The charter school charade

Supporters of charter schools, who have nothing but power and money at their backs, nevertheless go out of their way to paint themselves as underdogs.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/13/charter-school-charade

November 13, 2009

DURING THE first week of October, at faculty meetings across New York City, public school administrators warned their respective staff members to brace for a new round of budget cuts due at the end of the month.

Columnist: Brian Jones

Brian Jones is a teacher, actor and activist in New York City. His commentary and writing have been featured on GritTV, SleptOn.com and the International Socialist Review. Jones has also lent his voice to several audiobooks, including Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival, Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States and Zinn's one-man play Marx in Soho (forthcoming from Haymarket Books).

The very next day, Harlem Success Academy (HSA), a small but growing charter school franchise, threw an open-bar back-to-school gala for parents and teachers at the Roseland Ballroom in midtown Manhattan.

I attended this ball as the guest of a co-worker whose grandson attends one of the HSA schools (there are currently four in New York City). For more than a year now, I have written and spoken out against charter schools, but this trip gave me a new perspective on the debate; I'm glad I went.

As I entered the ballroom, one of several enthusiastic greeters welcomed me: "Don't forget to pick up your free drink tickets!" Orange balloons and streamers hung from every nook and cranny, a slideshow projected pictures happy elementary schoolchildren in HSA uniforms, studying, playing chess, showing off artwork and so on. On the edge of the stage, a jazz band played, and just as I entered, the singer began belting out Etta James' "At Last."

By the third time someone offered me hors d'oeuvres, I couldn't stop wondering: Who's paying for all of this?

My co-worker arrived and gave me an earful of what, from her perspective, makes HSA so great. "It's like a private school," she told me. "My grandson is learning the same thing the kids downtown are learning. He loves to go to school."

Besides what she sees as a stronger curriculum (including foreign language study in elementary school), my co-worker returned again and again to the issue of student and parent behavior. "They don't tolerate what we tolerate," she said several times. What is it HSA doesn't tolerate? According to my co-worker: disruptive children and parents who don't play an active role in their child's education.

I asked her to elaborate on this difference between the public school where she and I work, and the HSA school her grandson attends. What does it mean to "not tolerate" disruptive children or non-attentive parents? It means, essentially, that you and your child can be removed from the school for failure to comply with your HSA contract. For parents, that means not only signing your child's homework every night, but your presence at your child's HSA soccer game is mandatory! "It's like they're teaching you how to be a parent," my co-worker told me.

Given the scale of the crisis (Black unemployment is rising four times faster than white unemployment in New York City), it's not surprising to hear that parents are eager to rescue their kids from the devastation other families are experiencing. "But what about parents who work two jobs?" I asked, "What about parents who can't do all of that?" My co-worker didn't have an answer.

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

AS THE ballroom began to fill up with hundreds of Black and Latino parents, I began to notice young teachers arriving in groups, many wearing large buttons that said, "Hi-five me, I'm a teacher!" Standing in the back of the Roseland ballroom, it sure seemed like everyone--kids, teachers and parents--was happy. As the old saying goes, it's hard to argue with success.

Then the program began.

First, we were shown a video that told the story of Harlem Success Academy. The camera dropped in on teachers working in colorful, clean classrooms. We saw children at work and at play. Everyone was smiling and laughing.

In one segment, children took turns dancing for a worm's-eye-view camera, finishing each set of moves by flashing a piece of paper with a large "4" at the lens--which was meant to indicate a top score on one of New York state's standardized tests. The music for this celebration of test scores was upbeat and irresistible. I found myself feeling sorry for a boy who did his best for the camera, but only had a "3" to hold up.

To my surprise, the next segment featured many of the protests against charter schools that have taken place around the city. At one point, they showed the picket line from the very first day of school at PS 123. The line formed at the separate HSA entrance to the building.

"Can you believe that? They protested at a school!" my co-worker fumed, her voice full of disgust. I responded, "What they're not showing you is what HSA did to PS 123. They took over more classrooms and dumped the teachers' stuff into PS 123 classrooms--that's why they're protesting."

Those demonstrations, to my surprise, turned out to be a theme of the night. Again and again, we heard about the "protesters outside." The very first speaker was an HSA parent. "There are protesters outside here tonight," she told the crowd. "We want to let them know that they can't push us aside!"

Next up was the CEO of Harlem Success Academy, Eva Moskowitz. She went for her biggest applause line early in her remarks. Bragging about HSA's high test scores last year, she pumped her fist in the air: "We didn't just meet Scarsdale [a wealthy New York suburb], we BEAT Scarsdale!"

First of all, show me a teacher who doesn't think that last year's test scores were grossly inflated to boost Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election bid, and I'll show you a teacher who doesn't work in New York City.

But even taking those scores at face value, it turns out that the secret to HSA's success has less to do with improving scores than with enrolling high scorers.

A recent NYC Department of Education accountability report--released to the public, but very quietly--shows that traditional public schools serve more than three times more English Language Learners and nearly twice as many Special Education students as charter schools. But according to the same report, even though charter school students scored higher on standardized tests, the traditional public schools actually did a better job at raising test scores.

To be honest, I couldn't hear much of what Moskowitz had to say. After a few initial cheers, parents and teachers became more interested in talking to each other, and simply drowned her out. At one point, she spent several minutes shushing the audience.

From what I did hear, her most revealing remarks came at the very end, when she introduced New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein. "If you're the U.S. Postal Service, you don't exactly embrace FedEx," she told us, "but this chancellor has done that."

It took me a moment to pick my jaw up off the floor. Moskowitz's metaphor spoke volumes about the charter school "movement." For parents, of course, it's about trying to find something better for their kids. For Moskowitz, it's about privatization and union-busting--FedEx has not only fought off every attempt to unionize delivery drivers, it doesn't even call them employees! The drivers are classified as "independent contractors," which makes them ineligible for (among other things) unemployment benefits. Is that her vision for the way teachers should be treated?

For his part, Klein didn't seem the slightest bit embarrassed at the comparison. He was beaming as he rose to the podium. "I'm thrilled to be among you," he began. "You don't tolerate mediocrity. You insist on excellence!"

Over the din of hundreds of casual conversations, Klein, too, was mostly inaudible. I could make out the themes, though. He mostly talked about the civil rights movement. He mentioned that his wife had clerked for Thurgood Marshall. Describing the education system of those days, he concluded: "It sure was separate, but it was never equal."

He went on to praise Harlem Success Academy for finally fulfilling the mission of the civil rights movement. I thought to myself: Surely, he realizes he's speaking to an audience entirely composed of Black and Latino parents! Surely, he realizes that he's speaking to people who still attend segregated schools! What was the point of his message? That HSA schools "may be separate, but now they're equal"?

Who needs Brown v. Board of Education? Klein seemed pleased to have fulfilled the promise of Plessey v. Ferguson! I have a hard time believing this irony would have been lost on Thurgood Marshall himself.

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

JUST WHEN I was ready to make my exit, the next speaker caught my attention. He was a tall, African American man. By his age, and dynamic manner of speaking, I supposed he was a veteran activist. Clearly, this man was on the side of charter schools, though, so I was interested to hear what he had to say. "That's Dr. Fuller," my co-worker told me.

Dr. Howard Fuller, I would later learn, was a Black Power activist who became a privatization-obsessed insider long ago. As Klein has in New York, Fuller spent his four years as superintendent of Milwaukee's public schools pushing privatization. He was an early proponent of school vouchers and later served as an education adviser to George W. Bush. His mission in life seems to be lending "civil rights" credentials (and thus African American support) to privatization schemes.

The organization he founded, the Black Alliance for Educational Options was made possible by the generosity of the Bradley Foundation and Walton Family Foundation. The Bradley Foundation is infamous for sponsoring the activities of racists such as David Horowitz (who authored the "Ten Reasons Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea--and Racist, Too" ad) and Charles Murray (whose book The Bell Curve argued that African Americans were intellectually inferior). The Walton Family, of course, owns Wal-Mart and is one of the top donors to right-wing causes (such as opposing affirmative action) nationwide.

As I listened to Fuller's speech, I knew none of this. But in retrospect, his credentials shed light on his remarks--particularly the way he began. "I'm not going to ask you to be quiet," he thundered, "I'm going to talk right over you!"

He poured out contempt for the anti-charter school protesters. "Why would anyone protest you sending your kids to a great school?" he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. Of course, he made no mention of the boxes, books and furniture that HSA piled up in PS 123 classrooms this summer or the overcrowding caused by HSA's "natural" growth.

All of this was just the warm-up, though. Fuller's main act was to channel Frederick Douglass.

Judging by the noise, almost no one was listening as Fuller raised himself to his full height and conjured from memory a lengthy selection from the great abolitionist's famous argument that "if there is no struggle, there is no progress!" He boomed, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will."

I don't know about you, but when I think of people with "power," I think of Barack Obama or Michael Bloomberg or even Joel Klein. Each of those figures is a staunch advocate for charter schools. So what "struggle" could Fuller possibly be talking about? And as for the "power" he wants to see concede, I can only think that he must be referring to the United Federation of Teachers.

With that thought, the whole evening clicked together for me like the pieces of a puzzle. That's why the video and the speakers made such a big deal out of the anti-charter school protests--the whole point is for the charter school "activists," who have nothing but power (not to mention money) at their backs, to paint themselves as underdogs.

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

BUT I learned something else from attending this event. My co-worker and her grandson are genuinely happy with Harlem Success Academy. Those of us who think it's important to defend public education have to find a way to talk to people like her, or we're sunk.

In 1968, my union went on strike against the aspirations of a section of the Black community to have control over their own schools. Since that time, it's been all too easy for city administrators to pit parents against teachers. Parents--especially African American parents--have seen their kids' educational opportunities shrivel, and teachers have conceded away precious rights in contract after contract. Here, another Frederick Douglass quotation actually does fit: "They divided both to conquer each."

My union better hurry up and figure out how to overcome this division, or pretty soon, there won't be much of a union left.

Nowhere is this truer than in Harlem. The public elementary school where I work in East Harlem has lost 30 students to charter schools since September. It's time that teachers use whatever muscle we have left to wage a serious fight to make the public schools a place kids will love to attend. Parents should be our natural allies in this struggle.

The first step is recognizing that public education will only be fixed not by destroying it nor by funneling public money to private entities, but by giving every school the kind of resources we know are needed to make great schools.

The second step is remembering that power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.

Email No 8 from JW

Hello, good day.

While the UFT is sending around messages to the the chapter leaders to get people to fax Albany on the projected $223 million cuts to schools, and that vaccination clinics are open now to kids 4-24 and some other categories of adults, and how to pressure the city for more parking spaces, we've collected some other business below that actually affects your job.

But here's one topic they mention that I do feel is important, though their solution is as always gutless and anemic:

"Some principals are still requiring teachers to regularly create individual, written goals for each student. The new rubric for the quality review makes it clear this is not required. If this is occurring in your school, please e-mail aross@uft.org.

I'd follow this instruction anyway, just in case the UFT has the intention to actually do something about it. But don't hold your breath. How long ago was it that they started asking for exorbitant paperwork? They're still asking.

JW

PS: Please forgive typos, I can't look at this anymore.

=================================================================================================

TEACHER FILES

I've mentioned before that schools keep more than one educator "file." At a recent meeting, the dist. rep said that principals are printing out emails they've sent you and placed them in your files. That is a definite no-no, since you need to know what is in your file. Make sure to cull this stuff out every year.

The DR also said that files on your observations, LIFs, counselling memos, etc., and the file the Personnel Secty keeps for her financial records should be separate - since one's work history should not be accessed by anyone except the principal. The DR said that these two files are legal in the contract, but I do not see a clear picture of how many files are actually allowed in the contact.

In most of the articles, the implication is a single file (see Art. 2, for ex.). Many of the references in Art. 21.A. are to a single file, but see no.3 below: it's plural. To me it seems more of a grammatical mistake than a permission for the school to set up more than one file. Here are some examples from Art. 21.A., but there are way more references to this kind of teacher file.

3. Upon appropriate request by the teacher, he/she shall be permitted to examine his/her files.

4. The teacher shall be permitted to reproduce any material in his/her file.

5. Members may not grieve material in file, except that if accusations of corporal punishment or verbal abuse against a UFT-represented employee are found to be

unsubstantiated, all references to the allegations will be removed from the employee’s personnel file.

However, the teacher shall have the right to append a response to any letter. If disciplinary charges do not follow, the letter and response shall be removed from the file three years from the date the original material is placed in the file.

B.2.b. Counseling memos may not be referred to in, or attached to, any other letter sent to an employee for their official school file.

Other stipulated files:

Under Art. 15.C.7. there's an implied file for "per session" work.

Under Art. 18.A there's an implied file where they keep your job applications at schools you're trying to transfer to.

There's a "medical" file at the Medical Office downtown (Art. 21.K.4)

There is a sneaky little item later down in Art. 21. It clearly indicates they keep MULTIPLE files on you and that there are things called "departmental" files. I will write the UFT on this as I am pretty furious at the inconsistency.

H. False Accusations

. . . . If an accusation of sexual misconduct or physical abuse against an employee is found by the Board or Special Commissioner of Investigation to have been knowingly false when made, the Board will take the following actions to restore the falsely accused employee’s reputation: removing all references to the charges from the employee’s personnel file(s) and adding evidence of the unfounded nature of the charge to departmental files that may have to be maintained to satisfy other legal requirements, if any; . . .

Also: There are probably lots of AP files on you — they should never keep any in hard copy, but probably all do — as well as computer files (which the DR says you can't do anything about).

=======================================================================================================

ALERT re: REGENTS EXAMS

I heard at a district UFT meeting that some schools are not letting kids take the regents. The principal announced at one of them that certain kids should not be allowed to take the test because it "would cause them too much stress."

Or it might also show how that school, like many others, can't service kids properly under this chancellorship.

=============================================================================================================

INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS

I just heard at the same meeting that when they brought over the International Teachers some years ago (at least six or seven, but still going in 2007 according to this UFT article), they made them waive their due-process rights.

PS: The UFT website still talks about Fulbrights for international teachers - not the same thing, obviously, but beware of the small print all the same.

=============================================================================

LATENESS

Chanc. Reg C-601 says that for teaching staff -- if school starts at 8:40 and you arrive 8:43, you are "3 minutes absent."

Fractional absences are deducted like this:

"Other than fractional absence which has been approved at the discretion of the principal as non-attendance (e.g., transportation delay), personal business (e.g., the illness of a teacher’s child), or the personal illness of the employee, all fractional absences occasioned by late arrival must be recorded for possible payroll deduction. Fractional absence totaling 30 minutes or less during a school year will not result in an actual deduction from salary but will be recorded as a lateness. When the total is greater than 30 minutes within a school year, a salary deduction will result."

Note that you can have personal illness lateness accrue to 3 hrs and 20 min. before you're cut one day (3.g)

For non-teaching staff, the rule is somewhat different (see 4. in that same reg).

============================================================================================================

On ATRs & the NEXT CONTRACT

Marjorie Stamberg wrote on Oct. 30th:

"Today's New York Times has news, or at least informed speculation, on the UFT teachers contract which expires tomorrow. It reports what everyone's been saying — that the 4 percent increases were already negotiated last spring by Randi Weingarten in exchange for support on mayoral control. The DOE is complaining they couldn't get anywhere on what they see as three "roadblocks": seniority, tenure and uniform pay scales.

A key issue that we have to watch like a hawk is what happens to the ATRs. The Times quotes the head of the union-bashing "New Teacher Project" complaining that there appears to be "no savings on how much we spend on these teachers without jobs and no flexibility."

We need to make clear that any attempt to put a time limit on ATRs, such as they have in Chicago with disastrous results, is completely unacceptable.

Last year's demonstration at Tweed is a key reason why the DOE was forced to step back on its constant teacher-bashing and vilification of ATRs. Action by the ranks was important in getting UFT officialdom to try to deal with the problem they helped created in the first place by giving up seniority transfers and agreeing to principal control of hiring and the phony "open market" -- key elements of the corporate agenda for "education reform."

I wrote her some thoughts on this, which I'll put in here as well:

I have heard nothing different from the people at the UFT than what they've been saying all along. They are still defending ATRs and claim that it is the DoE mismanagement that has created the ATR situation and doesn't work towards resolution.

I do not think it's mismanagement at all. I think it's pure design to bust the unions and pave the way for corporate education.

I do not get the feeling the UFT will back off on their ATR position or settle on anything less than what they've agreed to already — which has been and continues to be weak and passive. They "allow" the DoE to stick it to the ATRs for sure. But I don't think they will allow them to can ATRs, because every teacher in the system is a potential ATR. All the DoE has to do is close down any school they want and reduce 50% of the teacher force to ATR. That would be the demise of the profession, incrementally of course.

The present contract has the wording for the voluntary buyout. The DoE is not offered such a buyout yet, maybe it will. I get the feeling it is in their interest to allow this fester with no voluntary buyout so that the numbers of ATRs stays high and unresolved until the new contract is negotiated. Why would they do anything to fix this situation, when it works so well for them in trying to get rid of senior salaries.

People I talk to think this contract will not be the problem, but the next one. As I understand it, the DoE will have to do some political work in Albany to kill tenure before they can force ATRs out of the system. (The buyout is in this contract voluntary, as you know. If they ever offered one, the ATR wouldn't have to take it.) I've been told that in places where they put time limits on ATRs (like Chicago), there are no state tenure laws. That seems to me a big difference in how fast they can make their change happen.

Another small point: I am also hearing of chapter leaders and delegates being ATRs. I can't see the UFT taking a position that forces their own infrastructure out of the system.

I know people have different opinions on this, but until it all plays out, conjecture is all there is. Of course, my legal buddies might find some errors in the above thinking, and if they do, I'll circulate their comments in the next email.

==================================================================================================================

NEXT STEP: CONVERTING "FAILING" HSS into CHARTERS

A Gotham Schools post that Bd of Regents Chancelllor Merryl Tisch has been saying things like "charter schools need to branch out to serve more struggling high school students, English-language learners and special education students."

Why charters? Why not BloomKlein giving the rest of us the means to help these kids?

Honestly, none of them can be trusted with children.

=============================================================================

THE NY TIMES and ADVOCACY

Dan Brown asks Why does the NY Times attack teachers? (from the Huffington Post)

"If you don't know students personally and know nothing about classroom life, it's a lot easier to advocate the Times simplistic strategy: cut all teachers out and let self-proclaimed "reformers" impose testing regimes designed to churn out stats, not to support children's diverse needs. We need the New York Times to be better than this. "

À propos, see also the Public Editor's apologist remarks (sort of, anyway) for the disgraceful way the paper covered the Bloomberg win. For those who can't access it online, this excerpt:

"On the morning after the election, while reporting that New York’s political establishment was startled by Michael Bloomberg’s victory margin of less than five points, the paper published a revealing insiders’ account of his campaign that told a more complicated story.

"The article described how Bloomberg operatives sold “inevitability” while secretly fretting over private polls showing “alarmingly low” numbers. It included accounts of how the campaign strong-armed one potentially difficult foe out of the race and pressured the White House to keep President Obama from helping Thompson, the Democratic nominee.

"Some readers were incensed that they did not get such details before the election. Scott Kolber of Brooklyn said the information “might have made a difference to voters.” Abby Levine of Manhattan said he suspected an ulterior motive, given how unflattering the article was to Bloomberg, whom The Times endorsed.

"Did The Times withhold crucial information? Did it swallow what its own day-after-election article described as the Bloomberg campaign’s “charade”? Did it pay too much attention to polls showing a huge gap between a well-known incumbent and a little-known opponent? Did it fail to pay enough attention to signs within the same polls that many voters were weary of Bloomberg, offended by his campaign spending and his effort to change the law so he could seek a third term?

====================================================================================================================

CHAZ and the RUBBER ROOM REPORTER UNCOVER A NEW "DISTRICT"

In their recent posts, we learn that people are paying fines to get out of the rubber room (nothing new) and that checks our being made out to District 65 (new and weird). Seems like another frightening aspect of BloomKlein will now start to unravel.

See:

Rubber Room Reporter: What is District 65?
Chaz: "Where Does The Money Go When Teachers Either Settle With Or The Arbitrator Awards Money To The DOE?"

and

Ednotes on the kind of twisted stuff that can get you into the rubber room in the first place

=================================================================================================================

DANGEROUS LEVELS OF PCBs in CAULK

The New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYPLI) group FOILed the DoE for what info they have on how much caulk there is in NYC school buildings containing dangerous levels of PCBs. More than 50 parts/million means a danger of risk of injury or health, and removal of contaminated caulk is required by law. The NYPLI has joined with Bronx parents to form the Coalition for PCB-Free Schools, whose goal it is to push for PCB-free learning schools city wide. Contact info: Sr. Staff Attny Amiranda Massie at mmassie@nylpi.org.

Bill Cala: Out of Africa

Jambo, dear friends!

And so another mission trip to Africa is coming to a close.  From providing
shoes to countless children in three provinces in two countries, to the
initiation of a new goat cooperative in Katito, Kenya, Joanne and I feel that
much has been accomplished.

We have been working on the bids for the second phase of Hannah’s Hope and
expect that construction of two additional classrooms will begin in December.

Under discussion and consideration is creating a women's self-help group in Homa
Bay in conjunction with the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Talks are underway for the construction of classrooms at Lufumbo in Western
Province of Kenya and Usambara Girls School in Tanzania.

We have partnered with the Rotary Clubs of Kisumu, Kenya and Walkill, New York
(one hour north of New York City) for an international grant to provide three
wells.  Rotary International has approved two wells in Usenge and one well in
Katito, Kenya.  Usenge is a very poor rural community that is in desperate need
of water, education and community services.  Together with the Christian Women’s
Partners of Kisumu, Joining Hearts and Hands will be discussing the possibility
of a community outreach center in Usenge.  This outreach center will provide
counseling of all types (HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, health and so on).  I have
attached two photos of the Usenge area.  If you look to the left of the photo of
the pond, you can see a woman collecting drinking water.  Women must travel for
miles to reach this pond which is very polluted.  Notice the green tint.

The second photo is at the site of one of the wells and the potential community
center.  Joanne and I are talking to nursery school children at that location.

Sincere and heart-felt thanks for your never-ending support.  Your generosity
has empowered the people of Kenya and Tanzania.


From Africa to you with thanks,


Bill and Joanne Cala



Make you tax deductible donations to:

Joining Hearts and Hands
9 Fieldston Grove
Fairport, NY  14450

www.joiningheartsandhands.org

2 Attached Images

A mayor's school takeover plot

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/10/milwaukee-school-takeover
ANALYSIS: KATE O'NEIL


Kate O'Neil reports on grassroots opposition to a plan--apparently backed by the Obama administration--for Milwaukee's mayor to take control of the public schools.

November 10, 2009
SOME 250 people gathered at Milwaukee's City Hall on November 3 to announce their opposition to a bill in the Wisconsin state legislature that would place the city's public schools under mayoral control.
If the bill passes, the mayor of Milwaukee, currently Tom Barrett, would appoint the superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and empower him or her with control over the system's purse strings, academic policy and collective bargaining. The publicly elected school board, which now has jurisdiction over these matters, would be reduced to a nearly powerless advisory body.
The rally was organized by the Coalition To Stop the MPS Takeover, which represents the key constituents affected by the proposed change and the broadest grouping of social justice groups here since the late 1960s.
Among the participants are the local chapter of the NAACP; the Milwaukee teachers' union (MTEA); Parents United for Milwaukee Public Schools (PUMPS); Milwaukee Inner City Churches Allied for Hope (MICAH); the progressive school reform journal Rethinking Schools; and a host of other influential grassroots organizations. They have been joined by several members of the school board and a local alderman.
The coalition planned the rally to coincide with a visit by President Obama to the state capital in Madison on Wednesday, where he met with Mayor Barrett and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle to discuss reforms to the state's education system. While Obama has not taken a public position on the mayoral takeover, activists rightly see it as a move to accelerate school "reforms" promoted by his administration and built into the so-called "Race to the Top" funding from the stimulus plan.
Doyle, a Democrat, announced his support for mayoral takeover at a voucher-supported high school, and bills are pending in the legislature to lift caps on the licensing of charter schools and prohibitions on tying teacher pay to student test scores--the two main requirements states must meet to receive Race to the Top money.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EDUCATION SECRETARY Arne Duncan says Milwaukee especially needs these reforms since it is one of the few cities where the achievement gap between Black and white students continues to grow.
But speakers at the November 3 rally made a clear case for why these changes don't get at the root of the problem. "Black households in Milwaukee earn $494 for every $1,000 earned by white households," explained parent and PUMPS member Jackie Ivy. "Blacks living in Milwaukee are four times more likely to be unemployed than their white neighbors."
Others pointed out that mayoral control hasn't worked in other cities. "We are familiar with the failed and marginal level achievements of school districts across this country--Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.," explained Mary Glass, chair of the Milwaukee Professionals Association. "We are presently looking at Boston, and we have concerns. It is our position that we do not need to add another failed idea on top of decades of systemic and infrastructural problems rooted in segregation, bad decision-making, flavor-of-the-day decision-making, and concentrated poverty."
Protesters also responded to claims in the local press that the mayor would be more accountable to the public than an elected school board, because there is higher voter turnout for mayoral elections than for school board elections. "His proposal concentrates power in one person, the mayor, when it's the parents and teachers who need more power," said Melissa Tempel, an MPS parent and teacher in the Educators Network for Social Justice. "His proposal echoes the interest of the business community."
Rozalia Harris, vice president of the Milteachers' union, called instead for "true collaboration among all stakeholders" in the everyday functioning of schools, and circulated a 12-page document with proposals for how this could be achieved.
Many Milwaukeeans already feel disenfranchised by the rushed and underhanded manner in which the change in the schools structure has been pushed. Members of the current school board didn't know Mayor Barrett was considering a takeover until this August, when School Board President Michael Bonds discovered Barrett was holding private planning meetings on the takeover bill with Governor Doyle and representatives from Arne Duncan's office.
At the time, Bonds was working with Barrett on an MPS Innovation and Improvement Advisory Committee, in which mayoral control was not even on the table. Furthermore, final details of the takeover bill weren't announced until October 26, a mere week and a half before the end of the state's legislative session on November 5.
These attempts to stifle debate on the issue have thankfully backfired. Opposition to mayoral control is widespread in Milwaukee, and the takeover bill does not yet have the votes to win.
Activists remain vigilant, however, as Doyle has stated he will call a special session of the legislature to continue debate. The Coalition To Stop the MPS Takeover is calling on residents throughout the state to contact their legislators and plan to mobilize for hearings on the issue in Madison once the special session dates are announced.
All signs point to the likelihood that the Obama administration is using Milwaukee as a test case for mayoral takeovers nationally. If the takeover measure passes the legislature, it will likely be used as a model for implementation of "Race to the Top" reforms in other mid-size cities. If it is defeated, it will send an inspiring message to residents of those cities that such top-down maneuvers can be stopped.

Dennis Danziger

public school teacher

Posted: November 7, 2009 02:25 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-danziger/demerit-pay_b_349580.html

Demerit Pay

In the spirit of generosity I've been thanking the gods that private school teachers' salaries are not connected to students' standardized test scores. Else Malia Obama's science teacher at the Sidwell Friends School might have lost her job faster than you can say "grade inflation."

On November 3, 2009, the one-year anniversary of his election, President Obama, speaking at a middle school in Madison, Wisconsin, told his audience that First Daughter Malia had recently come home from school with a 73 on a science test, but after renewed educational vigor she aced her next test. This was the same day President Obama reiterated his call for public school teachers' merit pay to be based in part on student performance on standardized tests.

I'm a 17-year veteran English teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, so naturally I thought, "Yep, change has finally come."

After numbing my students with No Child Left Behind tests for the past seven years, I can now depend on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to turn it all around.

But Secretary Duncan's not going to hand over any federal grant money willy-nilly. No sir. No money changes hands until the states beat down those all-powerful teacher unions (and if you want to see how powerful teacher unions are, just drive by your local public school and check out the cars in the faculty parking lot. The Cash for Clunkers program rejected my 1997 Toyota Corolla and most of my colleagues' cars as well).

I'm confident that connecting teacher salaries to standardized scores will so excite students they'll turn off their Play Stations and Xboxes and begin to memorize their times tables; that's how much they're certain to want their teachers to receive that extra $1200 a year.

The merit pay provision undoubtedly will make poor students with full-time jobs and little parental support more alert in class. It'll make their parents serve them healthier breakfast foods. It'll encourage parents to turn off ESPN and help their kids perfect their five-paragraph essays and give up drinking so they can pay for educational perks.

Public school students, realizing they do have the power to move their teachers from a rented apartment into ownership of a condo, will wake at dawn on Saturday mornings and work a few Sudokus; then they're likely rush to be first in line when the library doors open.

Of course, Secretary Duncan's plan might motivate some students to intentionally tank these tests so that their teachers eat it. Call it, "The Revenge of the D-Minus Students." I hope the government will factor in these scores so innocent teachers don't lose their credentials and their health care.

I look forward with curiosity and wonder to the system the Department of Education is devising to measure teachers' effectiveness. I'm all for merit pay, but I can't figure out how it will work. How does a test measure teacher effectiveness when we teachers teach different subjects to different groups of kids in vastly different universes?

For example, in my wing of the building, I teach English to 12th graders; only three of 42 are applying to college. My next door neighbor teaches ESL to kids who've just immigrated. All day I hear her saying, "This is my pencil. This is my eraser. This is my bottle of Prozac."

In the room next to hers, our AP Physics teacher works with only those students who are applying to universities.

And just outside our building the varsity volleyball coach teaches drills.

How does a test compare students' mastery of spiking a volleyball with their ability to understand the properties of an atom?

While I wait for the federal government to grade my colleagues and me, my heart goes out to Malia's science teacher. What was she supposed to say to the Obamas when the First Daughter came home with a C?

"Well, Mr. President, Michelle, allow me to be straightforward. I think you sir, are spending way too much time golfing on Martha's Vineyard. And ma'am what's with the Double Dutching on the White House lawn? You need to spend more face time with your daughter. Or at least give her a turn."

Might the teacher have had the guts to say, "Malia's a bright and wonderful child. But frankly, I think her grade is a cry for help. Enough with flying off to Copenhagen in the middle of the night. Stay home and read to her."

My guess is that Malia's Sidwell Friends School teacher did the prudent thing; the next time she administered a science test, she made sure it was easier, and she thanked her lucky stars her pay wasn't tied to Malia's "C."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-danziger/demerit-pay_b_349580.html&cp

Folks,

It is highly possible for First Daughter Malia to get her act together RATHER than the Sidwell science teacher to water down her next exam. Afterall, Sidwell is not chained to teaching-to-the-test. Hence, Malia could get extra help AND the science teacher could give some extra time in class to explain something that might have been missed by many teachers because of a pedagogical error.... And because the Sidwell science teacher did not have the scripted learning/hi stakes testing yoke around her neck, she could spend a little extra time figuring out how to present the material better.

Then again, Malia could have been slacking off... thinking that she's probably the most privilege preteen in the world and didn't need to study. She also knew that she was not going to school the next day and get cheered on by her peers because she did poorly... and that attitude get re-enforced by her teacher and the general school culture.

This and more is what I get from Malia's experience as it relates to the vast majority of our public school youth- especially the Black & Latino youth of any class in public school.

Mr. Danzinger is right on point with his exposé of the miseducation processes of the NCLB mandate that's still being promoted by the Obama-Duncan forces. But I think he missed the point of the vast differences in Sidwell's education philosophy and school culture and your typical public school (not you Bronx Sciences or Stuyvesants or PS 11s).

By the way, that grade of 73 that Malia got, would have been a B or B- in may of our public schools....

In Struggle,

Sam Anderson

Ed Notes on Governance, c., Feb 2002

This article reflects my thinking in early 2002, almost a year before ICE was founded and I was trying to think things through. I think I evlolved since then, at least a bit. It appeared in the Feb. 2002 hard copy edition of Ed Notes, some of which I'm reprising over at the ed notes blog.

When you think of all the unmanageable problems that beset our schools, many of them can be boiled down to one word: Governance! What a boring word! It makes you want to yawn. But exactly what forces influence how our schools are run from the top level down to the buildings themselves goes a long way towards illuminating a number of issues. So, here is a short primer on---ugh!---Governance.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, schools
were run under a centralized system. Basic decision making, hiring, and curriculum flowed from the central authority down to the schools. Principals and other supervisors had to pass exams and based on the results, were hired off a list.

They were required to have taught for a number of years. Teachers were hired under a similar system. This civil service system supposedly reduced political influence.
Some people felt think this system worked fairly well. Others felt it worked mainly for those students who were motivated and didn’t work so well for those who weren’t. Increasingly, the percentage of the latter grew. There was a demand for change in the 60’s.

This led to the system known as decentralization, which began as an experiment in a few local areas. By this time, the UFT had grown into an influential entity and its leader Al Shanker was becoming a major figure in city and state politics. The UFT had just completed a very successful contract after a 1 week strike in the fall of ‘67. In the fall of ‘68 the decentralization experiment blew up when one of the districts insisted it had the right to hire and fire teachers. The UFT went on a cataclysmic strike. Most supervisors supported the strike and schools were closed for almost 3 months. The shake-out from that strike (which to some extent still continues today) led to a reduced concept of decentralization, the form of which was influenced by UFT lobbyists in Albany.

Really, the word decentralization was a misnomer as it just moved a centralized system down to a more local district level for grades k-8. High schools remained under central control.
Basic decisions for schools were now made at a district level through a District Superintendent appointed by an elected school board. These boards were controlled by local political forces and became major patronage machines. Hiring of supervisors was now done at the district level. A major requirement to become a supervisor was to be active politically, either at the district level or connected to some political entity. Politics entered into the equation like it had never done before. It became possible to become a supervisor with little or no teaching background. That is one of the major reasons the quality of supervisors has declined so severely. People have not really learned how to run schools by doing jobs from the ground up.

The UFT in many districts threw itself into these local politics with a vengeance and also played a role in “making” supervisors. Some District Reps became crucial point people. In some cases the district union set up machines of their own and had enormous influence. This process culminated with one Dist. Rep. actually becoming superintendent, completing a merger of the union and administration. Almost every Chapter Leader that was part of that machine became a supervisor.

One of the ironies of our system is just how many people have used the union to rise to a supervisory level. The fact that many of these people were part of Unity Caucus is naturally down played by the union leadership.

It is interesting to note that the centralized high schools were plagued by similar problems faced by the districts. Did schools at the high school level run any better that those in the districts? Most people would say the answer is a resounding NO! Patronage existed, but at a different level and in a different form. Citywide forces such as the UFT had a better opportunity to make their influence felt. The UFT continued to favor the concept of centralization and has opposed all proposals to place high schools at the district level. Dealing with one high school agency divided into 5 boroughs is much more manageable than dealing with the 32 districts.
One of the interesting sidelights of the centralized high schools is that it is the only division where Unity Caucus has continuously lost union elections, indicating the disaffection of high school teachers.

A number of local scandals led to the call for re-centralizing the system, (with one of the largest scandals taking place in the district controlled by the former UFT DR.) This has been accomplished in recent years by giving the Chancellor more power in the appointment of District Superintendents and thus, the power to influence events at the school level. The major impact has been the weakening of local school boards. The UFT, consistent as usual in its support for re-centralizing the system, backed these changes. Again, it is much simpler to try to influence 1 Harold Levy than 32 district superintendents.
Has this change made things better? Most teachers would say the answer still is not only a resounding NO, but conditions have actually deteriorated as Levy’s “corporate” style of management by the numbers has filtered down to the schools in a way that has severely damaged the educational process, a process that began under his predecessor, Rudy Crew.

Giving the Mayor Control
Many people were surprised this past June when Randi Weingarten came up with a plan that would give the Mayor control over the school system. The UFT plan includes maintaining a Board of Ed., whose members would be chosen from a list suggested by a blue ribbon panel appointed by the State Board of Regents (You know! The agency that has forced all these tests down our throats.) If local school board elections are abolished (they have been postponed until next year while the issue is being decided) that would lead to the total re-centralization of the school system. The union feels that giving Mayors control will make them more accountable. It allows the union to maintain influence without responsibility. Checking out the results of Mayoral control in Chicago points to another story. The former union leadership’s support for Mayoral control and its complicity in the management of the system was instrumental in its recent defeat.

Some view the change in the UFT’s position as a bargaining chip for a new contract. But given the general negative experience of a school system influenced by politics, how wise is it to give away the entire school system to any one politician who is clearly governed by a desire to see the system produce “results?” Results that will be interpreted in a political rather than an educational way.

Can re-centralization meet the needs of individual schools?
It has been difficult enough to meet the needs of individual schools, teachers and children with even the quasi-decentralized system. How can we expect the system to be responsive when a one size fits all template will be applied? When the method of dealing with standardized tests is to try to create standardized children by using standardized teaching methods? Instead of calling for educators to have more power over our school system, we are allowing political forces to control what we do in the classroom. People who don’t have a clue about education are making basic educational decisions. Instead of calling for teachers to have more control over the schools, our leaders have capitulated to political forces.
Does anyone think that any politician cares more about the children than they do about getting reelected? Given the choice, will they put enough resources into classrooms to help children really learn? Or will they take the politically expedient way out by calling for more tests and more blame on teachers when children don’t produce?

What kind of system should we have?
Education Notes has continuously been an advocate for a truly decentralized system where each school functions as an independent agent, with teachers playing a major leadership role. Pie in the sky? Maybe. Why not try an experiment? Take a number of failing schools. Reorganize half of them along current guidelines, with new staffs, administrators, etc. with decisions made from the top down as currently happens and would continue to happen under mayoral control. Take the other half and make an open offer to teachers around the city to come and run their own schools as if they were charters. Compare the results after 3 years.
Could such an experiment work? Certainly not without the backing of the UFT. But there is no way the UFT leadership would ever back such an experiment. The UFT is too involved in the infrastructure of the current system.

Should our union defend the system?
We believe our union leaders have become defenders of a rotten system. Oh, they verbally criticize administrators and the way things are done at the Board. But they do nothing about the situation in reality. Thus, our leaders come off as defenders of the status quo. Giuliani’s attacks that we have a system whose prime purpose is job protection weren’t totally off base. Ed. Notes feels the union should scour the budget, publicize abuses and demand positions be shifted to classrooms. Don’t hold your breath!

Where’s the vision?
Education Notes’ sponsored resolutions at the Delegate Assembly to have our union articulate a vision of what our school system should look like have fallen on deaf ears.
Such a vision has not only not been articulated to the public, it hasn’t even been put before our own members. How wasteful to see all of those expensive commercials miss the opportunity to place such a vision before the public! The real problem is that our union leaders do not have such a vision. Their vision is one of politics and legal maneuvering. What we get is shortsighted, short term solutions that will never solve the long-term problems our school system faces. Giving the Mayor control is just another gimmick.

On the Election

From Leonie Haimson

Bloomberg’s slim victory, with only 51% of the vote despite spending $80--$100 million or more (we won’t know the full amount until a month from now) is a moral victory for the other side.

No matter what spin comes out of Wolfson’s mouth, the Bloomberg camp was shocked at the narrowness of the win. His money may have allowed him to continue on for a third term; but as Abraham Lincoln said, you cannot fool all the people all the time. I wonder if those who sat on their hands feel any remorse.

See the following articles from the Daily News, starting with the indispensable Juan Gonzalez, one guy that the mayor has never managed to fool. Excerpt:

The mayor will still call this a democratic victory - final proof that New Yorkers endorse his naked power grab last year to overturn term limits.

He fools no one.

In the midst of the city's worst economic crisis in 60 years, Bloomberg spent money like a million drunken sailors to buy his job for the third time. Quite simply, he buried democracy under mountains of cash - because he could.

See also Juan’s and Errol Louis’s statements on education:

Juan: - “The mayor's biggest claim has been improving the school system. But as more independent reviews come out of his reforms - from charter schools to improved test scores - proof mounts that much of the progress is smoke and mirrors. City test scores could prove to be as reliable as all those Triple A-rated subprime mortgages Bloomberg's Wall Street friends peddled.”

Errol Louis: “When it comes to schools, the department of which the mayor is most proud, there's a gap between the statistical improvements Bloomberg touted, and the perception of parents and educators who think that students are learning how to take tests rather than how to think and thrive. “

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election_2009/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_empty_voting_machines_tell_the_story_the_disgusted__disaffected.html#ixzz0VuFvAeSp

Empty voting machines tell story: The disgusted & disaffected

Juan Gonzalez - News

Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 4:00 AM

The seven empty machines in the auditorium of Middle School 117X in the South Bronx said all you needed to know about this year's mayoral contest.

By 9 a.m., not a single voter could be spotted at any of them. Several machines had registered barely a dozen voters in three hours, and during the next half hour no one would walk in to cast a ballot.

"The low turnout is surprising," said Kathleen Larkins, one of the veteran election coordinators.

It was the same story from East New York in Brooklyn to Bushwick, to Washington Heights: poor voters, those most disaffected by the Bloomberg years, stayed away from the polls in droves.

His opponent Bill Thompson, despite a lackluster and poorly financed campaign, almost managed to pull off a stunning upset.

No doubt, many voters rebelled against the constant harangue of Bloomberg flyers and those nasty Bloomberg commercials and phone calls and just wanted them to end.

The mayor will still call this a democratic victory - final proof that New Yorkers endorse his naked power grab last year to overturn term limits.

He fools no one.

In the midst of the city's worst economic crisis in 60 years, Bloomberg spent money like a million drunken sailors to buy his job for the third time. Quite simply, he buried democracy under mountains of cash - because he could.

Mike Filippou, a former worker at the Stella D'Oro factory, was one those in the Bronx who voted for Thompson.

A Connecticut private equity firm shuttered Filippou's factory a few weeks ago. The closing followed a yearlong struggle between the plant's owner and its unionized workers. The owners wanted to drastically cut pay and benefits. When they couldn't succeed, they closed the plant and sold the brand to an Ohio company.

"Bloomberg never lifted a finger to save our jobs," Filippou said. "At least Thompson tried."

Governing during this third term will be far tougher than the mayor and his aides ever imagined.

Watch for key accomplishments Bloomberg has touted to blow up, much as happened during Ed Koch's third term.

The likeliest areas:

1) Computerization of government. Under Bloomberg, city agencies spent billions for new computer systems that haven't delivered what they promised and have exploded in cost - beginning with the new 911 system. Many of those contracts were awarded with little or no bidding. It's a scandal waiting to be unearthed.

2) Land development. Bloomberg's people spent years giving favored developers public spaces, city subsidies, and friendly zoning for huge megaprojects - many of which stalled in the economic slowdown. The price will now come due.

3) Education reform. The mayor's biggest claim has been improving the school system. But as more independent reviews come out of his reforms - from charter schools to improved test scores - proof mounts that much of the progress is smoke and mirrors. City test scores could prove to be as reliable as all those Triple A-rated subprime mortgages Bloomberg's Wall Street friends peddled.

So let Bloomberg version 3.0 begin. He sure paid enough to barely beat Bill Thompson.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election_2009/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_empty_voting_machines_tell_the_story_the_disgusted__disaffected.html#ixzz0VuG2fdMo

Mayor Bloomberg's narrow win means he must build groundwork for next mayor

Errol Louis

Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 4:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_time_to_look_to_the_future_mike_must_build_groundwork_for_next_mayor.html

Honda/Getty

Mayor Bloomberg won his third term, but now much make sure things are set for whomever succeeds him.

In the end, lightning did not strike for Bill Thompson: he could not overcome Mayor Bloomberg's billions and the power of incumbency.

Still, Bloomberg's surprisingly narrow election to a third term means he must go beyond his status-quo campaign promise to "keep the progress going."

Instead, he should focus on the parts of his legacy that go beyond the policy successes endlessly trumpeted in one commercial after another.

That starts with dropping the pretense of being above and beyond politics.

The hundreds of millions Bloomberg spent greasing palms to bend laws, secure endorsements and buy loyalty - or, at least, silence - make him a one-man political organization, better funded and more disciplined than any county machine.

He has proved his ability to beat the city's Democratic organization three times over, against white, Latino and black candidates - Mark Green, Fernando Ferrer and Bill Thompson, respectively.

We don't know if Bloomberg's Party of One has staying power. He has anointed no successors, transformed no political institutions and created no lasting infrastructure to carry on beyond his time in office.

If the main rationale behind a third Bloomberg term was to prevent the city from slipping back into the clutches of Democratic orthodoxy, then the mayor must ensure that he hasn't merely postponed the day of reckoning by 48 months.

He should begin grooming and supporting a farm team of public leaders across the city.

Some might be candidates for state and city office, others might be commissioners and agency heads recruited for a future in electoral politics.

Preparing others for the public spotlight would begin convincing skeptics that the Bloomberg years were more than an exercise in ego.

It would also allow for new approaches to problems whose solutions have eluded Bloomberg for the past eight years.

We clearly need an entirely new approach to the record homelessness that the mayor had vowed to cut by two-thirds.

When it comes to schools, the department of which the mayor is most proud, there's a gap between the statistical improvements Bloomberg touted, and the perception of parents and educators who think that students are learning how to take tests rather than how to think and thrive.

When it comes to public safety, more of the same isn't good enough in neighborhoods where shootings are on the rise and a generation of teens are being doubly traumatized - witnessing horrific gang, drug and domestic violence and then being told that the city has never been safer.

Above all, we need to stop the middle-class flight that led 1.1 million people to leave an increasingly unaffordable city on Bloomberg's watch.

It's one thing to marshal stats and slogans for a campaign, and quite another to write a new chapter in the history books. Let's hope Bloomberg is wise enough to tell the difference.

elouis@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_time_to_look_to_the_future_mike_must_build_groundwork_for_next_mayor.html#ixzz0VuEJQwQo

Tense night for victorious Mayor Mike Bloomberg's camp as results are far closer than expected

BY Erin Einhorn
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 8:41 AM

Mayor Bloomberg celebrated his victory Tuesday night in the same way he achieved it: with lavish spending and an obsessive attention to detail.

But the luxe party he threw at the Sheraton New York turned into a longer - and tenser - evening than expected when the vote count showed the cakewalk turning into a tightrope.

Cheers that went up when NBC projected the mayor an early winner died away as the vote counters uncovered a squeaker and potential upset.

As thousands of supporters milled around waiting for a victory speech they expected hours earlier, Bloomberg aides sat glumly in an anteroom staring into their BlackBerries as the embarrassingly close results trickled in.

"This is not what they expected," a Bloomberg campaign consultant fretted. "People are going to think it's a waste of $100 million."

Another aide sorrowfully checked his iPhone, muttering, "This is hardly a mandate."

Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, who can spin any failure into smashing success, declared it was "the most difficult environment for incumbents since 1994" and called Bloomberg's narrow win "an enormous victory."

"Given the climate, Mike Bloomberg won and won big," Wolfson said.

The mayor's victory speech made no mention of his narrow escape. The campaign kept all news off the TVs in the ballroom, even avoiding showing Thompson's concession speech.

The party was as over the top as the mayor's $35,000-an-hour campaign.

Revelers had the choice of wine and beer at six open bars.

Various food tables were laden with hot pretzels, hot dogs, pizza, cookies and brownies.

Movie theater-style poppers dispensed bags of freshly popped corn.

Tuxedoed waiters passed trays of minisliders and regular hot dogs, which must have been the city's priciest - beating even Yankee Stadium's wieners.

Big TVs scattered throughout the room flashed images of the mayor campaigning in different neighborhoods with various ethnic groups.

Bloomberg's slick campaign ads played one last time.

An 11-piece band played soul and rock tunes, and Ed Koch kept the crowd going.

Armies of operatives in headsets scurried around, ensuring the elaborate production went smoothly.

Nothing was left to chance: the campaign even had hand-painted banners on hand to suggest a grass-roots campaign.

eeinhorn@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election_2009/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_a_big_sigh_of_relief_as_bloomy_parties_tense_night_for_victorious_mike_camp.html#ixzz0VuFasqPo

In wake of 5% loss to Mayor Bloomberg, Dems left asking, 'What if we'd done more for Bill Thompson?'

BY David Saltonstall and Celeste Katz
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, November 4th 2009, 2:41 AM

The most nagging question among Bill Thompson's supporters on Wednesday is this: What if fellow Democrats had actually backed - rather than abandoned - him?

In the end, despite polls showing him trailing by 18 points in the final days of the campaign, Thompson lost to Mayor Bloomberg and his $100 million campaign by a mere 5 points.

So what if?

What if President Obama - instead of delivering a squishy, nonendorsement-endorsement of Thompson, after his press secretary couldn't even come up with Thompson's name - had stumped for the man?

"There are a number of people around Bill who felt that he was let down and that, yes, it could have helped if President Obama had campaigned with him," one senior Thompson adviser said last night. "But that's not who Bill Thompson is. He has not been bitter."

Bitter or not, the question remains.

What if Vice President Biden, in town Monday to raise money for other Democrats, had taken 10 minutes to say something nice about the controller?

What if City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, instead of sitting on her hands for months, used the power of her purse strings to rustle up some support for Thompson?

What if the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was happy to stand onstage last night at Thompson's concession speech, had stood a little closer during the campaign?

What if the more powerful city unions like the United Federation of Teachers and SEIU Local 1199, Democratic check writers or for-hire strategists had stayed true?

"A lot of Democratic donors who sat on their wallets are kicking themselves tonight," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, who bowed out of the race for mayor early on, but did what he could for Thompson down the stretch.

One senior campaign official conceded no one thought "we could come that close."

"Could we have gotten more support, from people who endorsed and the party itself? Yes," said the official. "We won't know what would [have] put us over the top, but it would have helped - extremely."

Others were not sure anything could have saved Thompson, who never exuded the passion voters want in a mayor.

"It wouldn't have done a thing, just like Bloomberg's money didn't make a difference," said Hunter College's political Prof. Ken Sherrill. "People who have lived in New York know what their lives are like and whether they are satisfied with Bloomberg."

dsaltonstall@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election_2009/2009/11/04/2009-11-04_in_wake_of_5_loss_to_mayor_bloomberg_dems_left_asking_what_if_wed_done_more_for_.html#ixzz0VuHkcgI6

Chief Factor in Mayor’s Race: Bloomberg Influence

Geoffrey Canada intervened to keep Obama out of the race; Canada who has received millions from Bloomberg’s pockets and from taxpayer funds also pushed for renewal of mayoral control -- he has a lot to be responsible for. - Leonie Haimson

November 4, 2009

By MICHAEL BARBARO

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/nyregion/04ticktock.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

The White House switchboard lit up with calls from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s emissaries several weeks ago with a message that was polite but firm: The mayor is going to win re-election, they said. We think the president should stay out of the race.

Members of Mr. Bloomberg’s inner circle were especially worried because they knew President Obama planned to visit the region to campaign with Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, and he would face pressure to support the Democratic candidate, William C. Thompson Jr., the city’s first black comptroller.

At the request of the mayor’s aides, Geoffrey Canada, chief executive of the Harlem Children’s Zone, telephoned Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the president.

“I know she is close to the president and has his ear,” said Mr. Canada, whose nonprofit group has received $600,000 in personal donations from Mr. Bloomberg.

A close adviser to the mayor, who stayed neutral in the presidential race, described the campaign’s pitch to the White House this way: “He didn’t pick sides in your race. Don’t pick sides in his.”

The president’s office agreed, and in early October alerted Bloomberg aides that it would offer only a halfhearted Friday afternoon endorsement for Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Obama did not campaign with him.

In the race for mayor of New York City, there was one campaign on the surface. But there was a more dramatic effort, unfolding behind the scenes, that really mattered: ensuring, through money and muscle, that Mr. Bloomberg faced no serious obstacle to winning a third term.

The critical moments were not widely watched debates or speeches, but triumphs celebrated privately inside the cavernous Midtown Manhattan headquarters of Bloomberg 2009: the elbowing out of Representative Anthony D. Weiner and the neutralizing of any powerful Democrat who could hurt the Bloomberg campaign.

Underlying it all was a sophisticated strategy, and at times intimidating tactics, seemingly at odds with Mr. Bloomberg’s image as a nonpolitician, that his aides sketched out during a marathon meeting in the fall of 2008.

This account is drawn from dozens of interviews with top aides, consultants and friends of both candidates, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly without inflaming two powerful public officials.

In the days after the mayor had emerged, victorious, but badly bruised, from his fight to rewrite the city’s term limits law, Mr. Bloomberg and his three top deputies, Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey, gathered in the Staten Island room in City Hall and began to plot his campaign.

They warned him that it would be entirely different from his campaigns in 2001 and 2005. “This will be really hard,” one participant said.

Mr. Sheekey, the mayor’s political guru, urged him to quickly send a warning to potential challengers. He suggested recruiting a high-profile attack dog for the campaign and disclosing it to the press. The choice was obvious: Howard Wolfson, the combative former communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run.

Mr. Skyler suggested that the campaign be run by his best friend, Bradley Tusk, a former deputy to Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, who was leaving Lehman Brothers and eager to return to politics. Mr. Tusk spent weeks last fall helping Mr. Sheekey ram the term limits legislation through the City Council.

Mr. Sheekey pushed what he called the Powell Doctrine — a burst of overwhelming force that would discourage anybody who was even thinking about taking on the mayor.

Mr. Tusk, extremely self-confident and forceful, talked about “taking the oxygen out of the room”: hiring so many staff members, rolling out so many endorsements, and tossing up so many television ads that opposition seemed futile.

A sky-is-the-limit ethos, unfettered by spending limits, infused the effort. Mr. Tusk told his outreach coordinator for Asian voters, Oliver Tan, to find him a Bollywood star to endorse the mayor. After weeks of transcontinental phone calls, he did.

“It was selling inevitability,” a campaign adviser said.

In many ways, what the campaign was selling was a charade. Inside the campaign, pollsters and consultants fretted over surveys that showed New Yorkers angry over term limits, anguished over the economy and eager for change. Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election numbers were alarmingly low for a two-term incumbent.

Polls showed that Mr. Weiner, a scrappy, politically agile Brooklyn Democrat, posed the greatest threat. Not only could Mr. Weiner compete with the mayor for the white middle-class vote, he was undaunted by the mayor’s power in a city where most politicians bow to him.

Mr. Tusk started to hold daily meetings about how to knock Mr. Weiner out of the race, unleashing a two-pronged attack: making on-the-record statements belittling his record and encouraging embarrassing articles in the New York dailies. Negative articles began appearing, the most colorful of which purported to show that Mr. Weiner had skipped votes in Congress to play hockey in Manhattan.

Despite angry denunciations of what he called a smear campaign, the congressman slowly lost his will to take on the mayor.

On May 26 Mr. Weiner announced he would not run, and Mr. Tusk and Mr. Wolfson held a celebratory dinner at Peter Luger’s, splitting an $85 porterhouse steak.

The only obstacle remaining was Mr. Thompson. At Thompson campaign headquarters near Union Square, Mr. Bloomberg’s display of political might over the summer — he had spent $37 million by July 11 — was having its desired effect. By August, Mr. Thompson’s advertising team had stopped trying to track the mayor’s television and radio spending, standard practice in a campaign, telling colleagues it was too depressing. Anne Fenton, Mr. Thompson’s press secretary, told friends that she was intimidated by Mr. Wolfson.

At times, the Bloomberg campaign, waging what they proudly saw as a presidential-level operation, seemed puzzled by the poorly financed, loosely disciplined Thompson effort. The candidate’s daily schedule was curiously light, easy opportunities to score political points were neglected, and its strategy was adrift.

Midway into the campaign, Mr. Thompson scheduled a publicity tour through a foreclosure-battered section of Queens, accompanied by Representative Gregory W. Meeks, setting off fears among Bloomberg advisers that the next day’s papers would be filled with articles suggesting that Mr. Bloomberg, an Upper East Side billionaire, had neglected New York City’s neediest.

Team Bloomberg swung into action, dispatching a group of researchers to dig up Mr. Thompson’s ties to what they called an “anti-union developer” and $400,000 in campaign donations from real estate companies. They tapped out a 2,000-word e-mail message to the news media, titled “Thompson’s Rhetoric on Affordable Housing Doesn’t Match His Record” and prepared to hit the send button.

But to their astonishment, the Thompson campaign attracted almost no press to the event. The e-mail message never went out.

Mr. Tusk’s high level of organization, and his demand for corporate-style accountability, earned him admiration and occasional resentment within the campaign. He kept meticulous checklists and spreadsheets on a dozen topics at a time, and sought daily, sometimes hourly, updates from staff members.

Mr. Bloomberg, pleased with the effort, focused on his mayoral duties and tried to avoid being drawn into the campaign back-and-forth, with one exception. Three weeks before the election, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made an appearance with Mr. Bloomberg before a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.

Whatever message they had hoped to convey was drowned out by Mr. Giuliani’s speech, in which he suggested the city could not afford to return to the bad days before 1993, when the city’s first black mayor reigned, adding, “And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who had prided himself on lowering the city’s racial temperature, was furious. The mayor’s advisers recognized the statement could become a nightmare if Mr. Thompson’s campaign exploited it deftly.

Mr. Thompson’s advisers pleaded with him to seize the opening.

“I talked to the Thompson campaign and said, ‘This is the decisive moment, it may be the best opportunity to change the race,’ ” a Democratic leader said.

But Mr. Thompson refused to make a big fuss about the statement. He addressed it only in passing, relying on surrogates to take on the mayor.

The Bloomberg campaign braced itself. But the storm never came.

More Tsouris for Rhee

We've had a week of startling revelations about two of the latest Fenty administration scandals. We've heard how the administration manipulated city funds so that it could steer construction contracts to cronies and hide the contracts from the city council and the public. We've heard how Chancellor Rhee fiddled with the DC public schools' budget so that she could fire a few hundred teachers and other employees. Rhee testified at a city council hearing that she didn't plan the Reduction in Force, that she didn't intentionally hire several hundred more teachers than she needed over the summer in order to break the union contract. No, she insisted, she wasn't being malicious; she had simply been incompetent, bumbling, and unable to plan ahead. She had the right to ignore the legal budget of DCPS that the council passed and the mayor signed because she was the head of the agency, and that meant she had the ultimate power. The city council had approved her nomination, so from then on she wasn't accountable to them or anyone else for her actions. And she used, over and over again, the magic words, “for the children.” As long as she was doing it “for the children,” she could do whatever she wanted with the budget, with the staff of DCPS, with the teachers, the principals, and the students. She didn't have to report to the council and her budget officer didn't have to report to the Chief Financial Officer. The only way she could think of to improve management of DCPS was to make a vague promise to in some way “improve communications.” (See Chancellor Rhee's and Chief Financial Officer Gandhi's testimony at http://www.dcpswatch.com/rif, and the video of the hearing at http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_1.asx, http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_2.asx, and http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_3.asx.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

Rhee ignored instructions about cuts, council says

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

D.C. Council members angrily accused Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee on Thursday of skirting the law by deciding unilaterally to lay off teachers and staff -- instead of trimming summer school operations -- to save $9 million in the school system's budget.

The decision, which Rhee defended on legal and policy grounds, was one of a series of disclosures during a contentious day-long oversight hearing that shed new light on the layoffs. The dismissals have sparked vociferous street protests, a union lawsuit and the most intense public debate of Rhee's 28-month tenure.

For some council members, the revelations confirmed suspicions that Rhee ignored a council directive to trim the summer school program and manipulated this year's budget process to further her goal of replacing a large portion of the city's 4,000 teachers. They vowed to press their investigation of the dismissals.

The hearing also laid bare festering tensions between Rhee and D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), a possible mayoral candidate next year, who has for months criticized the school leader for a lack of communication and transparency. He said her decision, which he called "incredibly cavalier," violated legal requirements that she submit a "reprogramming" request to the council when shifting funds.

"I'm talking about the law," Gray said. "Why bother to have a legislative body if the people in the executive branch do whatever they choose because they don't like the decision of the legislative body?"

Others took issue with Gray's analysis, but even some of Rhee's most steadfast supporters on the council rebuked her for the bitter state of relations between the school system and elected officials.

"We cannot continue to have this kind of craziness," said Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who noted encouraging signs of progress in the schools but lamented that "we are sitting in a chamber where tensions couldn't be higher." Under Rhee, test scores have risen recently, and enrollment appears to have stabilized after a long decline.

'Change is hard'

Testifying under oath, Rhee said she was open to improving communications but added: "Change is hard. Some of the decisions we are making are going to cause some opposition and push-back. We can't shy away from those decisions because we don't want to hear the noise."

Rhee said the Oct. 2 layoffs of 266 teachers and other educators were needed to help close a $43.9 million shortfall in the 2010 budget. Union leaders have denounced the action as an illegal mass firing designed to purge older educators. They have gone to court to have the teachers reinstated.

Rhee also revealed new information about the teachers who were fired and the 934 she hired during the spring and summer. In written testimony delivered Wednesday night, she told Gray that the average age of the District's teachers is 42 and that the average age of those who were laid off is 48. The average age of the 934 new hires is 32.

Rhee had deflected claims of age discrimination in interviews this month, saying that the average age of the laid-off educators was consistent with the age of the school workforce.

Thursday's hearing centered on $20.7 million the council cut from the school budget July 31, part of a citywide belt-tightening because of declining tax revenue. About $9 million of the cut came in the form of a reduction in 2010 summer school operations.

Rhee said that summer school has become a critical component in helping high school students catch up academically, recover course credits and stay on a path toward graduation. Given a choice between protecting the interests of adults and students, she said, she chose to protect students. The $9 million represents a little more than 100 of the 266 teacher layoffs.

A visibly exasperated Gray was not swayed, citing what he called Rhee's violation of city regulations.

"You think that's inconsequential?" he asked. "You think that's okay?"

Rhee responded: "I think that at times you are making difficult decisions, and things don't always happen in the ideal manner," adding that Attorney General Peter Nickles and James Sandman, the school system's general counsel, advised her that she was on firm legal ground. She added that she will submit the reprogramming request next year before the beginning of summer school.

Mixed phone signals

Gray asked why the council had to wait until Thursday to learn that rerouting summer school funds was part of her strategy for meeting the shortfall. Rhee, in turn, accused Gray of being unwilling to pick up the phone.

"There have been multiple occasions in the last few months where I have tried to get on the phone to talk to you about these issues," she said, describing one particular day in which two scheduled conference calls fell through because he was not available.

Council members also denounced Rhee's chief financial deputy, Noah Wepman, who acknowledged that he was aware in mid-July that as the school system was hiring hundreds of new teachers it faced a deficit of between $12 million and 13 million in its 2009 budget. Wepman said he briefed Rhee on the deficit, which eventually grew to $20 million, and said she would need to adjust the 2010 budget to close the gap. One of the options discussed, Wepman said, was layoffs.

Wepman also acknowledged that he never shared information about the deficit with his superior, the District's chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi, who certified the 2010 budget without knowing of the potential shortfall. Wepman conceded that he should have been more communicative.

Joyce E. Smithey, an employment lawyer with Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan & Silver, said in an interview that "if the evidence shows that the chancellor hired employees in bad faith, then the question is whether she did so with the goal of forcing a layoff of older employees. If that's the case, then any admission about advanced knowledge of budget troubles could be damaging."

Rhee's pride could trip up admirable effort

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103101696_pf.html

by Robert McCartney
Sunday, November 1, 2009

The future of the District's school system may well be decided by whether Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's forceful reform campaign becomes mired in a swamp of her own self-defeating hubris.

A lively, dramatic D.C. Council hearing Thursday illustrated again the need for Rhee to temper her autocratic approach, especially by communicating and collaborating better with the body that approves her budget.

On balance, I think she'll continue to move forward despite the emergence of potential legal problems. Her admirable, ambitious efforts are showing results in the form of higher test scores, spruced-up buildings and stabilized enrollment.

However, part of any schools chief's job is dealing effectively with the city's elected representatives, and there, Rhee is coming up short. The hearing revealed instances in which she circumvented the council's action and delayed giving it important information about the origins of last month's controversial teacher layoffs.

For now, Rhee can count on just enough support in the council to keep it from blocking her and her patron, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), from pushing ahead. That could change, though, if she doesn't wise up.

Admittedly, some council members postured for television at the hearings and bullied Rhee to show how tough they are. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) has a political motive for bludgeoning her, as he is considering running for mayor partly on an anti-Rhee platform.

But even some of Rhee's strongest allies were practically begging her to share more information with them and get along better with Gray.

"I will continue to support your reform. I need you to be a better communicator," David A. Catania (I-At Large) said. "I need more respect and understanding directed toward the chairman, and I don't know how many more times we can have this discussion."

Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) told Rhee: "I do know you were making progress. . . . Now I think you're further apart from our labor force."

The strained relations between Fenty and Rhee, on one side, and the council and the Washington Teachers' Union seem to be out of sync with the goals of some powerful people in the Obama administration. Recently, Education Secretary Arne Duncan strongly praised the cooperative spirit that led to a labor agreement between the city of New Haven, Conn., and the American Federation of Teachers, the WTU's parent organization.

"This is a really important progressive labor agreement. It's one that folks around the country should take note of. Basically, everyone came together, the school district, the union, the city," Duncan said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Two-year-old negotiations between Rhee and the union over a new contract are currently in a deep freeze while the union fights the layoffs.

At the hearing, Rhee was poised and even conciliatory at times. She also sounded self-righteous, though, especially in her repeated statements that she acts only in the interest of children. That maddened some council members, who said they, too, care about children first.

Three revelations at the hearing illustrated the communication problems, and some could mean legal difficulties for the D.C. school system:

-- Rhee acknowledged that she decided on her own in August to reverse a council decision to cut back sharply on summer school. She chose to save money instead through the Oct. 2 layoffs. Gray and other critics apparently were wrong to suggest that Rhee's switch broke the law. But they had every right to complain that she should have told them earlier.

-- Rhee said she was aware in July of a budget shortfall of at least $12 million but didn't tell the council until September. Meanwhile, the council approved the 2010 budget on July 31 and Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi certified it, without knowing about the deficit. Rhee said she planned to cut central office spending to cover the gap, but it widened unexpectedly in early August.

-- Even staunch Rhee supporters, including Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), said they didn't fully understand what caused the deficit of $43.9 million that Rhee blamed for the dismissals of 266 teachers and others. Several council members accused her of creating it artificially, at least in part, by such actions as hiring 934 teachers from April to August. The union is saying the same in a lawsuit seeking to reverse the layoffs. Rhee denies concocting the shortfall.

Rhee said after the hearing that she plans to reach out. "Everyone agrees that we want to move toward a more productive and positive climate," she said. "I am going to talk to as many council members as I can to get as much input as possible in the steps that we can take to move in that direction."

She can still rely on the backing of at least five of the council's 13 members -- Catania, Wells, Evans, Graham and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). That number is significant, because it's just enough to keep the council from getting the nine votes necessary to override a Fenty veto.

Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who supports school reform but is growing more critical of Rhee, said in an interview that the chancellor should see the world less starkly. "She has this dichotomy which is not a correct one: Either do what I want, everybody be damned, or I'm giving up," Cheh said. "You can accomplish your goals and work with other people. "

E-mail me at mccartneyr@washpost.com.

No school left behind

NY Post - http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/no_school_left_behind_e9h2VdYPmVFnvBu1OqRz8N

By ANGELA MONTEFINISE

Last Updated: 10:14 AM, November 1, 2009

Posted: 11:24 PM, October 31, 2009

Kids eating lunch before 10 a.m. Gym classes operating in hallways. Students getting to school at 7 a.m. and leaving at 6 p.m.

This is all typical at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, the most overcrowded public school in the city, where 4,437 kids are being squeezed into a building meant for 2,700.

The A-rated school was forced to add a 13th period to its schedule this year, and has 73 classes with more than the 34-student maximum set by the teachers’ contract, UFT rep and teacher Arthur Goldstein said.

“We’re busting at the seams,” he said. “We can’t sustain this. Eventually, the kids will suffer.”

The Department of Education is trying to help the school — it is not sending any No Child Left Behind transfers there for the next year and is aggressively verifying the addresses of students in the zoned program. It has also pledged to build new schools, adding 10,000 seats to Queens to curb overcrowding at many borough high schools.

But Goldstein and others believe there’s another solution that no one is talking about.

“I absolutely believe that they can make the other schools in the area better,” said Goldstein. “It’s their job to make the other schools better. Better options would spread students out, and everyone would be better off.”

A perfect example is Jamaica High School, a large school located less than three miles south of Francis Lewis. It received a C on its progress report, has attendance rates in the low 70 percentile and a grad rate of only 47%, stats show.

Francis Lewis received almost 13,000 applications — the most in the city — from students eager to go there. Jamaica received 1,580 applications, eight times fewer.

Meanwhile, with 1,416 kids, Jamaica is 700 students under capacity.

“I understand the DOE wants to give parents and students what they want,” said Goldstein. “But they should be focused on getting kids interested in Jamaica so they want to go there. That should be the goal.”

Under Bloomberg, the DOE has already closed several large, failing schools and replaced them with small schools in the same building, each with their own administration and staff. The Post exclusively reported last week a city plan to divide up to 12 troubled, large neighborhood schools into smaller schools, with some run by charter school operators.

In some cases, the start-from-scratch approach is necessary, experts say.

“I think if you’re talking about East New York or other neighborhoods with high concentrations of high risk students, I don’t think there’s much you can do except chop them up,” said New School Prof. Clara Hemphill, who co-authored a June 2009 study analyzing small schools. “There’s fairly strong evidence that big schools with very high concentrations of very needy kids aren’t going to do well no matter what you do.”

“But that’s not the answer everywhere,” she added.

One DOE insider said small schools should be “an option,” but the city “shouldn’t ignore every other possibility,” and should certainly try to “save what we already have in place, the neighborhood schools that become the heartbeat of a community.”

“The answer always seems to be divide large schools, don’t guarantee the zoned kids a seat, shove them somewhere else and move on,” he said. “That can’t be the only option. The city is willing to spend money on new schools and more administration, but they won’t invest in helping what we already have. It makes no sense.”

Experts made several suggestions for improving a school like Jamaica — adding or expanding programs for high-performing students or creating mid-sized schools of 1,500 to 2,000 students, which could offer a variety of course offerings without packed classes.

Hemphill pointed to Jamaica’s Gateway program for medical sciences as one to expand. It received only 312 applications for this year.

“That’s very low,” she said. “A program like that should be highlighted. The school system needs to help the principal identify the school’s strengths and enhance them.”

A DOE source pointed to the specialized Queens High School for the Sciences at York College in Jamaica, which attracts “some of the city’s brightest . . . If students will travel to downtown Jamaica from across the city, they’d travel to Jamaica High School. If they build it, the students will come.”

Jamaica social studies teacher and UFT rep James Eterno said his school “has the dedicated staff and programs” to be successful, but needs a helping hand to become more attractive to students.

“We have the space right now to lower class sizes,” he said. “If we could offer really low class sizes, personal attention, parents would send their kids here. That’s something Francis Lewis can’t offer.”

DOE spokesman Will Havemann said class size is not just tied to space, but also to the number of teachers at the school.

“Principals are free to hire new teachers to reduce their class sizes, but given the city’s financial circumstances, significantly reducing class sized may be prohibitively expensive,” he said.

Eterno called this “a frustrating cycle,” saying the school’s budget was cut because the number of students has declined.

“So we have less to work with to begin with,” he said.

Experts also suggested caps at schools like Francis Lewis High School, but Havemann said it is against DOE policy because, “We want to honor to the greatest extent possible students’ preferences.”

That, Goldstein said, cannot continue. “They keep saying yes, yes, yes to kids who want to come here, and no, no, no to things that could help Jamaica,” said Goldstein. “At some point, that has to change.”

Angela Montefinise covers education for The Post.

Leonie on New Haven and Chicago

Today’s Times editorial delivers faint praise for the New Haven teacher union deal – because “administrators will be able to remove the entire staff at a failing school and require teachers to reapply for their jobs. This should allow the new principals to build stronger teams.”

(Teachers who are not rehired at these so-called turnaround schools will have the right to be placed elsewhere, at least until they are evaluated, which means that New Haven could still end up passing around teachers who should be ushered out of the system.)

Why should any teacher be summarily be fired unless the decision is based on some objective criteria? Again, the stigma of being associated with a failing school is enough for the editors, which will provide a powerful disincentive for any experienced teacher to choose to move to a low-performing school. This is akin to blaming the workers at a GM factory for the conditions that led to the firm’s bankruptcy. Should they be barred from every being employed in the industry again if Toyota set up shop in the factory?

The Times editors also criticize the deal for requiring that evaluations be made on multiple factors – with the factors weighted by a committee including teachers and administrators.

To be taken seriously, the evaluation system must be based on a clear formula in which the student achievement component carries the preponderance of the weight. It must also include a fine-grained analysis that tells teachers where they stand.

The Times, like Michelle Rhee, now implicitly equates “student achievement” with standardized test scores – without openly admitting that these words are being used as an euphemism because of the widespread unpopularity (and unreliability) of using test scores alone.

Indeed, there is no system that can reliably tie teacher performance overall to student test scores; there are too many uncontrolled variables and hidden factors. .

Meanwhile, Sam Dillon covers the report we posted yesterday, showing that most of the students who were transferred out of closing schools in Chicago did no better elsewhere, and the disruption in their lives caused their test scores to dip in the months following their transfer

. Report Questions Duncan's Policy of Closing Failing Schools

… the report’s findings are likely to provoke new debate about Mr. Duncan’s efforts to encourage the use of Chicago’s turnaround strategy nationwide. He has set the goal of closing and overhauling 1,000 failing schools a year nationwide, for five years, and Congress appropriated $3 billion in the stimulus law to finance the effort.

Too bad the Times editors didn’t read this article first.

Now, it’s scary that, according to the NY Post, the model of closing schools and giving them over to charter schools and other management companies like New Visions is coming to NYC – as part of the state’s “Race to the top” application. No mention of the fact that the small schools that already exist and the charters enroll fewer low-performing students in order to get better results.

The difference between the school closure model and the “turn around” model is more semantics than anything else. In both cases, the strategy seems like a blunt instrument: focused on replacing teachers and students with a new crew, rather than actually improving conditions on the ground to allow them to become more successful. I predict that neither New Visions nor the charter schools will be willing to take the bait unless they are given substantial financial subsidies, and/or allowed to pick and choose the students they want, while discharging most of those already in the building to parts unknown.

For more, see State charting new course for old HS's at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/state_charting_new_course_for_old_MC67S9He0EtCWO0GKj56JP

Editorial

The New Haven Model

Published: October 28, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29thu4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Education Secretary Arne Duncan is right to push the nation’s schools to develop teacher evaluation systems that take student achievement into account. The teachers’ unions, which have long opposed the idea, are beginning to realize that they can either stand on the sidelines or help develop these systems. We hope they will get involved and play a constructive role.

The politically savvy American Federation of Teachers has decided that it is better to get in the game. In New Haven, the union has agreed in its new contract to develop an evaluation system in collaboration with the city. Secretary Duncan praised the agreement lavishly. But the accolades seem premature given that crucial details have yet to be worked out.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. deserves credit for leading these negotiations and setting ambitious educational goals for the city, including halving the achievement gap between poor and wealthy students.

The new agreement gives the city important new tools, starting with significantly more authority to remake chronically failing schools.

System administrators will be able to remove the entire staff at a failing school and require teachers to reapply for their jobs. This should allow the new principals to build stronger teams.

(Teachers who are not rehired at these so-called turnaround schools will have the right to be placed elsewhere, at least until they are evaluated, which means that New Haven could still end up passing around teachers who should be ushered out of the system.)

School reformers were excited to hear that New Haven planned to take student performance into account in its teacher evaluations. But they uttered a collective “uh-oh” upon hearing that the details — including how much weight would be given to student performance — would be hashed out by a committee that includes teachers and administrators.

To be taken seriously, the evaluation system must be based on a clear formula in which the student achievement component carries the preponderance of the weight. It must also include a fine-grained analysis that tells teachers where they stand.

The New Haven contract represents a promising first step. But there is still a lot of room for politicking and shenanigans. Political leaders, school administrators, parents and everyone else who cares about improving education in this country will have to keep a close eye as this effort moves forward.

Comment on NY Times Article on Teacher Contract

from Marjorie Stamberg

Today's New York Times has news, or at least informed speculation, on the UFT teachers contract which expires tomorrow. It reports what everyone's been saying -- that the 4 percent increases were already negotiated last spring by Randi Weingarten in exchange for support on mayoral control. The DOE is complaining they couldn't get anywhere on what they see as three "roadblocks": seniority, tenure and uniform pay scales. A key issue that we have to watch like a hawk is what happens to the ATRs. The Times quotes the head of the union-bashing "New Teacher Project" complaining that there appears to be "no savings on how much we spend on these teachers without jobs and no flexibility." We need to make clear that any attempt to put a time limit on ATRs, such as they have in Chicago with disastrous results, is completely unacceptable. Last year's demonstration at Tweed is a key reason why the DOE was forced to step back on its constant teacher-bashing and vilification of ATRs. Action by the ranks was important in getting UFT officialdom to try to deal with the problem they helped created in the first place by giving up seniority transfers and agreeing to principal control of hiring and the phony "open market" -- key elements of the corporate agenda for "education reform." --Marjorie

State charting new course for old HS's

By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter, NY Post

State officials are seeking to dismantle as many as a dozen large city high schools and turn many of the newly created smaller schools that will occupy their buildings into charters, The Post has learned.

Officials said they're also looking to partner with outside managers, such as CUNY and New Visions for Public Schools, to help run some of the newly formed schools.

The controversial plan will be included in New York's application for a share of $4.3 billion in federal education aid, known as Race to the Top, which requires states to detail how they'll turn around their lowest-performing schools.

If implemented, the plan would continue a trend started by Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein of breaking up large high schools into a handful of smaller ones that share facilities but operate independently of one another.

But this marks the first time that charter-school managers, who operate less than a handful of high schools in the city, have been asked to get involved in such restructuring.

Officials don't plan to finalize a so-called "replacement list" for another several weeks.

But sources said schools that are likely to make the list include Columbus and Gompers high schools in The Bronx, and Sheepshead Bay HS in Brooklyn -- although the principal at Sheepshead Bay denied her school would be on the list.

Schools on the state's annual list of failing schools -- including Boys and Girls HS in Brooklyn and even a number of middle schools -- are also likely contenders.

"There is not going to be a person in New York state who will be able to defend any of the schools that end up on our replacement list," state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said at a recent conference. "It's not going to be a controversial list."

Depending on how many schools are turned around as charters, the state's current cap on that number would almost certainly come into play.

New York is 37 schools shy of its 200-charter limit.

Charter school operators said they would need more information about how the replacements would work before they could agree to take over historically failing high schools.

Peter Murphy, policy director of the New York State Charter Schools Association, said there was some concern about being able to maintain the flexibility that charter schools have in making organizational decisions.

"It makes no sense to try to turn around a school [while keeping] all the impediments that got it into trouble in the first place," he said.

The City's Bid to Save Cash Leaves New Teachers Out in the Cold

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-10-27/news/the-city-s-bid-to-save-cash-leaves-new-teachers-out-in-the-cold

By Philissa Cramer and Anna Phillips

published: October 27, 2009

· Danny Hellman

Emily Pellman was on the verge of fulfilling her dream of becoming a public school science teacher when the door to getting her own classroom was closed in her face.

Last May, the 24-year-old Pellman was weeks away from graduating from New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, to which the city was paying her tuition in exchange for her promise that she would teach in a city school after graduation. East Side Community High School, where she student-taught, didn't have any vacancies, but she soon landed an interview at Bronx Latin School, a well-regarded middle and high school that opened in 2004. Bronx Latin was looking for a science teacher, and so she prepared a demonstration lesson about neuroscience for her interview, which was scheduled for May 6.

That morning, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein summoned principals to an online conference to tell them that, in an unprecedented response to the city's shrinking budget and escalating costs, the Department of Education was freezing new hiring. The previous year, the city had added nearly 6,000 new teachers, but this year, principals would be restricted to hiring teachers who were already in the system.

"My first thought," says Pellman, "was panic."

The restrictions were more than a response to hard times ahead. They represented a retreat by Klein on a key principle of his school reforms: giving principals more control over who teaches in their classrooms.

Until 2005, senior teachers had the right to "bump" less experienced teachers from their positions, a practice that resulted in a concentration of experienced teachers at high-performing schools in desirable neighborhoods. That year, Mayor Bloomberg negotiated an end to the practice with the United Federation of Teachers, and declared, "We are for the first time giving principals ultimate authority over teacher hiring in their schools. Under this contract, principals will no longer have teachers imposed on them who they do not want."

One consequence of the 2005 contract agreement was the creation of the Absent Teacher Reserve, a holding pen for teachers who had lost their jobs and weren't immediately hired by other schools. Most of the 1,340 teachers currently in the reserve lost their positions when their schools closed, or because budget-shaving principals cut the program in which they taught. Each teacher in the pool is assigned to a school, where some work as substitutes and others do administrative work while they look for new jobs.

The new restrictions don't force principals to hire any particular teacher, but they do constrain their options. Aside from those in charge of charter schools or newly established schools, principals this year were barred from hiring newly minted teachers, or even experienced teachers from other districts. And principals are facing severe consequences if they balk at hiring teachers from the ATR pool: Last month, Klein told them that they would lose any funds budgeted for vacant positions if they didn't fill those positions by the end of October.

For new teachers graduating from the city's highly touted teacher-training programs, meanwhile, the new restrictions were an unforeseen catastrophe. "There was definitely an implicit promise" that students in such programs would get jobs in the city schools, says Jason Blonstein, Pellman's adviser at NYU. In recent years, both the national Teach for America program and the city's own Teaching Fellows program have drawn praise for fast-tracking recent college graduates and career changers into the classroom. These programs try to combat what is known as the "qualification gap" between the teachers at schools in poor neighborhoods and those in wealthier areas by placing very young but highly educated teachers into struggling schools. But this year, graduates of these programs were considered new teachers and were subject to the freeze. Among those locked out of jobs were both brand-new teachers and those with years of experience teaching in other school systems.

Inspired by news accounts of Klein's ambitious school reforms, Christopher Timberlake and Katie Walraven, a young couple living and teaching in southern Virginia, decided to relocate to the city. Both had job offers from New York City schools that were retracted when the freeze went into effect. When the city slightly loosened the restrictions over the summer to allow schools to hire new science teachers, Walraven ultimately got a job offer from the All-City Leadership Secondary School in Bushwick. But by then, it was too late—the pair had moved to the D.C. suburbs, where Timberlake had found a job teaching fourth grade.

Even after the freeze went into effect, Eric Nally, 33, then an education student at Fordham University, thought he would be able to find a job. "A recruiter came and told us very encouragingly that [we should] fill out applications online," he says, to build relationships with principals for when the freeze was lifted. "The office of recruiting continued to espouse the idea that we should continue to pursue schools, visit with principals, all of these things." Nally took the advice to heart and sent out 200 résumés. After getting no responses, he started a blog called "Have Chalk, Will Travel" to pitch himself to school districts. A week into the school year, he, too, landed a job in a suburban D.C. school district and left the city.

Lauren Linkowski actually had a job lined up—or thought she did. After earning a master's degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania, Linkowski landed a job teaching English at M.S.324, a top-rated middle school in Washington Heights. A Westchester native, she was counting down the days until she could move closer to her friends and family.

M.S.324's principal, Janet Heller, had told Linkowski not to leave her job in Philadelphia because New York City's hiring system technically wouldn't open for another two months. But with a commitment from Heller, Linkowski was feeling confident about her prospects. Then, at midday on May 6, the same time that Pellman was walking into Bronx Latin for her interview, Linkowski opened an e-mail from Heller with bad news. The hiring freeze was on, and the deal was off.

"I definitely freaked out for a few minutes," Linkowski said. "I called my mom, and then I was immediately on every job website." She's now living with her parents, substitute teaching in the Chappaqua schools, and teaching an English class to adult students at the College of New Rochelle.

When the freeze hit, Heller says, "I was disappointed, but I did not panic." She had started the hiring process early and had four months before the first day of school to figure out how to navigate the restrictions. When a teacher who had planned to leave decided to stay because she could no longer find part-time work in a city school, Heller's vacancy filled itself.

Had that teacher left, Heller had other options: "I had two other people in the wings who were working in another school who wanted to transfer." Hiring one of them would have left another school with a vacancy—one that would be more difficult to fill if that school didn't have M.S.324's stellar reputation. If the hiring freeze continues, as department officials say is possible, underperforming schools could see their best talent drawn away by more established schools forced to hire within the system.

That's what happened at the Brooklyn secondary school where Ariel Sacks teaches English. (She spoke on the condition that her school not be named.) According to Sacks, teachers attracted to her school's small size and progressive vision filled most of the vacancies this year, but her principal couldn't fill three spots, two of them hard-to-staff math positions. Two weeks into the school year, the city sent three ATRs from a shuttered high school to take over the open classes.

"We were basically forced to take on teachers who themselves couldn't find other jobs," Sacks says. "They didn't choose to be at our school, and our school didn't choose them."

The result, she says, was chaos, as the unprepared teachers floundered and the administration, seeing them as a temporary stopgap, didn't invest time in training them. "The classroom was chaotic, in a way that is not usual even with a lot of our subs," says Sacks. The principal ultimately pulled the ATRs from the lead teacher spots. They're now working as substitutes, and other teachers at the school have reshuffled to cover the teacher-less math classes, which are only just now getting under way for the year.

Heller likewise hasn't been impressed by the quality of teachers in the ATR pool. After reaching out to 20 ATRs who were qualified to fill her empty positions, she says, "I interviewed 12 and wouldn't have hired any one of them. Only two did the interview like a real interview. The rest treated it like a joke deliberately."

The DOE's financial woes, meanwhile, is only expected to worsen in 2010. "The budget is not getting any better next year," Department of Education Chief Operating Officer Photeine Anagnostopoulos said flatly outside a recent City Council education hearing. As the state tries to close a $3 billion budget gap, budget cuts appear inevitable. Governor Paterson has already proposed $223 million in mid-year cuts to the city's schools, but even if the legislature refuses to cut school aid in the middle of the year as it did last year, cuts are likely to appear in schools' 2010–2011 budgets.

The people responsible for figuring out how many new teachers the city needs already predict that next year's teacher job market will look about as grim as this year's did. An early snapshot of the city's data on teacher retention shows that more second- and third-year teachers are staying in the system than in previous years, largely because of the recession, leaving even fewer vacancies for new teachers to fill.

"We anticipate at this point that our needs will be more limited than they have been in past years, except for perhaps this year," says Vicki Bernstein, the department's executive director of recruitment and teacher quality.

Bernstein, who oversees the Teaching Fellows program, says the program will likely admit around 700 fellows next year, the same as this year and half as many as in 2008. As was the case this year, most will be trained to teach special education, the area where the city has traditionally had the most acute need.

Jemina Bernard, the director of Teach for America's New York region, says she's waiting to see the outcome of teachers' contract negotiations, as well as how deep the state budget cuts will be, before deciding how many new teachers TFA will send to New York City.

Much could depend on the outcome of the UFT's latest contract negotiations, which began last month. Teachers, city officials, and labor experts are speculating that the city will try to negotiate a time limit for how long teachers can remain in the ATR pool. The city says the reserve teachers—who are guaranteed a full salary—are costing the system millions of dollars that otherwise could be used to bring in new teachers who principals want to hire. Already, the DOE is pressuring ATRs harder than ever to find jobs, for the first time requiring them to interview at schools with openings in their field and to attend job fairs. Those who don't are subject to the department's disciplinary process. Chancellor Klein has said repeatedly that he would like to see a time limit placed on the hiring process, giving ATRs nine months to a year to find a new position before being terminated.

"The entire ATR situation is the result of a failed management strategy," says Dick Riley, a UFT spokesman. He insists the union is no happier about the ATR situation than the city is: "The DOE was aware that as it closed schools and cut back programs, veteran teachers would become available for new assignments, yet it continued to recruit new teachers. The result has been that some newcomers did not get the jobs they had been led to expect, and many veteran teachers are now working as substitutes."

For now, the city is proceeding with slimmed-down teacher recruitment. In years past, the city sent recruiters around the country to scout for new talent, while ads for the Teaching Fellows program appeared on subways, in newspapers, and on the Internet. Next year, it's likely that the only Teaching Fellows ads you'll see will be online.

The Teaching Fellows program accepts only as many teachers as the system expects to be able to accommodate, and indeed the number of Teaching Fellows who haven't found positions is just 47 out of 700. (Those unplaced teachers are getting extra training, along with $250 a week and no benefits, until the end of this month, when they'll be dropped from the city's payroll.)

Bernard says TFA will likely send a large percentage of its corps members to charter schools, which control their own hiring and so are not affected by the freeze. "I imagine demand will continue to be high on that side," she says.

To say he's concerned about next year is "putting it mildly," says John Ewing, president of Math for America, an alternative certification program whose teachers undergo a year-long training regimen. Though the majority of the program's fellows suffered through the hiring freeze, the few stragglers who didn't have jobs at the end of summer were placed in the ATR pool, an exception the city made because of the fellows' lengthy training. Ewing expects to have 60 new teachers to place next year, and while he hopes the city will exempt math teachers from the hiring freeze, he's not banking on it.

"We pledged to the fellows that we'll do whatever it takes to make sure they don't get left out," he says. "This is a program that's meant to invest money and time and effort into the New York City public schools. But if we can't find jobs for them for whatever reasons, we will find jobs elsewhere."

"Elsewhere" includes the greater metropolitan area, where Ewing said he's quietly spreading the word about Math for America so that next year, other districts will know about his fellows.

"If New York City really wants to have a first-rate school system, then they have to let the first-rate in," says Ewing. "I don't think we're going backwards yet, but I think there's the potential here for slipping backwards very rapidly. That would be a real shame."

Some principals who are looking ahead to next year don't like what they see on the horizon, either. According to Sacks, her principal interviewed nearly 40 members of the ATR pool for three vacancies at the school, but said the interviews were uniformly terrible. If the hiring freeze persists into next year, she says, "I would think that my principal and other principals in that situation are going to recruit more aggressively from other schools."

For Pellman, there was a glimmer of hope in July, when the city lifted the freeze for most science teachers, though not for biology teachers. Pellman got back in touch with Bronx Latin anyway, but the job had already been filled. And so she spends her days working at a Starbucks in midtown Manhattan, doing the same job she did when she was trying to make ends meet as a student.

She remains ready to take over a city classroom the day she's allowed to. Back at the apartment she shares with her fiancé, she keeps a notebook full of ideas about how to gain control over a classroom where the teacher has left in the middle of the year. She also follows along with the city's new standardized science curriculum, imagining what she would be teaching if she had students. And she is making sure her colleagues at Starbucks know that they might have to cover her shifts, "in case I have to jump up and go start teaching," she says.

"I'm trying to stay optimistic and hope that things brighten up," she says, "because some day, they're going to need new teachers again."