Gothamist: Eva Moskowitz’s Privileged ‘Bipartisanship’

Nice to see mainstream press (sort of) exposing Eva Moskowitz hypocrisy - actually, she's a Trump-level outright liar - though the writer doesn't go into the schemes she uses to phony up the rep of Success.

Some excerpts:

Ms. Moskowitz can’t hide behind a self-serving and privileged version of bipartisanship.... It takes a lot of privilege for Ms. Moskowitz to somehow believe that the policies that Democrats and the Resistance across the country represent somehow do not apply to her students.

Black organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the N.A.A.C.P.), afters years of internal debate, in October called for a moratorium on charter schools, like the charter network Ms. Moskowitz runs in New York City. In response to the N.A.A.C.P. moratorium and report, Ms. Moskowitz attacked the N.A.A.C.P.’s credibility and authority to speak on education for black children. Despite the fact that Ms. Moskowitz's schools have come under scrutiny for controversial admissions policies and disciplinary practices, which Ms. Moskowitz usually leaves to be resolved by her private consultants and lobbyists....

it seems strange that Ms. Moskowitz repeatedly attacks the mayor, a fellow Democrat, for budgetary reasons yet she doesn't criticize the federal secretary of education, a Republican, who is proposing cuts worth more than $9 billion to national education programs and resources.

Gothamist

August 01, 2017 | by Kenneth Campbell

http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7093-eva-moskowitz-s-privileged-bipartisanship?mc_cid=fbd1eba5eb&mc_eid=1a6c9e0292

Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries

At the very least, one Bronx principal said, he’d be wary of the hire. “If someone automatically puts an ATR into my school,” he said, “I would go in there and observe them quite a bit.” --- Chalkbeat

Chalkbeat as usual doesn't get to the heart of the matter. That the DOE is making sure not to provide financial backing to schools taking ATRs - schools I am betting will be chosen based on the ability of the principal to be especially vicious. Note not one contact from the reporter with a comment from an ATR.

They are walking in with targets on their backs.

Mulgrew of course is exposed as a sham supporter of ATRs - instead of screaming about the fair student funding formula he says this:

Principals have historically exaggerated the impact on their school budget of hiring someone from the ATR pool,” he said in a statement. “We have found the impact of hiring a more experienced teacher, whether from the open market or the ATR pool, does not derail a school budget.”

What a crock - of course the higher salary impacts a school budget -- that was the very purpose of Fair Student Funding in the first place -- to incentivize principals to do salary dumps. As usual the UFT comes up on the wrong side of the issue.

The article does at least point up the UFT flip-flop in providing financial support to the school.

Ironically, this is an issue the UFT set out to tackle in its 2014 contract with the Department of Education. A provision in the contract states that schools that hire an ATR teacher would not have that teacher’s salary included in the school’s average teacher salary calculation. That agreement stood for both the 2015–16 and 2016–17 school years. 

“Principals no longer have a reason to pass over more senior educators in favor of newer hires with lower salaries,” the UFT promised in a statement on the 2014 contract posted online.

During the 2016–17 school year, the DOE also offered two options for subsidizing the salaries of ATR members. The first subsidized the costs of permanent ATR hires by 50 percent the first year and 25 percent the next. The second allowed principals to have the full cost of the teacher’s salary subsidized for the 2016–17 year. Ultimately, a total of 372 teachers were hired with those incentives last year. 

But starting in the upcoming school year, neither of those policies will be in place. Schools will not receive the incentives and the salaries of ATR teachers will be included in a school’s average teacher salary once they are permanently hired. 

The UFT declined to comment on the apparent flip-flop, and neither the UFT nor the city’s Department of Education could estimate the average number of years of experience of teachers in the pool.

The article by Daniela Brighenti is oh-so leaning in the direction of the ed deform attacks on ATRs -- behind which is an attack on teacher tenure protections. Daniela might have reached out to some ATRs to get their take -- maybe she thought she would catch something.

This is the lead blurb.

ATR FUNDING When members of the Absent Teacher Reserve are placed this fall, schools will incur the full cost of the new hires, without incentives the city has provided in the past. Chalkbeat

Did Chalkbeat funder Families for Excellent Schools (I'm guessing here) write this piece?

At the top of their article it says: support independent journalism -- my biggest laugh of the day - so far.

Look at the photo that leads their piece -FES gets 20 people out - probably paid - and that becomes the lede.

Look at their headline:

draining the pool [echo of Trump draining the swamp]

New York City’s plan to place teachers from its Absent Teacher Reserve pool could take a bite out of school budgets

Here is the complete article:

 http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/08/03/new-york-citys-plan-to-place-teachers-from-its-absent-teacher-reserve-pool-could-take-a-bite-out-of-school-budgets/

DE BLASIO GIVES IN BIG TO CHARTERS

Curbing mayoral control of schools should be a priority - local control is the biggest threat to the ed deformers.

Posted by Jake Jacobs at NYC BATS FB:

DE BLASIO GIVES IN BIG TO CHARTERS: You might have missed this but in a last-minute deal for a two-year renewal of mayoral control, Mayor de Blasio agreed to circumvent the legislature, pledging to help charters expand through his administrative powers.

The agreement granted permission to revive so-called “zombie” charters, meaning schools that never open or quickly closed.

The really contentious part was the proposal to let charter schools which SUNY oversees hire unlicensed teachers. The controversial proposal grew out of concessions de Blasio made in last year's mayoral control renewal deal, where SUNY was allowed to change some rules so charters could switch authorizers -- about 50 charters did switch over to SUNY in advance of the unlicensed teacher proposal.

But it's not clear whether SUNY has the legal authority to approve the new rules, which would not only let charters hire uncertified teachers, but let charter school executives grant licenses to teachers after three years, even if they were trained by uncertified instructors.

Mayor de Blasio’s position on the uncertified teacher plan has not been made public, but the proposal dropped around the same time de Blasio secretly negotiated his side-deal for renewing mayoral control.

First wondering aloud if the two were linked, Politico’s Eliza Shapiro later reported that withholding details about the exact concessions made to charters seem to be part of the deal struck between de Blasio and NYS Senate leader John Flanagan.

We can wonder whether de Blasio agreed to letting charters hire uncertified teachers to replace the 40% of teachers they burn through each year, but we know the proposal was first championed by Eva Moskowitz, who supports not only Trump's call to expand charters but private school vouchers as well.

http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2017/06/29/mayoral-control-deal-could-change-de-blasios-poor-standing-in-albany-113160

Jeff Kaufman: Computer Science for Some

After decades spent fighting abusive/inept principals, Jeff Kaufman, one of the stalwarts of the ICE caucus, has been teaching computer/coding classes working with an excellent principal the past few years, a late career reinvention of himself as a teacher. Jeff sent this the other day.

I submitted the attached article as an op-ed for the New York Times partially in response to an article that appeared there about the manipulation of computer science education by some wealthy tech companies. As you can see my experiences evidence their lack of commitment to the basic notion they started with; that computer science was truly for all. In any case it doesn't appear the Times will print it. .... Jeff Kaufman

I also went back to school in mid-career and earned an MA in computer science in the mid-late 80s and taught computer courses at Brooklyn College. I spent the last 20 years teaching tech/low level coding in elementary school and also teaching teachers at the district level -- things like -- how to set up their first email accounts. My computer lab was more popular than gym for many kids. I used the Basic Programming languahe initially to have the kids use x/y coordinates with a color of choice to turn on a pixel on the screen. They could then build that into lots of pixels to make large letters or picture. Simple coding but also teaching math.

I saw the power kids felt in controlling a computer. And also the logic and order one learns from programming. So I was all for the call for coding -- but only if done with a broader purpose.

One of my goals is to get off my lazy ass and go over to Jeff's school and hang out in his class.

In this piece Jeff points out the shift from the initial values that attracted him. It wasn't just about teaching pure coding but relating it to a cultural significant curriculum that would engage the students. Jeff makes this key point:

The course began with an assignment that required us to read a book co-authored by Goode with her colleague at UCLA, Jane Margolis entitled Stuck in the Shallow End.[8] The book, a landmark study of how racial and ethnic barriers not only persisted in the allocation of resources in Computer Science education but were reinforced by the then current pedagogy. Both Goode and Chapman sought to introduce a more culturally relevant curriculum and transform our pedagogy to reflect teacher practice which was sensitively inclusive in diverse student populations.

Apparently the original purpose of Goode and Chapman have been morphed by leaving out the "relevant curriculum" aspect.

Computer Science for Some: An Assessment of Two Different Approaches to Teaching Computer Science in a Diverse Classroom

By Jeff Kaufman[1]

After several years teaching United States History, Government and Law to at-risk students and given the opportunity to transform my teaching practice to a blended learning environment I embarked on a way to provide a relevant and rigorous curriculum to my students. Following some of the teaching models outlined in Gloria Ladson-Billings’ book, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children[2], I sought to provide a pedagogy that incorporated these concerns.[3]

There were many resources available to teach culturally relevant materials in Social Studies including the Zinn Education Project[4] and the American Social History Project.[5] Along with teaching practical law courses such as Police-Student Encounters[6] and Immigration Law my ability to tailor the curriculum to student needs made their learning both engaging and personal. I used the computer to provide a ready-resource to the outside world and encouraged exploration, research and discussion on the topics we covered.

Unfortunately, due to graduation requirements and other New York State Education Department mandates I was slowly being forced to change my curriculum to conform to high stakes examination requirements. While my pedagogy did not change it became increasingly more difficult to go into the depth necessary to provide the high-ordered thinking vital for students to fully take part in our democracy. Since students are required to pass the New York State Regents examinations to graduate my classes became test review classes requiring a pedagogy that was not only irrelevant to my students but was antithetical to culturally relevant education.

As this trend was becoming clearer to me and I contemplated retirement I noticed an offer by the Central Board of Education to learn and teach Computer Science. My classes were already paperless and seeing a way to teach an important subject without a high stakes test and proscribed curriculum I decided to investigate.

During the summer, in 2014, I attended a seminar taught by Joanna Goode and Gail Chapman, who, at the time, were associated with Code.org, a philanthropic educational company founded by an ex-Microsoft executive to promote Computer Science throughout the United States.[7] Goode and Chapman taught my cohort of New York City budding Computer Science teachers in a way that valued culturally relevant methods in similar ways Ladson-Billings did in her books.

The course began with an assignment that required us to read a book co-authored by Goode with her colleague at UCLA, Jane Margolis entitled Stuck in the Shallow End.[8] The book, a landmark study of how racial and ethnic barriers not only persisted in the allocation of resources in Computer Science education but were reinforced by the then current pedagogy. Both Goode and Chapman sought to introduce a more culturally relevant curriculum and transform our pedagogy to reflect teacher practice which was sensitively inclusive in diverse student populations.

I was skeptical at first but after trying out the curriculum I was sold. While I found some of the practice pedantic I nevertheless found a freedom to allow for high order thinking, positive and rigorous discussion and the time to teach students who were eager to learn. For some of my students Computer Science was the first time they felt they had learned something.

By the fall of 2015 New York City was all in with its Computer Science for All initiative:

NYC students will learn to think with the computer, instead of using computers to simply convey their thinking.  Students will learn computational thinking, problem solving, creativity, and critical thinking; to collaborate and build relationships with peers; to communicate and create with technologies; and to better understand technologies we interact with daily. These skills will be integral to student success in higher education, the 21st century job market and beyond.[9] 

I joined the excitement and volunteered to help facilitate Code.org professional development. This allowed me to recreate the same sense and transformation I had experienced while learning how to teach Computer Science. These experiences and my teaching improved my practice and looked forward to the day I would be able to teach Computer Science full time.

That opportunity came when I was accepted to teach Computer Science at a Queens high school which had the highest free or reduced-price lunch rates in its district.[10] The school had a Technology Department but there were no Computer Science classes. The transfer gave me a retirement-delaying reason to try bringing my newly adopted subject to a new environment.

It worked. By the end of my second year I had started a brand new Advanced Placement class in Computer Science and with the help of the principal brought robotics and 3d printing to students who had never experienced Computer Science education.

This past summer I went back for some more professional development and found out that Code.org had disassociated itself from Goode and Chapman and had adopted a new pedagogy for teaching introductory computer science. This new class stressed computational thinking and many of the goals outlined on the New York City DOE website but deliberately avoided the culturally relevant education that was stressed with my previous instruction.

Notions of equity were mentioned but the new facilitators were not equipped or instructed on how to teach computer science among diverse populations. Teachers under the new pedagogy were ill prepared to teach Computer Science for all.

It is important that our students learn to be prepared for their role in our democracy. Computer Science provides an ideal modality to cause students to become critical thinkers. If it becomes less relevant we will only reinforce the barriers our students face.[11]

---

[1] Jeff Kaufman has taught at-risk students for almost 20 years having taught in the high school on Rikers Island, a jail for adult prisoners held in New York City, a long-term suspension school for students prohibited from returning to general education schools due to student discipline transgressions and a transfer school serving under-credited, overaged students in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He currently teaches Computer Science at Queens High School for Information, Research and Technology, a school on the Far Rockaway High School campus.

[2] John Wiley & Sons, Mar 23, 2009

[3] These include: 

1.Communication of High Expectations

2.Active Teaching Methods

3.Practitioner as Facilitator

4.Inclusion of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

5.Cultural Sensitivity

6.Reshaping the Curriculum or Delivery of Services

7.Student-Controlled Discourse

8.Small Group Instruction

[4] https://zinnedproject.org/

[5] https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/

[6] See, more generally, https://www.flexyourrights.org/

[7] See Singer, Natasha “How Silicon Valley Pushed Coding Into American Classrooms,”

New York Times, June 27, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/education-partovi-computer-science-coding-apple-microsoft.html

[8] Margolis, Jane, Stuck in the Shallow End:  Education, Race, and Computing, with Rachel Estrella, Joanna Goode, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kim Nao

[9] From the New York City Department of Education website at http://schools.nyc.gov/Academics/ComputerScience/Introduction/default.htm

[10] QIRT is at 86% free or reduced-price lunch. See https://high-schools.com/directory/ny/school-districts/new-york-city-geographic-district-27-school-district/342700010000/

[11] During my first training, a lesson on coding for cornrow braiding was provided early in the curriculum. While this was only one of several culturally relevant lessons it caused the most discussion while I taught the lesson in professional development. When I taught the lesson to my students they could not believe someone had created software to help design cornrow braids. This lesson was omitted in the revised curriculum.

Leadership Academy Scandals - and MTA Too

I used to compare the NYC Leadership Academy training to the Nazi SS - where they would give a new recruit a dog when they arrived, allowed them to bond and ordered them to kill the dog to complete their training. 

People have been writing about the NY Post report on the Leadership Academy stable of unstable principals.

See:

ICEUFT Blog

SUE EDELMAN EXPOSES DOE NOT TRACKING HOW PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP ACADEMY MONEY IS SPENT

Leonie also added this on her listserve:

 

David Ross who oversaw numerous DOE fraudulent & wasteful contracts and who should have been fired years ago just joined MTA

 

"Summer of hell just got worse" http://nyp.st/2vh5LBq

 

Meanwhile, the DOE’s sweetheart deal with the Leadership Academy has cost millions – without any documentation of the “work” done for schools

 

http://nypost.com/2017/07/29/doe-lost-track-of-101m-given-to-leadership-coaches-audit/

 

The city Department of Education has awarded contracts worth up to $101 million to the NYC Leadership Academy — but didn’t keep track of where the money went, a bombshell audit by City Comptroller Scott Stringer charges.

The Long Island City-based non-profit has collected $45.6 million from the contracts to coach “aspiring principals” and teachers. But the DOE failed to produce records to prove the $183-an-hour coaches did what they were paid for.

“If the DOE can’t be sure whether or when the professional coaching even happened, how do we know it was effective?” Stringer asks in a scathing report obtained by The Post.

….The comptroller’s auditors reviewed $559,667 in DOE payments to the Leadership academy, including $394,007 for “leadership coaching.”

“Disregarding the safeguards in its own contracts and procurement rules,” the comptroller said, the DOE spent $385,612, or 98 percent of the coaching payments, without the required documentation.

 

 

Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Isn’t Over - New Yorker

“Do not underestimate the resistance of the Democratic establishment.”.... Bernie Sanders, New Yorker

In Trump’s America, the Independent senator is fighting to win back the heartland for Democrats.

New Yorker: Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Isn’t Over

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

 A good piece in this week's New Yorker. Contrast Bernie - a Brooklyn born Jew -- digging in deeply in Trump territory - while say someone like Chuck Schumer, another Brooklyn Jew -- hides out in Washington with the Dems so-called Better Deal. The internal battle continues as this selection illustrates:

Bernie said on MSNBC -- which by the way no matter what the rhetoric, side with corp Dems because they are a corp.

Democrats would continue to lose elections “unless we have the guts to point the finger at the ruling class of this country.” Hayes asked Perez if he shared that view, and Perez wearily issued a talking point: “When we put hope on the ballot, we win.” Clinton, Hayes pointed out, had put hope on the ballot. She had not won. Whereas Perez offers the liberal abstraction of inequality, Sanders insists on naming an enemy, the billionaire class.

Some excerpts:

Since the election, the Democratic Party has tried to move closer to Sanders’s views. Last week, in a small town in northern Virginia, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, announced the Party’s platform for 2018, “A Better Deal,” which is aimed at winning back working-class voters. The platform includes a fifteen-dollar minimum wage and a trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure, plans that Sanders has long promoted, often with little support. Many people in the Democratic Party believe that, when it comes to policy, Sanders has prevailed. Sanders does not see it that way. He told me, “Do not underestimate the resistance of the Democratic establishment.”

When the Democratic Party fractured, in the primaries, it was like a bone cracking—the Clintonites on one side, the Sanders faction on the other, with no obvious way to repair the break. Sanders’s supporters deeply resented the Party’s obvious preference for Clinton; Clinton’s backers accused them of sexism. Last July, at the Democratic National Convention, in Philadelphia, the Sanders faithful shouted down podium speakers, marched out of the hall and occupied a media tent, and covered their mouths with tape, on which some of them had written the word “Silenced.” The two camps clashed again this winter, in the contest for the Democratic Party chair. Tom Perez, who was President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, narrowly defeated Representative Keith Ellison, of Minnesota, the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus and an ally of Sanders. The insurgents had come up short again.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/bernie-sanders-campaign-isnt-over

School Scope: Why Not Medicare for All?

My column in The Wave, Rockaway's local paper. Published July 29, 2017

School Scope: Why Not Medicare for All?
By Norm Scott

I write this on the morning before the Senate Republicans are about to vote on their version of death panels. And I’m thinking…..

Imagine a medical care system where you can get your health taken care of without worrying about finances. I’ve been in the midst of dealing with some not too serious (so far) medical issues and as a Medicare (with GHI supplement) patient I haven’t paid a dime, despite lots of visits to more than one doctor. And every doctor I use accepts Medicare – apparently they can manage to live on what they pay.

Should I feel guilty about costing our economy money I might not have been willing or able to spend otherwise? Not when we see that if I lived in just about every other advanced nation, not only people over 65 but everyone would have the same system I have. The major difference is that in these foreign systems the costs to the system and for drugs are significantly lower.

I'm amazed at how the so-called liberal press lets the Democrats off the hook. Eduardo Porter had a good piece in the NY Times about single payer health care around the world in a letter to Republicans (https://tinyurl.com/yb27jcyb). He might as well have included most of our Democratic Party leaders. This article should be read out aloud in every hall of legislature and also to convince the public -- instead we hear all about Russia all the time. This would be the best way to fight Trump and the Republicans but the Dems spin their wheels. Their “better deal” will not turn out to be that much better as long as they are bought by big pharm and other corporations.

In a single payer system, there is a big bump in taxes, but no one has to buy health care and there are no insurance companies to take a profit. And big pharm has to come into line on costs. Pretty much a win-win for almost everyone. So why not here? Ask our own local politicians, weather Republican or Democrat why they aren’t doing more to educate their constituents on this issue to counter the propaganda from big pharm, insurance companies and the politicians who are bought by them?

What country is Porter talking about? Rwanda. Can you imagine the day post Republican health care when we flock to Rwanda to get better care?

Teachers to Eric Ulrich on supporting Bo Dietl - Say It Ain’t So
Teacher's union has hijacked our classrooms. When I'm mayor, teachers will pass drug tests and performance evaluations. I'm not for sale… Bo Dietl tweet.

Last week I posted an Eric Ulrich tweet supporting Bo Dietl for mayor. Dietl has made it a specialty to attack teachers and the teacher union. I think Ulrich owes the teachers in his district an explanation.

Arthur Goldstein had some comments about Dietl at his blog, NYC Educator (http://nyceducator.com/2017/07/here-come-mayoral-candidates.html).

Circus clown/ Arby's pitchman/ mayoral hopeful Bo Dietl is on Twitter making statements about what things will be like when he's mayor. There's some teacher at John Adams accused of allowing a student to sit on his lap, and Bo is outraged. Bo…says teachers caught having sex with students shouldn't be paid. The only problem is that this teacher has not been caught having sex with a student, and no one is saying otherwise. Inconvenient for Bo, though, is that allegations have to be proven here. You know, there's that whole innocent until proven guilty thing in the United States. Bo has had it with all that mollycoddling, evidently, and just wants to declare people guilty of whatever. As for drug tests for teachers, I don't support them, but Bo has got another thing wrong here: Performance evaluations? Teachers already have performance evaluations.

For proof that Dietl is blowing smoke up his ass on teacher evaluation: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/advance/About+Advance/Overview/default.htm.

Norm blows smoke wherever every day at ednotesonline.com

Memo from the RTC: Producers Produce Laughs (Lots)

Published in The Wave, July 28, 2017

Memo from the RTC: Producers Produce Laughs (Lots)
By Norm Scott

Don’t say I didn’t warn you over the past few weeks that getting into see the Rockaway Theatre Company production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers would not be easy unless you reserved early. On opening night someone who attends most of the shows said this may be the best cast ever. A reviewer from a Brooklyn newspaper said, “You will never top this.” And people who won’t get to see it will roll their eyes when I maintain that I liked our cast and production better than the Broadway version with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane.

There are still two more weekends to run including a special July 27 Thursday night performance, which for the first time in RTC history is sold out. So I’m not going to tell you about the awesome performances at the sold out opening weekend. I’ll let you see for yourself – if you are lucky enough to have a ticket.

I’m not going to rave about first time RTCers Jeremy Plyburn and Craig Evans, playing the leads with perfect timing that deliver a laugh a minute.

Jeremy is a quadruple threat. With a big voice that could reach the back walls of even the largest theater, he also adds singing, dancing and acting in addition to being a comedian - you can tell that Jeremy has worked in comedy clubs. A big man to start with (he is thinner than you think since they added a fat suit to his costume), he plays Max Bialystock “Big” in all ways. His "standing ovation" line brings down the house.

Carmen, Roger, Max, Leo watch in horror as Atsushi Eda does a split

Craig as accountant Leo Bloom (he is also an accountant in real life) clearly comes from a professional acting, singing and dancing background in his earlier life. “His facial expressions are extraordinary,” a friend of mine said. Watch his body language – that of a extremely repressed character verging of being on the spectrum. Watch especially his stiff initial interactions with Ulla. Watch him dance with the chorus girls in the dream sequence, some of whom verge on professional dancers. Watch him interact with his blue blanket and think of Gene Wilder in the movie.

Last year we met two newcomers to the RTC, Erech Holder-Hetmeyer (La Cage) and Brian Sadowski (Follies and La Cage). Both also appeared in A Chorus Line this past spring. In The Producers they team up as the gay couple, Roger Debris, and his assistant, Carmen Gia. I’m not sure how to even describe the goings on in their scenes other than to say they are knock down wild and funny. Erech is a young man who graduated from Edward Murrow high school in Brooklyn five years ago. I know they have a strong theater program. Did he learn how to act, sing and dance so well there? I think it is innate talent. Erech in real life is learning to be an electrician. Brian, who impresses every minute he is on stage in every production, has been a teacher and is now an assistant principal at an elementary school in Brooklyn. Brian will be in the Frank Caiati directed “The Elephant Man” in September.

It says a lot about Director John Gilleece and Producer Susan Jasper and the RTC as an organization that they were willing to cast Max and Leo with newcomers to the RTC, in addition to giving two other key parts (Roger and Carmen) to relative newcomers. That they were willing to pass by some experienced RTCers who auditioned. That the RTC is an open organization that incorporates talent from anywhere. So much talent that when you see even the minor roles in the over 40-member cast you are seeing actors, dancers and singers who have played leads in past productions taking on tiny roles just to be part of the show. (More about them next week).

Franz gives Max and Leo the oath

For the other two key roles, Gilleece went back to the tried and true.

I don’t have to tell regular RTC audience members about the talents of John Panepinto as Hitler (and pigeon) lover Franz Liebkind. This is John’s 14th performance on the RTC stage and whenever he is on the stage he practically brings down the house. I first met John when he starred in How to Succeed in Business… and he can carry an entire show or play featured parts to perfection. Whenever he came on, I ran from the dressing room to the back of the theater to watch him and his pigeons. His comparison of Churchill’s paintings with Hitler’s ability to paint an entire apartment in one afternoon – two coats – gets some of the biggest laughs in the show.

I’m definitely not going to tell you about our local superstar Catherine Leib’s performance as Ulla. I mean how many times can I rave about her beauty, brains and talents? “Why aren’t you on Broadway,” said more than one theater goer to her last weekend? We missed her for a few years when she was on tour but she came back with a vengeance last fall in Toxic Avenger and this spring in A Chorus Line. Her audition dance has every male in the audience (and some females) join Bialystock and Bloom in having their tongues handing out. If you can take your eyes off Ulla, make sure to notice how the guys are reacting. As someone who has gawked in awe at Catherine Leib for a decade, how do I react as the judge when Catherine sidles up to me and starts flirting? If I tell you I’ll have to kill you.

When Norm is not gawking at beautiful women, he blogs at ednotesonline.com.

Steven Wagner, Andy Guzman, James Dalid, Myles Rich prep for their parts (photo by Adele Wendt)

NAACP Issues Report Supporting Public Schools and Demands Charter Reforms

With the expansion of charter schools and their concentration in low-income communities, concerns have been raised within the African American community about the quality, accessibility and accountability of some charters, as well as their broader effects on the funding and management of school districts that serve most students of color.”... NAACP report

I attended a debate - of sorts - sponsored by the NAACP and moderated by a somewhat clueless Politico reporter - about a month ago. Carol Burris was very effective in her presentation. The charter slugs were - well, slugs.

This just came in from Carol and the Network for Public Education:

Something wonderful happened again at the NAACP convention. Despite enormous ed-reform and political pressure, the NAACP stood strong and issued a remarkable report in support of public schools that demands charter reform.
In this WAPO Answersheet blog, I summarize the report. You can read it here.

You can also read the full NAACP report here.
Now it is time for us to thank the NAACP.
Send a "thank you" note. We make it easy. Just click here.
If you are not already a member, join the NAACP today.


Thank you for all that you do. Now please thank the friends of public education at the NAACP.

Please share the link to this email with family and friends.
https://wp.me/p3bR9v-2uh


Carol Burris
Executive Director
Network for Public Education

Fight the Moskowitz Success Academy Gulag: Tell the SUNY Charter Board that charters are not qualified to certify teachers

I'm assuming that most readers of this blog know about another major charter scam -- mainly to support Evil Eva who wants to be able to drag teachers off the street and lock them in as indentured servants -- they would only be "certified" - and I use the term very loosely - to work in SUNY charters -- Funny how the very same people -- deformers -- who screamed and yelled about "qualified" teachers are silent or actively supporting loosening teaching standards -- even as we admit the current certification process for public schools is ridiculous and must be changed - but in a rational manner. Does course work help be a good teacher? I wouldn't know since I was a 6 week wonder and then got a masters in reading -- which did help me.

Tell the SUNY Charter Board that charters are not qualified to certify teachers. Send your email today. 

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/all-students-deserve-a-qualified-teacher?clear_id=true&source=facebook

ALL Students Deserve a Qualified Teacher

Jacobin: Message to the Left - Stop the Damn Marching and Organize

I've been posting stuff on the moral bancruptsy of the Democratic Party. Some people on the progressive wing think the party can be salvaged but I don't think so -- it will destroy itself I believe and out of the cinders something else will rise -- maybe a social-democratic type party with real chops. Though the left will often savage itself over sectarian politics -- so hope in that end is also bleak.

So read the article below in that light.

If you look at the Ed Notes masthead you'll see Educate, Organize, Mobilize -- in that order. Don't skip the educating and organizing and skip to Mobilizing without passing GO, something the drooling left seems wont to do all too often.

I've seen a lot of that in MORE activists who will race to any rally that touches on social justice but when you want to talk about the crappy policies on bulletin boards -- ho, hum.

Some of us in MORE (and I hear in the Chicago Teachers Union too) have been pushing back against what we see as endless campaigns that often go nowhere instead of focusing on their own schools and localities.

So the leftist Jacobin mag has an article telling people in the left to quit the marching and focus on organizing which according to people who follow these things has caused some people on the left who believe that mobilizing alone can get people active to get very agitated over this article.

If you are someone who delves into these issues arising on the left jump into this one.

If you don't know about DSA -- Democratic Socialists of America -- this is an interesting piece written for activists.

Don’t March, Organize for Power

• Michael Kinnucan

The socialist left needs more organizing and less mobilizing.

--- Jacobin
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/march-single-payer-medicare-health-care-democratic-socialists-of-america-unions

UFT Update: Internal Wars - Engler and Schoor

Engler is still employed and makes $215,447 a year... NY Post - UFT director sends scathing emails with typo to secretary

Engler is the power behind the throne at UFT & Mulgrew defers to her .... anonymous

The NY Post has a story about emails from a year ago from Ellie Engler complaining about Howie Schoor's comments to Bronx staffers.

“I had a disturbing meeting with the Bronx folks about what you said to them,” Engler wrote last August in an e-mail to Schoor that was copied to UFT boss Michael Mulgrew and other top personnel. “They reported that you said, everyone hates Ellie and I am getting in your way to do the work you want to do.” 

A year ago I reported:

Mulgrew Removes Brooklyn Borough Rep Debbie Poulos - Was She too aggressive on certain abusive principals?

Insiders blamed Engler and some of her cohorts for Poulos' removal. Howie Schoor was Poulos' mentor and supporter.

Engler was a Randi implant and is viewed as her agent within the UFT. Note this comment on that blog post:

AnonymousThursday, July 21, 2016 at 12:56:00 AM EDT

Of course Engler is her agent. She is not even a UFT member and was made one of the Direcor's of Staff because she was Randi's roomate in college. You can't imagine how hated she is by UFT staff.

Did Howie Schoor, who is now the union secretary and former Brooklyn and Bronx borough leaders -- and makes an equivalent salary as Ellie Engler --  leak these emails or did he forward them to someone who did? Little birdies in Unity Caucus have been chirping. Funny how much the Post puts emphasis on a typo clearly due to a computer error. What idiots at the Post.

My report last year

There is speculation that Poulos had stepped on some toes in the UFT hierarchy who have especially close relationships with officials in the Farina's DOE administration who are unhappy with UFT officials who are considered too aggressive. There are rumored names of those in the UFT hierarchy who had it in for Debbie but at this point that info is not confirmed...

As I said, Howie was Debbie's mentor and boss at the Brooklyn office before being moved to the Bronx to clean up a major mess there. (Note that Amy Arundell is replacing the retiring Rona Freiser at the Queens office -- where there was also a bit of a mess).

You might note that with the pressure MORE and New Action has been putting on the UFT leadership -- they seem to have been more aggressive with abusive principals and superintendents. Howie and Debbie were known to be advocates of that policy.

I reported a  year ago--

There is speculation that Poulos had stepped on some toes in the UFT hierarchy who have especially close relationships with officials in the Farina's DOE administration who are unhappy with UFT officials who are considered too aggressive. There are rumored names of those in the UFT hierarchy who had it in for Debbie but at this point that info is not confirmed 

Insiders told me that Engler forms a troika of sorts in the hierarchy- I forget with whom - I think these emails possibly confirm that Engler did play a role in Poulos' removal.

By the way -- Engler's claims -- she was never a teacher -- she has devoted her life to the union pales in comparison to Howie's career -- he has been in the UFT since the Civil War.

Read my post of a year ago here.
Below is the full NY Post article.

Where are the Dems? Bernie on the Case for Mississippi Auto Workers

The Democrats have abandoned unions no matter what the rhetoric. Did Shumer and other slugs talk about this as part of their "better deal"?

Mississippi Nissan workers hope for historic win in 14-year fight to unionize

Support from Bernie Sanders and Danny Glover helped provide momentum to a campaign ‘about overcoming the effects of slavery’

“I’ve never seen a labor campaign of this size,” says the civil rights movement veteran Frank Figgers. “This is a historic struggle about overcoming the effects of slavery in Mississippi.”

Figgers is attending a meeting of 100 Nissan workers at a church preparing for the last push ahead of a historic union election for 4,000 Nissan workers set to take place on 2-3 August in Canton, Mississippi.

The vote is the culmination of 14-year campaign to organize the Nissan plant, 80% of whose employees are African American, and a major test for unions who have struggled to make inroads in the southern states as manufacturing jobs have migrated south.

For years, many workers have doubted that they would get enough support to be able to call for an election at all. But after more than 5,000 people, including the former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and the actor Danny Glover, took part in the “March on Mississippi” in support of unionization at Nissan in the spring, the drive took on a new sense of momentum. If the union vote is successful, it would be the largest union victory in Mississippi in more than a generation. A win in Canton would send a bolt of energy into the growing labor movement across the south.

Read more --- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/24/mississippi-nissan-workers-union-bernie-sanders-civil-rights

The Insanity of Democratic Party War Hawks

After Boris Yeltsin won re-election in 1996, Time magazine ran a gloating cover story – YANKS TO THE RESCUE! – about three American advisers sent to help the pickling autocrat Yeltsin devise campaign strategy. Picture Putin sending envoys to work out of the White House to help coordinate Trump's re-election campaign, and you can imagine how this played in Russia...
What most Americans don't understand is that the Putin regime at least in part was a reaction to exactly this kind of Western meddling... For all the fears about Trump being a Manchurian Candidate bent on destroying America from within, the far more likely nightmare endgame involves our political establishment egging the moron Trump into a shooting war as a means of proving his not-puppetness.
Paul Begala, Donna Brazile, et al have lost their minds...
........ Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

There is almost too much irony in the current state of affairs where Dems and Republicans are insane over Russia, as Matt Taibbi shows in Rolling Stone. There has been a century old campaign against Russia. One of the guys in my writing group wrote a novel about American army troops being sent to Russia AFTER WWI ended to fight the Bolsheviks. I actually think Trump makes sense here vis a vis Russia and Putin. Of course they interfered in elections here, there and everywhere, same as we do. In fact one of Putin's gripes is that he felt Hillary tried to interfere in his election.  Yes, they may have something on Trump. But if someone else were president the neocons would be pushing for the same policy.

Here are some previous Taibbi, who spent a lot of time in Russia, pieces:

Taibbi: How Did Russiagate Start?

Taibbi: Putin Derangement Syndrome Arrives

Taibbi: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media

  Matt Taibbi What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians?

Russia isn't as strong as we think, but they do have nukes – which is why beating the war drum is a mistake

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-what-does-russiagate-look-like-to-russians-w493462

Dem Centrists Need To Read About Rwanda on Health Care

I'm amazed at how the so-called liberal press lets the Democrats off the hook. Eduardo Porter has a good piece in the Times about single payer health care around the world in a letter to Republicans. He might as well have included most of our Democratic Party leaders. This article should be read out aloud in every hall of legislature and also to convince the public -- instead we hear all about Russia all the time. This would be the best way to fight Trump and the Republicans but the Dems spin their wheels.

In Health Care, Republicans Could Learn From Rwanda

Republicans, you are probably tired of hearing how so many Americans are sicker than their peers in other rich countries, lacking access to needed medical care. There are only so many times one can take being unfavorably compared to Denmark.

As you regroup after the collapse of your bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, hoping to figure out some new approach to dismember it, you might want to think not about Denmark, but about Rwanda.

Rwanda’s economy adds up to some $700 per person, less than one-eightieth of the average economic output of an American. A little more than two decades ago it was shaken by genocidal interethnic conflict that killed hundreds of thousands. Still today, a newborn Rwandan can expect to live to 64, 15 years less than an American baby.

But over the past 15 years or so, Rwanda has built a near-universal health care system that covers more than 90 percent of the population, financed by tax revenue, foreign aid and voluntary premiums scaled by income.

It is not perfect. A comparative study of health reform in developing countries found that fewer than 60 percent of births there were attended by skilled health workers. Still, access to health care has improved substantially even as the financial burden it imposes on ordinary Rwandans has declined. On average, Rwandans see a doctor almost twice a year, compared with once every four years in 1999.

Rwandan lives may be short, but they are 18 years longer than they were at the turn of the century — double the average increase of their peers in sub-Saharan Africa.

More than 97 percent of Rwandan infants are vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae Type B, polio, measles, rubella, pneumococcus and rotavirus, noted a 2014 study led by Dr. Paul Farmer, of Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, then Rwanda’s health minister.

Almost all Rwandan adolescent girls are vaccinated against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer. That compares with about four in 10 girls in the United States.

Republicans, I know Rwanda — with its poverty, illiteracy and autocratic government — is not in the same peer group as the United States. But in some dimensions of health care, it gives the United States a run for its money.

Its infant mortality rate, for one, dropped by almost three-quarters since 2000, to 31 per 1,000 births in 2015, vastly outpacing the decline in its region. In the United States, by contrast, infant mortality declined by about one-fifth over the period, to 5.6 per 1,000 births. In Portugal — a developed country that is not quite as rich — it fell by almost half, to 3.

Critically, Rwanda may impress upon you an idea that has captured the imagination of policy makers in even the poorest corners of the world: Access to health care might be thought of as a human right. The idea is inspiring countries from Ghana to Thailand and from Mexico to China to develop, within their political and financial limitations, universal health care systems to offer some measure of access to all.

Politics. My Doctor, Democrats and Cuomo the Slime

I seem to be going to a variety of specialists every week for various minor issues. A year ago I had one primary and one specialist. Now I have five. Monday's visit was to an infectious disease guy. Next week to the urologist.

I made my annual trek to my politically conservative skin doctor yesterday to check out some of those pesky pre-cancer skin spots (he removed two).

At every visit, after we finish official business, he loves to talk politics, as I seem to be one of the few lefties he comes across. Yesterday he indicated he was a climate change denier when he said "How come there were ice ages?" -- which coming from someone connected to science, made me think, "What else doesn't he know?" I responded that, yes there will one day be another ice age but in the meantime we are in a heating period as there have been in the past and since this is the first one with billions of humans running around how could be not have an impact on climate, unless we believe the last heating period was caused by dinosaur breath?

He hated Obama and Hillary and at last year's visit which was in the height of the election season, he clearly wasn't comfortable with Trump. So yesterday I was looking forward to his views on Trump. He figured I would be pretty bummed at the outcome. I told him I was enjoying the Trump/Republican follies and the Democrats were so bad, they would shoot themselves in the foot.

"I think Trump will not  last very long," was his comment. I responded that I think Trump can be re-elected in 2020, which shocked him. He repeated that Trump won't last out his term. I said the next president would be the first woman president - Ivanka Trump. He left the room laughing.

I was only half serious.

Which leads me to Andrew Cuomo, one of a horde of Democrats positioning themselves for 2020. The Republican debates of 2016 will look like a small gathering by the time we see this crew out there.

A close member of my family, who will remain nameless due to the fact I won't be eating dinner if I mention that person's name, was a strong Hillary supporter and couldn't understand how I could waste my vote on Bernie and consider voting 3rd party in the general election (which I didn't). This anonymous person despises Cuomo so much - and not because of his positions on education, etc, but just for general reasons of slimy despicableness. So I asked if it came down to a Trump/Cuomo election would she vote for Cuomo.
"Absolutely not," was the response. Now she knows how so many people could not pull the lever for Hillary. I won't vote for Cuomo under any circumstances either.

Read Arthur Goldstein's blog today for more on His Dispicibleness.

Wolf in Bernie Sanders' Clothing

MORE's 7/12/17 Hardcore Contract Training Notes

Here is a draft of the notes at the MORE Hard Core Contract Training event last week -- a very difficult job given the range and number of people there and the wide range of issues discussed. If you were there and we missed something or you want to amend leave a comment or email me. Thanks to Jia Lee for doing such an often thankless task and putting these preliminary notes together.

This didn't turn into a training session as there weren't a lot  of specific contractual issues raised -- the paperwork issue was on the table as were bulletin board issues where there are possible contractual remedies. More details in a follow-up post later in the week.

We view this event not as a one-off but a springboard to further discussions to try to devolve solutions. We will be contacting the participants to get more feedback.