Watch live:
http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc
Justin Wedes
Educator & Activist
Cheers,
Norm Scott
Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com
Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org
Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com
nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com
Sent from my BlackBerry
Thursday, Oct. 27, 7PM at NYU with a post screening panel with some of the film makers - Julie Cavanagh, Lisa Donlan, Mollie Bruhn and Darren Marelli.
MEDIA ADVISORYAfter introducing catastrophic budget cuts to education that have left New York City schools overcrowded, under-staffed and sorely lacking in resources – despite an estimated budget surplus in 2011 of more than $3 billion – Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues his attack on teachers, students and schools.Educators, parents and other stakeholders fear that the worst cuts – as well as more school closings and inequitable charter school co-locations – lie ahead. The Panel for Educational Policy, which was replaced the elected Board of Education under Bloomberg’s tenure, could combat these cuts, but is dominated by mayoral appointees.What: Teachers, students, parents and education advocates from Occupy Wall Street will occupy a meeting of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, dominated by mayoral appointees, and hold their own democratic meeting on the state of public education in New York CityWhen: 5:30PM, Tuesday October 25, 2011Where: Seward Park High School350 Grand StreetNew York, NYWho: Public school teachers, students, parents, education advocates and activists from Occupy Wall Street.
In September of 2011, Bloomberg began implementing yet another reform in the NYC public schools. Dennis Walcott, with Bloomberg’s encouragement, has directed principals to use the Charlotte Danielson Framework rubrics as a formative evaluation for teachers. For those who are unfamiliar with educational jargon, a rubric is a grading scale that can be used to give a rating to someone or something. In the current school year, this framework is to be used for support, next year it is to be used to provide evaluations.
As stated before, this is one of many changes that have taken place since Bloomberg began mayoral control of the New York City Public Schools. When Bloomberg first came to be head of the schools, he instituted the city wide use of the workshop model. The workshop model is a 45 minute long lesson set aside for a particular subject. Teachers are expected to execute a series of lessons in that hour, all related to that particular subject. This approach prescribes teacher controlled and rigidly timed short lessons sometimes aimed at the whole class, sometimes a small group. Teachers are expected to race through these workshop models daily, keeping the students under rigid and stifling control, while maintaining a specific and inflexible schedule of activities. Teachers are castigated for any deviation from the confines of the script and actions, letters are placed in teacher’s files, and teachers have been given unsatisfactory ratings, for not implementing every aspect of this top down model. Teachers have even been sent to the ‘rubber room’ for not following this model to its exact specification. For example, within a 45 minute framework, teachers must execute the following: a short ten minute skill lesson with the whole class, followed by another ten minute lesson with five or six students, followed by three five minute visits to individual students. This is to be done with note taking and individual mini lessons, all this while the remaining students are working independently. Finally a class meeting is held at the end of the workshop for another 5-10 minutes. Teachers are expected to create charts, take notes, complete checklists, and collect data about student performance during these workshops. This is done with 25-32 students in the room, and, most frequently, without any assistance.
Now we enter the age of Danielson in New York City. The Danielson model is to be implemented in a supportive, collaborative, non threatening environment of mutual trust. To be highly effective, Danielson states, a teacher should offer students choice in their pathways to learning. She also states that students should raise their own questions and show that they take initiative for their own learning. Danielson states that an observer of teachers should be trained and certified in this fine art, and Danielson says she can provide the training. To date, we are unaware of any NYC principals receiving this training. To initiate the process without these components already in place is to exchange one poor evaluation system for another in the very words of Ms. Danielson herself.
There is a clash between these two approaches. It will take principals with knowledge, experience, and expertise to make the two models work together. Unfortunately, Mr. Bloomberg has not sought out and appointed principals that have the experience, sensitive understanding and knowledge of the classroom to collaborate on the Danielson model. He has replaced many experienced principals with younger, corporate minded supervisors. The senior principals that have remained under Bloomberg have never openly challenged his ideas, and certainly have not been encouraged to bring their experience and expertise to Bloomberg’s table of reforms.
Given the present reality of the Bloomberg/Walcott regime, the Danielson rubrics have already failed in the New York City Public Schools. The prerequisite climate of trust, knowledge, and cooperation inherent to achieving the true goals of the Danielson framework does not exist, precluding any possibility of this transition. Principals are already using Danielson merely as a vehicle to give teachers unsatisfactory ratings, without implementing any of the positive ideas that Danielson has put forth. The focus continues to be on the usual pecking away at details, rather than on true teacher support and improvement. Therefore, the use of Danielson should be tabled at this time. Perhaps, instead, to move forward in the right direction, a rubric should be created for principals that would encourage them to work toward that climate of trust and respect that Danielson aspires to.
Just wanted to let you know that I will be resigning as Chapter leader of my school shortly due to negligence of the DR by not supporting her chapter leaders. This has been endemic for several years. I could write a book on the grievances the school has but the DR does not want to touch them while also communicating to the principal, exposing confidential matters between myself and members. Several other chapter leaders are just plain fed up. This is the cancer bloggers talk about at the UFT. All major issues are skirted or totally avoided!
Let me give you a story of when it’s not done well. I was contacted early on by a large urban district in New Jersey that…had a horrible evaluation system. It was top-down and arbitrary and punitive and sort of “gotcha.” And they developed a new one based on my book, and it was top-down and arbitrary, and punitive. All they did was exchange one set of evaluative criteria for another. They did nothing to change the culture surrounding evaluation. It was very much something done to teachers, an inspection, used to penalize or punish teachers whom the principal didn’t like…[and] I discovered that if I didn’t do something here, my name would get associated with things people hate. So I thought about what it would take to do teacher evaluation well. And I discovered that doing it well means respecting what we know about teacher learning, which has to do with self-assessment, reflection on practice, and professional conversation.http://educationnext.org/
NYPD tells teachers, “No grading papers in public.”
October 23, 2011
Anne and I are in New York for the weekend to see our kids and grand kids. Plus it is our 35th wedding anniversary. Naturally we want to spend some time at Occupy Wall Street.========================
Liberty Park is jammed with people. Some have taken up permanent residence in sleeping bags and tents. Hundreds more fill the park every day with signs of one kind or another. There are lots of tourists, reporters and college students who have been assigned to interview the protesters.
There are drum circles, spontaneous dances and the steady flow of speakers whose voices get amplified, not by the banned electronic microphones and loudspeakers, but the technique of the crowd repeating what each speaker says in waves that carry the message to the back of the throngs who are listening.
As we left we stopped by a group of teachers who were doing a grade-in in an open plaza across from the park.
Grade-ins have become common in cities across the country as teachers gather in public spaces to do work that usually gets done at home, off the clock and unrecognized: prepping for classes, grading papers and doing the unending paperwork that the school bureaucracies demand.
Since there was no open space in Liberty Square, this group of teachers gathered across the street. A few minutes later two uniformed New York cops arrived on the scene.
“What’s going on.”
“We’re grading papers.”
“Can’t do that here.”
The cops disappeared for a few minutes and suddenly there were a half-dozen more New York cops.
“Can’t do that here,” they repeated.
“Thank you, officers,” one of the teachers politely said. And the teachers gathered their tests, folding chairs and hand-made cardboard signs and moved across the street, disappearing into the crowd.
David [Ed Note: Pecoraro -a Unity guy - good for him] from Beach Channel resolved that atrs have a chapter for as long as atrs exist. He explained that atrs have a right to vote. Leroy Barr spoke against it saying said that we do not want to create a permanent chapter for a temporary position. The motion failed but got a great deal of support. Mulgrew acknowledged that voting would be a problem and they would work on it. (I voted for it.)Reports on the GEM ATR Meeting
=======================Last night over 40 ATRs and friends met at the Skyline Diner in Manhattan. Enthusiasm ran high, sometimes too high, as the Diner Management requested us to try to keep our voices down.
We agreed to give life to the ATR committee of GEM, created several committees to publicize our plight, discuss future actions at th e UFT and possible legal recourse for the discrimatory practices against veteran teachers.
Support for a UFT ATR Chapter or Chapters for each borough ran high. Truth is, if Michael Mulgrews figure of 1000 ATRs is correct, 5% of us were there last night! This is an auspicious beginning. One weakness, we need to reach out to get more ATRs to participate, especially Black and Hispanic UFT members who are ATRs. Given the preponderance of people's of color at the borough meetings, this will be critical for our groups success.
There was general agreement with the thrust of ATR GEM literature and the demands in the petition. On this basis, we should move forward to request meetings with UFT leaders on the statistics the Union has collected concerning the age, race demographics of ATRs, numbers hired since June, average length of time in the ATR pool and salaries.
The restraint of last night attendees was indicative of their seriousness. People refrained from talking about their own difficult situations to insure the discussion was more general, enabling us to come to broad areas of agreement.
Several people tied our issue into the broader crises facing the education system like privatization through Charters, school closures and budget cuts. Also singled out was the DOE's overall effort to cheapen and dumb down education for working class children. Others discussed increasing unemployment, budget cuts, the issues raised by the Occupy Wall Street movement and our need to defend teaching.
Absolutely Teaching Ready
[Attachment(s) from Jose Lara included below]
Below are the links with news coverage of the Occupy LAUSD Campaign. As you can see every major news station covered the event. We are changing the debate about education funding, school change, and Privatization of Education. It is time WE take the offense.I have spent the past two nights at Occupy LAUSD and had some great company from fellow educators. Other than LA School Police try to intimidate us into leaving on the first night (LAPD and School Police personally came to apologize to us the next day), we have had a great time talking about improving the quality of education for our students.Every night we have had a new group of people join us for our nightly conversations. Some stay until late to support, others have come by to drop off food donations, and others pitch up a tent and stay with us the night. We appreciate all the support we have received.We are part of a growing movement that is sick and tried of corporate greed that underfunds our schools and pushes school “reform”. We are part of the 99% who are standing up to Wall Street.I would like to ask everyone who reads this to please come out for at least a couple of hours after work if you cannot join the Camp-out. If you can stay the night, even for one night, it would be great!Lastly, Don’t forget to visit our Facebook, Twitter, and Website for all the latest information:Warmly,Jose LaraSocial Justice Educator &Central Area ChairNews for Occupy LAUSDMaestros acampan frente al LAUSDLa Opinion"Occupy LAUSD" March Hits Downtown LANBC LAHundreds Join "Occupy" Protest at LAUSD HeadquartersFox 11Occupy movement rallies at L.A. school district headquartersL.A. TimesOccupy LA Takes On LAUSDKTLA 5Occupy L.A., teachers union march on LAUSD HQABC 7Teachers to join Occupy L.A. protestersDaily BreezeOccupy LAUSD Protesters March For Education FundingNeon TommyOccupy LAUSD Makes It Through the Night, Police Back Down and Let Protesters StayLAistTeachers, Parents March to 'Occupy LAUSD'Eagle Rock PatchOccupy LAUSD Movement Hits the Streets to Demand Education JusticeGOOD EducationOccupy LAUSDUSC Annenberg NewsHundreds March for Occupy LAUSDLA ProgressiveOccupy LAUSD march protests cutsLA YouthOccupy L.A. joins teachers and parents to protest education cuts and billionaire reformers.Democratic UndergroundOccupy LA Protests LAUSD With Members Of UTLA Teachers UnionHuffington Posthttp://tinyurl.com/3pdsyer
This may turn out to be the most satisfying screening of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" yet – right up the nose of Michelle Rhee's hubby.Dear GEM
I want to let you know that the Coalition will be screening “Superman Truth” at for Occupy Sacramento Thurs. evening downtown in Cesar Chavez Park. Mayor Kevin Johnson had said he was going over to parley with the group even though the Council hasn’t allowed them to camp overnight and have been arresting resisters every night. Johnson has said that he would not vote for an exception to the city’s no camping ordinance, but he volunteered to take a letter for the group to Washington-- blatant attempt to co-opt the group.
I am a student teacher in Melbourne, Australia and I would like to know how Australian public teachers can join your Grassroots Education Movement. We are struggling with the same issues here of standardized testing overtaking classrooms, and the threat of charter schools opening when public schools are proved to be 'ineffective' due to measurements of student and teacher performance.Hmmmm. I see an organizing road trip in my future.
We are fortunately not in the throes of threats as serious as in the UK or USA at this stage but Australian government and business always follow the policies of both countries so there is a strong feeling among teachers that this is imminent.Please advise us how teachers here in Australia like myself can join with your organisation and support a global movement to ensure public schools remain open and opportunities for all children to have a good education survive into the future?I found your movement in the following link from a Nation of Change interview with Brian Jones: http://www.nationofchange.org/poverty-problem-efforts-cut- education-funding-expand- standardized-testing-assailed- 1314548242 Thank you.
Julie Cavanagh, an organizer with the Grassroots Education Movement who will be participating in ODOE, said the OWS message and practices reflect education activists concerns.Good Gotham Schools article: Inspired by Wall St. protest, activists vow to ‘Occupy the DOE’
“There is no greater representation for the lack of democracy in what’s happening in public education policy right now than the PEP,” said Cavanagh, who works a special education teacher. “It’s a group of people who believe they are accountable to one man as opposed to 1.1 million school children. That’s wrong. We want the representational democracy we’re entitled to.”
Hello all!
Next Tuesday labor groups, community groups, teachers, students, parents and advocates will be occupying the Mayor's Panel for Educational Policy (the former democratically elected Board of
Education). The Panel is a 13 member group that has a eight member majority are appointed by the mayor to rubber stamp the damaging corporate educational "reforms" he is forcing upon public schools.
We, like the 99%, believe that decisions that impact public schools should be made democratically, by the people that are involved in the system such as parents, students, teachers, and administrators. For that reason, we will be holding the first DEMOCRATIC General Assembly for Public Education at the Panel for Educational Policy from 5:30-8pm.
We are calling on all people that believe in the principles of Occupy Wall Street and the 99% to join us in showing the mayor, the chancellor, and the PEP what real democracy looks like. We would love
for you to support us in the struggle to stop the attack on public schools.When: Tuesday, October 25th @5:30PM
Where: Seward Park High School
350 Grand Street (near Williamsburg Bridge)
In solidarity,
The OWS Committee for Public Education
Ravitch: Greater equity would prevent education cuts, providing students and schools with vital resources: Ravitch to introduce NYC parent of student at school in danger of closingNoted public education expert Diane Ravitch will address protesters at Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park on Thursday, saying the movement’s push for greater economic equity is essential for better schools. Ravitch will also introduce the parent of a child at a New York City school on the list for potential closure to speak to the crowd.Ravitch’s rebuke of certain popular education reforms – such as high-stakes testing of students, teachers and schools, as well as corporate-style education policies – have placed her at the forefront of the national education debate. Her views support Occupy Wall Street’s warnings about growing class divisions. For instance, she has said she believes that “The best predictor of low academic performance is poverty.”Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Her most recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System was a bestseller.WHEN: Thursday, October 20 – 7:00 PMWHERE: Zuccotti Park – Downtown ManhattanWHO: Hundreds of protesters, Diane Ravitch, the parent of a child at a NYC school at risk of closing, and others.
LET'S MARCH TOGETHER TO SUPPORT OWS- MEET OUTSIDE AT ADJOURNMENTWhereas the UFT helped organize and participated in the Labor and Community March in Support of Occupy Wall Street on Oct 5th,Be it Resolved that at adjournment of this assembly, delegates meet in front of the building and march together to Zuccotti Park to show our continuing support and solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
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| Click to enlarge GEM ATR Committee Meeting Oct. 20 |
TODAY AT 5PMCome one, come all: parents, student, teachers, counselors, community members, school aides, the 99%:OCCUPY Public Education!!Help us shape an Agenda for the 99% to present to Chancellor Wolcott (the 1%) at the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) on October 25th.Next planning meeting: How should we present this agenda at the PEP?Tuesday Oct. 18 @5PM @ Red Cube (Across Broadway from Occupy Wall Street)
