Video: NYC Parents Want Moskowitz Success Charters OUT of Their Schools plus Brooklyn Rail Article by Parent

It's our last day straddling major earthquake fault lines. Trying not to jump up and down.
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GEM/Real Reform Studio's Darren Marelli (who did the awesome editing of The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) made a short 3 minute video from the press conference that took place on Thursday outside of Eva Moskowitz's Success Charter School Offices in Harlem. 
"NYC Public School Parents Want Success Charter Network Out Of Their Schools."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpW4Etc5EM8

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When dynamic author/public school parents see it in front of their eyes the signs are there that Eva and the ed deformers have pushed too far. Word to SC PR person Jenny Sedlis - hope you are having fun trying to put these fires out.

The Brooklyn Rail - from author Lisa Featherstone to NYCEdNews listserve:

Lots of informed discussion on this list of Success Academy coming to Cobble Hill. Here's my 2 cents in my latest Brooklyn Rail column. Hope folks find it useful. Please circulate if you see fit.

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/12/local/report-card-here-comes-success

Liza Featherstone

__._,_.___
REPORT CARD
Here Comes Success
by Liza Featherstone

Much of Brooklyn's school District 15—which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, and Red Hook—is a comfortable, brownstone-studded idyll, with schools so popular that they drive up real estate values and boast long waiting lists. Many of the district's parents are privileged and have, commendably, used their advantages to improve their local public schools, insulating them from the budget cuts that devastate the rest of the borough. But an escalating charter school battle serves as a jarring reminder that even District 15 parents are still only the 99%—and that it's the 1% that runs the show.

Education entrepreneur and former city councilwoman Eva Moskowitz plans to open a new branch of her Success Academies in the district, as well as one in Bed-Stuy. She already operates several other schools, including in Harlem, the Bronx, and the Upper West Side. In Cobble Hill, the unlucky District 15 neighborhood in her sights, she's not welcome. A survey conducted by Moskowitz's own organization found that only five percent of respondents in District 15 would consider sending their children to such a school. Dissenters besieged a November information session on Success, as well as a hearing at the proposed Baltic Avenue site. Members of the Panel on Educational Policy (PEP) have already received more than 450 e-mails opposing Success Cobble Hill.

As in most such fights in New York City, the opposition focuses on the use of physical space. That's understandable, given the research showing that traditional public schools sharing buildings with charters tend to suffer. There are already three schools in the building in which the Department of Education proposes to install Success Cobble Hill. Community leaders say that an early childhood center offering pre-K and kindergarten would be a better use of the building's limited extra space, given the dearth of public pre-K in Brooklyn and the importance of early childhood education. It's New York City, and in education as in all areas of life, we're obsessed with our scarce, expensive space. But in these real estate scuffles, it's easy to lose sight of larger reasons we should fear the spread of Success Charter, and organizations like it, throughout Brooklyn.

Almost everyone on the Success board of directors hails from hedge funds and private equity firms. Why would we want to put the same people whose greed critically injured our economy in charge of educating our children? "Report Card" would not hire people lacking impulse control, with a demonstrated penchant for demented risk-taking, to watch our child, even for a few hours. Yet two members of Success Academy's board are partners in Gotham Capital, a hedge fund financed mostly by notorious junk bond trader Michael Milken. The rest of the gang is deeply implicated in the reckless financial antics that have mired Brooklyn neighborhoods in foreclosures and unemployment. The hedge fund class has a track record of failure and destruction, and its very existence is a sign of a society rotting from the top. Does anyone really want the folks who brought us the Great Recession to be in charge of anything that matters?

And what about the values that the hedge fund crowd models for our kids? What could be worse? We discourage—sometimes even forbid—our own children from playing with selfish bullies. Yet our leaders are happy to place such people in charge of our kids' education.

In District 15, parents are active in running the schools. They show up to PTA meetings. They help out in the classroom. When they see programs missing that they want for their kids—whether it's sustainability or French—they agitate. Sometimes they even show up and create those programs through their own volunteer labor. When parents in these neighborhoods disagree with decisions made by teachers or principals, they have a voice. When they disagree with a city policy affecting their school, many of them will complain to the Community Education Council or even the Department of Education itself—using what's left of our democratic process to appeal.

At Success Academies, by contrast, the 1% runs the schools for the 99%. But public schools are not supposed to be charities. In fact, in the 19th century, the move away from charity schools, toward a publicly funded, publicly controlled system, was a significant step toward a more democratic society. That's progress we're rushing to undo in our own century. A public school is not supposed to use the generously donated largesse of the rich to benefit a handful at the expense of the many; rather, the public school system is supposed to use our resources as a body politic to educate everyone.

That is the crucial point we miss when we redefine quality public education as a marvelous favor bestowed by the elite upon a lucky few. Eva Moskowitz need not care if her charters take space from public schools or take children—and therefore funding—from them. In District 15, Success Cobble Hill could deal a severe body blow to excellent schools already dealing with severe budget cuts—but Moskowitz is not in the business of worrying about that. She has no reason to be concerned that her schools sometimes kick out underperforming, ill-behaved, or special needs children. She does not need to figure out how to educate the kids who aren't welcome in her schools, or whose schools are made intolerable by sharing space with too many others. She doesn't have to worry about the effect of Success Academies on the system as a whole. She's in the business of philanthropy, which is all about allowing the 1% to get credit for helping the less fortunate, even as it creates winners and losers, and forces recipients to bay for the crumbs. Her job is to make her schools look good, and she has no reason to care how she hurts other schools—and many children—in the process.

Success Charter, bringing the wisdom of the private sector to public education, spends staggering sums, not on educating children, but on marketing. Our neighborhoods are blanketed in slick mailings and billboards advertising Moskowitz products. Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News has reported that in 2009 – 2010, Success spent $1.6 million on such marketing. That means the chain spent $1300 per child to lure kids—and therefore money—from other public schools. These marketing blitzkriegs escalate competition and give Success an edge over traditional schools in the war for middle-class parents, an advantage not based on better performance but on better advertising. When we allow Success into our neighborhoods, then, we're allowing our own tax dollars to subsidize an organization that will then spend heavily to undermine our public schools. Success is not an organization that exists to further the public good, but to perpetuate itself, to build its own brand and that of its creator.

Even though Success Academies take public money and use public space, the public has little oversight over how the organization spends its money. We also have little say in how its schools share public space, whether they help or hurt our communities, whether they operate in our neighborhoods at all, or how they decide which children to educate. Says Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan borough president's appointee to the Panel for Education Policy, "I don't think most people understand the importance of the governance issue."

The worst aspect of the D.O.E.'s plan to bring Success Academy to Brooklyn is that there may be little that anyone—parents, teachers, students—can do to stop it.

There will be a public discussion before the PEP votes on it on December 14, though the D.O.E. is doing its level best to ensure that dissenting Brooklyn families—and Occupy D.O.E. activists—stay home that night. That PEP meeting was originally supposed to take place at the High School of Fashion Industries, which is in Chelsea, easily reached from all over the city. At the end of November, the D.O.E. announced that the meeting would be held, not in Manhattan, but in Corona, Queens. The new location, at Newtown High School, takes nearly an hour, with several train changes, to reach from Cobble Hill. The D.O.E.'s move evokes the World Trade Organization's effort to avoid anti-globalization protesters by moving its meetings to Doha. (Apologies to Corona readers for the comparison but "Report Card" is sure they would feel the same about, say, Cobble Hill.) Sullivan describes the move as "very unusual …I've never seen them move [the PEP meeting] to a less accessible location like this."

D.O.E. officials say that the High School of Fashion Industries' auditorium was undergoing a renovation, which would not be finished in time for the PEP meeting. They've also said that the Corona location will make it easier for Queens parents to comment on proposals affecting schools in Queens. The funny part is, there are no such proposals on the agenda.

As "Report Card" has pointed out (see "Our Fake School Board," Sept. 2011), the majority of PEP appointees work for the mayor, and they already know how they're voting—with the mayor. Mayor 1% wants Success Academies to expand and prosper; for obvious reasons, he sees nothing wrong with the very wealthy running our lives. After all, Bloomberg's political career is based on the slightly depraved, medieval notion that it's okay for one of the richest people in the city to be the mayor.

But it's still worth dragging ourselves to Corona for the PEP meeting. If our opinions meant nothing at all, Bloomberg and Walcott wouldn't be so eager to stifle them. We need to have a public discussion about who runs our schools, and to demand a more democratic kind of school reform, one that begins with families having a say. Says Sullivan, the father of two public school students and often the lone voice of dissent on the PEP, "When we cede control of our children's education we lose respect, dignity, and ultimately our ability to influence anything else."

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liza Featherstone is a writer who lives in Clinton Hill. Her son attends kindergarten in District 15.
 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Why Are The Rich So Interested in Public School Reform by Judith Warner From Time INC!

This was sent along by Mark Naison with this comment:
She calls School Reform "The Rich's Feel Good Hobby!"

My guess is these articles are appearing to try to get on the train before the counter reaction to ed deform gathers full steam.

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EDUCATION
Why Are the Rich So Interested in Public-School Reform?
They want to remake America's students in their own high-achieving image, but they're overlooking socioeconomics
By JUDITH WARNER | @judithwarner | December 9, 2011 |
5

It was perhaps inevitable that the political moment that has given birth to the Occupy movement, pitting Main Street against Wall Street and the 99% against the financial elite, would eventually succeed in making some chinks in the armor of the 1%'s favorite feel-good hobby: the school reform movement.

It's been a good decade now that the direction of school reform has been greatly influenced by a number of highly effective Master (and Mistress) of the Universe types: men and women like Princeton grad Wendy Kopp, the founder of the Teach for America program, her husband, Harvard graduate Richard Barth, who heads up the charter school Knowledge Is Power Program, the hard-charging former D.C. schools chancellor (and Cornell and Harvard grad) Michelle Rhee and the many hedge fund founders who are now investing significant resources in the cause of expanding charter schools. Excoriating the state of America's union-protected teaching profession and allegedly ossified education schools, they've prided themselves upon attracting "the best and the brightest" to the education reform cause, whether by luring recent top college graduates into challenging classrooms or by seducing Harvard Business School or McKinsey-trained numbers-crunchers away from Wall Street to newly lucrative executive positions in educationally themed social entrepreneurship.

The chief promise of their brand of reform — the results of which have been mixed, at best — seems to be that they can remake America's students in their own high-achieving image. By evaluating all students according to the same sort of testable rubrics that, when aced, propelled the reformers into the Ivy League and beyond, society's winners seem to believe they can inspire and guide society's losers, inoculating them against failure with their own habits of success, and forever disproving the depressingly fatalistic '70s-style liberal idea that things like poverty and poor health care and hunger and a chaotic family life can, indeed, condemn children to school failure.

And yet as schools scramble to keep up with these narrow demands, voices are emerging to suggest that perhaps the rubric-obsessed school reform game, as it's been played in the Bush and Obama years and funded and dressed-up by the well-heeled Organization Kids, is itself perhaps due for a philosophical shake-up.

(MORE: Andrew J. Rotherham: Cheating on the Hard Work of School Reform)

Earlier this year, S. Paul Reville, the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, blogged in Education Week that reformers need now to think beyond the numbers and "admit that closing achievement gaps is not as simple as adopting a set of standards, accountability and instructional improvement strategies." In Massachusetts, he wrote, "We have set the nation's highest standards, been tough on accountability and invested billions in building school capacity, yet we still see a very strong correlation between socioeconomic background and educational achievement and attainment. It is now clear that unless and until we make a more active effort to mitigate the impediments to learning that are commonly associated with poverty, we will still be faced with large numbers of children who are either unable to come to school or so distracted as not to be able to be attentive and supply effort when they get there." Reville called for "wraparound services" that would allow schools to provide students with a "healthy platform" from which they could begin to work on learning.

Diane Ravitch, the education policy specialist and reformed charter school advocate, made the same argument in a trenchant New York Review of Books article this fall, where she enumerated the many reasons that school reform as we've come to know it needs to be called into question. For one thing, like so much else "the best and the brightest" have brought us in recent years, many of the reform movement's results don't stand up to scrutiny. After reviewing the data, she writes: "Most research studies agree that charter schools are, on average, no more successful than regular public schools; that evaluating teachers on the basis of their students' test scores is fraught with inaccuracy and promotes narrowing of the curriculum to only the subjects tested, encouraging some districts to drop the arts or other nontested subjects; and that the strategy of closing schools disrupts communities without necessarily producing better schools."

Striking a serious blow to the contention that it's bad teaching — not bad luck in life — that makes some American students perform much worse than others (and all of them much worse than students in other countries), Ravitch noted that on a recent international test, the Program for International Student Assessment, "American schools in which fewer than 10% of the students were poor outperformed the schools of Finland, Japan and Korea. Even when as many as 25% of the students were poor, American schools performed as well as the top-scoring nations. As the proportion of poor students rises, the scores of U.S. schools drop."

In other words, more than good teachers, more than targeted testing, more than careful calibrations of performance measures and metrics that can standardize and quantify every aspect of learning, it's the messy business of life — where a child comes from and what he or she goes home to at the end of the day — that really determines success in school. This message flies in the face of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-boostrap individualism, the extreme emphasis on private (read: teacher) responsibility that has animated the school reform movement in recent years. It demands a complete rethinking now of what our public response to the perennial crisis of public education in America should be.

(MORE: Warner: Overmedicating Foster Kids: The Cost of Skimping on Care)

Fortunately, there are some programs in place that have had real success in providing "wraparound services" that help children come to school ready to learn. In Northern California, for example, the Making Waves Foundation has for decades run a program providing tutoring, academic advising, college counseling, after school enrichment programs, mental health services, nutritional food, transportation and parent education to more than a thousand low-income children, selected by lottery. In Cincinnati, where more than 70% of children live in low-income households, a program called the Strive Partnership coordinates services and support for school children that include mentoring, health care, arts programs, quality preschool and financial aid for college — and the result, according to a new report from the independent think tank Education Sector, is that, over the last four years, Cincinnati schools have made greater gains than any other urban district in Ohio and have had the most success in reducing the percentage of its students who score at the very bottom on achievement tests.

The Obama Administration hasn't been blind to these initiatives, and has committed $40 million to a new Promise Neighborhoods program that seeks to link family support services to schools. But, the Education Sector report notes, that initiative is unlikely to receive the $150 million the Administration requested for 2012, given that its 2011 budget request of $210 million was cut down to $30 million.

Thinking structurally about social ills, rejecting excessive individualism for community-based, it-takes-a-village-style responsibility, has been out of favor in America for a long time. In education reform, what's been in style instead is vilifying teachers and their unions. For some schools, making the grade has meant cooking the books to show results. Let's hope that the time to reform this business-modeled mindset has finally come.

Warner, a former contributing columnist for the New York Times, is the author, most recently, of We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. The views expressed are her own.

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/09/why-are-the-rich-so-interested-in-public-school-reform/#ixzz1gA8HtNZs

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org

Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com

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Norm in The Wave: The Big Lie(s)

The Big Lie(s) and Where Bob Turner Stands
by Norm Scott
Dec. 9, 2011

Well over a decade ago they were branded as radical education reformers looking to change the way education is delivered. They were embraced by both those on the right who had been attacking public schools as a monopoly and liberals on the left who had become frustrated at the lack of progress. As an experienced educator I know from day one that they were tossing around a load of crap - no real reforms but a political ideology based on making changes that would in the long run reduce the costs of education, mainly from the largest source - the labor factor - ergo, teacher salaries. I could never manage to even use the term "reformer" and indeed started using quotes around the word until I came up with the term "education deformer" because that is what they were doing - deforming education.

The mantra of the Education Deformer
Did you know that the reason almost a quarter of the children in this nation are poor is because we have a lousy educational system? And why do we have a lousy educational system? Because we have lousy schools. And why to we have lousy schools? Because we have lousy teachers. Research shows we are told - though the actual research is rarely sited - that the biggest in school factor is not high class sizes or the principal or the number of children struggling with academics or family problems or the lack of resources provided by the people running the system – but the teacher. And didn't you know that the reason we have so many lousy teachers is because the teacher unions prevent the removal of so-called lousy teachers. But, oh, we really do love most of our teachers but if only we could remove those few bad apples. And in order to do that we have to eliminate the unions - or at the very least take away their collective bargaining rights and maybe even their ability to recruit new members (wink, wink: so we can weaken the ability of the only organize any opposition to turning the billions of dollars of public school funding over to private hands).

And we need school choice (charters) since only competition and free enterprise can work. Hey, maybe we can do the same with the police and fire departments - set up competing agencies in some higher crime and higher fire neighborhoods - so that when there is a fire people can decide whether to call 911 or 912.

Of course the only way we can accomplish any of the above is by turning over entire school systems into the hands of one person – usually the mayor – and thus removing any vestige of democratic governing or control over the billions of dollars that go into the education budget. Even better if he happens to be a billionaire who can buy the press, politicians (see Christine Quinn, et al.), and many local community organizations that might put up opposition.

And there's another big lie. That the above is a Republican attack on the public education when in fact just about every Democratic politician, led by the Commander-in-Chief and his Education Secretary attack dog, Arne Duncan who was appointed after 7 years of failure leading the Chicago school system down the road to failure following the very same ed deform policies. Did Obama, who has out-Bushed Bush on ed deform, live in Chicago, which led the way with ed deform starting in 1994, with blinders on? My answer is NOT. In fact, Obama has proven himself to be corporate all the way in so many ways that the charges he is a socialist is absurd.

So where does our local Congressman Bob Turner stand on ed deform? As I pointed out in my Nov. 25 column, Turner is a free enterprise guy. You know the type. If Eva Moskowitz' Success Charter spends $1.5 million in advertising – $1300 per child they manage to recruit and then complain that the public money they get and the free space in pubic schools is not enough – while the local public school may not even have a working copy machine – that is the free enterprise system. When the day comes that the most capable students are lured out of the local public school, leaving an underfinanced hulk with struggling students and the poorest parents, thus leading to that school being closed and parents having only a Moskowitz-run school to go to – unless they are special ed or from non-English speaking families which Eva doesn't take into her schools – there is the free enterprise system at work for you with a privately controlled monopoly replacing the supposed monopoly that had been under public control.

And speaking of Turner, he wrote a piece in The Nov. 18 edition of The Wave extolling his support for veterans. Paul Krugman wrote a column in the Times on November 13 about a proposal from Mitt Romney (whom Turner will support if he is the Republican nominee) to privatize the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) by offering vouchers.

Krugman writes:

American health care is remarkably diverse. In terms of how care is paid for and delivered, many of us effectively live in Canada, some live in Switzerland, some live in Britain, and some live in the unregulated market of conservative dreams. One result of this diversity is that we have plenty of home-grown evidence about what works and what doesn’t. Naturally, then, politicians — Republicans in particular — are determined to scrap what works and promote what doesn’t. And that brings me to Mitt Romney’s latest really bad idea, unveiled on Veterans Day: to partially privatize the Veterans Health Administration (V.H.A.). What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform. Many people still have an image of veterans’ health care based on the terrible state of the system two decades ago. Under the Clinton administration, however, the V.H.A. was overhauled, and achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control. Multiple surveys have found the V.H.A. providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers. Furthermore, the V.H.A. has led the way in cost-saving innovation, especially the use of electronic medical records.

I say this all the time about politicians and union leaders: watch what they do, not what they say.
Norm blogs at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Today (I think) SPEAK-OUT AGAINST EVA MOSKOWITZ!

OK. So it's Friday 9AM where I am but if my math is good this should be getting started soon where it's thurs 3pm. We will have some GEM film coverage.

Tomorrow I'll publish an email I received critical of CEJ and AQE for their ties to uft policies of supporting charters and using Eva Moskowitz as a scapegoat to cover up. Opening up issues related to CEJ, an Annenberg Inst op, can turn into a can of worms but maye it's time (while I'm safe in NZ). But for today, anything that focuses attention on the political nature of the Moskowitz op is OK with me.
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Hi everyone,

My name is Melinda Martinez, I am a mother of 4 daughters at the School for International Studies where Eva Moskowitz wants to co-locate her Success Academy Charter School. Like many of you, I was appalled to see that after hours of testimony from parents and Cobble Hill residents against the co-location in the K293 building, Marc Sternberg (DOE Deputy Chancellor) said his opinion remained unchanged. As if that wasn't enough, the next day I came to find out that Eva Moskowitz is considering running for Mayor-- this is scary! We must not let another politician advance their political career on the backs of our public school children.

A number of parents at my school believe it's time to take further action against Eva Moskowitz moving into our school and harming our children's education. I am urging parents from Cobble Hill and across the city to join us to:

SPEAK-OUT AGAINST EVA MOSKOWITZ!
Thursday, Dec. 8th from 3:30-5pm
outside of Eva's Office in West Harlem
310 Lenox, between 125th and 126th
Right off the 2 or 3 train to 125th St.

NO co-locations of Success Academy Charter School in Cobble Hill, or anywhere in NYC!

Please RSVP by contacting Melinda Martinez, or Julian Vinocur from the Alliance for Quality Education at K293Parents@gmail.com, or call 203-313-2479
 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

"I'm ghetto-licious!" proclaims Jane Addams HS Principal as School Is Destroyed by DOE

"In truth there are no words." --- Glenn Tepper, retired Jane Addams teacher

The slaughter taking place by an unfettered Tweed destroying one school after another is causing mayhem in the public schools of NYC. Yet there is no body willing or capable of stopping the maiming going on. Frustration mounts as people feel more and more helpless as we read daily accounts that are almost impossible to believe (check out the Valerie Ready reports at Bronx High which Ed Notes has been exposing for years.)

Jane Addams Principal facebook page

Here is another horrible principal supported by Tweed until the shit hits the fan. Retired Jane Addams teacher Glenn Tepper had the story here at Ed Notes a year ago. Now that the press is noticing there are follow-ups.

Here are recent messages from Glenn:

An insightful piece, written by a longtime colleague and friend, and by the person who replaced me when I retired:

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/06/city-policies-undermined-jane-addams-h-s/

This article corroborates the points I made the piece I wrote in 2010:

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/11/jane-addams-teacher-chronicles-how.html

Together, the two articles provide an accurate assessment of what has happened to Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers.

The irony is, that the principal of the school in which I worked for 21 of my 36 years in the New York City system may now be removed, but not for the fundamental reason why she should have been removed ever since she got the job— that she was not qualified to lead this school, and that she never grew into the job.  Nor may she now be removed for other well-founded reasons: handing out Unsatisfactory ratings to staff without just cause (including entire departments which were comprised of both veteran and younger staff), or dismantling core programs, or discontinuing needed courses, or destroying staff morale.  

Instead, her head may roll because of an alleged credit scam.  There was a legit basis for what the first article (below) attempts to describe— awarding course credit towards graduation for courses that incorporated the curriculum of the basic (credited) course, but she bungled that by awarding double credit.  (Duh!)  Of course, the article goes off track, alleging credit for a "Geography" course required for graduation— Nowhere in New York State is a "geography" course a graduation requirement: Both Global Studies and US History & Government are the required course sequences, not "geography."  Geography is something I remember studying when I was in the 4th grade.

Off-street parking used to be overseen by a joint volunteer committee of staff and administrators, and it ran without a hitch for more than two decades.  Since I retired, this principal took over unilateral control of parking, and then did who-knows-what.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ed-dept-probes-principal-sharron-smalls-credit-scam-jane-addams-h-s-south-bronx-article-1.984905?print=1

and

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/principal-sharron-smalls-charged-free-parking-jane-addams-high-teachers-article-1.984928

 

There are no words.  Except maybe these that she exclaimed as she began her address at Addams' 2010 Commencement: "I'm ghetto-licious!"

 

Here's the article about the Jane Addams principal's photo on her Facebook page:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/04/sharron-smalls-jane-addams-facebook-picture_n_1127935.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

In truth, there are no words…

SUNY Charter Authorizers

The background to this is that SUNY Charter shills who granted Success Academy's application for a school in Brooklyn's District 13 or 14 must now rule whether it is legal for Eva to change her mind and move it to more gentrified Cobble Hill where parents are rising in protest.

Before I go on I want to remind everyone that Pedro Noguera chairs the SUNY charter authorizing committee. He's probably ducking under a desk to avoid this hot cake.

This came across from Leonie:
Rossi of SUNY saying no issues in Success moving location of charter within Brooklyn. letter attached and here

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1_VhrOGX7IfYWVhYTI0MmUtZmEwMi00ODgwLWE5N2ItOTllMmJkOTc0YzU5

Then, amen, this came from Noah Gotbaum:

Let’s make sure that we are clear:  “SUNY” hasn’t Ok’d the move of Success Charter from Bed Stuy to Cobble Hill, a Vice President at the SUNY Charter Institute, whom the SUNY Trustees and the law recognize as “staff”, wrote a tortured opinion saying that he believes that Success is “not required” to get a charter amendment.  That SUNY CSI staff members -  whose explicit role is to promote charter schools, rather than to improve education in the state - have usurped the SUNY Trustees’ decision making, approval and oversight powers and turned them into nothing more than a rubber stamp, is an outrage.

Would suggest that rather than accepting Ralph Rossi and the SUNY CSI Charter Lobby as the law of the land, we instead ask/demand that Noguera, McCall and the other Trustees (as well as our legislators) come out of the closet and exercise their legal authority and responsibilities regarding charter schools in our communities.  Will they let stand CSI’s interpretation that a name change is material but a huge community/demographic change is not? (Noguera already said he would not).   Are the Trustees ok when they authorize charter schools explicitly to recruit, prioritize and educate ELL and “at risk” kids with the fewest educational options, and instead these schools end up ignoring those kids in order to cream skim the most involved parents and kids from our minority communities?  Or, as in the case of Upper West Success and now Success Academy Cobble Hill, when the SUNY authorized schools simply mock their charter guidelines and the law altogether, and instead proudly announce – with the DOE’s complicity - their new mission to provide middle class white communities with additional options and more “choice.”   

I live in hope that the SUNY Trustees – and the press – will investigate why the SUNY authorized Upper West Success Academy still hasn’t been able to fill almost 15% of its seats halfway into the new school year, or why the number of ELL’s test takers at all the Success Academy schools combined is fewer than the fingers on one of my hands, or why our co-located public schools have 10x the number of homeless students,  double the number of kids requiring free lunch, and an infinite number more of self contained special needs kids (Success Charter has zero).   What happened to claims in Success Charter’s applications touting increased options and prioritization of our most vulnerable kids, the world famous “transparent” and leveling lottery  system, the tens of thousands of applications and the “massive waiting lists” all driven by “huge demand” for “choice”?   

noah

Why Did John Merrow/Learning Matters Censor Susan Ohanian on Common Core?

(I know I scheduled some posts but 18 hour time diff's got me confus
Susan's update is fully packed with info which I can't read in full due to poor internet access. Of particular note is John Merrow's Learning Matters apparently censoring her comments on Commom Core standards. Leonie has asked them to explain in an email. Randi W and Merrow are appearing together next Weds Dec 14 in NYC (details posted when I get back). Both got money from Bill Gates. One of the censored items: The two most recent Gates grants to Learning Matters:

2009: $325,000
2007: $308,000

I've got more but too hard to do on Blackberry.

I do want to point out I am opposed to Common Core because of how much I trust Susan. That Randi and Mulgrew and Bill Gates and Dennis Walcott are pushing it down your throats is not surprising though teachers buying it should be. How can you trust that tandem after all that has happened?

BTW - just today got a major Kiwi businessman/activist in Reefton on the South Island on camera attacking commom core here as ed deform. I hope it comes out.

And I also heard from Merlin at Occupy Aukland who are in court today and tomorrow fighting eviction. He said they might try to show the judge some of the video I shot at their GA on Nov. 30.

------------------
Marion Brady's piece has gone viral. Yesterday over 350,000 people had visited the site, with almost that many posting comments. Kudos to Marion for his continued and persistent good work!!

Although I posted my latest dust-up with Learning Matters/John Merrow/PBS below, I hope you will read it at Daily Censored:
http://dailycensored.com/2011/12/07/were-being-steamrolled-into-one-size-fits-all/

It's creating a little stir on Twitter and at Facebook. Please pass it on.

I would never admit how long it took to write that. I avoid writing and avoid writing, while mushing things over and over and over. . . worrying about them. After I finally write something, the real work begins. I edit and edit and edit. I envy people who dash things off. I am a plodder, not a dasher.

I have a second piece at Daily Censored. Although it qualifies as an Eggplant, I haven't posted it there yet. I've never figured out why humor gets no notice, never mind respect.

Homeland Security Teacher Rating System Threat Advisory
http://dailycensored.com/2011/12/05/homeland-security-teacher-rating-system-threat-advisory/

Susan

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To the editor
Stephen Krashen
Daily Telegraph
2011-12-06
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1406

Four million children in the United Kingdom don't own a book.

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To the editor
James F. Mothersbaugh Jr
Tribune.com
2011-12-05
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1405

It's really good to see teachers haven't lost their sense of humor.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
To the editor
Gerald Coles
Education Week
2011-12-07
http://susanohanian.org/show_letter.php?id=1404

The letter that appears in Education Week is not always the letter that was submitted.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
We're being steamrolled into one-size-fits-all
Susan Ohanian
Learning Matters
2011-12-07
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1143

Who's Afraid of Bill Gates? Read on.

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A Bronx Science Experiment
Robert Kolker
New York Magazine
2011-12-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1142

Here is a detailed account of the Bronx School of Science principal's leadership style.

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When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids
Marion Brady
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2011-12-05
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1141

Here is good news of people fighting the outrages. And you can join in.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Why School Choice Fails
Natalie Hopkinson
New York Times
2011-12-05
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1140

A DC parent explains what's happened to public schooling in her neighborhood.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Choking on the Common Core Standards
Joanne Yatvin
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2011-12-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1139

This commentary provoked A LOT OF comments against the Common Core.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Funds Right-Wing Extremists
announcement
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
2011-11-01
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1138

The Gates Foundation funds ALEC.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
The Death of Pre-School
Paul Tullis
Scientific American Mind
2011-11-01
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1137

If you pay $14,300 a year, your pre-schooler can get lessons in pointillism.
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org

Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com

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Breaking: Judge grants UFT Petition on Peter Lamphere 2009 U-rating in Another Blow to Bronx High School of Sci Principal

When Valerie Reidy(sp) went after UFT chapter chair and top level math teacher Peter Lamphere by giving him 2 u ratings in a row with a third career ending pending a deal was arranged to transfer Peter while awaiting the outcome of grievances etc. While saving Peter's teaching career in NYC it was also a victory for Reidy in removing a CL that stood up for teachers under severe attack at one of the top schools in the nation. (Or was.)

I thought the UFT should have made Peter the poster boy for defending LIFO and tenure protections. And to focus on the attack on union reps.

But the UFT has its ways though that may well happen. The 2nd U rating is still pending. And Peter also has a law suit going.

For background search ed notes for 5 years of Reidy articles.

And Read:
A Bronx Science Experiment
Robert Kolker
New York Magazine
2011-12-04
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1142


Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org

Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com

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District 15 Community at the Barriers Opposing Moskowitz Invasion

Passionate and articulate parents, teachers, elected officials, students and community members spoke out against the damaging, deceptive and most probably illegal proposed co-location of Eva Moskowitz Success Academy Charter School in a public school building in Cobble Hill Brooklyn.

This co-location will likely wreck the schools that now inhabit the building:
-Brooklyn School for Global Studies
-Shool for International Studies
-P368K, A District 75 school serving special needs students

There are already 9 Success Academy Charter Schools operating in NYC. All 9 have been given FREE space inside existing public schools despite overwhelming community opposition and the fact that the school receives millions of dollars in private donations from Wall Street and Corporate sponsors.

http://youtu.be/9rLFaivC56s

UFT Reaction to Tweed New Supervison Plan for ATRs Deemed Uncacceptable

I find this reaction unacceptable.  For starters, it is ludicrous that ATRs will be judged on classroom management.  The DOE/UFT expects us to have quality classroom management.  It should be obvious that we need to develop an initial repertoire in order to reach that point.    The notion that we should be judged on this is thoroughly brain-dead.
Souvarine

Makes no sense to me. Classroom Management has much to do with developing relationships with students. It has much to do with having students know that you care about  and respect them. It has much to do with the trust that you spend time earning from them.  It has much to do with developing community in your classroom.  It has much to do with knowing content so that lessons are exciting and fun and students feel good about what they are learning.  That takes time and lots of work. It does not happen with revolving teachers.  Have these people ever been in a classroom?

Loretta

The purpose of this is to make it easier to fire teachers.It has nothing to do with fairness or with common sense - or more importantly it has nothing to do with what is good fro students.
Carolyn

Carolyn I agree.  And we expect Bloomberg and Walcott to put forth such a practice.  My point was that the UFT said that evaluating classroom management for ATRs who bounce around from school to school every week makes sense.  I cannot believe that anyone who was a teacher would even suggest such a thing.
Loretta

GEM'a ITBWFS Film Showing at PS 75

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 the right for important bits.

The Spence School: What's Good for Mayor Bloomberg's Kids Is Good Enough for Ours

See below from Leonie Haimson on Alan Singer's article on Spence where Bloomberg sent his kids. I knew teachers at Spence when we used to hold technology meetings there. They would laugh at the idea of teaching in the school system run by Bloomberg.

----------
Given all those science labs, art studios, dance rooms etc. (even a art history room!) as well as small class sizes, I'm sure that Spence would be considered way underutilized by DOE's formula and an appropriate site for a charter school.  Should we suggest that Eva move in there?
Leonie

Alan Singer
Social studies educator, Hofstra University

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/whats-good-for-mayor-bloo_b_1128296.html

What's Good for Mayor Bloomberg's Kids Is Good Enough for Ours

Posted: 12/ 6/11 05:12 PM ET

Cartoonist Al Capp added the character General Bullmoose to his Li'l Abner comic strip in 1953. Bullmoose epitomized "the ruthless capitalist." His motto was "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA!" He was supposedly based on Charles Wilson, a former head of General Motors who testified before a United States Senate subcommittee that "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."

Capp, who died in 1979, was being sarcastic. If he were alive and drawing his comic strip today he might rejoice in characterizing this generation's latest Bullmoose, New York City's multi-billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Recently, while a guest speaker at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Bloomberg said that if it were up to him, he would fire half the city's teachers and double class size. He would also double teacher salaries, which would be a good idea if, as Bloomberg says, he wants to attract and hold onto the best teachers. Bloomberg, who has been in a prolonged legislative and public relations campaign to weaken the city's teachers union, branded 50% of New York C$mnkiity's teachers as ineffective, even though according to a new rating system that he endorses and the union disputes, the number is less than 20%.

Bloomberg's proposal was quickly and emphatically denounced by Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters. According to Haimson, the mayor ran for office on a platform calling for reducing class size, but now New York City has "the largest class sizes in 11 years." He also called for merit pay but without positive results. "We've had the experiment, we've tried and it's failed." Haimson is actually less concerned with Bloomberg's proposal, which she dismissed as "idiocy," than she is with similar proposals being floated by the Gates Foundation, the right-leaning Fordham Institution, and the supposedly more liberal Center for American Progress.

But maybe Mayor Mike is on to something? Maybe New York City should fire half the teachers and double class size in its public schools? His proposal made me curious. What kind of education did Mayor Mike choose for his daughters, now adults, before he became mayor and was only an ordinary multi-billionaire living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan? Michael Bloomberg has two daughters, Emma, now aged thirty-two, and Georgina, twenty-eight. Both girls attended the prestigious private all-girls Spence School in New York City.

The Spence School is located on ritzy East 91 Street between 5th Avenue and Madison. According to its website, for the 2011-12 academic year, tuition is $37,500 for all grades K-12, about the tuition cost of an expensive private university. By comparison, the tuition cost at the elite public Stuyvesant High School is zero. I do not know if either Bloomberg daughter took or passed the test for selective New York City public high schools, although Emma was supposed to be a top student and later attended Princeton University.

Because Spence alumnae are routinely accepted by Harvard, Princeton and Columbia universities, the school can afford to be very selective. It received 707 applications in the 2008-2009 academic year, and accepted 129 students or only 18 percent of the applicants.

Of course it does not hurt to be rich or well known when applying for a spot for your children. Among the celebrities whose children attend or have attended Spence are Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Gabriel Byrne, Michael Bloomberg, Revlon's Ronald O. Perelman, Walter Cronkite, and Katie Couric.

In addition to its high tuition charge, the school has a "voluntary" annual fund, which because it is tax deductible, allows the wealthy to "contribute" even more money to the school claiming while a deduction on state and federal income taxes. According to the website, "the Annual Fund helps pay for everything from faculty salaries and professional development opportunities to new curriculum initiatives, from financial assistance programs to technology maintenance and upgrades, from the electricity needed to keep the lights on to supplies and books. It helps Spence attract and retain a talented and committed faculty and provides support for extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, arts initiatives and other programs."

The Spence school has a $25.6 million endowment and very valuable property holdings, partly because of multimillion-dollar gifts from wealthy notables such as Bloomberg and Fiona Biggs Druckenmiller, a philanthropist who attended the school as a child.

But if you can afford the tuition and the voluntary donation, there are many good reasons to have your daughters attend Spence. Its mission statement explains the school is a "diverse community of enthusiastic, scholastically motivated girls . . . taught by a devoted and passionate faculty." In a world where public school students are forced to take an array of standardized assessments and test prep classes, a program enthusiastically supported by Bloomberg for everyone else's children, Spence "students are encouraged to dig deep and ask questions, understanding that learning is a lifelong process, beyond an exam or diploma. Day-to-day, they aspire to their school motto 'Not for school, but for life we learn'." To facilitate this kind of learning, average class size at Spence is limited to approximately 16-18 students and only 14 students per class in the high school. Recent visiting artists, lecturers, and scholars have included Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, playwright J.T. Rogers, Metropolitan Museum curator Joan Mertens '64, artist Barnaby Furnas, novelist Sue Monk Kidd, choreographer Doug Varone and Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor.

At Spence, the extras are not considered extra. It has six science labs, six art studios and an art history room, two music rooms, a computer lab, a photography darkroom, two gymnasiums and a fitness room, two performance spaces, two dance studios, and two libraries. Spence also offers both international and domestic study programs to Upper School students.

I kind of like what I read about Spence. I would like this kind of education for my grandchildren who attend public schools. And what is good for General Bullmoose, I mean Michael Bloomberg, should be good for all the children of New York City.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org

Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com

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Will Moskowitz Meet Match in Cornel West? Will Wadleigh Librarian Become an ATR?

When one of the most respected national voices in the Black community inserts himself into the battle over an Evil real estate grab something's got to give.

Read the Geoff Decker and Beth Fertig stories. Did I miss something? No ref to the charges that both "struggling" schools in the same building are in Success Academy's way and are being cleared out for Eva?

And how about that respected librarian - Paul McIntosh - who may become an ATR if the school closes?
PS 241 in Harlem was also branded a failure when EVA wanted the building but did too well so now they go after the other charter in that building to give her liebensraum.

Noah Gotbaum reported:
Cornel West was incredible speaking to a packed house primarily of middle and high school students at Wadleigh/FDA II earlier today.  See Geoff Decker's article with link to the video in Gotham Schools, and Beth Fertig's piece in Schoolbook.

http://gothamschools.org/2011/12/05/cornel-west-i-intend-to-fight-for-harlem-school-that-could-close/#.Tt2aSUvcJl0.email

Cornel West: 'I intend to fight' for Harlem school that could close

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/05/a-struggling-school-gets-a-lift-from-a-visiting-professor/


Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

UFT Ex Bd ATR Reso - Will Vote at Del Ass on Weds.

Given our previous post on the new ATR supervision plan - my limited int access keeps me from checking but I hear Chaz has a great analysis - someone send a report from the DA on what is said.

In the meantime this turned up.

Let's give New Action a kudo for some behind the scenes work on this and also for sending a rep to the Nov GEMATR committee meeting.

Now we think you can't talk about ATRs without connecting to closing school - the gift that Tweed keeps giving to the bountiful creation of an endless source of ATRs - but I'm not getting greedy in my old age. GEM will continue to reach out to schools on the closing list with ATR info and a leaflet has been produced. (If you want a copy to share email me at normsco@gmail.com.

This will be voted on at the DA on Weds and it will pass even as it contains elements of the reso sponsored by the GEMATR committee and TJC last month that was trashed and defeated by Unity. But let's view this as a good thing though resos are just words. Let's see the uft actually get some of these recos done.

I won't be at the DA but

Resolution on Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) placements
 
WHEREAS the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) crisis is a clear and direct result of New York City Department of Education (DOE) policies and mismanagement; and
 
WHEREAS even though efforts to resolve the crisis have been partially successful, the DOE still has not kept its promises nor met its moral and professional obligations to ATRs and has thereby wasted valuable human and economic resources; and
 
WHEREAS maintaining fairness and increasing productivity in the city's teaching force require that the talents of all educators be utilized in service to students, parents and school communities; and
 
WHEREAS solutions to the ATR crisis need to be proposed and implemented without delay in order to maximize productivity, teaching and learning in New York City public schools; therefore be it
 
RESOLVED that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) call upon the DOE to create a recertification program for ATRs for designated shortage areas and allow participating ATRs to take the requisite course work at the City University of New York (CUNY) free of charge or be reimbursed for the related costs of attending a private college or university at the CUNY rate per credit; and be it further
 
RESOLVED that the UFT urge the DOE to require that all ATRs be given an opportunity for permanent placement in vacancies in their license areas in their district or high school superintendency before the DOE approves any new hire in a license area where an ATR has not been given an opportunity for permanent placement; and be it further
 
RESOLVED that the UFT urge the DOE to place all ATRs into vacancies in their district or high school superintendency after September 15 of any given year on a provisional basis; and be it further
 
RESOLVED that the UFT urge the DOE to allow principals and ATRs at the end of the school year to either mutually agree to have ATRs as permanent staff members or allow them to return to the ATR pool.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Re: [ice-mail] Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

It's the DoE's "new model" for the thinning of the herd…

In simpler terms, a way to issue U ratings, and to discontinue the licenses of ATRs.

On Dec 5, 2011, at 6:37 PM, marjoriestamberg@yahoo.com wrote:

Oh yeah, definite rats.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "Norm Scott" <normsco@gmail.com>
Sender: ice-mail@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 22:48:57
To: Ednotes blog<ednotesonline.buffy@blogger.com>; Gem Internal<GEM-Internal@googlegroups.com>; GEM Listserve<Grassroots-Education@googlegroups.com>; Ice Internal google<ice-mgs@googlegroups.com>; IceMail ListservYahoo<ice-mail@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: normsco@gmail.com
Subject: [ice-mail] Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

I could just drip with satire but I'll leave that to others.

From: Atrassignment <Atrassignment@schools.nyc.gov>
Subject: Important Update on Supervision
To:
Date: Monday, December 5, 2011, 10:37 AM

Dear Teacher,

The Department of Education is piloting a new model for supervision of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).  This pilot will be implemented for most ATRs assigned to community school districts in Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn High School superintendency, District 73; you are receiving this email because you will likely be included in the pilot.  Under this initiative, you will be supervised by a licensed administrator, called a Field Supervisor, who will periodically observe your practice and provide you with feedback to support your professional development.  The Field Supervisors are aware that as an ATR you do not have a regular program and that you rotate school assignments and they will take this context into account in their work with you.

At some point in the next two months, you should expect your Field Supervisor to visit your assignment site to meet with you in person.  At this initial meeting, the Field Supervisor will work with you to develop a plan to support your professional growth and job search process.  The Field Supervisor will make an effort to contact you via your DOE email in advance of the initial meeting to give you a sense of when you can expect him or her; however, he or she may not always be able to provide advance notification.

Sincerely,

NYC Department of Education

 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

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Re: Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

And where is the money coming to pay for these jobs??? I thought there was a budget crisis and DOE is adding new, unecessary Tweedsters!!! Probably more 20 somethings ripe for brainwashing and cult (non-questioning, spill the cool-aid jargon out of their mouths) who will have these Field Supervisory positions. Trogether they would not have enough experience to judge the majority of the ATRs they will be "supervising!". SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!! Mulgrew, where are you?!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: "Norm Scott" <normsco@gmail.com>
Sender: grassroots-education@googlegroups.com
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 22:48:57
To: Ednotes blog<ednotesonline.buffy@blogger.com>; Gem Internal<GEM-Internal@googlegroups.com>; GEM Listserve<Grassroots-Education@googlegroups.com>; Ice Internal google<ice-mgs@googlegroups.com>; IceMail ListservYahoo<ice-mail@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: normsco@gmail.com
Subject: Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

I could just drip with satire but I'll leave that to others.

From: Atrassignment <Atrassignment@schools.nyc.gov>
Subject: Important Update on Supervision
To:
Date: Monday, December 5, 2011, 10:37 AM

Dear Teacher,

The Department of Education is piloting a new model for supervision of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).  This pilot will be implemented for most ATRs assigned to community school districts in Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn High School superintendency, District 73; you are receiving this email because you will likely be included in the pilot.  Under this initiative, you will be supervised by a licensed administrator, called a Field Supervisor, who will periodically observe your practice and provide you with feedback to support your professional development.  The Field Supervisors are aware that as an ATR you do not have a regular program and that you rotate school assignments and they will take this context into account in their work with you.

At some point in the next two months, you should expect your Field Supervisor to visit your assignment site to meet with you in person.  At this initial meeting, the Field Supervisor will work with you to develop a plan to support your professional growth and job search process.  The Field Supervisor will make an effort to contact you via your DOE email in advance of the initial meeting to give you a sense of when you can expect him or her; however, he or she may not always be able to provide advance notification.

Sincerely,

NYC Department of Education

 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

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Re: [ice-mail] Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

Oh yeah, definite rats.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "Norm Scott" <normsco@gmail.com>
Sender: ice-mail@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 22:48:57
To: Ednotes blog<ednotesonline.buffy@blogger.com>; Gem Internal<GEM-Internal@googlegroups.com>; GEM Listserve<Grassroots-Education@googlegroups.com>; Ice Internal google<ice-mgs@googlegroups.com>; IceMail ListservYahoo<ice-mail@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: normsco@gmail.com
Subject: [ice-mail] Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

I could just drip with satire but I'll leave that to others.

From: Atrassignment <Atrassignment@schools.nyc.gov>
Subject: Important Update on Supervision
To:
Date: Monday, December 5, 2011, 10:37 AM

Dear Teacher,

The Department of Education is piloting a new model for supervision of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).  This pilot will be implemented for most ATRs assigned to community school districts in Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn High School superintendency, District 73; you are receiving this email because you will likely be included in the pilot.  Under this initiative, you will be supervised by a licensed administrator, called a Field Supervisor, who will periodically observe your practice and provide you with feedback to support your professional development.  The Field Supervisors are aware that as an ATR you do not have a regular program and that you rotate school assignments and they will take this context into account in their work with you.

At some point in the next two months, you should expect your Field Supervisor to visit your assignment site to meet with you in person.  At this initial meeting, the Field Supervisor will work with you to develop a plan to support your professional growth and job search process.  The Field Supervisor will make an effort to contact you via your DOE email in advance of the initial meeting to give you a sense of when you can expect him or her; however, he or she may not always be able to provide advance notification.

Sincerely,

NYC Department of Education

 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

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

============================================================
Messages posted on ice-mail do not necessarily reflect the views of the Independent Community of Educators. Ice-mail is a high-volume list with lots of members and new people joining every week. In responding to messages please consider addressing your comments to only the sender, especially if they are not of general interest to the list.

Keep up with new statements and comments:
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/

Post a message to the list:
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Smell a Rat Alert: ATRs to Be "Supervised"

I could just drip with satire but I'll leave that to others.

From: Atrassignment <Atrassignment@schools.nyc.gov>
Subject: Important Update on Supervision
To:
Date: Monday, December 5, 2011, 10:37 AM

Dear Teacher,

The Department of Education is piloting a new model for supervision of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).  This pilot will be implemented for most ATRs assigned to community school districts in Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn High School superintendency, District 73; you are receiving this email because you will likely be included in the pilot.  Under this initiative, you will be supervised by a licensed administrator, called a Field Supervisor, who will periodically observe your practice and provide you with feedback to support your professional development.  The Field Supervisors are aware that as an ATR you do not have a regular program and that you rotate school assignments and they will take this context into account in their work with you.

At some point in the next two months, you should expect your Field Supervisor to visit your assignment site to meet with you in person.  At this initial meeting, the Field Supervisor will work with you to develop a plan to support your professional growth and job search process.  The Field Supervisor will make an effort to contact you via your DOE email in advance of the initial meeting to give you a sense of when you can expect him or her; however, he or she may not always be able to provide advance notification.

Sincerely,

NYC Department of Education

 
Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

OCCUPY WALL STREET TELLS NEWT GINGRICH TO 'TAKE A BATH'

Tough internet access in NZ. Have big backlog. This looks like fun.

December 5, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: press@occupywallst.org
For this action: Ben Campbell, 646-457-2856, occupyfundraisers@gmail.com
 
OCCUPY WALL STREET TELLS NEWT GINGRICH TO 'TAKE A BATH'
 
 
Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told Occupy Wall Street protesters, "go get a job, right after you take a bath."  However, it is Gingrich who is truly filthy from rolling around in dirty money. Since leaving the House of Representatives over a decade ago in a cloud of ethics violations, Newt has amassed a fortune of between $7.3 million and $31 million by the peddling of political influence [1]. He has been personally paid $840,000 by the Chamber of Commerce [2], more than $1.6 million from Freddie Mac [3], and $312,500 in a single year from Growth Energy, an ethanol lobby [4].  His for-profit "think tank", the Center for Health Transformation, was founded to lobby on behalf of health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, and he was paid a monthly retainer by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, one of the largest lobbying organizations in the country [5].  His 527 group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, was funded by big oil and coal companies and worked to oppose climate change legislation and promote offshore drilling [6].

One of the 1%'s most successful and moneyed lobbyists, Gingrich is now running for President to more fully institutionalize inequality and the entrenched plutocratic system.

On Monday Dec. 5, Gingrich will be in Manhattan to raise money from the 1%.  He is holding a $1000/person fundraiser at the Union League Club, 38 E 37th St, 12 PM.  Occupy Wall Street will be there at 11:30 AM, decked out in bathrobes and shower caps, to tell Newt that it is he who needs to "take a bath", to get the influence of dirty money out of our politics.

OccupyFundraisers is an affinity group of Occupy Wall Street, a people-powered direct action movement that began on September 17, 2011, in Liberty Square in Manhattan's Financial District. OWS is part of a growing international movement fighting against neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street, government controlled by moneyed interests, and the resulting income inequality, unemployment, environmental destruction, and oppression of people at the front lines of the economic crisis.
 
[1] http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-18/gingrich-running-as-change-agent-profits-from-washington-insider-status
[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577044551356125444.html
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-16/gingrich-said-to-be-paid-at-least-1-6-million-by-freddie-mac.html
[4] http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/gingrich-made-big-bucks-pushing-corporate-welfare
[5] http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/gingrich-made-big-bucks-pushing-corporate-welfare
[6] http://www.salon.com/2010/08/10/whos_giving_to_newt_gingrich/

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Occupy the DOE

Believe it or not there are still teachers in our public schools who do not see the threat to their jobs and livelihood. I certainly put some blame on the uft leaders who are selling "we only have to wait for Bloomberg to leave" while ignoring the threat of the political machine Eva Moskowitz, who wants to be mayor" is building by using her charter schools - you know it was never about education.

The gang at Tweed can only be met head on by large numbers. They moved the Dec. 14 PEP meeting to Queens (see stories at gotham and Ed Notes) to help out Eva who can rent buses.

OCCUPY THE DOE!
The Fight for Quality Public Education for the 99%

Should we allow the 1% -Bloomberg, his puppets on the Panel for Educational Policy, the corporate privatizers and their charter schools - to control our public school system? 

The Panel for Educational Policy is UNDEMOCRATIC!
Mayoral Control IGNORES THE VOICES OF PARENTS, STUDENTS, and TEACHERS!
Charter schools funnel public funds into private hands and force unnecessary competition for resources between families from the same community. All children have the right to a quality education! 

Join us to craft a People's Agenda for our schools! 

Join OCCUPY THE DOE Every Sunday
The Atrium
60 Wall Street

2pm: OCCUPY THE PEP (Direct Action Working Group): Discuss how to make the Panel for Educational Policy a REAL democratic forum for parents, students, and teachers!

3pm: OCCUPY THE DOE General Meeting.

SAME STRUGGLE, SAME FIGHT 
TEACHERS, PARENTS, STUDENTS UNITE!

Occupy the DOE: We are concerned educators, parents and students who believe that Bloomberg and Walcott -- the 1% -- should NOT have the sole authority over NYC public schools but that the 99% can best decide HOW OUR SCHOOLS ARE RUN.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Bloomberg's Big Mistake

He fired only 2/3 of the Chancellor's he's hired.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Ed Deform Failures in Chicago After Almost Two Decades

It was a late spring evening in 2001 at a UFT Exec Bd meeting, the very day Randi Weingarten put the UFT on track to support mayoral control, the key element in the ed deformer arsenal that removes almost all public oversight over schools.

I received an email that day from Chicago's George Schmidt addressed to NYC teachers warning us about their already fading ed deform experiment since 1994 and I handed it out to the uft EB that night. I followed up later that night with a nasty email to Randi. She blew a gasket and our relationship turned ugly from then on.

The uft propaganda machine has spent the last decade blaming things that went wrong on joel klein or incompetence at Tweed or Bloomberg (the latest is "only ___ months till he's gone - recycling what they said about Giulianni, Koch - a quarter century of the same bullshit.)

J'accuse the UFT leadership of educational malfeasance by PURPOSELY trying to deflect the truth that ed deformers have engaged in a national assault on pub ed for almost 2 decades while the uft leaders were telling members that Klein's first ed czar Diana Lam's arrogance was the issue. As if Chicago didn't exist.

Here is more proof about the failures of charter schools in Chicago, where Arne Duncan ran the schools into the ground for 7 years but escaped before the shit hit the fan.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-30/news/ct-met-charter-schools-performance-1130-20111130_1_chicago-international-charter-schools-andrew-broy-school-report-cards

Report finds charters struggling like other CPS schools
Poverty dogs students despite schools' flexibility, autonomy

November 30, 2011|By Joel Hood and Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune reporters

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city leaders have long heralded charter schools' innovative approach to education, but new research suggests many charters in Chicago are performing no better than traditional neighborhood schools and some are actually doing much worse.
More than two dozen schools in some of the city's most prominent and largest charter networks, including the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), Chicago International Charter Schools, University of Chicago and LEARN, scored well short of district averages on key standardized tests.

In two of the city's oldest charter networks, Perspectives and Aspira, only one school — Perspectives' IIT Math & Science Academy — surpassed CPS' average on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, taken by elementary schoolers, or the Prairie State Achievement Examination, used in high schools.

At Shabazz International's DuSable Leadership high school on the South Side, just 7 percent of students met state standards on the PSAE. A few miles south, nine out of every 10 students at CICS' Hawkins high school missed the state benchmark.
The dismal numbers are part of a new set of school report cards the state is releasing to the public Wednesday, results sure to reignite the debate over education reform one day before Chicago Public Schools is expected to release its long-awaited list of school closings for next year.
Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, acknowledged that maybe a dozen underperforming charter schools are in need of "substantial actions" that may include closing. But simply looking at how many students have met state benchmarks is not a fair assessment, he said; a more important indicator is student growth over time.
"We're in this business because we want to prove that public schools can work," said Juan Rangel, president of the politically connected UNO charter network, which operates nine schools in CPS and plans to open three more next year.
Addressing the failures at UNO's lowest-performing school, Paz Elementary on the West Side, Rangel said: "We're at a point where it's do or die. We're either going to put Paz on course … or we'll have to consider whether this is a school we should keep open."
Two years after Illinois lawmakers approved a more thorough accounting of charter school performance, the state has released data that will allow the public for the first time to see how individual charter schools are measuring up against traditional public schools.
The report cards are somewhat limiting, only looking at a school's performance in 2010-11. But the trends show that despite their celebrated autonomy, discipline and longer school days, charter schools are struggling to overcome the poverty that so often hampers underperforming neighborhood schools.
Charters with the highest numbers of students from low-income families or those with recognized learning disabilities almost universally scored the lowest last year on state exams, a trend common throughout CPS.
One exception is the performance of high schools within the Noble Street Charter network, often touted by Emanuel and others as some of the best charters have to offer. Report cards show Noble students did not reach the level of CPS' elite selective enrollment or magnet schools on the PSAE, but did score on par with state averages — a notable feat for any school in CPS.

But even charters' staunchest supporters admit that success has not been widespread across all schools. New Schools for Chicago, which invested in dozens of charters after then-Mayor Richard Daley launched a massive charter expansion program in 2010, has compiled a watch list for poor-performing charters that they've turned over to CPS.
"In general for charters that have been around for more than five years and not performing, we're supporting their closure or restructuring of these schools," said New Schools Chief Executive Phyllis Lockett. "At the end of the day, we need the bar set on what achievement needs to look like."
Over the last decade, the number of charter schools, which are publicly funded but have relative freedom in decision-making, has grown to 110, and they have become a force in Chicago's crowded public school system.
A report to be released Wednesday by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution ranks CPS second among large urban districts in providing choices for parents aside from traditional neighborhood schools. Expanding those options is a major point of emphasis for Emanuel and CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard.
But the majority of charter schools in Chicago and around the U.S. rely on nonunion teachers, who are frequently paid lower wages and asked to work longer hours. That has led to friction with powerful teachers unions, who accuse charter networks of devaluing the profession by driving down salaries and of stripping public money from long-standing neighborhood schools.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Video: Brooklyn parents, teachers & community members speak out: we don't want your charter school in our neighborhood!

Sent by Leonie Haimson

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.
com/2011/12/brooklyn-parents-teachers-community.html

Thanks to Darren Marelli, here are highlights from the hearing that occurred on Tuesday about the controversial proposal to co-locate another branch of the Success Academy charter chain in Cobble Hill, District 15, in Brooklyn. 

Passionate and articulate parents, teachers, elected officials, students and community members spoke out against this damaging, deceptive and most probably illegal proposal, and pointed out how the co-location will likely wreck the schools that now inhabit the building, one of which is in transformation, by overcrowding them, forcing them to increase class size and lose valuable programs.  Does the DOE care?  You be the judge.

Leonie

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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

Video: Brooklyn parents, teachers & community members speak out: we don't want your charter school in our neighborhood!

Sent by Leonie Haimson

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.
com/2011/12/brooklyn-parents-teachers-community.html

Thanks to Darren Marelli, here are highlights from the hearing that occurred on Tuesday about the controversial proposal to co-locate another branch of the Success Academy charter chain in Cobble Hill, District 15, in Brooklyn. 

Passionate and articulate parents, teachers, elected officials, students and community members spoke out against this damaging, deceptive and most probably illegal proposal, and pointed out how the co-location will likely wreck the schools that now inhabit the building, one of which is in transformation, by overcrowding them, forcing them to increase class size and lose valuable programs.  Does the DOE care?  You be the judge.

Leonie

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

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