OFIAGATE: Maura Breaks the Big One - Who's Going to Jail?

OFIA staff encouraged parent coordinators to bring “Happy Harry” parents to citywide meetings, according to the parent coordinator’s notes, rather than “Angry Sally” parents.
- Maura Walz at Gotham Schools

The DOE views and uses parents the same way so many charter schools view and use parents.  Harlem Success Academies take the cake in this department.  They use them like political pawns, tell them what to say, when to say it and how to say it.  This is the corporate reformers model for parent involvement.  The more and more our schooling system becomes privatized with charters, the more we are going to see this abuse. - comment at Gotham

Soon to be new "House of Tweed"

 
How long have we been waiting to get the slickers at Tweed caught in an out and out illegality that if fully investigated can bring down the Bloomberg house of cards? Kudos to Gotham's Maura Walz for taking the ball and running with it.

One of the first things BloomKlein did upon taking office was to put a parent coordinator in each school. Think of the cost for 1500+ schools? Now in theory it is not a bad idea but people at the time were commenting that 1500 PCs who owe their jobs to BloomKlein could be used as a potent political force to push the Tweed agenda to parents rather than pushing the parent agenda to Tweed.

As we reported here the other day (Tweed Trying to Use Parent Coordinators As Shock Troops to End Seniority) Tweed has been caught trying to use the very same parent coordinators, who are supposed to function as liaisons between schools and parents, to get parents to sign petitions ostensible to oppose budget cuts but also to end seniority/LIFO rules. Looks like abuse of power, illegal use of personnel, etc. The UFT's Mulgrew sent a letter of complaint listing the illegalities to Investigative Commissioner Richard Condon. Naturally Tweed hitwoman Natalie Ravitz (where are you David Cantor, this woman is a zombie) foisted the blame on a lower level employee.

The story came to me first back in January from a chapter leader who reported her PC was livid after attending a borough meeting organized by the Office of Information and Action (OFIA), the parent engagement arm of Tweed - it used to be called the Office of Family Engagement (OFE - or something like that under Martine Guerrier who is now working for Bloomberg at City Hall - and hopefully hanging her head in shame for what she hath done).

They were they told to look for pro-Bloomberg parents and organize them to come to PEP meetings (where other than charter school parents bused in there is nary a parent to be found supporting them). I handed the story off but nothing came of it - until Tweed swung and missed again by sending out petitions to be signed ostensibly opposing budget cuts but slipped into the petition was a call to end seniority.

The UFT caught it right away and district reps sent out a call to chapter leaders to reach out to the PCs. One of those CLs sent me an emergency email early Tuesday morning and I got the story up right away and it caught the eye of the press and I started getting calls. (At the same time, the UFT was squawking to the press.)

What intrigued some reporters more than the petition story was the little tidbit I dropped into my story about those borough meetings (Tweed held parent coordinator borough meetings and urged them to find the parents most sympathetic to Bloomberg.) Gotham's Maura Walz wrote the petition story yesterday (City renounces effort to use DOE employees to lobby on LIFO) and actaually gave me credit for breaking the story. She wanted to dig into the borough meeting story. And so she did with this blockbuster that is a must read.

staff focused on asking the coordinators to build relationships with satisfied parents who would be willing to show support for the DOE at Panel for Educational Policy meetings. “I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, honestly, and I didn’t really trust my own ears, so I wrote things down,” the parent coordinator said.

Instead of going through this charade, Tweed should do what Khadafi does to get out supporters. Just pay people outright to attend PEP meetings to cheer for Cathie Black.

There is no question that this will go right up to Bloomberg. Out and out misuse of DOE employees for political purposes. Who knew what and when did they know it? I predicted that one day Klein would be removed from Tweed with his coat over his head. Smart guy. Got out just in time. OFIAGATE, here we come.

In honor of OFIAGATE, Lisa Donlan commented and then penned a ditty:

At the very least Ms. Hall must take responsibility for this series of inappropriate events taking place on her watch.

I say at the very least, because I have no doubt the directives at Tweed come from above. That said, under her leadership OFIA has been the most embarrassingly ineffectual and incompetent of all of the many iterations of the oxymoronic "Parent Support" functions since Mayoral control destroyed parent engagement.

Quite a hit parade that has been, too:

OFIA Mambo No 5- 

sing it with me now:

A little bit of Karen in my life

A little bit of Jemina by my side
A little bit of Tom is all I need
A little bit of Martine is what I see
A little bit of Ojeida in the sun

A little bit of Parent Support all night long

A little bit of OFEA is my refuge
A little bit of OFIA makes me your stooge!

------

And parent activist Noah Gotbaum added this:

OFIA, like every department of the DOE, is simply a partisan political extension of the Mayor and his Chancellor.   It has nothing at all to do with education nor with parent engagement, and everything to do with promoting the Mayor and the Mayor’s agenda, and quelling any dissenting or independent viewpoints. 

Thus, OFIA, while under contract to support parent involvement and to provide legislated training and support to the City’s elected parent representatives including CEC’s, and SLT’s, has not held a single CEC training session or meeting this year, nor provided an iota of guidance or basic information to these groups.  They also refuse to provide CEC’s the contact details of the PA and SLT’s reps that we, not they, are charged by New York State law to support and to oversee.  Kinda makes it tough to do our jobs.  And although Ojeda Hall has been in her position as head of OFIA since August, I don’t know of ANYONE who’s even MET her.  

It’s now more apparent than ever that the “O” in OFIA stands for “obstructionist.”  Neither OFIA, nor the DOE, nor the Mayor, should have anything to do with oversight or “support” of the parents and parent groups that they clearly disdain.  If our legislators truly are serious about increasing parental input and involvement in our kids’ schools, they will remove the DOE and OFIA from any formal involvement or role in “supporting” parent engagement.  Instead, and as agreed by the State Senate, they should replace OFIA with an independent parent training academy and support organization run by NYU or another credible educational institution/contractor.

noah

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Film Screening & Discussion: The Inconvenient Truth Behind 'Waiting for Superman'

NOTE: This will not yet be the final version, but will be an evaluation to get some final input before we make final edits. I will be filming the discussion and some of the footage might be used in the film, so wear makeup. YOU MUST REGISTER!

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

FILM SCREENING & PANEL DISCUSSION:

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH BEHIND ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’

@ THE LEFT FORUM
www.leftforum.org

SATURDAY, MARCH 19
10:00 AM to 11:50 AM
Pace University
New York, NY

A group of New York City public school teachers and parents from the Grassroots Education Movement wrote and produced this documentary in response to the Davis Guggenheim highly misleading film, Waiting for Superman. Waiting for Superman would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and above all, the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great schools.

Our film, THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH BEHIND WAITING FOR SUPERMAN highlights the real-life experiences of public school parents and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting education. Our film talks about the kinds of real reform - inside schools and in our society as a whole - that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

Run Time: 55 minutes

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with parents and teachers featured in the film.

PANEL:

S.E. Anderson, Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence
Julie Cavanagh, Grassroots Education Movement
Mona Davids, NY Charter Parents Association
Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters, Parents Across America
Brian Jones, Grassroots Education Movement, SocialistWorker.org

Register for the LEFT FORUM here:
http://leftforum.mayfirst.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=72

Learn more about the Grassroots Education Movement here:
http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com/

Left Forum: Friday, March 18th - Sunday, March 20th

Consider Registering for the Left Forum and Check Out Two Panels Featuring Friends of CAPE!

3/19:  Showing GEM's film, "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman", which features parents and an educator from CAPE
Session 1:  10:00-11:50
Panelists:  Brian Jones, Leonie Haimson, Monda Davids, Sam Anderson, and Julie Cavanagh

3/19:  Building Resistance in NYC to the Neoliberal Restructuring of Public Education
Session 4:  5:00-6:50
Panelists:  Jitu Weusi, John Tarleton, Leonie Haimson, Sally Lee, and Julie Cavanagh

Full Left Forum Schedule Here:  http://www.leftforum.org/2011/full-schedule
There are many great panels concerning the fight for public education!



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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Joel Klein and ed deform whine refuted: Teacher tenure is not a guarantee of a lifetime job

Echoing Principal Brian De Vale message to Cathie Black: Principals can remove incompetent tenured teachers as seen in this video: Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cath...

David Bloomfield says on facebook:

Teacher tenure is not a guarantee of a lifetime job. As demonstrated by this recent decision in a termination proceeding for which I provided expert testimony, inappropriate conduct by a tenured teacher can result in termination where school and district administrators act decisively, as they should.

http://davidcbloomfield.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/bloomfield-expert-testimony-teacher-termination.

• Shawn Armor But what is 'inappropriate conduct', Breaking the law? A lot don't do that but still deserve to be shown the door..
  

  19 minutes ago ·
• 
  

  Kym Vanderbilt I think the key word is "they". They, the prinicpals really need to document and deliver. I do agree the process is too arduous, but at the end of the day, this is why we need strong admininstration.
  

  12 minutes ago · · 
• 
  

  David Bloomfield No Shawn, he didn't break the law. That's the point, as Kym wrote. Bad teachers can be shown the door; too often administrators just don't make the effort, then blame the rules they haven't followed!

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Tweed Trying to Use Parent Coordinators As Shock Troops to End Seniority

UPDATED: 9:30am -

A misuse of school funding and intent. Maybe even illegal.

It gets more and more outrageous. This story came across our desk over a month ago when Tweed held parent coordinator borough meetings and urged them to find the parents most sympathetic to Bloomberg. Some parent coordinators went to the teachers and complained and they passed it on to me. The story was filtered to some reporters but nothing has yet come of it because the PCs were too scared for their jobs to talk. Now this just came in from an unknown source:

Parent Coordinators were emailed the above petition for parents to sign for their Lobby Day the end of March.. When you open the attachment  you will see there is a line there asking Albany to end seniority rules of last in first out. Please get to your parent coordinators first thing tomorrow and ask them not to send that petition around.

Using the guise of budget cuts (who can be against that?), they have added the end of seniority as a tag to the petition.

New York City Public School Lobby Week March 21, 2011 – March 25, 2011

We, the undersigned New York City students, parents and community members, strongly protest the State’s proposed budget cuts to New York City public schools.

Therefore, we urge our elected leaders to:

Provide New York City with it’s fair share of state funds and restore the proposed cuts to our public schools;

Reject the State’s proposed changes to Building Aid, which will delay the construction of thousands of new school seats in our neighborhoods; and

Allow the City to keep it’s most effective teachers by ending the State’s “Last In, First Out” policy, allowing teachers to be retained based on their performance, rather than just seniority.

Go find the Parent Coordinator at your school today and point out what the DOE is doing.

Note there is no tag on this but when John Liu opens an investigation it will be traced right back to an email out of Tweed.

-----------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

The Failures of Katie Couric as a Reporter: Biased 60 Minutes Report on Zeke Vanderhoek and TEP Charters

Katie Couric after reading Ed Notes on her 60 Minutes TEP segment

REVISED Tuesday, March 15, 12:30 PM
NOTE: I revised this as my column this week for The Wave.

by Norm Scott

Katie Couric exhibited a failure of epic proportions as a so-called reporter in her 60 Minutes interview (http://bit.ly/fPqMMk) on The Equity Project charter school lead by another former Teach for America who spent his 10 minutes in the classroom, Zeke Vanderhoek. (Did you know that 30% of NYC charter schools are lead by TFA alums - talk about cult to school pipeline?) The program was an unadorned ad for an attack on teacher tenure and seniority rights and Katie jumped right in. Her next job will undoubtedly be at FOX.

They had the obligatory kid who talked about how the public school teachers didn't care about him. Gee, I've heard a hell of a lot of former charter school teachers who not only found their teachers uncaring, but actually abusive.

Vanderhoek is making his bones on paying teachers 125K a year in what amounts to a full time and full day job.  Leonie Haimson calls him a shameless self-promoter. "He is clearly a genius at self-promotion, if nothing else. Though the test scores at his school turned out to be terrible, he still managed to score a profile in 60 Minutes."

Couric did bring up the fact that TEP's scores were lower than the public schools in the area (only a 31% pass rate) but didn't drill too deep on that one. You know the line: it takes time to reverse the effects of those awful public schools that actually had higher scores even though they pay teachers half as much.  Or - wink, wink - just go our and cream kids with higher performing potential.

This fall, Vanderhoek proved that just about any hokey ed deform idea will get you lots of publicity. An article by Justin Snider of the Hechinger report that Leonie called "highly deceptive [by] claiming the very existence of this charter school proved that teacher quality is more important than class size."

Listen to this drivel by Snider:

The reality, though, is that of all the things we should worry about in providing a quality education to our children, class size isn't high on the list. Teacher quality matters a lot more. Zeke Vanderhoek, the founder of The Equity Project Charter School in New York City, knows this. His teachers are the most highly compensated public-school educators in the country, earning minimum salaries of $125,000 per year. How does the school afford such salaries? Because Vanderhoek decided he'd much rather have the nation's top educators teaching classes of 30 students rather than mediocre folks teaching classes of 20 students.

Mona Davids of the NY Charter Parents Association said, “He should fire himself now. Equity Project only had a 31% pass rate. Where's his accountability?”

Even the NY Charter Center, the well-funded charter school booster, admitted such in its latest report:

Naturally, Couric dragged out that old warhorse, Joel Klein to discuss the tenure issue. In a case of bad reporting, she failed to raise just a few questions she could have asked. For Katie's future reference, I will list just a few she might try the next time.

Klein is asked by Katie how you get tenure and responds:

Klein:  if you have a pulse you get tenure.... tenure is something you get for showing up.

Fantasy questions from Katie:

·      Mr. Klein, how long were you in charge of the NYC schools? Wasn't it 8 years?

·      Mr. Klein, did you realize that 60% of the current teaching corps in NYC has been teaching for 5 years or less? If you look at the totals over 8 years the number of teachers hired under your tenure might be as high as 70% (or more).

·      Mr. Klein, scuttlebutt has it that 80% of the current corps of principals was placed in their positions since you took over the NYC schools.

·      Mr. Klein, isn't it true that principals are the ones who grant tenure?

·      Mr. Klein, what do you have to say to the fact that a majority of the teachers who you claim are granted tenure for merely breathing have been granted tenure by the 80% of the principals who were appointed under your tenure as head of the NYC schools.

·      Mr. Klein, explain exactly who should be held accountable if teachers receive tenure for merely breathing?

·      Finally: How dare you Mr. Klein try to perpetrate these lies and slanders regarding tenure on the American people?

By this time Klein is sweating bullets and runs off the stage with his coat over his head - and Katie never gets to ask about the scandals and massive incompetence, things that will hopefully one day truly lead to Klein taking the perp walk with his coat over his head.

Ahhhh, real journalism is fantasyland.

END OF COLUMN

Read Leonie's full post: Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter

 -------

Afterburn
So, how much fun was it to receive an email from CBS today touting Katie and her piece?

Hello,

This week on 60 Minutes Overtime, Katie Couric Katie Couric discusses her report on the ground-breaking New York City school known as TEP (The Equity Project), her own experience with mentoring students, and the accusation that teachers are "greedy."

To view the video, click here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20042201-10391709.html

Tiny URL:  http://bit.ly/eApWza
  
Let me know if you have any questions.

Jenifer Boscacci
CBSNews.com
415.344.2441
Jenifer.boscacci@cbs.com

Hmmm. I think I'll send my list of questions to Jenifer.

Leonie Haimson did some work on the segment and posted at NYC Ed News listserve:

See video of last night’s 60 min: segment on TEP Charter school, featuring Joel Klein attack on tenure and celebrating the fact that Zeke Vanderhoek fired two of his teachers – that he had so carefully recruited. One was a sped teacher from Arizona who had moved to NYC to take the job.

http://bit.ly/fPqMMk

Strangely, the segment never mentions the large class sizes that supposedly allows him to pay $125,000 per teacher; instead Couric claims the trade off was that teachers had to take on  additional admin responsibilities.

For my earlier post on this school: Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter

It sparked a few comments:

-----

Mel:

The report says 247 kids and 15 teachers, all of whom actually seem to teach.  Ratio of about 16.5 students to a teacher. There are no quick fixes.

-----

Leonie

It’s clear from the video that class sizes are much larger than that.  Some are clearly special ed teachers and intervention specialists.

-----

Diane Ravitch
Does the school have a library? a librarian? a school nurse? a social worker? guess not. What is its attrition rate? Anyone know?

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Paul Moore on Wisconin and Florida

Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred...on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade’s 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District’s public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did a complete about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write “thank you notes” to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.

I love that sardonic last line. Reminds of the UFT call to the membership last week to get on their knees and send Thank yous to Cuomo? Miami teacher Paul Moore exposes the fault lines of how the teacher unions function to obfuscate and distract the members from real militancy.

Recent events in Wisconsin have been a real eye-opener. Anyone in America not mesmerized with Dancing With The Stars or the latest on Charlie Sheen or their X-Box 360 knows now that a class war is on now.

When the banks and their corporate partners decided to maximize profits and globalize the economy the war was on. It was then that the US was de-industrialized and the great industrial trade unions were smashed. The United Auto Workers, the United Steel Workers, the United Mine Workers unions are just shells of their former selves now.

That hollowing out of the US has left the teacher's unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) combined, as the largest national force of organized workers left. And that explains the withering attack on teachers, not just in Wisconsin, but from coast to coast which in is progress right now. The forces of globalization see more profits to be won by destroying the public schools and impoverishing teachers and other public sector workers. At the same time they seek to destroy public worker pensions and will ultimately mount a full frontal assault on Social Security and Medicare.

But right now it's organized teachers in the cross-hairs. Recently, a teacher in Oakland named Anthony Cody reacted to the events in Wisconsin in the context of the stunning appearance of President Obama with Jeb Bush at a South Florida inner-city high school. Cody, who is a National Board Certified teacher and taught science for 18-years in the inner-city, paid homage to the teachers of Florida. He wrote, "Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6. They ultimately convinced Republican governor Charlie Crist to veto the bill. This year they have launched a campaign called Awake the State that is holding dozens of rallies across Florida to oppose the huge budget cuts that loom for schools and social services."

An insiders account from Florida would have to concede to Brother Cody that there was indeed immense pressure from teachers and their parent allies. This pressure included a massive demonstration in Tallahassee, volumes of testimony before committees of the Legislature, visits to the Legislator's home offices, a well-funded lobbying campaign run through the Florida Education Association (FEA), a mountain of e-mail and other communications to the lawmakers, the creation by parents of powerful YouTube videos that went viral on the Internet, and the wearing of red T-shirts in public schools around the State.

And SB6 sailed through both chambers of the Florida Legislature! Not a vote was changed because money calls the shots now in Florida and all the teachers and parents and people of the state can demonstrate and e-mail and vote until they're blue in the face and money will still make the law.

Getting back to our story though, as the legislation worked its way to the governor's office, Charlie Crist had made nothing but supportive statements. He repeatedly assured the bill's prime sponsor, Jeb Bush's man, Sen. John Thrasher of Jacksonville, that he intended to sign it. Never was heard a discouraging word from Crist on SB6.

Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred.

I’m not at liberty to reveal the teacher’s name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. “You have a doctor’s appointment Monday” went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010. It was a call to sick-out, in effect, an illegal strike.

Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.

But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade’s 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District’s public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did a complete about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write “thank you notes” to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.

Very few thank you notes went to the now retired Crist from Miami-Dade. Teachers there knew better. We had done it! We had the power! When we moved together, nothing could stop us! And they knew it too! Not a single teacher among the 6,300 MDCPS teachers from the illegal strike was fired or disciplined in any form or fashion. Administrators, union bureaucrats, teachers, parents and students just celebrated the defeat of SB6 and President Obama’s new friend Jeb Bush.

Much the same dynamic is playing itself out on a larger scale in Wisconsin today. The teachers united, an irresistible force, has become conscious of itself. Teachers shut down schools in Madison and several other districts for three days when Gov. Scott Walker’s machinations became clear. He even threatened them with the National Guard but they remain unbowed. They forced Gov. Scott Walker to resort to thoroughly undemocratic measures, the acts of a petty tyrant, to get his union busting way.

As with Charlie Crist in Florida, some are determined to give the lion's share of credit in Wisconsin to 14 Democratic politicians who crossed the state line into Illinois. It is critical that someone else get the credit because their power is the secret that must be kept from teachers around the country if the public schools are to be destroyed. Teachers in Wisconsin are now being misdirected away from their real power, the ability to shutdown and eventually to take over the schools, into dead ends like recall petitions and electoral politics. So Wisconsin may prove that we are not quite ready to win yet.

But Florida one year and a step closer in Wisconsin the next. We are about to get there!

Paul A. Moore
Teacher, United Teachers of Dade (AFT-NEA-FEA) member
Miami Carol City Senior High School

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Rally for Wisconsin Today at Union Square and Questions About Role (or lack of) UFT/AFT is Playing

President Mulgrew: 

I was very happy to see that the union is moving forward with a city-wide day of action in solidarity with Wisconsin on the 22nd, and I understand that we need a long term strategy for effective solidarity in defense of the attacks on collective bargaining across the Midwest.  However, given the events of the last 48 hours, it seems there is an urgency for an immediate and vigorous response to the latest actions of the Republicans in Madison.   

A mention of action tomorrow (details below) in Union Square on the UFT website and in the Chapter Leader's Update tonight would help to build the momentum for the long term struggle. 

Please consider taking these steps, and I look forward to working with you on future solidarity actions.

In Solidarity- Peter Lamphere

Come out today for a mobilization in solidarity with workers standing up against the latest attack in Wisconsin. We need immediate and national mobilization to avoid a repeat of PATCO for our generation - today is a first step. - Peter

Are You Up for Robotics This Weekend?

Body Forward Competition mat (8x4)

COME ON DOWN AND SEE WHY YOU WANT YOUR SCHOOL INVOLVED NEXT YEAR.

From almost the minute I retired in 2002, I have been involved with FIRST LEGO League (FLL) in New York City, one of three tournaments going on at the Jacobs Javits center this weekend. The ages of kids involved are 9-14, which covers elementary, middle school and 9th graders in high school. All competing at the same level.

There is even a Junior FIRST LEGO League exhibition for kids aged 6-9.

I have run a blog devoted to NYC FLL robotics for years: http://normsrobotics.blogspot.com/

FIRST (http://usfirst.org/) is an orgnization that promotes Science and Technology among school age children. This weekend is the NYC Championship Tournament at Jacob Javits Center.

There will be several competitions going on simultaneously.

Friday will be FRC's (FIRST Robotics Competition) practice competition day.

Saturday will be FRC qualification matches and FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) championship matches.

Sunday will be be FRC's championship matches as well as FLL (FIRST Lego League) and Jr. FLL champioship matches.

I work with FLL on Sunday. This year we had 200 teams from NYC - public, private, charter, home-schooled, community centers start out. We held qualifying borough tournaments in January to choose the final 80 teams going to the NYC championship on Sunday. The winner goes on to the World Festival in St. Louis in April. If you show up on Sunday, look for me near the FLL pit area. You might see schools like Dalton seated next to schools from Bed-Stuy. This is one of the great social mixing events you can find.

What is FLL? Each year there is a theme. This year is Body Forward: engineering meets medicine. Check it out here. I have a kit in my house - there is an 8x4 mat with a giant human body on it and the robots have to navigate and accomplish tasks like putting a stint in. Great stuff.

The "game" is played on a table with about 15 teams trying to gain as many points as possible in 2 and a half minutes. But that is only a part of the event. Each team does research on the topic and present to a panel of judges. And they also present a technical presentation telling the judges how they solved the problems.

Teams are 10 kids but many schools bring cheerleaders and boosters and lots of parents. who often gaze in wonder at the energy of the day. Lots of awards and trophies given out. And a medal to each participant. Want to see kids, teachers and parents having a blast? BE THERE!

Check out this article on the Brooklyn qualifier.

The 3 day FRC high school event attracts 66 teams, some from around the world (Brazil, Hawaii). These are big robots, 6 on the giant field at the same time - 3 against 3. See these high schoolers from elite schools mix and work with kids from all over the place. (Check out the list and the heavyweight sponsors).


I won't go on. I'm too excited. I'm heading down to Javits to hang out today (my wife's mah jhong crew has arrived is the real reason) before the heavy lifting on Sunday. Here is some info if you want to check it out. All free and open to the public.

Oh, has there been any support from the NYC DOE for this amazing event that involves so many NYC schools and students doing the very opposite of test prep? Go ask them.

Here is some info from my robotics blog.

See lists of all the teams and the sponsors:

NYC First Mega Robotics Celebration Program

NYC LEGO Teams for Javits 2011 With Pit Table Assignments (where you can find them)

Javits 2011 FLL Championaship, Sunday March 13 - Floor Plan and Schedule

Solar Powered Bike Will Be At Javits Robo Event March 13

See bike on NY1 news. Size of a large adult bike....

http://statenisland.ny1.com/content/top_stories/132679/lego-champs-to-head-to-first-robotics-competition?ap=1&MP4

 
An event this big need a lot of people to pull it off. We have hundreds of volunteers already but we are still in need of more. We would greatly appreciate your help. Registration closes tomorrow, however we do take walk-ins on each day of the event. We also welcome spectators. If you you dont desire to volunteer then please do come to any of the events and observe the cheer intelligence and creativity of children younger than 8 years to 18 years doing things most engineers didn't learn until college.

Please join us.

To those who volunteer you will be given a free t-shirt for the event, as well as breakfast and lunch. Further information can be found via http://nycnjfirst.org/ or directly via http://nycnjfirst.org/blog/2010/12/29/11th-annual-nyc-first-robotics-regional-competition-frc-week-2-event/

Hope to see you all there!

Email Norm if you want to help: normsco@gmail.com

The Answer Man

I have all the answers at  Introducing GothamSchools’ first advice column, by a principal

* What do I do when I have a student whose stated purpose in the classroom is to disrupt my lessons? -  
He/she was probably thrown out of a charter school.
* Where can I find more paper?! -  
Go teach in a charter school

* How do I teach reading to fifth-grade students who are reading at a pre-primer reading level?-
Go teach in a charter school- all those kids were sent to public schools.

* What should I do when a student throws a chair or desk?-
He/she was probably thrown out of a charter school.

* When and how do I tell my principal that other teachers aren’t doing their job, and it’s affecting mine?- First - the principal should know - if he/she doesn't, the teacher is probably a pal. Second - Join E4E and they'll tell you exactly how to snitch.
* How do I work with my principal to address school-wide safety concerns?
Go teach in a charter school- they ignore safety concerns.

* When is it appropriate to ask for outside help in dealing with a disruptive student? How do I do it?
- Go teach in a charter school - they remove disruptive students

* How will I know, as a first-year teacher, if I’m doing a good job?- 
You're doing a much better job than any teacher making more money than you. Ask Black and Bloom -

Can You Have Dialogue With Ed Deformers?

At our film (The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) preview at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn last Saturday, during the discussion afterwards someone said there was an attitude in the film demonizing charter school backers. "There are some good charters," he said. Sam Anderson, who is in the film, was on the panel and said something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing):

The charter school movement at the macro level will result in the destruction of the public school system, the draining of enormous resources out of the hands of public control and into private hands, and enormous harm to the majority of children over the long run. They should be demonized.

My response (to myself) was: fuck 'em.

Now, Michael Fiorillo, made a similar, but more eloquent than my expletive (as expected) statement in response to a thoughtful essay by Mark Anderson at the Gotham Schools Community board. Anderson talks about Labor and Management. Though Anderson comes from a business background and understands the points of view:

I often find the debates that are ongoing in the education policy world suffer from a lack of explicit acknowledgement of underlying values, even as those debates are really just a fundamental clash of values. As I read articles heralding the decline in union power and calling for budgetary bloodletting in public services, I might posit that some values that the authors would hold are that of efficiency, expediency, and force as an agent of change. As someone who has been in positions of management, I can understand the perspectives that channel from such values. We seek immediate and replicable solutions to problems, to make systems run more smoothly and efficiently, and to increase performance and productivity.

As Diane Ravitch explains in “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” education leaders such as Joel Klein and Alan Bersin seemed to turn a deaf ears to their employee base as they rammed through reforms, as if this were effective leadership. Michelle Rhee has also most famously exemplified this style of leadership. Problem is, this is not effective leadership. Not in the business world, and most certainly not in the realm of education. At least, not in any sort of sustainable way. It might seemingly work for a few years — in that people conform because they have to —until the results start trickling in. Turnover will be high. Motivation will be low. And increasingly hostile rhetoric and a culture of mistrust will develop between labor and management.

Anderson seems to be scratching his head as to why these so-called business leaders would be using a tactic that will fail in motivating teachers and is calling for a dialogue. between the two sides. What he is missing in that the intentions of the ed deformers is NOT to improve the schools but to take them over, turn over the massive amount of money into private hands while running the rudimentary school system left over on the cheap. THEY HAVE NO GOOD INTENTIONS AND YOU CANNOT ENGAGE IN DIALOGUE WITH PEOPLE WITH NO GOOD INTENTIONS. EVIL MOSKOWITZ INDEED!!!

Phew! I feel better.

Now, on to Michael's much more reasoned response:

When the balance of forces so overwhelmingly favors management and capital, as it currently does in this country, and when those unregulated forces are literally sociopathic, as is the case with the DOE and all urban education systems under mayoral control, then to speak about "building relationships" is naive and preposterous. It's hard to build relationships with people who are trying to kill you. I suggest you ask teachers in Wisconsin about how "dialogue" works in the middle of a class war.


Management's reflex to control labor as a cost and a factor of production, and to make it as fungible as possible, is axiomatic. Rather than reading the fairy tales contained in management how-to manuals found in airport bookracks, I suggest you carefully observe management behavior. In the social darwinist swamp that is the neoliberal economy (and Michael Bloomberg's New York City), behavior is the most honest form of communication. That behavior includes de-skilling labor, eliminating whatever vestiges of autonomy it has, and using that as leverage to reduce its wages, its benefits and maintain unilateral control over the terms of employment. Labor's status in this "partnership" is akin to that of school principal and student council president. They may listen to each other, respect and like each other, but the dynamics of power make it impossible to call it a true partnership. Sure you'll get your meeting, and maybe they'll even agree to serve chocolate milk in the lunchroom, but the parameters of power are set.


Additionally, your analogy about the woman on the subway is false, since as a civilized human being you responded appropriately to her established position by the door. Had you been the DOE (as a proxy for all corporate ed deformers), however, you (and your cronies, contractors, consultants, subsidized researchers, politically-connected vendors, advocacy satellites and astroturf shills) would have grabbed her handbag and pushed her and the people around her out of the way. In fact, you would have grabbed as much of that public space as you could, used it as your own, and proclaimed your munificence to the people you had just evicted.


Take a look around the world we live in, and especially the regime too many teachers in New York work under: can you say with a straight face that those in positions of policy-making and power are "building relationships" and "listening?"


The reality is that management and labor have intrinsically opposing interests, and that only in those rare periods when labor is able to counterbalance management and capital's inherent advantage (which does not exist at the moment) can we achieve the best we can hope for, which is a wary accommodation. Without that, the situation is the one we currently find ourselves in, that of one-sided aggression, deception (and self-deception) and contempt for the public good.

Afterburn
Here are some related blog posts for you to check out if you have time:

Filmmaker Michael Galinsky, a public school parent who I have run into at various events, is going to do a film on education. Here are some of his thoughts.

NYC Educator has 2 must reads over the last few days:

I'm Not Against Tenure, But...

So says faux-Democrat Cory Booker in his love letter to the reformers who put him where he is today. Sure, let's not abolish tenure. Let's simply make it meaningless. The Wal-Mart family did not finance Booker so as to help working people. Wal-Mart money subverts public schools because union is a scourge that must be stopped, so that people can do as they're told, shut the hell up, and work until they die. MORE

The Value of a Teacher

There is no question in my mind that the path we're embarking upon is littered with, reeking of, completely composed of sheer nonsense. We're moving into an evaluation system that relies on "value-added" information, information that can make an exemplary teacher look like an utter incompetent. And we're also playing right into the hands of "reformers," yet again. MORE

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Leonie Defends Class Size Reduction - Like the UFT Won't While Liu Rejects New Teacher Project Contract

UPDATED: Friday, March 11, 7AM

NYC Comptroller John Liu causes much joy in Mudville today with his rejection of the phony New Teacher Project 20 million smacker contract - to recruit new teachers - in the midst of the threat to layoff 4500 and lose another 1800 by attrition. Now Tim Daly may have to work for a living. And Andy Jacob too. Hey, guys, try teaching. In Wisconsin.

See NY Times article here. (Good to see you back safe from Cairo Sharon). And more links:
(GothamSchools, Post, Daily News)

Remember Liu's predecessor? Some guy who ended up running for mayor against Bloomberg? A guy who we later found out was Bloomberg's choice to run against him? A guy whose wife got lots of money goodies from Bloomberg for her museum? A guy who NEVER rejected these phony contracts?

------
While the UFT/AFT plays footsie with Bill Gates, Leonie goes into his own back yard and calls him out. Hey chickie, come out an play with Leonie:

1.    I will be on Seattle Public radio 94.9 FM tomorrow Friday March 11 at 3:40 ET (12:40 PT) debating class size.  

They are trying to find someone from the Gates foundation to debate me (but finding it hard).  This is Bill Gates’ hometown.

Listen live online and please call in!  http://www.kuow.org/conversation  with Ross Reynolds.

Live Call–in: 206.543.KUOW (800.289.KUOW); Email: conversation@kuow.org

2. For what Bill Gates said recently about class size (later echoed by Arne Duncan) check out my Huff Post column:  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/arne-duncan-and-bill-gate_b_829094.html
 

For what the Seattle Times reported about Gates’ hypocrisy on this issue, click here:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2014437975_danny09.html

Check out what students themselves said about class size on the NYT blog here: http://nyti.ms/g57JcR 

3.For my class size debate on Tuesday on the NPR Diane Rehm show, along with Diane Ravitch and Eric Hanushek, star of Waiting for Superman, see

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-08/class-size-and-student-achievement

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director

Class Size Matters

ON ANOTHER FRONT -

************

LIU STATEMENT ON DOE CONTRACT REJECTION

******************************************

NEW YORK, NY – City Comptroller John C. Liu stated the following in response to inquiries about his rejection of a $20 million teacher recruitment contract for the Department of Education (DOE):

“Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious at best,” said Comptroller Liu.

The five-year contract, with the “New Teacher Project,” was submitted in early February. The DOE was seeking the contract to “recruit, select, train and provide job search support to non-traditional candidates to become public school teachers.”

The contract submission comes at a time when agencies are being asked to cut services, including the DOE’s plan to lay off 4,600 teachers.

UFT Resolution in Support of Puerto Rican Teachers

Passed at UFT Delegate Assembly March 9, 2011

WHEREAS, the entire leadership of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) were fired from their teaching positions, and

WHEREAS, the teaching licenses of the FMPR leadership were permanently revoked; and

WHEREAS, the Government has taken repressive measures with the goal of destroying the unions and intimidating the teachers from struggling against the current administration’s plans to privatize the schools and liquidate the teachers retirement fund; and

WHEREAS, Governor Fortuno of Puerto Rico is out to destroy the teachers’ union much like Governor Walker of Wisconsin is out to destroy collective bargaining for public workers in this state; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT express our solidarity with the Puerto Rican Teachers, and be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT inform Governor Fortuno that we oppose his repressive measures and stand in solidarity with all union workers.

Who Needs Bargaining Rights?

If they take away bargaining rights, dues checkoff, force an election every year to even have a union, what is left to take away if there are sick-outs and wildcat actions?

At the Delegate Assembly yesterday, Joan Heymont, inspired by missives from Miami teacher Paul Moore similar to the one below, made a resolution calling for a sick-out on Brooklyn Day when there will be no children in school. As expected, the UFT leadership shot it down, making the point that such an action would render the contract null and leave us wide open to just about anything. Naturally, it lost. I didn't see the point of shutting schools down on a day when they were empty of kids, though maybe from a PR point it made sense. If schools are to be shut down, it must happen with parent support. Maybe when class sizes reach 60.

Let's be clear: a union leadership has a major fear of taking such action because the power of the state is squarely lined up against them. Crippling fines, removal of checkoff, etc can destroy a union. As we've seen in Puerto Rico, the union leaders can be fired (come hear PR teachers union president Rafael Feliciano tell the story at the next GEM meeting on March 21). 

From the leaders' perspective, the gravy train would be over and going back to the classrooms they have so allowed to deteriorate is not appetizing at all. So union leaders play a role in trying to kill any insurgencies not only because of the punishments but because once the militancy cat is out of the bag, their control of the union could be as much threatened from below - the rank and file - as from above - the government.

That was why when Bloomberg in an op ed in the Times defended bargaining rights - sort of - what he really meant was "I am smarter than that yokel in Madison - I work with the union leadership itself to control the members. Imagine if there were no UFT and Randi Weingarten to assist with our reforms?"

So, what if there is nothing left to lose? I was just with another retiree in the gym who talked about the National Football League players association decertifying itself and forcing the NFL to face a loss of protection as a monopoly - a very interesting strategy.

If Wisconsin teachers went on strike they could be fired. But so could any teachers anytime in history before collective bargaining. Yet they did it often enough to win bargaining rights.

Now a sickout in say NYC led by wildcatters might be difficult to pin on the union. What if people followed Paul Moore's advice?

This will help destroy the illusion that workers in Wisconsin and across the US have any recourse to legislative or electoral remedies. Government and all of its branches are under corporate control.


Teachers, shut down the schools of Wisconsin tomorrow. You will be urged to rely on the courts. You will be urged to rely on the recall process. You will be urged down all manner of dead ends. Be not deceived though, you are now in an openly declared class war. Fight fire with fire!


"Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6." This pressure included a massive demonstration in Tallahassee, volumes of testimony before committees of the Legislature, visits to the Legislator's home offices, a well-funded lobbying campaign run through the Florida Education Association (FEA), a mountain of e-mail and other communications to the lawmakers, the creation by parents of powerful YouTube videos that went viral on the Internet, and the wearing of red T-shirts in public schools around the State.


And SB6 sailed through both chambers of the Florida Legislature. Not a vote was changed!


As the legislation worked its way to the governor's office, Charlie Crist made nothing but supportive statements. He repeatedly assured the bill's prime sponsor, Sen. John Thrasher, that he intended to sign it. Never was heard a discouraging word from Crist on SB6.


Then something happened that changed everything. There was a clap of thunder and the sleeping giant stirred.


I'm not at liberty to reveal the teacher's name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. "You have a doctor's appointment Monday" went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010.


Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.


But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade's 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District's public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did an about face and vetoed SB6. The FEA and UTD bent over backwards to give all the credit to Crist. Teachers were urged to write "thank you notes" to the governor. Our red clothing and e-mails had carried the day.


Very few thank you notes went to the now retired Gov. Crist from Miami-Dade. Teachers there knew better. We had done it! We had the power! When we moved together, nothing could stop us! And they knew it too! Not a single teacher among the 6,300 MDCPS teachers from the illegal strike was fired or disciplined in any form or fashion. Administrators, union bureaucrats, teachers, parents and students just celebrated the defeat of SB6 and President Obama's new friend Jeb Bush.


Much the same dynamic is playing itself out on a larger scale in Wisconsin today. The teachers united, an irresistible force, has become conscious of itself. Teachers shut down schools in Madison and several other districts for three days when Gov. Scott Walker's machinations became clear. He even threatened them with the National Guard but they remain unbowed. They have Walker stopped cold unless he decides to escalate the conflict.


As with Charlie Crist in Florida, some are determined to give the lion's share of credit in Wisconsin to 14 Democratic politicians who crossed the state line into Illinois. It is critical that someone else get the credit because their power is the secret that must be kept from teachers around the country if the public schools are to be destroyed.


Paul A. Moore

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS FED UP WITH BUDGET CUT THREATS AND MAYOR’S AGENDA

Updated: 3PM
NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release: March 10, 2011
Contacts:
Michelle Ciulla Lipkin - 917-494-9155 - ciulla@mac.com
Rebecca Woodard - 646-295-3528 - rmw2010@gmail.com
Noah E. Gotbaum - 917-658-3213 - noah@gotbaum.com

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS FED UP WITH
BUDGET CUT THREATS AND MAYOR’S AGENDA

(New York, NY) - Concerned NYC Public School parents spoke out today at City
Hall regarding the state’s proposed $1.5 billion education budget cuts. In
strongly worded statements, parents expressed their collective frustration and
displeasure regarding the rising class sizes, program cuts, and teacher layoffs
that would happen if budgets are slashed. Parents directed most of their anger
not at their Governor in Albany, but rather at their long lost education mayor.
“NYC cannot afford to allow Mayor Bloomberg to cut our education budget and
get rid of our teachers,” said parent organizer Rebecca Woodard. “As parents,
we are fighting for our children and teachers to receive the funding they need to
be successful. We must stop him from exercising his ridiculous power and
demand he lives up to his self-proclaimed title as the “Education Mayor”. I am
here on the steps of City Hall letting him know that we will NOT go away, we will
NOT stop and we will keep coming back.”
Parents are particularly angry at the threats Mayor Bloomberg is making about
their teachers’ job security and fed up with the Mayor trying to draw them into a
collective bargaining negotiation concerning LIFO. High School parent, Larry
Wood comments, “What's particularly outrageous to me is that the Mayor has
spun the teacher lay-offs into a debate on HOW the lay-offs should be
conducted. That's NOT the issue. The issue should be WHY are we laying off
thousands of teachers at all!! We should be focused on stopping the cuts not a
better process to implement them.”
Having experienced last year’s cuts, including the loss of some 4000 teachers
through attrition and mid-year in-school reductions averaging 6%, parents
voiced anger at additional proposed reductions on kids and schools: “My fourth
grader now gets gym once every six days, my 5th grader’s combined music and
drama program takes place with 60 other kids on a piece of a shared auditorium
stage, and my special needs Kindergartener was placed in a class of 27 kids even
though the DOE’s own Committee on Special Education recommended a program
no larger than 12 kids,” said Noah E Gotbaum, President of Manhattan’s
Community Education Council for District 3. “At the classroom and school level,
the fat has been cut; now the Mayor wants to go after the bone.”
Why these cuts are necessary, however, was not clear to the parents, who
offered up some alternatives: “Despite the Mayor’s fear mongering and layoff
threats, New York City will see an almost $2 billion budget surplus in 2011,
primarily due to higher Wall Street revenues. Allocating just 15% of this will
prevent all teacher layoffs,” said Stefanie Goldblatt, public school parent of two.
“And at a time when services for our most vulnerable are being decimated, it is
unconscionable to be offering tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. The
Millionaire’s tax alone could generate enough to make up for all education cuts –
statewide.”
Some wondered where the mayor’s business expertise has gone. Shino
Tanikawa, District 2 Community Education Council Member, said:
“The Mayor, who prides himself as a business leader, apparently is unable to
manage the City's budget. He threatens to lay off teachers while increasing the
budget for IT related contracts for the DOE, because the DOE did not budget
properly. Are computer consultants more important to education than teachers?
Our children need teachers before they need high-priced consultants, many hired
on no-bid contracts.”
Parents also shared their observation that weak schools drive families out of the
city faster than anything else, something that seemed lost on Mayor Bloomberg,
whose PlaNYC invited new residential development, full of family amenities and
multi-bedroom apartments, but did not address the long term needs of the city’s
school system.
"It is uncertainty about what will be left of our public schools after the education
budget is slashed yet again, and not the extension of a modest existing tax, that
will drive families and their tax dollars from our City and State. Preserving the
existing source of funding in a budget shortfall is both good policy and good
business,” said Mark Diller, public high school parent.
There is a citywide schools meeting at 6pm this evening at The High School of
Fashion Industries (225 West 24th Street) to continue the discussion about
education budget cuts and determine next action steps for parents.

Parents, unite!

It's time to fight for funding!

For our schools

For our kids

For everyone’s future

If you are a parent in the NYC Public School System,

you need to come to City Hall for this important event ORGANIZED by parents, FOR parents

Thursday, March 10 1PM City Hall*

·       Say "no" to education budget cuts

·       Say "no" to bigger class sizes

·       Say "no" to program cuts

·       Say "no" to teacher layoffs

We need parents from

every borough & every district!

We need to make our voices heard!

Our children depend on us!

Contact parent organizers with questions:

Rebecca Woodard - rmw2010@gmail.com - 646-295-3528

Carlos Ruiz - hotcarlos106@yahoo.com - 646-334-1145

*City Hall is located in City Hall Park.By Subway:
#4, #5, #6 trains to City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge
#2, #3 trains to Park Place
W, R trains to City Hall
C, A trains to Chambers Street By Bus:
M15 to City Hall/Park Row

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

We've been saying this for years. That the UFT plays the role of mediator between the rank and file members and the people managing the school system. What the members need is a strong advocate, a role that is increasingly being played by people like Diane Ravitch and NYC parent activist Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters and a new national group, Parents Across America (PAA).

I wrote a piece on Feb. 13 titled: Why Won't Mulgrew Defend LIFO?  I know the answer but don't want to scare you so early in this article.

Remember: 110 schools have been closed under the stewardship of the UFT leadership. Schools have become test prep factories (Ed Notes sponsored resolutions at DA's on the evils of standardized testing as far back as the late 90's were ignored). And charters are running rampant inside public schools but the UFT can't say a word because it has its own two charters running rampant inside two public schools. Where's the advocacy on the part of the UFT other than selective words at selective times? Show some results. The scary thing was yesterday's missive to send Governor Cuomo a "thank you" message. Lucky I ate a few hours before.

A new crop of young teachers who have come out of the woodwork recently and become active in groups like Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), NY Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE) and Teachers Unite (TU). These voices have become important to counteract the message of the anti-union Bill Gates/DFER funded group Educators for Excellence (E4E which ICE's Jeff Kaufman renamed "ME4ME. I just call them ME$ME.) GEM's Julie Cavanagh debated a ME$ME on NY1 the same night Ravitch appeared on Jon Stewart's show. [Diane Ravitch and Julie Cavanagh Kick Butt].
A principal, Brian De Vale, did as good a job as could be done defending seniority face to face with Cathie Black at a District 14 CEC meeting last week. [Brooklyn Principal Challenges Cath...]

I was at the viewing party with Ravitch (Eadie Shanker was there too) sponsored by Leonie and PAA and we also watched Julie eloquently defend LIFO, seniority and tenure in a way that I haven't heard anyone from the UFT or AFT do. Julie tied her advocacy for her students (her school has been invaded by a charter controlled by a billionaire) to the protections she has from tenure. Ravitch was so so impressed she commented, "Julie, you were spectacular, also beautiful!"

Another thing we have been saying is that the UFT for years obfuscated - acting like Joel Klein was the bad guy and Bloomberg was the good guy. Funny how an article in The Observer claims that relations have deteriorated because Randi and Joel have left the room, while also talking about how Klein and Bloomberg played "bad cop, good cop." We maintained that the UFT was trying to fool the membership into believing this was about personalities, not a national attack on teachers, their unions and the entire public school system. EdNotes has been saying that since around 2001.

But I guess Mulgrew hasn't been reading Ed Notes. For in the Observer piece he says:

"I thought it was because of Joel Klein," Mr. Mulgrew said. "I honestly did. But that's not the case anymore. It's just [Mr. Bloomberg] there and it's become worse. ... He has a whole new team around him. ... Everything is carpet bomb and toxicity.

He has to be kidding. Randi fooled him too? We're in more to trouble than I thought. Then Mulgrew comes up with this goody:

"Since I know Deputy Mayor Wolfson's strategy is this when he runs a campaign, I'm assuming it's his influence on [the mayor]," said Mr. Mulgrew. Mr. Wolfson is of course the mayor's hard-driving senior adviser, who notably fought against Barack Obama's campaign long after Mr. Wolfson's candidate, Hillary Clinton, seemed to abandon the 2008 Democratic primary.

Mulgrew and the Observer declined to mention that Howard Wolfson was (and still may be for all we know) on the UFT payroll for years. (Just check the LM-2 reports of past years.)

And then we come to the NY Times piece today (New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools) about the cozy relationship between the UFT and Green Dot charter maven/scoundrel Steve Barr who will partner together in shutting down a public school but making it look like something else. You see, you can believe in magic. Even Penn and Teller can't make an entire school building disappear from public into private hands in an instant. But watch the UFT and Green Dot make magic.

The plan would also involve forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs and using a committee of teachers, school administrators and parents to pick who got to stay. The teachers’ contract would give them some measure of job protection, but it would be easier to fire them. The teachers also would work under more flexible rules, including longer hours in exchange for higher pay. “It’s about, what do we need to get this staff in order for them to meet the needs of the children and stop with this one-size-fits-all stuff?” said Michael Mulgrew...

Right Mike! One size fits all. If I were teaching in one of these schools,  I would be scared, very scared.

Let me tell you a few things about Steve Barr:

You know that the school in LA - Locke HS mentioned in the Times article?

Results on the standardized tests were lackluster, but the school gets high marks in other indicators of progress.The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, and only a few percent tested at the next level down, basic.

How interesting what the Times leaves out. GEM/ICE's Lisa North commented:
BUT this is how NYC schools are closed...based on test scores....but I guess a charter school can be judged by "other" means.

Oakland teacher Jack Gerson wrote in Substance:

Two years ago, Steve Barr and his Green Dot charter schools group engineered a hostile takeover of Locke High School, a large public high school in Los Angeles. Despite the opposition of United Teachers of Los Angeles and the LA Unified School District, Barr was able to convince a bare majority of Locke's permanent faculty (37 of 73) to opt for Green Dot." Barr promptly dismissed the entire staff, forcing them to reapply for their jobs. Over 70 percent were not rehired.

And then there is this side of Barr: According to the Green Dot website, he is no longer on staff either.

Barr stepped aside this fall as board chairman of Green Dot but remains on the board and on staff. The expense problem had nothing to do with Barr's change of role, said Shane Martin, who replaced Barr as chairman.

Green Dot charter schools founder repays group $50,866
The nonprofit's tax return shows that Steve Barr repaid the organization after an internal review found that expenses he had charged were undocumented or unjustified.

Lie down with privatization dogs and you get fleeced. Can't wait to hear the spin at the DA today.
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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Bloomberg Lets the Cat Out of the Bag: We Need the UFT to Help Manage the Members- oops - the Schools

I missed the radio program starring the two Michaels the other day but I hear Bloomberg said he was not anti-union - and in fact needs the union. And so he does. What if the membership starts going wilding - like taking mass sickouts or other wildcat actions? The UFT  leadership will be right there to help reign them in.

With tonight's buzz of the UFT giving up on --- you name it ----- here are some email leads coming in:

Mulgrew has been quietly lobbying for the turnaround plan behind the scenes.

WNYC WNYC News Blog
RecommendSharePrintEmail Bill to End Last In, First Out Narrowly Clears Senate
Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 12:43 PM
By Beth Fertig

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said before Cuomo's bill was released that the teachers union and state education department are already working on a policy to replace LIFO as part of the requirements for receiving federal Race to the Top funding in time for the 2012-2013 school year

It seems that the UFT has agreed to a turnaround plan that not only involves charter conversion to Green Dot (whose teachers, while unionized have less job security that public school teachers), but also would mean at least half of the school's teachers would lose their position and become ATRs, outside of any seniority order. 

A major concession, if true.  Given that the UFT appears to be the major source for this article and then DOE remains noncommittal, it appears that the union is committed to this. I hope it raises major questions at tomorrow's Delegate Assembly.

New Strategy Weighed for Failing Schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/nyregion/09greendot.html?src=me&ref=nyregion

From The New York Times:

City Eyes New Tactic for Failing Schools: The Turnaround

Rather than closing two Bronx schools, the Bloomberg administration may try to overhaul them with help from a charter school network.

http://nyti.ms/einOwx

(And lots of talk about the UFT's fave charterites: Steve Barr and Green Dot. Too much info to put up here but here are some links at Norms Notes: Green Dot and Steve Barr Updates.)

Here's the best:

From: UFT Political Action Department <noreply@uft.org>
Subject: Take action: Thank the governor

Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:50 PM

Take action: Thank the governor
Dear colleagues,
When our elected officials do the right thing by our schools and our students, we want them to know.
Please take a moment to call Governor Cuomo to tell him that we appreciate his leadership on workers’ rights and our schools.
Call him at 518-474-8390.
Here’s what you can say:
Governor Cuomo, because of your efforts, everyone knows that New York is not Wisconsin.
I want to thank you for standing up for both the city’s children and the rights of union members by insisting that the state budget should not require local layoffs, despite Mayor Bloomberg's threat to lay off thousands of teachers and send class sizes skyrocketing.
In addition, while the system you are developing can lead to more objective teacher evaluations, the mayor's proposals would return our system to the days of cronyism and discrimination on the basis of race, age and gender.
Your leadership stands as an example to other states where workers' rights and critical services for children are under assault.
Sincerely,
UFT Political Action Department

 "Shameless!" was one comment. I just gagged.

Well, you know the drill. The Delegate Assembly Weds afternoon should be a bowl of laughs. I better get there early to get the banana. Join a bunch of us to drown your sorrows post-DA:

From Teachers Unite - POST-D.A. DRINKS! 3/9 Happy Hour: Send Support to Wisconsin workers!

Join fellow teachers and allies following the UFT Delegate Assembly in writing solidarity/thank you cards to Wisconsin workers standing up for collective bargaining.

Wed., 3/9, 6pm
Killarney Rose Bar (Upstairs Lounge)
127 Pearl St.
$4 drafts and bottles

Directions from UFT Headquarters:
Broad St. to Pearl St. and make a right

Link to Killarney Rose Bar with map: http://bit.ly/htUzAn

(A monthly affair after every DA)

THIS JUST IN:
READ A GREAT PIECE AT GOTHAM COMMUNITY BY GEMer Liza Campbell, a third year teacher who I've been working with on a bunch of projects. Democracy And Reform: A View From A PEP Newbie

I was at an ad hoc meeting organizing for Fight Back Friday (March 25 - get your school to join) on Monday with Liza, Julie Cavanagh and about 15 other mostly young teachers, all of whose ages don't add up to mine. What an amazing crew. I'm starting to feel sorry for the ed deformers. And for ME$ME. They don' need no stinkn' full time organizers paid for by Bill Gates and DFER.

See where all this is going: Social Justice Unionism

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.