Ravitch Turn Was a Key in the Battle Against Ed Deform, Robert Jackson Has always been there

After reading a review of the Ravitch book - Gayle Lakin Reviews Ravitch New Book, Slaying Goliath, I remembered just how important her conversion c. 2007 was to the movement opposing ed deform. Leonie played some role in that as did Deb Meier who began a blog with Diane. Since then Diane has moved steadily to the left/progressive wing, even being critical of the unions. I think in the early days c. 2007-10 she was not taking as hard a stance against charters.

Her support for our film (The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman) criticizing charters and the testing and the anti-teacher moves of the deformers, was critical in its success.

I was reminiscing with Leonie Haimson the other day on our trip to Albany (Class Size Lawsuit: A Trip to Albany WIth Leonie) about the big anti-BloomKlein rally at St. Vartan church on February 28, 2007, I believe an early turning point of sorts when Diane Ravitch with her presence at that event made it clear she was joining the education wars -- and quickly rose to lead the battle. Diane's rep had been as a long time supporter for the pre-ed deform agenda. She has commented that as a policy person she was looking at system from the sky and once she touched based with people on the ground she saw things from a different perspective.

The UFT played a major role in organizing the rally, pulling out the Unity Caucus machine and filling an overflow crowd of over a thousand people ---- but it became clear that this was just a tactic to bring Klein to the table for a compromise deal not to go after ed deform.

If the UFT had built on the Feb. 28 event and held the May 1 massive rally, the story of the Bloomberg years in education may have been different. I believe UFT complicity and weakness in the face of the charter school movement played a major role.

If we are turning the tide on ed deformers, the role Ravitch (and Leonie) have played have been major and more important than our tepid union.

 Here was a report of I posted not long after the rally:

.....the famous anti BloomKlein rally at St. Vartan's church on Feb. 28, 2007 (see videos here and here) where every anti-BloomKlein activist in the city gathered, including some leaders of the CPACs.

It was the first time I met Patrick Sullivan and Diane Ravitch. Leonie Haimson and her listserve played an extremely active role in getting people out. After pressing Leonie to start a blog for quite some time, she informed me that night the NYC Parent blog was a "go"- see Leonie's report in one of her first blog posts: Rally to Put the Public Back into Public Education. The idea that came out of that event was to organize a massive rally on May 1, 2007 to show the world, which had been praising BloomKlein, there was serious opposition.

But the UFT organized the Feb 28 event, which could have turned into a major springboard to oppose the mayor. The threat the May 1 rally threat brought Tweed to the table. But both Tweed and the UFT are never to be trusted and the rally was cancelled in exchange for crumbs and even these agreements were violated.

Video: Robert Jackson at the Feb. 28 (2007) Rally

I took footage of City Councilman Robert Jackson's speech at the rally organized by the UFT at St. Vartan Church on Feb. 28. He lays a whole bunch of truth on BloomKlein.
(I had to do a lot of ducking around the crowds so excuse the shaky video.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbcwNOQMbwI

Gayle Lakin Reviews Ravitch New Book, Slaying Goliath

Ravitch explains myriad ways that charter school operators have earned extraordinary salaries at tax payer expense!     Gayle Lakin 

I'm really looking forward to reading Diane's new book. Here Gayle gives us lots of reasons to do so. Instead of the misleading "ed reform" even when put in quotes, Diane uses "Education disrupters". Just look at how Bloomberg/Klein disrupted and deformed (my preferred term) education here in NYC.
ADDITION: Also Read Gary Rubinstein review: The Life And Death Of The Terrible Education Reform Movement

Gayle Lakin Review
Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools.

Amended Jan. 18:

No words can possibly convey the degree of spin, erroneous data and persistent support of outright fabrications that became “truths” under a relentless “ed reform” mantra; say it enough, spin it enough, publish it enough, work the system enough and it will become “true” enough. But “enough is enough”! Ravitch heroically and successfully wades through this complicated decades-long haze in her book, Slaying Goliath with her trademark attention to detail. She brings clarity as to how “ed reform” (she prefers “ed disrupters”) birthed charter schools with the intention of privatizing our national education system and how and why this “grand scheme” is currently and fortunately starting to burn out!

What might a reader’s first reaction be? There isn’t a rock big enough for “ed disrupters” to crawl under to escape the raw truths exposed in this book. Ravitch names people and companies (and there are many). She thoroughly explains the tactics of those ultra-wealthy hedge-fund managers, philanthropists, CEO’s, big businesses, politicians and the likes playing into and profiting by the “ed disruption” takeover of our national education system via a “Trojan horse” also known as the charter school (which is assuredly not a public school even though it receives public school funding). The current charter school concept is totally foreign to the original idea put forth by Al Shanker who originally intended for a charter school to be a public school within a public school to serve the needs of outlier learners. Ravitch details Shanker’s actual vision. Who would know better as he spoke to her directly about his vision which she describes in her book!

With equal clarity, she explains in detail how the corporate world co-opted the term “charter school”, and turned it into a highly profitable and parasitic entity able to take public tax payer money as well as corporate money while being beholden to nobody except those making enormous profit. Ravitch explains myriad ways that charter school operators have earned extraordinary salaries at tax payer expense! Here are just a few key words and phrases that come to mind - nepotism, real estate wheeling and dealing, forced student attrition and inflated student enrollment figures. The tides are changing due to an ever-increasing Resistance. The Resistance is led by academics in higher education like Ravitch as well as public school educators and angry parents who have been activists for years and have had enough with the “ed disruption” invasion. A few politicians are finally starting to awaken at a snail’s pace, but perhaps this will be addressed in a future book?

One major take-away is that the majority of charter schools at best have fared no better than public schools. More often than not they have either fared worse or have gone to great lengths to create the illusion of performing “better”. The net result – the majority of charter schools drain critical funding away from public schools. Ravitch exhaustively explains this money drain and how it destroys public schools. She exposes the rampant fraud leading to under-enrolled charters, charters led by non- educators and unqualified teachers, charters that close nearly as soon as they open with no accountability as to where the public funds went and no concern for displaced students.

The facts are there in her book to read. There has been some accountability and it has ironically lead to the realization that public funds were spent on overinflated salaries, lavish cars, homes bought by heads of defunct charter schools etc... Ravitch cites several examples (including cases that have been through the courts and involve criminal convictions)! Meanwhile, public schools perpetually accept displaced charter school students without getting additional funding even when students transfer from the charters who received money for them. It is outrageous that charter schools who no longer have a particular student, keep the federal money they received for that student!

The public at-large needs to read this book to get fighting mad at “ed disruption” over decades of abusive and failed education policy forced upon our nation’s children; to get fighting mad at “ed dispruption” for tearing up communities with public school closures; to get fighting mad at “ed disruption” for the denigration and counter-intuitive policies forced upon the teaching profession; to get fighting mad at “ed disruption” for making learning all about gaming high stakes tests; to get fighting mad at “ed disruption” for the incredible waste of hard-earned taxpayer money that went straight into the pockets of “ed disruption” profiteers.

In this book, all bases are covered as to how “ed dispruption” systematically strategized to destroy public schools. The playbook for “ed disruption” takeover is thoroughly exposed. Critically needed federal school funding was purposefully linked to States’ adoption of Common Core standards and high stakes testing accountability (both of which were created by “ed disruption”). The reader will learn the role of disruptive innovation strategies, on-line personalized learning, skewed data, high stakes testing “miracles”, charter school proliferation, public school closings and more. If any of this is unfamiliar, it won’t be by the time you finish reading this book.

I am a veteran public school teacher (art) and highly recommend this book because knowledge is power. Ravitch often mentions the word Resistance in her book. Many teachers and angered parents who will rush out to get her book will surely learn a lot, but must get the “Resistance ball” rolling. I implore you to forward your own read copy of this book to someone or to buy a second one. Give her book to that person you encounter who has taken in all the “ed disruption” Kool Aid. You know them. The “proverbial” person who might vilify those “lazy” public school teachers who are always angry about their good salaries with pensions… and with all those vacations and summers off! The individuals who still believe that charter schools are going to save our education because they saw Michelle Rhee on the cover of Time Magazine. Perhaps they read the US News & World Report with its annual high school rankings (and many of the “best schools” are charters) and believe it. Ravitch will enlighten them about these myths and any other “ed disruption” truths they’ve taken for gospel!

Ordinary taxpayers (We The People) need to know NOW just who is wasting taxpayer money along with the how and why. It is time to restore public education and bring joy to the learning process for our nation’s youth. With an election upcoming, it is essential for presidential candidates and citizens alike to understand what has happened to public education and how this nation can begin to implement effective education policy via our democratic cornerstone – public schools. The current generation and future generations of our nation’s children deserve nothing less! The Goliaths (“ed disrupters”) have been exposed. The David’s (“We The People”) are gaining steam and not backing down! But Slaying Goliath is not the full title of this Ravitch book. The full title is Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools. The call to arms in this Resistance is a book – Diane Ravitch is the author! Read it! Pass it on to someone who needs to learn from it!

Class Size Lawsuit: A Trip to Albany WIth Leonie

Monday morning I met up with Leonie Haimson at Penn Station to take Amtrak to Albany for a hearing in Appellate Court on the class size lawsuit. It was a short hearing at 1 PM in front of 5 judges - maybe 20 minutes to a half hour. Lawyer Wendy Lecker presented our side and was opposed by a state lawyer from Attorney General Leticia James' office and a lawyer from the city corp council. Yes Virginia, our city and state government leaders don't give a shit about class size.

Then again, the UFT refused to join in the suit so what does that tell you?

We were joined at the hearing by State Senator Robert Jackson, a hero of education in this city and state to many activists, an original initiator of the CFE lawsuit over a dozen years ago joined by some of the parents involved in the current suit. After the hearing Jackson invited us up to his office to chat and snack and I did some video interview with all the participants (will have that available in a few days if my old cranky computers don't break down.)

I learned a lot about the case and let me do a quick summary before Leonie explains it in more detail below.

The judges ruled in the original CFE from 2007 that the Bloomberg-Klein admin had 5 years - till 2012 - to come up with a class size reduction plan. They ignored that provision and now have the nerve to claim that the mandate expired when they didn't come up with the plan in 2012 and now they don't have to. That's like someone who is convicted of a crime and sentenced to 5 years but goes on the lam for those years and then comes back claiming his sentence expired so he doesn't have to serve time.

Here's Leonie with more details on her blog: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2020/01/our-class-size-lawsuit-argued-in.html

Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with Sen. Robert Jackson and attorney Wendy Lecker

Yesterday, the class size lawsuit against the city and the state that we filed more than a year ago, along with nine NYC parents from every borough and the Alliance for Quality Education, was heard in the Appellate court in Albany.
Our pro bono attorney, Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center, did a fabulous job, those of us in the courtroom agreed, which included two of the parent plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Litza Stark of Queens and Johanna Garcia of Manhattan, along with Johanna’s daughter Hailey, back from her first semester in college. NY Senator Robert Jackson, who spearheaded the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, was also there to support us, as well as retired teacher Norm Scott.
A panel of five judges listened intently as Wendy related how the NYC Department of Education had violated the state Contracts for Excellence law passed in 2007, which specifically mandates that the city lower average class sizes in all grades over five years – but instead, class sizes had sharply increased so that they are now far larger than they were when the law was first passed.  In response, the attorneys for the city and state tried to argue that since the five years outlined in the original law had lapsed, there was no longer any requirement for the DOE to lower class size.

Yet as Wendy pointed out,  the state legislature renews and reauthorizes the C4E law every year, including its class size mandate, with no specific end point for when the city’s obligations would cease;  thus this is indeed a continuing requirement on the part of the DOE.
The attorneys for the city and state also claimed that the court has no jurisdiction over this matter, but that the Commissioner of Education has the sole power to determine whether the city had adequately complied with the law.  Yet as Wendy counter-argued, the court indeed has the authority to decide whether the Commissioner has accurately interpreted the language of the statute, and the court's authority to do so in regards the C4E law was specifically re-confirmed in 2011 by the Appellate judges in 2011. By essentially nullifying the city’s class size obligation under the law, Wendy said, the Commissioner had essentially usurped the legislature’s role.
Though one cannot predict how the court will rule, those of us in the room felt that Wendy’s arguments were far stronger than those of the city or state attorneys, who did not even try to dispute the facts in the case: that class sizes had increased sharply since 2007, and this had unfairly deprived NYC students of an quality education. 
In any event, the Appellate Court will likely not issue any decision until this summer at least, and we are not content to sit back and wait for this to occur.  Instead, we are urging the Mayor and the Council to put a down payment on the quality of our children’s education by allocating specific funding for class size reduction, starting next year in the early grades and in struggling schools.  More on how you can help with this soon.

 

 

NYCDOENUTS on Portelos Case WIth My Commentary

The Department of Education of the City of New York had one of its pedagogues arrested for practicing free speech in the form an obviously humorous article. That really actually happened.... NYCDOENUTS

UFT Ex Bd Meeting, Jan. 13, 2020 as reported by Arthur at NYCEducator:

Mike Schirtzer—Proud to have worked defending union rights with so many members. Many have been asking me about an email they received from PERB about a member. What should we tell them about this email?

Barr—Sometimes you have a situation where DOE needs to be held responsible. We try to do that every day. In this case, this member was found to have been harassed and targeted after identifying financial irregularities. DOE lost case, In settlement, DOE was supposed to notify people in 2017. PERB sued DOE and won. Went to Supreme Court. Because they were resistant, court said it had to be sent to 120,000 people. Kudos to PERB. Tell members what happened.

Schirtzer—New contract has protection against harassment and retaliation. What should members do?

Barr—First, contact CL, who can work with DR. Must keep those responsible involved and informed. It’s case by case.

I posted the Portelos story the other day with documentation:

Porty Beats DOE: NY Post

Below is a must read by DOENUTS, one of my buddies who faced the same kind of personal attack by the vicious dogs at the DOE for practicing free speech outside his school activities, just like Portelos. I never really heard the full story before because he was closed mouth about it but to me its even scarier than Portelos' case because this is a fairly not in your face guy while Portelos attracted enormous attention. So that it can happen to anyone is very scary.

If Mike Schirtzer hadn't brought it up the other day, would the UFT had made any comment at all? I don't think you will be reading about the Portelos story in the NY Teacher.

Now I will say that as an advisor to Portelos at the time, after having attended over a dozen of his hearings, I urged him to be quiet until the hearing officer came through with a decision because I came out of the hearing thinking he wouldn't be fired despite the 42 charges against him. The HO seemed somewhat sympathetic, he had a great NYSUT lawyer and the DOE lawyer was a vicious unlikable dog.

When he published his piece claiming to have hacked the DOE payroll I was not happy because I thought it might affect the ulitmate decision of the HO. And maybe it did - he was given a heavy fine.

I still think he didn't need to do it for a joke. There are more serious things to write about to fight the DOE over. But to be arrested was so far over the top.

One thing to note is the absence of mention of the union that supposedly protects people --- but these are iffy grounds. In fact we (Portelos, DOENUTS, and some other bloggers) all met at the home of a teacher who had made a very bad joke on facebook and was persecuted around that time - I think 2012-13. The lesson learned but not by everyone - scrub your social media of any negative references to students. Or maybe any references because who knows how the people at the DOE will slant things?

I don't know if free speech exists for teachers or anyone employed anywhere. Maybe it's a myth -  the first amendment.

Now it's important that Portelos kept asking for a remedy and never stopped. I admit that at times when I was on the other side of him I found that he never let go like a dog with a bone was annoying and I know from insiders at the DOE and the UFT he drove them nuts and the word "hate" was used more than once. But they are people in power and there should be limits and the union's job is to enforce these limits no matter what they think of you.

NYCDOENUTS
http://nycdoenuts.blogspot.com/2020/01/about-portelos.html

About Portelos

Well it's happened. It took a long time and it followed a windy path but the DoE was finally forced, through yet another court order, to send notice to every one of it's employees that Francesco Portelos will no longer be a target for any of his actions.
It is somehow impossible for these folks to inform every single employee in the system that their paystub is ready for viewing, but it sure as heck notified all of us that Portelos will no longer be a target.
I've seen much confusion and one or two rolling eyes at this notice. By in large, folks feel like they should not have to be seeing this kind of notification at their workplace.  They don't. In fact, I would wager that, if you asked Francesco, he would say those folks are right! They shouldn't!! In fact, he would probably say that was the whole point. Department resources should not have to be spent on things like this notice precisely because department resources should not have been spent on straying from the law to go retaliate against an employee in the first place.
Among other things, Francesco sued for a letter of acknowledgement from the department that he had, in fact, been a target of their reprisals and for an attestation -a simple statement- saying that he would and should no longer be targeted by them or by their subordinates. When some people sue, they sue for money (and I hope he did that as well). This guy sued for a letter -a letter- and he brought that old Captain America I can do this all day attitude to his lawsuits and stayed with them through their conclusion -eight years.
And for those folks who may be reading and rolling their eyes (or thinking about some crap he may have done to them somewhere along the line), Stop. And read this story I have to share:
My story isn't quick. It happened almost eight years ago. and it requires a lot of context. I was being put through a 3020 by the DoE for a harmless article I wrote for a blog I was connected with at the time. I had never been in trouble in my entire career up until that very point. I had thirteen letters of commendation in my file from various supervisors across various schools. I was well liked by colleagues, by parents and by my students and was, by almost every measure, a model pedagogue. I even wore a jacket and tie to work every day!  And yet, there I was, having my entire career, and life, turned upside down because I had published something to a blog and had worked with folks to help mitigate and work against Bloomberg and his wildly destructive education policies.
It was a clear retaliatory attack, but what could I do? I'm just a doofy little teacher and you can't fight city hall. At that time, the real City Hall influenced all of the newspapers.  The DoE didn't like the blogs so, at some point, it was decided to find them (us) and go after them. Another blogger was just starting a similar very long, and very painful, process of his own during this time and although the DoE swore it had nothing to do his blog, we knew it was retribution for writing. Writers who didn't have important friends to protect them were all a focus of *that* DoE. We had to just weather the storm as best we could.
And we each weathered that storm in our own way. I have a mortgage and children, and had a principal who was very confused about being "told" to sign off on a 3020. He, as a matter of consequence, had decided to help me get past the ordeal. So I did what he suggested and I kept my mouth shut throughout the entire process. I eventually got off with a slap on the wrist and was allowed -permitted, I believe, was the actual term from the attorney- to go back and serve the children of New York. (He was right. It is a privilege to do what I do. I shrugged it off as best as I could and got back to work). My other friend fought back. His struggle was long and painful but he would eventually go on to uncover evidence that there had, in fact, been a conspiracy against him. This helped him fight off the lawyers and save his job.
And it was within this political climate that Francesco decided to publish his now famous humor piece about how to hack the DoE!. I have to admit, when I first read it, I put my head down and asked "Why Francesco. Why?". But then I quickly realized something: None of this should have been happening to any of us anyway. We, and many more of us, were all caught up in some bizarre totalitarian-like retaliation policy -and none of us had important friends to help protect us. We were, what you might call, low hanging fruit for the machine -and that machine was hungry.
You see, during the last few years of the Bloomberg administration, the unwritten rules in the DoE were very very clear: If you spoke out, you were retaliated against. If you spoke out in your school, your school retaliated against you. If you had the testicoli to speak out beyond your school, then the part or the whole system came after you -and it is a very, very big system. Hell, different people in that system might trip over themselves in hopes of being the first to come after you if you were able to draw an audience wider than your school.
So clear were these rules that, once I was charged, a friend in my school renamed me "the dead man walking" -and everybody knew what he meant.
That was the world -the DoE world anyway- in which we all worked and lived. Thank goodness it is a different world from today. THAT world was like a Kafka novel -a poorly written and very predictable Kafka novel -and none of it should ever have happened-but it was what it was.
Public resources -resources that had been intended to teach children- had been used to silence any voice that spoke against any arm of its more sinister policies in any biting or meaningful way. Bloomberg folks defend this, by the way, even to this day (not folks from legal or any other area but Bloomberg folks generally). They'll say that public approval was a requirement for their policies and some of the voices may have threatened that a bit.
Which brings me to why Francesco dropped that humor piece!. In hindsight, it seemed that he was daring them to do the wrong thing and go after him for nothing.
And, well, they did. 😂😂😂😂.
In the middle of my ordeal, I got a call from Francesco. It was just one night, out of many, where I was at home -afraid about what might happen to me in my trial. Apparently, a detective wanted him to "come in" so they "could talk" about the humorous piece he had published. Earlier in the day, Francesco had learned that this was NYPD code for "Look, I'm going to arrest you but I don't feel like driving to you. So why don't you just come in like a good guy instead, Okay?" As it so happens, a DoE official had gotten creative, tripped over some other DoE official's attempt to retaliate and just filed a complaint with the police.  Francesco -a teacher- was set to be arrested for practicing free speech.
I need to write that again, don't I? That's OK. It sounds crazy just typing it!
The Department of Education of the City of New York had one of its pedagogues arrested for practicing free speech in the form an obviously humorous article. That really actually happened.
We spent about 2 1/2 hours on the phone that night, both of us perplexed about how they had been enabled to go so far.  I remember hearing the fear in his voice as we spoke (I also remember hearing the fear in my own voice that night. These experiences back then were pretty scary!!). But I also remember -clearly- hearing a tone of resolve from him. And it was a strong resolve. At one point, I heard him say "look. I'm probably have to go through this. It is what it is. But this shouldn't be happened and, you know me so you know this isn't going to be the end it. It just isn't". As best as I could tell, he was resolute the night before he was arrested, as well as scared, as well as perplexed at a DoE that would do this. But resolution was the feeling I remember sensing from him the most. (This is his rendition of what happened to him during hiss 33 hours in jail. You should read it. You should be taken aback about how a DoE employee could make this happen over a harmless, funny little article). And now, eight years later, that resolution has found its way to reality in the form a section three of the letter that we have all received.
But just know, he was scared that night, as any of us would be.
And just to be clear, there is a hero in this story.  It isn't any of the guys or girls who took to blogging or protesting during the Bloomberg Administration. It certainly isn't me. It's the guy who never ever stopped trying to get things set right for himself.  I mean, I'm proud to be the guy who shut up and tried his best to not upset my employer again (...as instructed, Madam Hearing Officer! As instructed... ). But I'm also the guy who will now enjoy the remainder of my career free -completely free- from that type of viciousness and retaliations which we all witnessed and which some of us experienced. And, I have to say, Portelos is why I'll enjoy that freedom.
And, unless I'm advertising his robotics club or program he's running at his new school, that is ALL I'll have to write about Francesco Portelos!

Fairway bankruptcy due to private equity dumb expansion - shades of toys r us

Struggling Fairway Market again prepares bankruptcy filing
January 2, 2020, nypost.com, by Lisa Fickenscher
Known for its quality produce, prepared foods, cheeses and smoked fishes, Fairway is now preparing to seek bankruptcy protection this month after failing to find a buyer for its 14 stores, multiple sources tell The Post...Fairway’s downturn started in 2007 when the Glickberg family sold an 80% stake to private equity firm Sterling Investment for $140 million. Four generations of the family had owned and operated a handful of Fairways in NYC, starting with a fruit-and-vegetable stand that opened in 1933. Fairway quickly fell victim to Sterling’s aggressive expansion plan...which only served to burden the company with a crushing $300 million in debt. Sterling took Fairway public in 2013...Three years later, in May 2016, it filed for Chapter 11 protection after losing money in every quarter of its life as a publicly held company. It was bought out of bankruptcy by an investment arm of Blackstone, GSO Capital, which recently sold its stake. Now owned by lead shareholders Brigade Capital Management and Goldman Sachs Group, Fairway is quietly closing stores


Hey is sterling equity the ny Mets Stirling? If so it figures 

Does Pelosi Impeachment and Delay Help Biden? Hell Yes - But Was it intentional?

My little suspicious mind started working overtime over the possibility that the entire time-table of the impeachment process, led by smart people who full well understand the nomination timetable, were playing internal Democratic Party politics, knowing full-well the leading left wing candidates - Warren and Bernie - would be put out of commission for weeks in the crucial January weeks? What about centrist Senator Klobuchar? She's so far back she becomes collateral damage.

What did Pelosi gain by the delay? And the initial timetable could have been sped up. After all, we know the Senate will not remove Trump and the best chance to get rid of him is to beat him in the election. My guess is that that is less likely than it was in September.

For three years the Dems have talked about Russia and Ukraine but not very much on the disastrous climate issues or housing or education or any of the crap the Trump team has perpetrated on this country. Just the attack on Obama care alone should have been front and center. At least Bloomberg ads are doing some of that work.

The Hill: Krystal Ball: Is this how Bernie will break the establishment?

Krystal is a true commentator of the left - The Hill

https://youtu.be/ycd6bIe5wCI

Porty Beats DOE: NY Post

The DOE defied the order to make the notification for nearly three years.... NY Post

Over the years I've had my disagreements with Portelos but in the beginning I was a supporter and adviser and attended a dozen of his 3020a hearings where the hearing officer herself and the NYSUT lawyer became believers in his story that he was being set up for daring to disagree with the principal who turned on him on a dime - and the DOE followed suit. For not firing him the hearing officer was dropped - and I thought she was really good.

Check your schools to make sure this notice is posted. James did a post on this with lots of comments: http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/has-your-school-posted-this-perb-ruling.html

The NY Post - Sue Edelman - who did some early stories on Portelos - has a good summary below. The Post on the other hand, sent a reporter and photographer to the first day of his hearing to do a hit job on him. They taketh and they givith.

See Ed Notes from Sept. 2013.
Someone tell me this is journalism where I highlighted hackisms in pink:

A Staten Island teacher who taunted the Department of Education by live-streaming video of his time in a “rubber room” continued to hog the spotlight at his termination hearing Thursday by inviting the media to watch. Francesco Portelos, accused of rampant insubordination at IS 49, opened the normally closed disciplinary procedure in hopes of extending his 15 minutes of fame. But the move blew up in his face, when he was not allowed to speak because it was the department’s turn to present its case.

I loved this line:

Unlike a normal trial, Portelos’ side will make its case at a later hearing.

Portelos Hearing: NY Post Reporter Reuven Fenton Commits Journalistic Malpractice

Ex-rubber room teacher wins fight against ‘rampant’ DOE retaliation 

https://nypost.com/2020/01/11/rubber-room-teacher-wins-fight-against-rampant-doe-retaliation/
By Susan Edelman

January 11, 2020 | 3:43pm | Updated

Enlarge Image

Francesco Portelos

A Staten Island teacher who once live-streamed himself in a rubber room has forced the city Department of Education to publicly admit it wrongly retaliated against him.

Francesco Portelos won a long battle to make the DOE notify about 120,000 fellow union members — on bulletin boards in every building and emails to each employee — that it must rescind actions against him for asking questions about his school budget and helping colleagues who alleged workplace bullying.

The DOE defied the order to make the notification for nearly three years.
Portelos was formerly a teacher at IS 49 Berta A. Dreyfus in 2012, when he sparred with then-principal Linda Hill over financial matters, including his accusation — later confirmed by the DOE — that she paid herself for undeserved overtime.

Hill had Portelos tossed in the rubber room, a holding area for teachers under investigation, where he live-streamed his idleness. He then won election as a union chapter leader, but Hill barred him from meetings and launched further probes against him.
In May 2012, Portelos filed a complaint with the state Public Employee Relations Board. In April 2017, the PERB ruled in his favor, ordering the DOE to remove all disciplinary letters and negative observations it found “in retaliation for his engaging in protected activity.”
But PERB had to sue the DOE last year after the city simply buried the notice on its website, where it would be hard to find.

see also  Fariña principal pal gets free pass after ripping off taxpayers

On Nov 26, an Albany Supreme Court judge ordered the city to fully comply.
After The Post asked about the notices on Friday, the DOE said it sent out all the emails that day, blaming a “technical error” for the delay.
Portelos, who now teaches at IS 27, coached a team of students who won second place in a citywide hack-a-thon contest last April, when he shook hands with Chancellor Richard Carranza.
“It’s bigger than just me and Principal Hill,” Portelos said of his battle. “The system is so rampant with retaliation, the DOE and its supervisors will have to think twice before going after someone who is active in the union or speaks up about school issues.”
A DOE spokeswoman would not explain why it defied the initial order, but said, “NYC is a union town and we are proud to have strong unions representing school employees. The DOE is complying with the current court order by instructing that the PERB notice be posted for 30 days, and by emailing this notice to all teachers.”

Filed under department of education ,  public schools ,  Richard Carranza ,  rubber room ,  teachers ,  united federation of teachers

 

CNN to Pay $76 Million to Union Cameramen - Did Trump Admin do a Hit?

The board said the settlement was the largest monetary remedy in its 84-year history and more than the amount the agency collects in a typical year. The agreement ends a long-running dispute that erupted in 2003, when CNN terminated a contract with Team Video Services, which had provided audio and video services to the cable company’s New York and Washington bureaus. CNN then hired new employees to perform the same work without recognizing or bargaining with the two unions that had represented the Team Video Services employees, the board said Friday.... NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/business/cnn-labor-dispute-settlement.html

Oh that old neo-liberal media. And we know how Trump who packed the NLRB loves unions. But he hates CNN even more.

The Communications Workers threatened to picket the CNN sponsored Democratic debate this week. NLRB which has been pretty anti-union but especially under Trump came through just in time. But it make me wonder since Trump hates CNN so much did the NLRB jump at the chance to embarrass CNN and also hit it hard financially even if giving the unions a win?

Oh the delicious irony. And best of all, my fellow videographer at the Rockaway Theatre Company was one of the cameramen. Maybe I can get him to take me to lunch. But he just emailed "show me the money." Bet lawyers get most of it.

CNN Agrees to Pay $76 Million to Settle Allegations It Violated Federal Labor Law

The National Labor Relations Board said the settlement with unionized broadcast technicians was the largest monetary remedy in its 84-year history.

Compare the Power of the UFT to Hotel Trades Council

In recent years, it [Hotel Trades Council] has helped scuttle an attempt to rezone a swath of Midtown Manhattan, halted the conversion of hotels into condominiums and pressured city officials to spend millions of dollars combating Airbnb — a company that the union views as a threat to hotels and hotel jobs. Its most recent victory came last month in New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan, when the union won a multimillion-dollar showdown with Airbnb in Jersey City over a referendum on restrictions to home sharing.... NYT - article below.

There was a fascinating piece in the NYT about the Hotel Trades Council union and its leader, Peter Ward and how he responded to the threat of  Airbnb to union hotel jobs. The subheadline says it all:

The hotel workers’ union has become one of the most feared political forces in New York.

Is the UFT a feared political force?

Compare Ward's response to that of the UFT over the assault on union jobs by charter schools, which I would estimate has taken over 10,000 potential UFT jobs away here in the city. The UFT strategy has been to accept those losses (it has been incredibly weak in organizing charter school teachers - compare that to the Chicago Teacher Union which has been very successful and has organized charter teachers into their union to the point that they were able to pull of a charter strike) but has managed to hold the line on the expansion of charters - so far.

From almost Day 1 (I was an initial supporter of the original Shanker idea of charters if they were run by teachers and were unionized) I and others urged the UFT to take a strong stand but instead Randi played her little games - by even opening our own charter which has not gotten good reviews.

Now we every day here about the evils of charters:
Why Democrats must choose between teachers and charter schools

The latest outrage is so-called Democratic candidate for president Mike Bloomberg with this arrogant in your face All-In on charters:
Bloomberg education plan to promote charter school expansion

How can someone hope to win the Democratic nomination by promoting an anti-union idea? Well, Obama did it - twice. With no pushback from the teacher unions, possibly the key people in a campaign to win the presidency. That lack of pushback has emboldened Bloomberg.

What would Peter Ward do? I think he would fire a shot across Bloomberg's bow - you will never get the nomination on our watch. That is what both the NEA and AFT should be saying today. But they won't.

Here is the NYT article:

This Union Defeated Airbnb. Now It’s Taking Aim at a New Target.

The hotel workers’ union has become one of the most feared political forces in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/nyregion/hotel-union-nyc-airbnb.html

Charter School Scandals and Outrages

A few quick charter updates.

Steven Singer: Every Charter School Must Be Closed Down – Every. Single. One.... https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2019/09/08/every-charter-school-must-be-closed-down-every-single-one/

 The problem with charter schools isn’t that they have been implemented badly.
 Nor is it that some are for-profit and others are not.
 The problem is the concept, itself. Put simply: charter schools are a bad idea. They always were a bad idea. And it is high time we put an end to them.

My position has been that of Singer. Initially - c.1998 - the idea of charters was appealing due to the corruption in my school district in NYC and in the UFT - I saw charters as a way around that - as long as teachers played a major role in establishing them and running them.

That did not come to pass and teachers have as little say in public schools as they did back then. I used to think that building a movement to take over the UFT was the way to go to give teachers that voice. Maybe not - which leaves me pretty much in mute reform mode - with a high degree of couch potato binge watching -ism and using this space to share the word.

UPDATED - Ravitch just posted:

« Los Angeles: Charters Are Proliferating Where They Aren’t Needed

Jeff Bryant: Has the Democratic Party Really Reversed Course on the Failed Agenda of Charters and Testing?

Ravitch writes: But Jeff is not convinced that the change is more than cosmetic. He thinks that the candidates will gravitate to where the money is: Wall Street; hedge fund managers; billionaires.
Warren and Sanders have not.
But he is right about this: Bad habits and bad ideas die slowly. If at all.
Not one candidate said simply and candidly, “everything that the federal government has imposed since passage of NCLB has failed. We need a fresh vision.

Nice. I don't see the Party doing much other than ducking. But then again Randi had a big role in that Pittsburg conference so I'm not surprised. They don't want to be embarrassed.

Some more charter and ed deform news.

 Indiana: State Graduation Rate is 87%, but for Charters, It is 40%

By dianeravitch

• Gary Rubinstein's Blog

  Reform Funded Research: Winning KIPP Lottery Does Not Significantly Increase Chance Of Persisting In College - The way reformers misuse data follows a very simple and predictable plan: First they get some skewed data, then pick a ‘researcher’ to interpret the skewe...
  

  
  
• Jersey Jazzman

  The Misleading Rhetoric of School "Choice" Advocates: Wealth and "Choice" - One of the functions of this blog over the years has been to deconstruct the rhetoric of education reformers as they advocate for their preferred policies.... 

deutsch29 - Mercedes Schneider

Ohio’s Aggressive School Vouchers Set to Cripple Even High-Scoring Public Schools - In the December 30, 2019, Troy Daily News (Ohio), retired superintendent Tom Dunn published a scathing review of the ills of education reform mandates, con...

More Ravitch - Los Angeles: Charters Are Proliferating Where They Aren’t Needed

From Leonie:
Must read by former charter school teacher Liat Olenick and former charter parent Fatima Geidi

Why the Charter School Proposals by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Shouldn’t Be Controversial

https://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/9027-why-charter-school-proposals-by-bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-shouldn-t-be-controversial

Recently, a group of charter school supporters received media attention by protesting at an Elizabeth Warren campaign event, claiming she wants to shut down all charter schools. This is categorically untrue. No one, not Elizabeth Warren, not Bernie Sanders, not even public school advocates like ourselves, is pushing to unilaterally shut down existing non-profit charter schools.

Iran Response: Are People Like Graham and O'Connel in Danger?

I've read stories about Suleimani for years and was thus shocked that Trump would take out such a prominent target who was a fairly public figure and didn't seem to fear assassination from even the Israeli assassination machine. The NYT article below points out some of these issues -- that even Bush and Obama knew enough to realize that killing him was a Katy bar the door moment and took the gloves off all kinds of stuff in terms of the kinds of targets now up for grabs.

Will Iran attack American civilians? Certainly possible. But what if they target close Trump associates? There is no way to protect all of them. Imagine even Trump properties and children being targets now? Jeez, the devil is our of the can.

Iran doesn't have to go to war openly. And just when there was some push back in Iran to the government, Trump hands them an excuse.

I imagine Iran will actually have an atom bomb in the not too distant future. I.e. Would Trump assassinate a North Korean high level official? If Iran had the bomb they would be more protected.

Here are some stories on the situation.

Quotation of the Day: Pulling the Trigger on a Target Who Didn’t Hide

Jan. 4, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/todayspaper/quotation-of-the-day-pulling-the-trigger-on-a-target-who-didnt-hide.html

“Suleimani was treated like royalty, and was not particularly hard to find. Suleimani absolutely felt untouchable, particularly in Iraq.”

MARC POLYMEROPOULOS, a former senior C.I.A. operations officer, on the United States strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s top security and intelligence commander.

 More articles:

‘Revenge Is Coming’: Thousands Mourn Slain Leaders in Iraq

• The killings of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi official, sent shock waves across the region.
• The U.S. attacks raised fears that the shadow war in the region between America and Iran could suddenly escalate into a major conflict.

American Killing of Iranian Commander Rattles Markets and Capitol Hill

Oil prices surged and the stock market fell after the killing, as Democrats demanded more information about the strike.

Homeland Security said it saw “no specific, credible threat” from Iran, but warned of cyberattacks.

How Trump, in Minutes, Reached Risky Decision Predecessors Had Avoided

In ordering the attack, Mr. Trump challenged predictions it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East.

1376 comments

Shocked Iraq Reconsiders Relationship With U.S.

The killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani could accelerate an Iranian objective: pushing the U.S. military out of Iraq.

Young people in America worry: Will there be a draft?

NYT: How a Chase Bank Chairman Helped the Deposed Shah of Iran Enter the U.S.

....a newly disclosed secret history from the offices of Mr. Rockefeller shows in vivid detail how Chase Manhattan Bank and its well-connected chairman worked behind the scenes to persuade the Carter administration to admit the shah, one of the bank’s most profitable clients....  As Tehran’s coffers swelled with oil revenues in the 1970s, Chase formed a joint venture with an Iranian state bank and earned big fees advising the national oil company.   By 1979, the bank had syndicated more than $1.7 billion in loans for Iranian public projects (the equivalent of about $5.8 billion today). The Chase balance sheet held more than $360 million in loans to Iran and more than $500 million in Iranian deposits.

The hostage crisis doomed Mr. Carter’s presidency. And the team around Mr. Rockefeller, a lifelong Republican with a dim view of Mr. Carter’s dovish foreign policy, collaborated closely with the Reagan campaign in its efforts to pre-empt and discourage what it derisively labeled an “October surprise” — a pre-election release of the American hostages, the papers show. 

Henry Kissinger publicly accused the Carter administration of forcing the shah, a loyal ally, to sail the world in search of refuge... Hawkish critics have often faulted Mr. Carter as worrying too much about human rights and thus failing to prop up the shah.... Mr. Carter complained publicly at the time about the pressure campaign, the full, behind-the-scenes story — laid out in the recently disclosed documents — has never been told. 

Jimmy Carter actually had it right initially --- don't let the Shah in and try to deal with the Iranian people. If he had resisted the pressure -- they appealed to Carter's humanitarian nature. Carter lightened up on Cuba (I know because I went in 1978 when he did and also on the Nicaragua gang supporting the dictatorship) - but when Russia invaded Afghanistan he boycotted the 1980 Olympics - so he was also a cold warrior though not exactly the flavor of Kissinger and the Dem/Rep alliance to monger wars.

Gee, all that Russian interference in our elections. No nation has interfered more than we have. A hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks and the surface and deep state have been interfering in Russia ever since.

The fateful decision in 1979 to admit Mohammed Reza Pahlavi prompted the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and helped doom the Carter presidency.

Ahhh, so we ended up with Reagan who went after environmentalists, unions, education, etc and helped lead us down this path of emphasizing markets over people --- neo-liberals.

The shah, Washington’s closest ally in the Persian Gulf, had fled Tehran in January 1979 in the face of a burgeoning uprising against his 38 years of iron-fisted rule. Liberals, leftists and religious conservatives were rallying against him. Strikes and demonstrations had shut down Tehran, and his security forces were losing control.

The shah sought refuge in America. But President Jimmy Carter, hoping to forge ties to the new government rising out of the chaos and concerned about the security of the United States Embassy in Tehran, refused him entry for the first 10 months of his exile. Even then, the White House only begrudgingly let him in for medical treatment.

Now, a newly disclosed secret history from the offices of Mr. Rockefeller shows in vivid detail how Chase Manhattan Bank and its well-connected chairman worked behind the scenes to persuade the Carter administration to admit the shah, one of the bank’s most profitable clients.

For Mr. Carter, for the United States and for the Middle East it was an incendiary decision.

----- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/world/middleeast/shah-iran-chase-papers.html?searchResultPosition=1

How a Chase Bank Chairman Helped the Deposed Shah of Iran Enter the U.S.

The Nation: The Democrats' School Choice Problem

Remember - Al Shanker's major reason for the charter school idea was to counter vouchers. The Trump Party has moved from charters to vouchers so the Dems are forced to defend real not phony public education since charters are vouchers in another form. The worm is turning.

“If we as community members don’t commit to this public institution that we fought so hard for generations ago, we’re going to lose control of it,” says Brooks. Her message resonated with Philly’s voters, and thrilled the audience of teachers and activists who were on hand in Pittsburgh to hear a long list of presidential hopefuls weigh in on the future of the country’s schools. But just outside of the convention center, on a rain-slicked plaza, the resistance to the Democrats’ leftward swing on education was on vivid display. Over 100 charter school parents, part of the same school choice network that disrupted an Elizabeth Warren campaign event last month, came armed with a message of their own: Black Democrats support charter schools. Welcome to the Democrats’ school choice wars. For the last three decades, charter schools have attracted bipartisan love, amassing an unlikely—and unwieldy—amalgam of supporters along the way: GOP free marketeers, civil rights advocates, ‘third way’ Democrats, and hedge fund billionaires. But in an era of fierce political partisanship, that coalition is now unraveling....

In Philadelphia as in Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland, and elsewhere, the popularity of charter schools has come up against the unpopular consequences of their dramatic expansion: the loss of neighborhood schools and the jobs that go with them, the turmoil of school closures, and the demise of political influence that follows in privatization’s wake.

Jennifer C. Berkshire, https://www.thenation.com/article/education-school-choice-democrats/

Jennifer Berkshire started out as a part-time blogger battling ed deform and has morphed into a full-time journalist and is writing a book with a great title: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

The attacks on Dems who reject charters are that they are pandering to the unions - which is sort of funny for those of us who opposed charters from the very beginning and found our teacher unions waffling and even siding with charters at times. Here is a key point in her article:

For the past three decades, the Democratic establishment has embraced more and better education as the sole fix for the country’s economic woes. An emboldened left-wing now loudly rejects that view in favor of much more aggressive redistributionist policies, viewing the embrace of school privatization as just another in a long list of party missteps. The charter school wing, meanwhile, is also home to the centrist Dems and Wall Streeters who are the loudest opponents of the party’s left-wing tilt. 

I maintain it was this waffling that allowed the Dem Party to go full bore on charters - Imagine if the unions had said to Obama flat out - NO WAY!

The Democrats’ School Choice Problem

Charter schools find their most vocal Democratic support among the least progressive members of the party: centrists and Wall Streeters.

By Jennifer C. Berkshire

Yesterday 7:00 am

https://www.thenation.com/article/education-school-choice-democrats/

The 3,000 Americans Who Fought Fascism Before World War II - Jeremy Scahill

intercepted with Jeremy Scahill

For Whom the Trump Trolls

What the Abraham Lincoln Brigade can teach us about fighting fascism in the 21st century.

I've always been fascinated by the Lincoln Brigade and tried to imagine myself doing anything like it and I came up short. I think I would have hidden under the bed. One of the older teaching guys I knew in my early days of activism once showed us a bullet wound on his foot from the Lincoln Brigade times. I admire people who put their lives on the line for their beliefs even in a lost cause.

Here is an interview on Intercepted by Jeremy Scahill:

In 1936, young Americans began heading over to Spain to confront the rise of fascism in Europe. They became known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. In all, an estimated nearly 3,000 Americans fought in the Spanish Civil War. Spain was viewed as an early front line in the battle against fascism in Europe and these young Americans joined volunteers from across the globe who came to Spain to fight against fascist forces led by General Francisco Franco. Franco was a murderous thug and an ally of Mussolini and Hitler. And eventually, he became a great ally of the United States government.

While the story of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is not often told or recalled in the modern era, it should be. It is a story of young Americans, many of them immigrants, laborers, and workers, who saw the dangers of fascism years before the U.S. government got militarily involved in the war against Hitler and his allies and the point where the mythical history of the fight against fascism in Europe taught in many U.S. schools begins. The Lincoln Brigade deployed to fight fascism before it spread while powerful American businesses and government officials supported Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco or feigned neutrality that actually amounted to aiding fascism.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump held a joint press conference with the Spanish prime minister. The timing was interesting, given that the Spanish government is at this moment forcefully seeking to stop a referendum on independence in Catalonia. Donald Trump seemed confused about the difference between Spain’s prime minister and its president, but he nonetheless made clear where he stands on this issue. “I speak as the president of the United States, as somebody that has great respect for your president, and also has really great respect for your country,” Trump said, standing next to the Spanish prime minister. “I really think the people of Catalonia would stay with Spain.  I think it would be foolish not to.  Because you’re talking about staying with a truly great, beautiful, and very historic country.”

It’s interesting that while Trump uses his generic filler for countries he doesn’t know much about — great, historic, beautiful — the U.S. relationship with Spain for many decades was one of normalizing the brutal dictatorship of Gen. Franco. It is unlikely Trump knows much, if anything, about Franco, but he would have loved the dictator who ruled until his death in 1975. Franco’s whole agenda was framed around Making Spain Great Again: shield it from foreign influence; preserve its conservative brand of Catholicism; fascism masquerading as proud nationalism.

There is a lot of debate and discussion today over the tactics of the groups and people generally referred to as Antifa. And it has become a regular talking point of Democrats and some liberal pundits to equate Antifa with the neo-Nazis and white supremacists being more and more empowered by this administration. This both-sides-are-wrong mentality has been used throughout history to forgive the crimes of right-wing fascist movements.

The veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were celebrated as heroes and visionaries who saw the threat early and tried to stop it. But as U.S. interests shifted, they soon became targets of anti-communist witch hunts. And today, they are seldom mentioned, even though they fought and died to defeat fascism before the U.S. ever entered World War II. This story is vital for all of us to study, particularly in this moment in history.

On the Intercepted podcast this week, we dug deep into this history with NYU professor James Fernandez. He is on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive. What follows is the entire transcript of that interview, an excerpt of which was broadcast on Intercepted.

Full interview below:

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/30/the-americans-who-fought-fascism-before-wwii/?

NYT David Leonhardt: How ‘Centrist Bias’ Hurts Sanders and Warren -

Political and economic journalism too often assumes otherwise and treats the center as inherently sensible. This year’s Democratic presidential campaign has been a good case study. The skeptical questions posed to the more moderate Democrats are frequently about style or tactics: Are you too old? Too young? Too rich? Too far behind in the polls?

The skeptical questions for the more progressive candidates, Sanders and Warren, often challenge the substance of their ideas: Are you too radical? Are you being realistic? And, by golly, how would you pay for it all?

I recently took a detailed look through the coverage of the wealth tax, favored by both Sanders and Warren, and centrist bias seeps through much of it. The coverage has slanted negative, filled with the worries that centrists have — that the tax wouldn’t work in practice or would slow economic growth. ... David Leonhardt

Wow! After so many articles pointing to the NY Times bias, here is an interesting piece from Sunday's Times. Is Leonhardt turning left?

]No so fast about the NYT. See Diane Ravitch today:

Robert Kuttner: NY Times Brands Sanders and Warren “Far Left”

by dianeravitch

Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect takes the New York Times to task for its coverage of progressive candidates.]

Yaffed's press conference responding to the revelation of foot-dragging by the city and state in taking action to ensure Yeshivas provide an adequate education to their students

Leonie's account of the Yaffed presser this AM responding to foot-dragging of the Mayor and the state, along with the full statements made by Naftuli Moster & Beatrice Weber , a mom suing her son's Yeshiva & DOE  for educational neglect:

Yaffed's press conference responding to the revelation of foot-dragging by the city and state in taking action to ensure Yeshivas provide an adequate education to their students

One day after a Department of Investigation inquiry revealed that in 2017, the Mayor had delayed the release of an interim report into the quality of the education received by Ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas students in exchange for the Legislature extending his control over the public schools, the NYC Department of Education finally released its letter to the State Education Department, summarizing the results of its long-awaited investigation into ultra-orthodox Yeshivas.

Even as the DOE letter reported that only two of 38 Yeshivas they visited provided anywhere near a substantially equivalent education compliant with state law, as found via pre-announced visits that ended last spring, they also soft-pedaled the results, with the Chancellor writing that, "The DOE recognizes and applauds the significant progress made as a result of the proactive steps many schools have taken. The DOE is committed to working collaboratively with the schools to assist them as they continue on the path of providing improved instruction."  More on the letter from the Forward, Gothamist and Politico.

In response, Yaffed held a well-attended press conference this morning.  Here is a story about today's presser from the Daily News.

 More at the blog:
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2019/12/yaffeds-press-conference-this-morning.html

Update:

Lots of news clips re de Blasio administration trading delay of release of Yeshiva report for the extension of mayoral controlin 2017.

Gothamist  gives the larger context with the fight over who would control the SCI office and de Blasio’s firing former DOI head Mark Peters over this issue

In a letter to the City Council last year, former DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said he encountered interference and "visible anger" from the de Blasio administration when it came to investigating the yeshivas. Peters was fired by de Blasio after a report showed he had misled the City Council and overstepped his authority by allegedly trying to take over the SCI, which helped produce today's investigation. Peters argued that his ousting came at a convenient time for the mayor. De Blasio appointed Margaret Garnett to replace Peters, and the City Council confirmed her appointment.

Daily News has a debatable quote from DOI head Garnett:

Margaret Garnett, the commissioner of the city Department of Investigations, said investigators concluded that since City Hall delayed the report in pursuit of a policy goal — to retain Mayor de Blasio’s control over city schools — rather than personal gain, the maneuver didn’t violate rules about obstruction of an investigation.

And yet see this from the NY1 story:

The mayor's office dismissed the DOI's findings, saying, “There’s no ‘there’ there, as evidenced by the finding of no wrongdoing."

"Those are not the words I would use," Garnett said of the mayor’s office’s response.

More via THE CITY, Wall Street Journal, NY1, New York Post, New York Times

My updated blog post here: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2019/12/investigation-into-delay-in-does.html