake, the untenured PhD chemistry teacher who Principal Valerie Reidy hounded out of the system. Drake enjoys a job at a public school in Conn. at mucho times the salary. THANK YOU, VALERIE REIDY! Betsy Combier has a bunch of stuff on Drake and Science on her parentadvocates web site. The cartoon from the Riverdale Review, which has done a number of stories on the case, was posted by the students on facebook. Andy Wolfe in the NY Sun did a piece in May 2005 and we should see some articles today or tomorrow in some the NY Dailies. And check out the blog of a former student here.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2010/09/what_about_principal_accountability.html

Dr Bob in the Bronx wrote:

Erich Martel was lucky in that he was transferred away from his principal. As a senior (Ph.D., 30 years of college teaching) but untenured teacher in NYC I found myself, after two years of "satisfactory" teaching, on the wrong side of a messianic principal at one of the other elite NYC high schools. She demanded one type of lesson plan (developmental lessons), and subscribed to pet education theories long debunked by education researchers. Harassment came on a nearly daily basis, often by subservient assistant principals chosen for that trait and no other.

The principal stated her philosophy to me, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, but I'll win." And win she did, since the NYC DOE blindly follows the will of its principals, resulting in my being barred from ever teaching in NYC again at any level for life. As with Lee McCaskill at Brooklyn Tech HS, she has driven off excellent teachers, some who retired early rather than put up with what most people -- but not the DOE -- would define as harassment.

While there may be some poor teachers in the system, those that do not quit after a few years, and are granted tenure after review, deserve praise for showing up and teaching oversized classes day after day after day, particularly with the reprehensible behavior of students these days. The problem with high schools is the administration, not teachers, particularly the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" principals and their enablers. It is disgusting to see that the New York Times, as you mentioned above, fails to castigate administrations and blames poor student performance on teachers.

Students seem to feel that, as Woody Allen observed, "80 percent of success is just showing up" -- that they deserve at least a B if they attend class, even if unprepared, lacking completed assignments, and even if lacking a pencil. The elephant in the room is the Asian students, who, often despite language difficulties, perform at the highest levels, and now exceed 50% of the students at the high school I was driven out of. They succeed in the very same classrooms that others fail. Might their success be due to their preparedness, their parental involvement, their desire to attend the best college? Exactly how can a teacher, with five classes per day (often with several preparations) and required lesson plans and other administrative duties, possibly be responsible for the inspiration and success of each and every student when those students refuse to aspire to anything more than class disruption.

Michael Fiorillo at NYC Educator blog: Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

There is a history of tensions between college educated elite and the labor movement. Michael Fiorillo provides a good history lesson tying the Teach For America mentality towards unions today in the context of the past. For those who read it at NYC Educator but tend to forgot history, I'm cross posting to make sure you are not condemned to repeat it.

Michael's piece elicited this comment from Pogue at NYC's blog:
Wow, great piece. What a fascinating historical perspective. So, the TFA'ers aren't the first to be a part of union busting policies. Strange how past anti-war demonstrations were led by college students where nowadays we have a president whose conservative-like policies are given a pass by our youth.

 

Ivy League Union Busters, Then and Now

By special guest blogger Michael Fiorillo

Conventional wisdom holds that universities are repositories of liberalism and progressive politics, in which innocent students are indoctrinated into holding borderline deviant, un-American beliefs. Right wing authors, pundits and politicians are forever bemoaning how American universities are controlled by a liberal/left wing/anti-free market orthodoxy. And in marginal and declining humanities departments that may be the case. But a review of US labor history and current labor issues shows that in reality elite universities have often been a source of reactionary, anti-labor attitudes, policies and actions. A brief look at early 20^th century labor history, and current academic efforts associated with so-called educational reform, bear this out. While the recruitment of student strikebreakers one hundred years ago was couched in the explicit language of class warfare, today anti-labor ideologies and recruitment is spoken in the superficially milder, pseudo-scientific language of ideologically-framed education research, economics and human capital deployment. One hundred years ago, largely unorganized manual workers bore the brunt of this assault; today it is teachers and their unions.

Ralph Fasanella: “Lawrence,1912:The Bread and Roses Strike”

In one of the paintings that Ralph Fasanella did of the great Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile strike of 1912, a detail shows the state militia entering the city to help break the strike, while the strikers and their supporters are massed along the sidewalks. Standing there are three little boys, each holding signs that together read “Go Back to School.”

While the meaning of those signs may not be so clear today, at the time it was obvious to all concerned what they meant: that students from Harvard, Tufts and other elite universities in the region had willingly joined the state militia, with the support of their school’s presidents, to break the strike.

Indeed, according to Stephen Norwood, whose “The Student as Strikebreaker: College Youth and the Crisis of Masculinity in the Early 20^th  Century” (Journal of Social History, Winter, 1994), “…college students represented a major and often critically important source of strikebreakers in a wide range of industries and services.”  Student strikebreakers, often but not limited to athletes and engineering students, were involved in strikebreaking in the 1901 dockworkers strike in San Francisco (Berkeley), the 1903 Great Lakes seaman’s strike of 1903 (U of Chicago), 1903 teamster and railroad strikes in Connecticut (Yale), the 1905 IRT strike in New York City (Columbia), and many, many others. During the great strike wave that followed WWI, Princeton president John Grier Hibben told officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad that his students were “ready to serve” in the event of a railroad strike. The Boston and Maine Railroad actually placed an engine and rails on the MIT campus to help train student strikebreakers.

Today, elite colleges produce endless studies and turn out cadre to facilitate the privatization of the public schools, which occurs under catch phrases such as “the business model in education,” “school choice,” “market-friendly policies,” “social entrepreneurialism” and others. These efforts presuppose the avoidance, neutralization and ultimate elimination of teacher unions.

The fact of student strikebreaking in the early 20^th century is not so hard to understand. Unlike today, a university education was limited to a tiny percentage of the population, and the student body was composed of a homogenous group composed almost entirely of wealthy, white males who aspired to and identified with the interests and ideologies of the captains of industry at the time. According to Norwood, there was an additional overlay of obsessive concern with toughness, strength, and the “cult of masculinity” associated with Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully” persona. These tendencies combined to make it easy to see why “Employers considered students to be the most reliable strikebreakers of the period,” since their complete remove from the conditions under which working people lived at the time, combined with the prevailing attitudes of Social Darwinism, combined to make their antagonism to labor unions of a piece.

“Fight Fiercely, Harvard:” Massachusetts Militia (composed  largely of Harvard students) confronts Lawrence strikers in 1912

In fact, public and private universities at the time were so identified with monopoly capital that their very nicknames stand as signposts of their class identification: “Standard Oil University” (U of Chicago), “Southern Pacific University” (Stanford), “Pillsbury University (U of Minnesota).

Today, with the near-total collapse of private sector unionization, the last bastion of organized labor in the US is in the public sector. And among public sector unions, teacher unions have become a major focus in the effort to “reform” or “rationalize” the educational workplace, and to shape and form the “product” (aka students, according to NYC Department of education consultant and management avatar Jack Welch)) that is to be delivered to employers upon graduation. While this effort is always couched in the language of “Children First,” “The Civil Rights Movement of Our Time” or other such PR and focus group-generated slogans, the reality is that recent efforts to change public education are largely motivated by a desire to control the labor process and labor markets within and outside the schools. The language of corporate education reform rarely, and then only half-heartedly, invokes the now-quaint language of citizenship or democracy. Instead, it openly discusses the purpose of education as producing students who meet the needs of employer-dominated labor markets and a globalized, neo-liberal economy.

So, having taken a peek at the Ivy League (and other) union-busting efforts of one hundred years ago, what do we see today?

Let’s (to use only one of numerous examples) briefly look at Harvard, where in 1904 university president Charles W. Eliot described strikebreakers as “a fair type of hero.” Harvard is the currently the home of The Program on Educational Policy and Governance (PEPG), which is affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, and has notable alumni such as Michelle Rhee (whose anti-teacher and anti-labor behavior needs no introduction) and Cami Anderson (who is currently busy privatizing and charterizing NYC’s District 79/alternative high schools).

PEPG describes itself as “a significant player in the educational reform movement” that provides “high-level training for young scholars who can make independent contributions to scholarly research… foster a national community of reform-minded scientific researchers… and produce path-breaking studies that provide a scientific basis for school reform policy.” (I’ll have some more to say on the ideological basis of the pseudo-science that forms their “scientific research”)

A quick look at their Advisory Committee and major funders, shows it to be made up almost entirely of pro-privatization and anti-labor individuals and groups. Its funders include foundations such as the Walton Family Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Olin Foundation, Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation and the William E. Simon Foundation. Its Advisory Committee includes Jeb Bush and a host of investment bank, hedge fund and private equity interests. Its affiliates include the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, The Hoover Institute and The Heritage Foundation (with the Brookings Institute thrown in for a bi-partisan gloss). While claiming to be independent and non-partisan, it in fact espouses and is dominated by the free-market fundamentalism that has served the US so very well in recent years, and is now (to use a term from the Wall Street backers of corporate ed reform)) engaging in a hostile takeover of the public schools.

Studies and reports by the PEPG show an obsession with vouchers, charters, merit pay, the “inefficiencies” and failures of collective bargaining, and other “market friendly” topics and policies. While ostensibly using the scientific method, the entire premise of their research is based on assuming as a given the existence of so-called self-regulating markets: in other words, unquestioned assumptions and ideology masked as science, and a latter-day counterpart to the 19^th century medical “science” that strove to “prove” the efficacy of bleeding as a medical procedure.  A 2009 paper co-authored by PEPG director Paul Peterson purported to “scientifically” show how for-profit school management companies were superior to both traditional public schools and non-profit school management entities. Independent and non-partisan, indeed.

The PEPG’s 1998-99 Annual Report, in a prominent sidebar to an article entitled “Do Unions Aid Education Reform?” (I bet you can guess their answer to that one), stated that collective bargaining and unions “reduce the diversity of instructional methods, reduce low-and high-ability test scores” and “increase high school dropout rates.” Sounds scientific, no?

Unlike the early 20^th century, union busting emerging from the academy no longer takes place at the (literal) point of a gun, as in Lawrence. At least, not yet. Instead, it is done in calm, measured, reasonable-sounding tones, using the façade of faux scientific inquiry, and by creating an academic, philanthropic (or in this case, malanthropic might be a more accurate term) and media echo chamber that endlessly repeats its unexamined assumptions, half-truths and outright distortions. Additionally, in the realm of real world practice we have the union-busting efforts of Teach For America (founded by Princeton grad Wendy Kopp, and recruiting exclusively among graduates of elite colleges and universities), which happily supplied replacement workers (aka scabs) for the schools in post-Katrina New Orleans, where the entire teaching force was summarily fired.

While it would be grossly inaccurate, and is nowhere near my intention, to tar all college students, professors and administrators with an anti-labor, anti-humanistic brush, the reflexive assumption that universities are always exemplars of social progress is due for some revision and skepticism. That elite universities should be so complicit in the ongoing destruction of public education is a cruel paradox that exemplifies the many dilemmas teachers face today.

History, however, should teach us not to be too surprised.

Why Not Value Added in Health? Or Policing?

It is almost laughable, the national hysteria over finding bad teachers and rooting them out. And the use of value added test scores to do so.

The LA Times revealing of teacher ratings and the even more laughable piece that “Waiting for Superman” director Davis Guggenheim wrote at Huffington.

He claims we can't have great schools without great teachers? You've got to read this. How many schools are considered "great" because all the kids are smart to start with no matter what the teaching? And he and his wife and daughter are so excited over getting a favored 4th grade teacher. Do you think that was because the teacher had a good value added number? I would bet they never even checked that info if it was available. That the real reason they wanted that teacher had absolutely nothing to do with test scores but with the way that person treated kids and taught them in ways that have nothing to do with testing or the kinds of test prep maniacs Guggenheim's film is promoting.

The ed deformers make it seem like a matter of life and death. But when it really comes to life and death - like policing and health - and add the military (imagine rating individual soldiers in Afghanistan based on the success or failure of the daily missions - there is precious little push for some sort of value added.

But today in the NY Times there is an article about providing information to the public on surgeons.

Medical groups that perform heart bypass surgery are now being rated alongside cars and toaster ovens in Consumer Reports.
In most parts of the country, data-based ratings of doctors are not available to patients. Only a few states, including New York, provide them.
The magazine published ratings of 221 surgical groups from 42 states online on Tuesday and will print them in its October issue. Groups are rated, not individual doctors. The groups receive one, two or three stars, for below average, average or above average. The scores were based on complication and survival rates, whether the groups used the best surgical technique and whether patients were being sent home with certain medicines that research has shown to be beneficial after this type of surgery.

Groups are rated, not individual doctors? Where are NY or LA Times editorials, which call for teachers to be evaluated individually?

You have to love this point:

if a surgical group performs bypass surgery mostly on low-risk patients, its statistics may look great. Another group may perform just as well or better, but have worse outcomes because it accepts sicker patients. But a high-risk patient needing surgery might see the seemingly better results from the first group and choose it.
“What if you’re the sickest patient they’ve seen in three years?” Dr. Edwards asked, and explained that the data in the ratings were adjusted to take into account the patient’s overall health and degree of risk before the surgery. 

Adjusted to other factors? Class size anyone?

Revealing Wash Post and Kaplan Scams

Hi norm,

 

I'm chemtchr.  I put a blog diary up on Daily Kos yesterday that I think you might link to.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/6/899241/-The-Washington-Post-and-its-Kaplan-Education-Scams

 

It's really about connecting the vile revelations about Kaplan college scams, with Kaplan's (and thus the Washington Posts) K-12 for-profit involvement.  It exposes the reasons behind the Posts rabid advocacy of everything Michelle Rhee does.  The links open a new and unexpected avenue of counter-attack, and are a little funny.

 

Here's the intro paragraph- it is a long piece;

 

On Tuesday, Sept 7, Senator Durbin of Illinois opens  long-promised congressional hearings to investigate predatory, illegal practices by for-profit college chains, including Kaplan Higher Education, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Washington Post. Kaplan Higher Education derives 85% of its revenues from federal funds, and we the people have been robbed; but that is only the tip of an iceberg.  Kaplan has also penetrated into local public education, in for-profit markets the public doesn't even know exist.  Because the Washington Post relies on Kaplan for 62% of its total revenues and almost all of its profits, it is agressive and brutal in its retaliation against any politicians who oppose its education-profit agenda.  It will take courage for senators to turn over these rocks, and determination for citizens to find accurate reports.

 

There is a full page of connect-the dots, and then finally, here are the links:

 

Wall Street Journal on Wpo investments
Secret Shopper investigation
California colleges cut Kaplan tie
Stock traders survey damage to WPo
Mercenary Traders offer moral guidance
Kaplan creates venture subsidiary
Rafael offers context for Kaplan venture arm
Kaplan K12 Learning Services
Kaplin online in public schools, at public expense
Washington Post fails to disclose interest
Find the hidden partner in the Louisiana "Association of School Administrators"

 

Still Waiting for Superman

Things are heating up over the upcoming release of the pro-charter, anti teacher union Waiting for Superman film. A bunch of us had a conference call tonight to discuss a reaction for teachers and parents calling for real reform.

Here are some links I put up on Norms Notes.

Dan Brown on Waiting For Superman

This is the most important part of his essay-- the part that might actually influence what happens in American classrooms-- and it's simplistic to the point of uselessness. I know that Guggenheim is a movie director and not necessarily a policy wonk, but by making Waiting For Superman he should assume responsibility for the reforms he's pressing. His recommendations are so vague that many would-be reformers can and are using the same language to promote untested, potentially dangerous initiatives.

Susan Sawyer's Waiting for the Truth

 the film's conclusion is as simplistic as it is misleading: charter schools are good, and public schools, as they stand currently, are bankrupt. We knew from some of our own reporting that New York City was home to a collection of successful and innovative public schools that could challenge this assumption. But even more curious, the film undercuts its own message midstream by reporting that "only one in five charters is producing good results."

charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private funds, but they are independently run. They are not subject to the same level of scrutiny or accountability as traditional public schools.
Furthermore, many charters have been criticized over the years for making little to no room for students with special needs or English language learners. These students tend to be sent instead to low-performing public schools, further eroding their chances for success and the school's ability to improve.
Other school success factors go unmentioned, such as access to healthy food, exposure to rich language, a safe neighborhood, a stable home life and a supportive community. As in any story, there's only so much space or time to make a point, but still.

 his film promises to enlighten audiences about the educational injustices school kids face. It will inevitably leave viewers moved by the plight of the children, yet also unable to see any workable solutions beyond creating more charter schools.
That's more than inconvenient. It's tragic.

From Gotham Schools

• “Waiting for Superman” director Davis Guggenheim thinks teachers are most important. (HuffPost) - 

At my house the other night, the suspense was more intense than a thriller. My wife, daughter and I were huddled over a computer in the kitchen. I had control of the mouse, but clearly I wasn't going fast enough scrolling down the list, because my wife snatched it from my hand. Then my daughter shrieked, "Mom!, it's right there! See!!!" There it was, the list of fourth graders and which teacher was assigned to each student -- her little nine year old finger, hunting for her name. She saw it first and starting squealing, then my wife jumping up and down (I've always been the slow reader) But yes, yes!!!! It was there. We got the teacher we wanted. I joined in the celebration high five-ing my daughter, but more importantly my wife because we knew the single most important factor in determining her success this year would be the teacher she sees at the front of the classroom each day.

I wonder if Guggenheim's daughter would be so excited at the teacher she is getting if she went to a KIPP school? Then again, is he saying that the school he sends his daughter to has teachers who are not all excellent? What is it about this particular teacher they are so excited about? High test scores? How does he define "success"?

Waiting for Superman - Charter School Porn

ED Notes Ad: Don't miss this issue of The Indypendent. See sidebar for pdf link. GEM is ordering a batch to hand out in schools. Contact gemnyc@gmail.com for copies.

Charter School Porn.
What a lovely description by Leonie Haimson.

Teachers who have seen the porn trailer in theaters have been averting their eyes but them emerge hopping mad. These are not old grizzled vets like me, but some the younger and newer public school teachers.

So some of them decided to make their own film and ye old camera toting guy is assisting. It will be a serious film but with lots of interesting hi jinx to promote it. Can't say more yet.

Here is are posts on the film by Steve Koss and Leonie:

Waiting for Superman: the book

I predicted this sort of publicity push seven or eight months ago in my posting, "Coming Soon: The "An Inconvenient Truth' of Ed Reform?" (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/02/coming-soon-an-inconvenient-truth-of-ed.html ), based entirely on this movie's reception at the Sundance Film Festival and the gathering crowd of supporters behind it at that time.

Hardly a surprise to see it now; it was inevitable.

Steve Koss

Leonie said:
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Waiting for Superman: the book

 

Get ready for a huge publicity push as Waiting for Superman opens in movie theaters throughout the country on Sept. 24.

There is also going to be a book; featuring “powerful insights” from those “at the leading edge of educational innovation”. 

My favorite of the below is Eric Hanushek, the leading academic opponent to providing inner city schools w/ equitable resources and smaller classes :

Waiting for "Superman" : How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/thebook

Available September 14, 2010. Each book includes a $15 gift card from DonorsChoose.org to give to a classroom in need.

Some teachers are calling for a boycott of Donor's Choice for supporting the film.

Here is a response at Leonie's parent blog:

Would Superman really stand in the way of improving the system as a whole?

See the NY magazine article by John Heilemann about “Waiting for Superman,” the new documentary by Davis Guggenheim and the latest example of charter school porn.

The article retreads the well-worn points made by countless other articles in the mainstream media, predictably focusing on the teacher unions as the scapegoats, adds in the tired nostrum of how "adults" are being favored over the kids, ignores all the factors that go into low-performance in our urban schools, and drools all over Geoffrey Canada.

But it also contains a startling quotation from Joel Klein, about the students who remain in the regular public schools:

“It’s gonna grab people much deeper than An Inconvenient Truth, because watching ice caps melt doesn’t have the human quality of watching these kids being denied something you know will change their lives,” Klein says. “It grabs at you. It should grab at you. Those kids are dying."

It's amazing to me that Joel Klein says the kids in the schools that he is responsible for running are "dying." If he feels that way he should resign immediately and let someone else be in charge -- preferably an educator who knows something about how to improve schools.

Geoffrey Canada's charter schools have class sizes of twenty or fewer in all grades, and yet the administration refuses to reduce class size to similar levels.

The Bloomberg/Klein administration has consistently refused to provide class sizes comparable to those in Canada's charters, despite hundreds of millions in state funds supposed to be used for that purpose. Essentially, by Klein's own malfeasance, he is creating a system in which many charters will outperform the schools he is responsible for improving.

Canada also claims that teacher unions have not added anything to the quality of education, yet without unions, class sizes in NYC would be essentially uncontrollable -- rising to 30 or more in all grades. The only thing that is keeping them from exploding are the union contractual limits.

Charter schools enroll far fewer special education, immigrant, poor and homeless kids than the districts in which they are located -- another reason for their relative success. Teacher attrition rates at charter schools tend to be sky high, because of lousy working conditions. This is not a model we want to replicate, as experience matters hugely in terms of teacher effectiveness. Student attrition also tends to be very high. I doubt that the Guggenheim film explores any of these factors.

Altogether this article, like the movie it profiles, is a simplistic and one-sided look at a complicated problem. For a far more informative and balanced perspective, check out Prof. Bruce Baker's analysis of charter schools at "Searching for Superguy in Gotham". As he concludes:

"...we might be better off spending this time, effort and our resources investing in the improvement of the quality of the system as a whole. Yeah, we can still give Superguy a chance to show himself (or herself), but let’s not hold our breath, and let’s do our part on behalf of the masses (not just the few) in the meantime."

Republican Dirty Tricks Copied from Randi's New Action Caper

Today's NY Times has a story today about Republicans in Arizona using street people to run as Green Party candidates to drain votes from Democrats:

Benjamin Pearcy, a candidate for statewide office in Arizona, lists his campaign office as a Starbucks. The small business he refers to in his campaign statement is him strumming his guitar on the street. The internal debate he is having in advance of his coming televised debate is whether he ought to gel his hair into his trademark faux Mohawk.

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats.

Steve May, the Republican strategist, clearly used the playbook Randi Weingarten used in creating a phony opposition by buying off New Action in 2003, the oldest opposition party to Unity Caucus in the UFT. Randi had the advantage of course of being able to offer jobs and Executive Board seats to New Action.

Look for New Action leaders in faux Mohawks.


Not to miss
Fenty/Rhee Going Down in Flames?
The Answer Sheet - this guest blog by Sam Chaltain is so delicious I won't have to eat for a week as he compares th Fenty/Rhee to a Greek tragedy - with selected passages like:
“We came to grief through our own senseless stupidity.”


MORE ON FENTY RHEE FROM DCWATCH:

Counting Votes
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

On Saturday morning, September 4, Mayor Fenty held a press conference and political rally with Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee at the Broad Branch Market across from Lafayette Elementary School in Chevy Chase. Despite an E-mail alert sent to Fenty supporters through the District, urging them to attend the press conference and to “wear green” (Fenty’s campaign color), the 150 attendees were almost exclusively white Ward 3 residents. After Rhee was introduced to the crowd by Councilmember Muriel Bowser as the District’s school chancellor, and after Mayor Fenty referred to her repeatedly as the chancellor, she prefaced her remarks by stating that she was attending the rally as a “private citizens.” In her remarks, Rhee went out of her way to appeal to the basest fears of those in attendance. First, she explained how one of her daughters, who is attending Alice Deal Middle School this year, has a classmate who had transferred there from the private Maret School. According to Rhee, the student had transferred to Deal because her mother “was tired of paying $30,000 a year” in tuition. Rhee went on to tell the assembled parents and students that school reform “is not done yet. The only way we are going to continue the progress we’ve seen is to reelect this man here,” Adrian Fenty.
After the press conference, I approached Rhee and asked her if she were violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their official authority or influence to interfere with an election, or from using their official titles when engaging in political activity. In response, Rhee reiterated that she was attending the political rally as a private citizen, and said that “I consulted with my lawyer, and he told me it was okay to be here as a private citizen.” When I tried to press her as to who her attorney was (e.g., a DCPS attorney; an attorney from Perkins Coie, which is the legal counsel for the Fenty 2010 Committee, or Peter Nickles), she refused to answer, turned her back, and simply walked away. John Falcicchio, Fenty’s campaign guru, overheard my conversation. He indicated that he was not familiar with the Hatch Act, but said he would get back to me with the name of the attorney. To date, Mayor Fenty and his campaign, in typical fashion, have not provided the lawyer’s name.

MIKE GIVES PARENTS THE 311

Idiotic advice from Mayor saying parents should call 311 when they have a problem w/ schools; whenever you do, they just transfer you to Tweed, and there you fall into a black hole of non-responsiveness. 

My experience is they don’t take down your complaint, give you a number,  promise to follow up or anything else.

The Post should follow up with some test calls to 311 w/ school problems and see how far that gets them.

New York Post

Public-school parents who need help navigating the Department of Education's massive bureaucracy should call the city's central help line rather than reach out directly to school-district offices, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

His advice came in response to a Post probe that found that nearly half of the city's 34 school districts were not responsive to phone calls made by reporters posing as parents who had enrollment issues.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mike_gives_parents_the_hOkBP7VhUs9NoVcRRwbxKP

Where in the contract does it say that an excessed teacher has to call principals, go door to door, check on line for vacancies, apply and give demonstration lessons as if they are a new hire?

Below is a section of a piece on the ATR situation put up by James Eterno on the ICE blog. James seems to think it would be suicide for the UFT to give up the ATRs so they could be fired if they don't get a job within a certain specified time period. Note that Klein recently called for their salaries to be frozen, a new wrinkle. Is it out of the question that the UFT might agree to some version of this plan to help the city save money? There are other examples of salary freezes I believe - license, U-ratings. ATRs are prevented from getting certain extra jobs, which is a from of a salary cut.

In the horrible 2005 contract, the Board and the UFT added a Rule 11 to Article 17B that says: "Unless a principal denies the placement, an excessed teacher will be placed by the Board into a vacancy within his/her district/superintendency. The Board will place the excessed teacher who is not so placed in an ATR position in the school from which he/she is excessed, or in another school in the same district or superintendency."

These are the only changes from Rule 4 that were added by the new Rule 11:

First, to the fullest degree possible is out so excessed people must stay in their district/superintendency.

Second, now principals can deny placements and then the teacher becomes an ATR who has to stay in his/her district.

Where in the contract does it say that an excessed teacher has to call principals, go door to door, check on line for vacancies, apply and give demonstration lessons as if they are a new hire? It doesn't; the responsibility to place teachers belongs to the Board of Education, not the teacher. Case closed. It says it in the contract.

The fact that the Board no longer places excessed employees but instead tells people in excess to go to job fairs or pound the pavement as if these are laid off workers or new people looking for a job is a violation of the contract. The Board is supposed to place excessed employees. The fact that the UFT allows this to go on and gives classes to veteran teachers in polishing up their resumes shows how the UFT is basically in sync with the Board of Ed.

The UFT has allowed so much to go on. Why stop here?

Read James' entire piece and the comments at ICE:

CONTRACT CHECK: BOARD OF ED RESPONSIBLE FOR PLACING TEACHERS

Crash Proof Motorbike – As well engineered as the Ed Deform movement

http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=21816

Paul Moore: Rhee to Campaign for Mayor Bill Gates, er Fenty in DC

Paul Moore's stuff is Michelle Rhee's worst nightmare. 

Oh this is wonderful news!

I do hope everyone gets the chance now to be entertained with Chancellor Rhee's minstrel show. It does Al Jolson proud. She doesn't blacken her face but she does Black dialect as part of her routine. It was a big hit at this year's opening of school meeting.

The new white Teach For America missionary teachers just hooted when Rhee described a field trip she botched in her few days of teaching. She did her impression of one of her panic stricken children. "Lawwwd Ms.Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??" Rhee boomed, drawing a big laugh. "Lawwwd Ms. Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??"

But a transcription doesn't do Michelle's racist comedy justice. You got to listen to it here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/08/13/VI2010081305444.html

I know recent events have really tested people's confidence in Chancellor Rhee. I mean everyone seems to be calling her a pathological liar or a degenerate sociopath incapable of human warmth or an enabler of sex with underage girls or a bumbling incompetent who was never qualified to run a convenience store much less the DCPS.

Oh for those days when national attention flowed to Michelle and she didn't have to seek it out so cravenly or supply praise to herself. Remember the lovely picture of Michelle on the cover of Time magazine gently sweeping a classroom with a broom? And isn't that where she shines? Those incomparable people skills! The leadership by example! How many $275,000 a year Chancellors will get in there with the custodians to keep things in order.

And remember how loyal she can be when her man, chicken-hawk charter school operator and Mayor Kevin Johnson, gives special tutoring to 16-year-old girls, lots of 16-year-old girls. You know when Michelle falls, she falls hard. How many other women in a position of great power would risk it all to cover up child molestation? It's the stuff of romance novels and indictments. Thankfully the one DC teacher that she said had sex with the student wasn't her betrothed and he could be let go along with 265 other teachers several months after the incident.

DC voters can let the greatest source of confidence be that celebrated but mysterious period of Michelle's life that has only been explained by one man. Through an uncommon talent for fiction writing, the WAPO's education maven Jay Mathews, has constructed a fairy tale to chase away all the doubts. Thank you Jay, how sweet to recite your fantasy against those troubling poll numbers for Mayor Bill Gates, er I mean Adrian Fenty!

"The Fable of Michelle Rhee" by Jay Mathews.

Once upon a time, there was a young Ivy League missionary with a couple years to kill before getting on with her life's work. Rather than backpacking through Europe or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro after a safari in Africa, our intrepid heroine plunged into the mean streets of Baltimore where children who live in poverty test poorly.

One day the missionary-princess was struck down like St. Paul on the way to Damascus. "Sit the poor children in a circle," the voice told her. And sit them in a circle she did.

Her students forevermore scored like rich children on tests. And they all lived happily ever after.

Just take my word on that. I swear its true. No, no really, stop laughing. How rude. Ok, that's enough, get up off the floor. Geez, its a fairy tale. You know like Pinocchio?

Paul Moore, Miami

Time For Another ATR Rally?

With the 2nd anniversary of the ATR rally coming up in November and the UFT/Tweed ATR agreement due to expire, and the escalating Klein attacks, some ATRs have been in touch and are talking about another rally. Or at least a blog to keep people informed.

I was at a meeting the other day where a chapter leader said he heard that very day that the number of excessed teachers in his school had jumped from 2 to 12. That was just a few hours after I heard from a reporter who said the DOE was claiming the ATR situation was not increasing or did not think it was a big problem. I told the reporter to do the math - between the 19 schools closed that the UFT "won" a suit and then turned around and screwed some of the schools by agreeing to allow other schools to open in the buildings and draw away potential freshmen - and the budget cuts there would be a jump in the numbers as people got back to school. Unless lots of people retired. Or died. Or were killed by a hit squad hired by the DOE in an attempt to create jobs and save money.

The ATR story is heating up with Klein calling for salary freezes and the press jumping on board. The attack is on people supposedly who don't apply for jobs. But all of is done online and many are shut out and others sent in resumes to schools and got no response. I get emails from people who are offered jobs so far away from their home and as an ATR are in their neighborhood. So why travel if they don't have to?

Now it is interesting that the UFT is calling for them to be given permanent assignments to schools, which the DOE doesn't want to do for ideological reasons even if class sizes go through the roof. What if the DOE followed UFT advice and then just try to put people as far away as possible to force them into great discomfort? In other words, offer an English teacher in the Bronx a job in Staten Island and offer a Staten Island English teacher a job in the Bronx. The UFT would tell them to file grievances and wait goodness knows how long while they spend 3-4 hours a day commuting. Good luck! Let's make sure this factor is taken into account.

I left this comment at Gotham on Anna's ATR story, which as Leonie points out below is distorted:

Wouldst the UFT offer the same eloquent defense of ATRs as Leonie does.

It's not about what Klein wants. It is about what he did. What kind of contract he was willing to sign to get what he wanted.

"So in order to promote free-market principals and accountability, Klein wants to offer job security for life to laid-off employees during a recession with no stipulations for getting them back into the city’s workforce? We must have missed that social-studies class."

So when Anna says: "Klein does not want to offer job security for life to laid-off employees during a recession with no stipulations for getting them back into the city’s workforce. In fact, he wants the opposite."

Of course he doesn't want to offer job security - to anyone in the system. But he did do exactly that to win his ideological point. And now he wants his cake and to eat it too by calling on the reneging of that deal he made - yes, he signed a contract.

(Does he think he is more valuable than Darrelle Reves of the Jets?)

For those who think the UFT will find a way to give up the ATRs- maybe not fire them but do agree to some kind of wage freeze or buyout - (by the way, don't u-rated people get frozen even when not proven guilty?)- look for money in a contract in exchange for something that can be sold to the members but hidden in a way to make it sellable.  The UFT has been selling off pieces of the contract in exchange for money for some time.

And by the way, an ATR informed me today to remind us that the ATR agreement between the DOE and UFT that was announced on the eve of the ATR rally that was subverted by the UFT runs out in November. 

Some ATRs are talking about another rally. Look for an ATR blog coming soon.

You can view my video of the ATR rally and the UFT wine and cheese party at the same time at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/video-uft-doesnt-want-you-to-see-atr.html

Here is Leonie's comment:

Anna: how do “We know that most (60 percent) of the 1700 teachers who haven’t found work did not go to recruitment fairs or apply to jobs online.” Did you get that data from the DOE? Was it confirmed by any independent source? Given their slipperiness w/ data, why trust the reliability of this claim And what about the comments from ATR teachers about the computer system’s screw ups, and their inability to access the online jobs site?

Moreover, Klein’s insistence that these teachers should not be put in permanent positions because that would violate the autonomy of principals doesn’t hold water. Why not make these teachers available to principals free of charge, without having to pay for them out of their individual school budgets, and see if the principals wanted them or not?

Klein has created the disincentive for principals to hire these teachers by his supposed “fair student funding” system, which discourages principals from hiring experienced teachers ….a system that would never be considered acceptable for staffing either police precincts or fire houses or any other municipal agency. Then he unfairly slanders these teachers and uses their continued unemployment to try to justify layoffs, at the same time as class sizes are growing at an unprecedented rate. Who really cares about the kids here?

KIPP is the way the white and powerful want the poor of color to be educated — A Question for Obama: Why Does KIPP Not Look Like Sidwell?

The achievement gap has left the stadium, ladies and gentlemen, while growth models have taken the stage.  Now that the urban school systems have been blown up, thus clearing the way for the corporate charterites,  the canyon between test scores of the rich and poor is no longer of interest.  Indeed, the achievement gap has become a "mindless measure," to use the words of Jay Mathews.
....Jim Horn 

KIPP is the way the white and powerful want the poor of color to be educated... Ira Socol

This stuff is so good, I've delayed leaving for the beach to get it out there. Jim Horn put up a scathing piece the other day, including videos, at Schools Matter and followed up today. He delves into the shifting vocabulary from closing the achievement gap to the current quality teaching/value added craze and explains it this way:

this new value-added universe is not even interested in those troublesome group comparisons any longer that are based on the poverty chasm. Unless, of course, the reformers need to shut down your neighborhood school and turn it into a corporate-styled testing madrasah, i. e., charter school. Then your percentile ranking becomes a crucial tool in deciding who is in that bottom five percent that just keeps replenishing itself as the last group is scraped off to become charterized.

Jim nails exactly what the Tweed yokels are trying to pull off with their road show explaining the test score gap. Oh my God. This stuff is getting me hot. Screw the beach. Here is a section from Jim's Sept. 1 post:

Below is an open online letter from Ira Socol to the President.  I have ventured to add a few comments and a couple of video clips.

Dear President Obama,

I wanted to discuss the things you believe are "innovative in education," just so I might assure you that in this field - in the field of America's future - your administration is doing irreparable harm.

 "Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes." Yes, the first thing KIPP teaches is Calvinist church behaviour. "They all called out at once, “Nodding!"' Yes. Stare at your master. Sit still. Nod to demonstrate your compliance. Speak in unison according to the script.

Mr. President, this is not innovation. We know this formula. It drove the colonialist education systems of Wales and Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the hallmark of British Colonial Schools from Lagos to Cape Town to Delhi. It was the path followed by the U.S. government's Indian Schools.

Read the entire piece at Schools Matter: Why Does KIPP Not Look Like Sidwell?

In today's excellent follow-up responding to Jay Mathews, including this:

Jay and the the new generation of reformers doing the same thing as the last generation (when will they become the status quo?) would rather look at test score growth over time, especially when big achievement gap closing claims by your favorite politicians do not materialize. Focusing on individual gains makes the disparity between the haves and the have-nots much easier to ignore, since this new value-added universe is not even interested in those troublesome group comparisons any longer that are based on the poverty chasm. Unless, of course, the reformers need to shut down your neighborhood school and turn it into a corporate-styled testing madrasah, i. e., charter school. Then your percentile ranking becomes a crucial tool in deciding who is in that bottom five percent that just keeps replenishing itself as the last group is scraped off to become charterized.

The New Status Quo
I love the "when will they become the status quo" line? We have been having fun with this idea here in NY by referring to BloomKlein in just that way. As a matter of fact, we have been forming a group to do street theater called "The Status Quo Players." Even thinking of tee-shirts. How's this? STATUS and QUO shirts with an arrow pointing to the left saying "I'm with QUO"? Here is the intro to Jim's piece today:

"Irrepressible" Bloggers vs. the Borg

Jay Mathews is the insider's insider on corporate education reform issues, serving as the media mouthpiece for the psychological sterilization movement of KIPP and the KIPP knock-offs.  The Elder himself, Bill Gates, carries a supply of Jay's KIPP book to hand out to anyone interested in the Oligarchs' choice of a final solution to educating the poor and the brown of urban America.

At the same time KIPP is becoming the urban model for corporate ed reform, the movement is in the process of pivoting from the the phony campaign under Bush ostensibly to close the black-white achievement gap, with the same high expectations for all, thus avoiding "the soft bigotry of low expectations," blah-blah, to a new phony campaign of assuring that poor children have the same access to high quality teachers and schools because education is now the "civil rights issue of our generation."  Blah, blah, blah.  While the pivot leaves in place the high-stakes standardized testing that declared 30-40 percent of public schools failures and charter targets under the last 9 years of NCLB,  the pivot demands a shift in what is measured by the tests and how it is measured.  The achievement gap has left the stadium, ladies and gentlemen, while growth models have taken the stage.  Now that the urban school systems have been blown up, thus clearing the way for the corporate charterites

The focus now is on "a year's worth of individual student growth" for a year's worth of teaching (much more on this later, with a feature on the Wizard of Oz, Bill Sanders).  In short, the new target of corporate ed reform is to blow up, or disrupt, the teaching profession by measuring effective teaching on how much test score growth a teacher can oversee.  And as the new CEO-led KIPP chain gangs are to replace urban public schools, so then an endless stream of non-union white missionary temps are being prepared to replace the professionals who now staff the urban schools.  Test score gains, or lack thereof, will be used to justify the firing of professionals and the use of temps from TFA and the TFA knock-offs that Arne fondly calls alternative teacher certification programs.

So Jay defends KIPP - of course. Discipline is exaggerated. Ira Socol left comments on Mathews' blog, to which Mathews responded. Here are a few excerpts but head over to the piece when you are through here to read it all.

So yes Jay, I have been in KIPP schools...I have been in KIPP schools (3) and - personally - I have found them terrifying.

But more than that Jay, I have some really extensive experience in the types of communities KIPP seeks to serve. I know these kids, and I know what they could do if they were offered the kind of educational opportunities available at Sidwell (or Cranbrook, or St. Ann's or etc).

And I know one more thing. Barack and Michelle would never send their daughters to a KIPP school, nor tolerate KIPP-style education in any school their daughters attended. As I've said, KIPP is the way the white and powerful want the poor of color to be educated. But they aren't suggesting it because that's a path to equality. They are suggesting it for just the opposite reason - they don't want the competition for their own children. 

What concerned me? An absolute lack of tolerance for mental, learning, and behavioural diversity, in classroom after classroom, corridor after corridor. Of course I come from a Special Education background, so this was far more disturbing than it might be to others. I also found the brutality of teacher-student, and especially in Indianapolis, administrator-student communication fairly shocking. If you would send your grandchildren there, you're a different kind of parent than I am.

In Chicago I saw a young teacher working one-on-one with a series of students who needed reading help. A few things stood out. The students who came to him were all, quite obviously, struggling with different aspects of the reading process. One had essentially no phonological awareness, one was really struggling with the symbols (he could not, as an example, associate the lower case letters with the equivalent upper case letters), a third read fluently but with almost zero comprehension.

The teacher, very clearly untrained in any of this, repeated the same efforts with all the kids. He was clearly operating from a script. And as his efforts inevitably failed, he became angry with the students, repeatedly blaming them for "not trying hard enough." The child with no phonological awareness was called "lazy" repeatedly. KIPP only phenomenon? Of course not, but I saw similar scenes throughout all the buildings.

in KIPP classrooms I have seen teachers encourage children to humiliate others. And this is done with the "pack" using the same words, as if scripted. You may see that as positive, I see it as hazing, and perhaps a significant reason for KIPP's rather stunning attrition rate. http://epicpolicy.org/newsletter/2010/06/new-kipp-study-underestimates-attrition-effects-0 A rate the KIPP Foundation seems to go to great lengths to obscure. 

I could go on but I'm getting giddy. Read more here:

"Irrepressible" Bloggers vs. the Borg

Lois Weiner and Karen Lewis on Democracy Now as Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

People have gotten to know about Karen Lewis (the winner the GEM award in the upcoming GEM newsletter). But not enough people know about Lois Weiner (see tab on her in the heading). Lois has taught us all about the neo-liberal agenda. Putting these two together is brilliant. See the video.

Here Karen takes apart Arnie (he's be arrested if he tried to teach because he is not credentialed) and because he doesn't know what to do - see her great impression of Arne - he says let someone else - the privatizers - do it.

Lois looks at the global aspect of the market based deforms. And talks about the national impact of the CORE victory in Chicago. And she gives a shout out to our pals in Teachers Unite.

Educators Push Back Against Obama’s "Business Model" for School Reforms

It’s back-to-school season. As millions of children around the country begin a new school year, the Obama administration is aggressively moving forward on a number of education initiatives, from expanding charter schools to implementing new national academic standards. We talk to Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and Lois Weiner, a professor of education at New Jersey City University. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_business

See transcript at Norms Notes.  Lois Weiner and Karen Lewis Democracy Now Transcript

New York Charter Parents Association endorses Bill Perkins for State Senator

Contact Information:
Mona Davids Phone: 646-912-4794
President Email: mdavids@nycharterparents.org



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


New York Charter Parents Association endorses Bill Perkins for State Senator

August 23, 2010, New York, NY----- The New York Charter Parents Association (NYCPA), the first and only independent charter parent association in New York City and New York State, today proudly endorses State Senator Bill Perkins for re-election representing the 30th District.

“Bill Perkins showed the courage to stand up for parents and do what is right, without worrying about the political consequences,” said Mona Davids, founder and President of NYCPA. “All the money, attacks and threats of a challenger, funded by the charter school lobby and hedge fund millionaires, did not sway him from standing up for us. At NYCPA’s request, Senator Perkins convened the first hearings on charter schools in their 10 year existence in New York State that exposed many of the questionable practices of charter school administrators that were violating the rights of NYC children and their parents.

“It is only because of Senator Perkins that we now have charter reform with increased transparency and accountability. Senator Perkins committed what many people called political suicide, putting his political career on the line, to fight for the rights of charter parents, enhanced transparency, financial accountability and real educational reform. Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson and Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, Chair of the Education Committee, both commended Senator Perkins for his courage and credited Senator Perkins for his role in passing the new revised charter law that includes much needed charter reforms with the lifting of the charter cap.”

Mariama Sanoh, Vice President of NYCPA, and a charter school parent added, “Bill Perkins listened to the cries of charter parents whose children were being pushed out and counseled out of charter schools. He stood up for us and agreed to help us fight for our right to have parent associations in our schools, to include special needs children and English Language Learners in charters, to require that charters have monthly board meetings and to notify parents and the community of the meetings. He stood up for us and now we are standing up for him.”

Said Mona Davids, “We support Senator Bill Perkins because he is not anti-charter, but for protecting the rights of parents wherever they choose to enroll their children, whether at district or charter schools. Senator Perkins proved to us that he is not bought and paid for by the charter school lobby and we trust that he will always put parents and children first.”



About NYCPA
New York Charter Parents Association is a nonprofit organization founded to advocate for families with children in the New York State public school system - both public charter and public district schools seeking public school choice. We are the FIRST AND ONLY independent charter parent organization in New York City and New York State. We are "OF THE PARENTS, FOR THE PARENTS AND BY THE PARENTS". We are not controlled by the charter center, NYC Department of Education or any charter school therefore we put our children first before any special interest group.

UFT Will Ensure Class Size Limits Are Followed

From UFT Chapter Update:

Based on your reports, the UFT will be using the expedited grievance procedure in the contract to ensure that our class size limits are enforced.

It sure is good the UFT is doing this. I seem to remember the chapter leader at Francis Lewis HS filing 65 or more over size grievances last year. Even won most. DOE ignored many of the "wins." UFT response?_____

With the UFT "ensure" means they'll provide you the energy drink so you can handle all the extra kids.

Related: Class Sizes Rise: Will the NY Times likely notice what’s going on in their backyard?

Political Retaliation Against Teachers by Ed Deformers Like Klein and Rhee Deform Their Supposed Agenda of Improving Quality Teaching

"This is another example of the Rhee administration’s petty, personal retaliation against teachers who are not members of the Rhee/Fenty inner circle — retaliation that has nothing to do with the competence and ability of teachers." - Gary Imhoff, in TheMail.

From the earliest days of the PEP meetings I raised this issue that even one example of teachers being punished for political reasons that have nothing to do with their teaching taints attempts to remove truly poor teachers. Joel Klein of course has done nothing but support the most awful principals from hell (PFHs) no matter what the evidence.

I think the first case we (Betsy Combier) raised was that of Dr. Bob Drake, a chemistry teacher at Bronx HS of Science who was fired by PFH Valerie Reidy because he objected to her using "Dr." before her title since she was not a phd. Of course Klein ignored the case. Drake by the way was hired by other systems in top performing schools in the suburbs since then at much higher salary than he was getting here.

Reidy meanwhile continued her vendettas - most notably within the math department where 20 teachers filed a complaint against her and she had a top level math teacher and chapter leader U-rated -twice. He has since transferred with UFT assistance - which looks like a good thing on the surface but also shows how the UFT allows its chapter leaders to be eaten - which undermines the union at its core.

By the way, I am convinced that part of the core curriculum at the Leadership Principal training academies is how to defang and destroy union reps or activists.

But political vendettas by principals under the guise of going after bad teachers is another story the ed press ignores. Where is that value added for bad reporting?

Of course Michelle Rhee who talks a big game also has her political vendettas in DC.

Today Gary Imhoff in TheMail has this piece.

Many of you are familiar with Wilson High School history teacher Erich Martel, or at least with his past battles to improve public education in DC and specifically at Wilson. Now he has been reassigned to a technology high school by DCPS’s administrators, motivated by the complaints of a principal who was upset by Martel’s fight to keep the school’s administration honest and accountable (see Bill Turque’s blog, http://tinyurl.com/28tnrbz, and the front-page article in the September 1 issue of the Northwest Current, http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW Sept. 1 1.pdf). This is another example of the Rhee administration’s petty, personal retaliation against teachers who are not members of the Rhee/Fenty inner circle — retaliation that has nothing to do with the competence and ability of teachers. See a lot more about this in Martel’s message in this issue and in the links from his message.

Yes, Bill Turque is one ed reporter who must have a high value added, as does WAPO's Valerie Strauss.
Here is Erich Martel's

Open Letter to Chancellor Michelle Rhee

Erich Martel, ehmartel@starpower.net

[This letter and its attachments are a “protected disclosure” (DC Code 1-615.51).] I am outraged that you would permit Instructional Superintendent John Davis to involuntarily transfer me from Woodrow Wilson H.S. to an off-budget assignment at Phelps ACE H.S. (http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/100730.htm) on transparently fabricated grounds of my “significant educational philosophy differences with the Wilson H.S. administration” and then to besmirch my decades-long commitment and contributions to students and colleagues at Wilson H.S. and throughout DCPS by affirming that action as being “in the best interests of DCPS.”

The involuntary transfer came after I sent several “protected disclosures” (DC Code 1-615.51) describing mismanagement and other violations at Wilson H.S. to Ms. Henderson, to Mr. Davis, and to you and which I made for the purpose of correction. Each one described actions by one or more members of the Wilson H.S. administration that undermined the learning environment at Wilson H.S. The action by Mr. Davis is, therefore, an act of retaliation, as defined by law. (My reports were in compliance with the DC Whistleblower Reinforcement Act, which Chancellor Rhee E-mailed all principals and teachers on April 29, 2009, to inform us of our responsibility to report waste, fraud, and mismanagement the DC Office of the Inspector General.)

In this report, I am making requests and reporting additional violations: fraud, cronyism, and serious allegations of improper behavior by DCPS employees and abdication of their responsibilities for supervising 88 students on a class trip. Everything I am reporting would not have happened, if Mr. Cahall held his subordinates accountable, if Mr. Davis held Mr. Cahall accountable, if you and Ms. Henderson held Mr. Davis accountable, and if Mayor Fenty held you accountable. At Wilson H.S., that failure has resulted in cronyism and private arrangements that have had a depressing effect on student learning and a chilling effect on teacher morale.

Our school has one of the most accomplished and dedicated faculties in the city; yet fundamental academic decisions are made behind closed doors by an inner circle with little or no classroom experience. The results show on DC CAS, SAT, and AP results. [Finished online at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2010/10-09-01.htm#martel] 

More GEM Video From August 30 PEP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roSDxs16NPU

Carol Boyd Does Poetry at the PEP

I was asked bY CEJ to extract this video. More to come tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzrsxfe3sY8