The Department of Education under Joel Klein has been run like a ruthless dictatorship – with no input from parents or educators, and no thought of how the policies he has imposed on our schools have been destructive to our children and their futures.
He has consistently ignored the crisis of overcrowding in our schools, that in many neighborhoods has gotten worse because of rampant residential development, as well his insistence to insert hundreds of new charter schools and small schools into existing, overcrowded school buildings. In a recent survey, half of all principals say that the overcrowding creates unsafe conditions for students or staff, 29% said that lunch starts at 10:30 AM or earlier, 25% said that they have lost their art or music rooms in recent years, and 18% said they had classrooms with no windows. Thousands of children are being given special services in hallways or in closets.
They have put almost no effort in building new schools, and under this administration, twice as many new seats have been created in new stadiums than schools. The city’s investment in school construction as a percent its total capital spending is at a historic low, and will drop even more precipitously in the future, if the DOE’s proposed school capital plan goes through.
Joel Klein has refused to reduce class size, despite repeated audits and reports from the State Comptroller’s office and the State Education Department showing how under his administration, hundreds of millions of state dollars meant to provide smaller classes to NYC students have been misused. As a result, 86% of NYC principals in a recent survey have said they are unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes.
Similarly, he has argued that even under Mayoral control, the Department of Education is not subject to city law, and thus he continues to defy laws passed by the City Council over the Mayor’s veto, requiring him to take measures against bias crimes and bullying in schools, to allow students to bring cell phones to school, and to obey the recycling laws required of every household and business in NYC.
The Chancellor has moved to eliminate the authority of school leadership teams –made up of half parents, half staff – to have decision-making authority over school budgets, contrary to the state law that created these teams. He has continued to shut out parents from having any input whatsoever, at the school, district, or citywide level.
He has spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars on no-bid contracts, and rather than decreasing the bureaucracy, the number of highly paid bureaucrats at Tweed continues to grow --- most of whom have no background in education. To counter a recent article by a Daily News reporter pointing out the personal wealth of many of the top education officials, who are former business executives and corporate consultants, the DOE press office responded in defense that two out of twenty of Klein’s top advisers were long-term educators. (This article was killed in the middle of the night, and removed from the Daily News website after complaints from the DOE; but we posted a copy of it on our blog at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/)
The only educational philosophy of those running the system is based on trying to improve standardized test results, no matter how much cheating and test prep that involves. Whatever the rise in state test scores that has resulted is not matched by improvements in the more reliable national assessments called the NAEPs. In fact, NYC was 11th out of 12 urban school districts in terms of its gains in the NAEPs over the course of this administration, and there has been no closing of the achievement gap in any subject tested.
Indeed, Joel Klein’s insistence on basing all decisions on high-stakes tests has led to racial disparities growing in many areas – with far fewer children of color admitted to gifted programs and to our selective high schools, and a declining number of Black and Hispanic teachers in our teaching force.
In short, he has been a disaster for our schools, and Barack Obama should be forewarned not to name him to any position of authority in his administration – as much as we would like to get rid of him!
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
Please make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!
Friday, November 07, 2008
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The Global Assault on Education - Nov. 15 Conf.
click to enlargeNortheast Socialist Conference Presents
The Global Assault on Education
Columbia University November 15, 2008 12:00pm
THE ERA of No Child Left Behind has ushered in a period of massive assault on public education in the U.S. under the guise of standards and accountability--code words in education for pressuring teachers to teach to the test and punishing them, their students and their schools when they predictably fail to meet arbitrary goals.
These goals reduce students to numbers on standardized tests, while lining the pockets of the testing industry. Anyone involved in education in the U.S. is undoubtedly well acquainted with the way in which the standards movement has used the language of accountability to push through "reforms" such as privatization, charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay to decimate public education.
This is not simply a U.S. phenomenon but part of a global assault on education that at its heart is an attempt to impose the logic of neoliberalism on the sphere of public education and gut public services such as education while attacking unions that resist this assault.
Join hundreds of other activists at the North East Socialist Conference for a discussion on The Global Assault on Education
Speakers include:
* Lois Weiner, author of The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for Resistance
* Megan Behrent, a union activist and United Federation of Teachers member
* A representative from the support committee for the Puerto Rican Teachers¢ Union
Visit http://www.northeastsocialistconference.net for a list of other meetings and events.
As the economy goes into the worst crisis since the Great Depression, banks and billionaires are being bailed out while workers continue to lose their homes and jobs. A majority of Americans oppose the war in Iraq, but instead of bringing the troops home, both candidates want to send more troops to Afghanistan and expand the war. It is clear that fundamental change is needed.
Come to the Northeast Socialist Conference to discuss and debate with hundreds of others how we can build a genuine alternative that can put the needs of workers and ordinary people around the world first.
Northeast Socialist Conference
November 15-16
Columbia University
$15 Registration, $10 Students and Low-Income
nyciso@gmail.com or 646-452-8662 for more info
The Northeast Socialist Conference is sponsored by The International Socialist Organization and The Center for Economic Research and Social Change
www.northeastsocialistconference.net
Real Change Depends on Stopping the Bailout Profiteers
Real Change Depends on Stopping the Bailout Profiteers
By Naomi Klein, November 4, 2008
To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren’t looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
The question now is whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call “the middle” (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address). Predictably, Obama is already coming under enormous pressure to break his election promises, particularly those relating to raising taxes on the wealthy and imposing real environmental regulations on polluters. All day on the business networks, we hear that, in light of the economic crisis, corporations need lower taxes, and fewer regulations—in other words, more of the same.
The new president’s only hope of resisting this campaign being waged by the elites is if the remarkable grassroots movement that carried him to victory can somehow stay energized, networked, mobilized—and most of all, critical. Now that the election has been won, this movement's new missions should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal.
The first order of business—and one that cannot wait until inauguration—must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the “economic bailout.” I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department’s plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers, as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush’s Final Pillage.
Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion “rescue plan” should be regarded as the Bush Administration’s final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that terrible thefts have a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition. When societies are changing quickly, the media and the people are naturally focused on big “P” politics—who gets the top appointments, what was said in the most recent speech. Meanwhile, safe from public scrutiny, far reaching pro-corporate policies are locked into place, dramatically restricting future possibilities for real change.
It’s not too late to halt the robbery in progress, but it cannot wait until inauguration. Several great initiatives to shift the nature of the bailout are already underway, including http://bailoutmainstreet.com. I added my name to the “Call to Action: Time for a 21st Century Green America” and invite you to do the same.
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.
The Bailout Profiteers
By Naomi Klein, Rolling Stone, October 31, 2008
On October 13th, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced the team of "seasoned financial veterans" that will be handling the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, one name jumped out: Reuben Jeffery III, who was initially tapped to serve as chief investment officer for the massive new program.
On the surface, Jeffery looks like a classic Bush appointment. Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he's an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated "flexibility" in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.
Bankers watching bankers, regulators who don't believe in regulating — that's all standard fare for the Bush crew. What's most striking about Jeffery's résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren't a big issue back then, because the staff's main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as "a free-fraud zone." During Senate hearings last year, when Jeffery was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more "speed and flexibility" — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders.
The Bush Administration has since reversed the Jeffery appointment, perhaps thinking better of giving a CPA alum such a central role in the Wall Street bailout. Still the original impulse underscores the many worrying parallels between the administration's approach to the financial crisis and its approach to the Iraq War. Under cover of an emergency, Treasury is rapidly turning into an economic Green Zone, overrun with private companies collecting lucrative contracts. Fittingly, one of the first to line up at the new trough was none other than the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani — yes, that Giuliani. The firm's chairman, Patrick Oxford, could scarcely conceal his glee over the prospect of cashing in on the bailout. "This one," he told reporters, "is very, very big." At least four times bigger, in fact, than the post-9/11 homeland-security bubble, from which Giuliani and his various outfits have profited so extravagantly. Even bigger, potentially, than the price tag for the Iraq War itself.
In Iraq, the contractors were tasked with reconstructing the country from the mess made by U.S. missiles. After years of corruption born of no-bid contracts and paltry oversight, many Iraqis are still waiting for the lights to come back on. Today, a new team of contractors is lining up to reconstruct the U.S. economy — reconstruct it from the mess made by the very banks, brokers and law firms that are now applying for contracts. And it's not at all clear that America can survive their assistance.
See if any of this sounds familiar: As soon as the bailout was announced, it became clear that Treasury officials would hire outsiders to perform their jobs for them — at a profit. Private companies wanting to help manage the bailout were given just two days to apply for massive, multiyear contracts. Since it was such a mad rush — after all, the entire economy was about to implode — there was no time for an open bidding process. Nor was there time to draft rigorous rules to make sure that those applying don't have serious conflicts of interest. Instead, applicants were asked to disclose their conflicts and to explain — and this is not a joke — their "philosophy in fulfilling your duty to the Treasury and the U.S. taxpayer in light of your proprietary interests and those of other clients." In other words, an open invitation to bullshit about how much they love their country and how they can be trusted to regulate themselves.
The first major contract to be awarded in the bailout was for legal advice — and the choice Treasury made was Halliburton-esque in its audacity. Six law firms were invited to bid, but four declined, either because they didn't want the contract or because they had too many conflicts of interest. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the fact that so many law firms chose not to bid "shows that the guidelines are sufficiently rigorous."
Or it may just show that the bidder who won the contract — Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — takes a more relaxed approach to conflicts than its colleagues. The law firm is a Wall Street heavy hitter, having brokered some of the biggest bank mergers in recent years. It also provided legal support to companies trading mortgage-backed securities—the "financial weapons of mass destruction," as Warren Buffett called them, that detonated the banking industry. More to the point, it was hired to provide legal services to the Treasury in its negotiations to spend $250 billion of the bailout money purchasing equity in America's banks. The first stage of the plan involves buying stakes in nine of the country's top banks. Incredibly, Simpson Thacher has represented seven of the nine: JPMorgan, Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
According to its contract, Simpson Thacher has agreed not to represent any of the banks "against the U.S." when they negotiate with Treasury for the equity money. However, the firm has retained the right to represent banks when they apply for other parts of the $700 billion bailout not covered by its contract. (It has promised to erect a "firewall" to stem the flow of "confidential information" to those clients.) The firm will also continue to work for the banks on a range of other lucrative deals — and that's where the problem lies. Take Lee Meyerson, Simpson Thacher's lead lawyer on the bailout negotiations, who is specifically named in the contract as "essential" to the project. As the company's hotshot attorney, Meyerson has personally represented three of the nine banks that were bailed out in the first round, in addition to many others that will surely apply for cash injections. One of the bailed-out banks is Bank of New York Mellon, whose $29 billion merger Meyerson helped negotiate. Mergers like that can bill in the millions. Is Simpson Thacher able to put aside its loyalties to its biggest clients and negotiate deals for the taxpayer that could exact real costs from those very clients?
It might be possible to set aside concerns about divided loyalties if it were clear that Simpson Thacher is helping Treasury to wrangle the best deals possible for U.S. taxpayers. But the firm's first test — the deal to give $125 billion to the nine big banks to ease the "credit crunch" that is crippling the economy — wasn't exactly reassuring. Secretary Paulson promised that the banks won't just "hoard" the money — they will quickly "deploy it" through the economy in the form of badly needed loans. There is just one hitch: Neither Paulson nor Simpson Thacher got that "deploy" part in writing — nor did they put in place any mechanism to require the banks to spend their taxpayer billions. Apparently, the part about lending the money to homeowners and small businesses was sort of implied.
"There is no obligation for banks to lend the money one way or the other," Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury spokeswoman, tells Rolling Stone. "But the banks have the understanding" that the money is intended for loans. "We're not looking to control their operations."
Unfortunately, many of the banks appear to have no intention of wasting the money on loans. "At least for the next quarter, it's just going to be a cushion," said John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch. Gary Crittenden, chief financial officer of Citigroup, had an even better idea: He hinted that his company would use its share of the cash — $25 billion — to buy up competitors and swell even bigger. The handout, he told analysts, "does present the possibility of taking advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be closed to us."
And the folks at Morgan Stanley? They're planning to pay themselves $10.7 billion this year, much of it in bonuses — almost exactly the amount they are receiving in the first phase of the bailout. "You can imagine the devilish grins on the faces of Morgan Stanley employees," writes Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil. "Not only did we, the taxpayers, save their company...we funded their 2008 bonus pool."
It didn't have to be this way. Five days before Paulson struck his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated a similar bailout — only he extracted meaningful guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.
In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives — all before taxpayers are paid back.
No wonder it took just one hour for Paulson to convince all nine CEOs to accept his offer — less than seven minutes per bank. Not even the firms' own lawyers could have drafted a sweeter deal.
The day after it met with the nation's top banks, Treasury announced that it had selected the firm that would receive the juiciest contract of all: that of "master custodian." The winning company will be to the bailout what Halliburton is to the military: the contractor of contractors. It will purchase toxic debts from Wall Street, service them and auction them off in the future — a so-called "end-to-end process." The contract is for a minimum of three years.
Seventy firms applied for the gig; the winner was Bank of New York Mellon. Describing the scope of the megacontract, bank president Gerald Hassell said, "It's the ultimate outsourcing — because the Federal Reserve and the Treasury do not have the mechanics to run the entire program, and we're essentially the general contractor across the entire program. It's going to cross our entire company."
This raises an interesting point: Has the Treasury partially nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the other way around? Is it Treasury that has been partially privatized by Wall Street, its massive rescue plan now entirely in the hands of a private bank it is directly subsidizing?
Shortly after receiving the contract, Hassell told investors that his institution is now well-positioned to profit from the market meltdown. "There's a lot of new business that's going on even in this chaotic marketplace," he said, "and so some of those things have been very positive to us." Just how positive, we don't know, because Treasury has blacked out the 10 lines of the "master custodian" contract that reveal how much Bank of New York Mellon will be paid. Though Treasury says it will release the information eventually, the secrecy goes beyond anything the Bush administration attempted in Iraq. Even Halliburton's dodgy contracts came with price tags attached.
Still, when the terms of the contract do become public, they may turn out to be surprisingly modest. Goldman Sachs has apparently offered to fulfill at least one bailout contract for free. Altruism may not be their only motivation. The real money at stake in the bailout lies not in payment for the work but in how the work is done. Think about it: If you're the one selling your debts to the government, wouldn't you also want to help decide which debts are eligible and how much they're worth? "The financial firms with assets to sell are in many instances the same firms the Treasury will rely on to value and manage the assets it is buying," The New York Times observed. "That is an invitation for these firms to set the price too high or to indulge in other mischief at the taxpayers' expense."
Bank of New York Mellon has a bad record for mischief. It is embroiled in a $22.5 billion money-laundering lawsuit in Moscow and has been forced to pay out a $14 million settlement in a related case. Though the bank's "master custodian" contract with Treasury prohibits unethical conduct, the arrangement seems rife with opportunities for abuse. According to its most recent earnings report, Bank of New York Mellon holds $1.2 billion in subprime mortgage securities. That means that in addition to the $3 billion it will receive as part of the equity program, it will also be eligible to apply for taxpayer money from the program it is being paid to administer. Neither the bank nor Treasury would comment on this direct conflict of interest.
On the same day that he allocated the first $125 billion to the banks, Secretary Paulson announced the largest federal budget deficit in U.S. history. Buried in his statement was a preview of the next phase of the financial disaster. The deficit numbers, he declared, reinforce the need to "pursue policies that promote economic growth and fiscal responsibility, and address entitlement reform." He was referring to Americans who feel entitled to receive Social Security in their old age and Medicaid when they are sick. Those programs, Paulson implied, might not be able to survive the budget crisis he is currently creating for the next administration.
This is why the stakes of the bailout are so high: Unless we get a good deal, there will be nothing left over after the banks are done feeding to pay for the meager services now provided in exchange for taxation, let alone for the more ambitious initiatives promised on the campaign trail. The spiraling cost of saving Wall Street from its bad bets is already being used as an excuse for why we can't solve our many other crises, from health care to climate change.
There is a better way to fix a broken financial system. Treasury's plan to buy up the toxic debts never made sense and should be immediately scrapped — a move that would also handily get rid of most of the crony contractors. As for purchasing equity in banks, the next round of deals — and there will be more — has to start from the premise that the banks are bankrupt and will therefore accept whatever terms we choose to impose, including real regulatory oversight. The possibilities of what could be done if a chunk of the banking system were genuinely under public control — from a moratorium on home foreclosures to mandatory investment in green community redevelopment — are limitless.
Because here is what George Bush and Henry Paulson are hoping we won't figure out: When a society no longer has enough money to pay for its most pressing needs, there are worse things than discovering you own the banks.
This article was first published in Rolling Stone. See original documents related to this article.
The Bailout: Bush's Final Pillage
By Naomi Klein, The Nation, October 29, 2008
In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.
When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.
The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese--a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.
How else to make sense of the bizarre decisions that have governed the allocation of the bailout money? When the Bush administration announced it would be injecting $250 billion into America's banks in exchange for equity, the plan was widely referred to as "partial nationalization"--a radical measure required to get the banks lending again. In fact, there has been no nationalization, partial or otherwise. Taxpayers have gained no meaningful control, which is why the banks can spend their windfall as they wish (on bonuses, mergers, savings...) and the government is reduced to pleading that they use a portion of it for loans.
What, then, is the real purpose of the bailout? I fear it is something much more ambitious than a one-off gift to big business--that this bailout has been designed to keep pillaging the Treasury for years to come. Remember, the main concern among big market players, particularly banks, is not the lack of credit but their battered share prices. Investors have lost confidence in the banks' honesty, and with good reason. This is where Treasury's equity pays off big time.
By purchasing stakes in these institutions, Treasury is sending a signal to the market that they are a safe bet. Why safe? Because the government won't be able to afford to let them fail. If these companies get themselves into trouble, investors can assume that the government will keep finding more cash, since allowing them to go down would mean losing its initial equity investments (just look at AIG). That tethering of the public interest to private companies is the real purpose of the bailout plan: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing all the companies that are admitted to the program--a number potentially in the thousands--an implicit Treasury Department guarantee. To skittish investors looking for safe places to park their money, these equity deals will be even more comforting than a Triple-A rating from Moody's.
Insurance like that is priceless. But for the banks, the best part is that the government is paying them--in some cases billions of dollars--to accept its seal of approval. For taxpayers, on the other hand, this entire plan is extremely risky, and may well cost significantly more than Paulson's original idea of buying up $700 billion in toxic debts. Now taxpayers aren't just on the hook for the debts but, arguably, for the fate of every corporation that sells them equity.
Interestingly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both enjoyed this kind of unspoken guarantee. For decades the market understood that, since these private players were enmeshed with the government, Uncle Sam would always save the day. It was the worst of all worlds. Not only were profits privatized while risks were socialized but the implicit government backing created powerful incentives for reckless investments.
Now, with the new equity purchase program, Paulson has taken the discredited Fannie and Freddie model and applied it to a huge swath of the private banking industry. And once again, there is no reason to shy away from risky bets--especially since Treasury has not required the banks to give up high-risk financial instruments in exchange for taxpayer dollars.
To further boost confidence, the federal government has also unveiled unlimited public guarantees for many bank deposit accounts. Oh, and as if this wasn't enough, Treasury has been encouraging the banks to merge with one another, ensuring that the only institutions left standing will be "too big to fail." In three different ways, the market is being told loud and clear that Washington will not allow the country's financial institutions to bear the consequences of their behavior. This may well be Bush's most creative innovation: no-risk capitalism.
There is a glimmer of hope. In answer to Senator Corker's question, Treasury is indeed having trouble dispersing the bailout funds. It has requested about $350 billion of the $700 billion, but most of this hasn't yet made it out the door. Meanwhile, every day it becomes clearer that the bailout was sold on false pretenses. It was never about getting loans flowing. It was always about turning the state into a giant insurance agency for Wall Street--a safety net for the people who need it least, subsidized by the people who need it most.
This grotesque duplicity is an opportunity. Whoever wins the election on November 4 will have enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds--not after the inauguration, but right away. All deals should be renegotiated immediately, this time with the public getting the guarantees.
It is risky, of course, to interrupt the bailout. The market won't like it. Nothing could be riskier, however, than allowing the Bush gang their parting gift to big business--the gift that will keep on taking.
This article was first published in The Nation.
The Roots of the Financial Crisis
Both of Naomi's pieces deal with the corruption of the proposed "bailout" process -- but what forces created the financial crisis in the first place? Naomi's partner Avi Lewis devoted his half hour weekly show, Inside USA on Al Jazeera English, to providing an in-depth answer to that question. His terrific report makes complex financial concepts accessible to any viewer, and he interviews some of our favorite analysts, including Robert Johnson, Dean Baker, and Michael Hudson. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 here.
Don't forget to check out Naomi's Facebook and MySpace pages.
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By Naomi Klein, November 4, 2008
To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren’t looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
The question now is whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call “the middle” (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address). Predictably, Obama is already coming under enormous pressure to break his election promises, particularly those relating to raising taxes on the wealthy and imposing real environmental regulations on polluters. All day on the business networks, we hear that, in light of the economic crisis, corporations need lower taxes, and fewer regulations—in other words, more of the same.
The new president’s only hope of resisting this campaign being waged by the elites is if the remarkable grassroots movement that carried him to victory can somehow stay energized, networked, mobilized—and most of all, critical. Now that the election has been won, this movement's new missions should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal.
The first order of business—and one that cannot wait until inauguration—must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the “economic bailout.” I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department’s plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers, as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush’s Final Pillage.
Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion “rescue plan” should be regarded as the Bush Administration’s final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that terrible thefts have a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition. When societies are changing quickly, the media and the people are naturally focused on big “P” politics—who gets the top appointments, what was said in the most recent speech. Meanwhile, safe from public scrutiny, far reaching pro-corporate policies are locked into place, dramatically restricting future possibilities for real change.
It’s not too late to halt the robbery in progress, but it cannot wait until inauguration. Several great initiatives to shift the nature of the bailout are already underway, including http://bailoutmainstreet.com. I added my name to the “Call to Action: Time for a 21st Century Green America” and invite you to do the same.
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.
The Bailout Profiteers
By Naomi Klein, Rolling Stone, October 31, 2008
On October 13th, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced the team of "seasoned financial veterans" that will be handling the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, one name jumped out: Reuben Jeffery III, who was initially tapped to serve as chief investment officer for the massive new program.
On the surface, Jeffery looks like a classic Bush appointment. Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he's an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated "flexibility" in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.
Bankers watching bankers, regulators who don't believe in regulating — that's all standard fare for the Bush crew. What's most striking about Jeffery's résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren't a big issue back then, because the staff's main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as "a free-fraud zone." During Senate hearings last year, when Jeffery was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more "speed and flexibility" — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders.
The Bush Administration has since reversed the Jeffery appointment, perhaps thinking better of giving a CPA alum such a central role in the Wall Street bailout. Still the original impulse underscores the many worrying parallels between the administration's approach to the financial crisis and its approach to the Iraq War. Under cover of an emergency, Treasury is rapidly turning into an economic Green Zone, overrun with private companies collecting lucrative contracts. Fittingly, one of the first to line up at the new trough was none other than the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani — yes, that Giuliani. The firm's chairman, Patrick Oxford, could scarcely conceal his glee over the prospect of cashing in on the bailout. "This one," he told reporters, "is very, very big." At least four times bigger, in fact, than the post-9/11 homeland-security bubble, from which Giuliani and his various outfits have profited so extravagantly. Even bigger, potentially, than the price tag for the Iraq War itself.
In Iraq, the contractors were tasked with reconstructing the country from the mess made by U.S. missiles. After years of corruption born of no-bid contracts and paltry oversight, many Iraqis are still waiting for the lights to come back on. Today, a new team of contractors is lining up to reconstruct the U.S. economy — reconstruct it from the mess made by the very banks, brokers and law firms that are now applying for contracts. And it's not at all clear that America can survive their assistance.
See if any of this sounds familiar: As soon as the bailout was announced, it became clear that Treasury officials would hire outsiders to perform their jobs for them — at a profit. Private companies wanting to help manage the bailout were given just two days to apply for massive, multiyear contracts. Since it was such a mad rush — after all, the entire economy was about to implode — there was no time for an open bidding process. Nor was there time to draft rigorous rules to make sure that those applying don't have serious conflicts of interest. Instead, applicants were asked to disclose their conflicts and to explain — and this is not a joke — their "philosophy in fulfilling your duty to the Treasury and the U.S. taxpayer in light of your proprietary interests and those of other clients." In other words, an open invitation to bullshit about how much they love their country and how they can be trusted to regulate themselves.
The first major contract to be awarded in the bailout was for legal advice — and the choice Treasury made was Halliburton-esque in its audacity. Six law firms were invited to bid, but four declined, either because they didn't want the contract or because they had too many conflicts of interest. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the fact that so many law firms chose not to bid "shows that the guidelines are sufficiently rigorous."
Or it may just show that the bidder who won the contract — Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — takes a more relaxed approach to conflicts than its colleagues. The law firm is a Wall Street heavy hitter, having brokered some of the biggest bank mergers in recent years. It also provided legal support to companies trading mortgage-backed securities—the "financial weapons of mass destruction," as Warren Buffett called them, that detonated the banking industry. More to the point, it was hired to provide legal services to the Treasury in its negotiations to spend $250 billion of the bailout money purchasing equity in America's banks. The first stage of the plan involves buying stakes in nine of the country's top banks. Incredibly, Simpson Thacher has represented seven of the nine: JPMorgan, Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
According to its contract, Simpson Thacher has agreed not to represent any of the banks "against the U.S." when they negotiate with Treasury for the equity money. However, the firm has retained the right to represent banks when they apply for other parts of the $700 billion bailout not covered by its contract. (It has promised to erect a "firewall" to stem the flow of "confidential information" to those clients.) The firm will also continue to work for the banks on a range of other lucrative deals — and that's where the problem lies. Take Lee Meyerson, Simpson Thacher's lead lawyer on the bailout negotiations, who is specifically named in the contract as "essential" to the project. As the company's hotshot attorney, Meyerson has personally represented three of the nine banks that were bailed out in the first round, in addition to many others that will surely apply for cash injections. One of the bailed-out banks is Bank of New York Mellon, whose $29 billion merger Meyerson helped negotiate. Mergers like that can bill in the millions. Is Simpson Thacher able to put aside its loyalties to its biggest clients and negotiate deals for the taxpayer that could exact real costs from those very clients?
It might be possible to set aside concerns about divided loyalties if it were clear that Simpson Thacher is helping Treasury to wrangle the best deals possible for U.S. taxpayers. But the firm's first test — the deal to give $125 billion to the nine big banks to ease the "credit crunch" that is crippling the economy — wasn't exactly reassuring. Secretary Paulson promised that the banks won't just "hoard" the money — they will quickly "deploy it" through the economy in the form of badly needed loans. There is just one hitch: Neither Paulson nor Simpson Thacher got that "deploy" part in writing — nor did they put in place any mechanism to require the banks to spend their taxpayer billions. Apparently, the part about lending the money to homeowners and small businesses was sort of implied.
"There is no obligation for banks to lend the money one way or the other," Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury spokeswoman, tells Rolling Stone. "But the banks have the understanding" that the money is intended for loans. "We're not looking to control their operations."
Unfortunately, many of the banks appear to have no intention of wasting the money on loans. "At least for the next quarter, it's just going to be a cushion," said John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch. Gary Crittenden, chief financial officer of Citigroup, had an even better idea: He hinted that his company would use its share of the cash — $25 billion — to buy up competitors and swell even bigger. The handout, he told analysts, "does present the possibility of taking advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be closed to us."
And the folks at Morgan Stanley? They're planning to pay themselves $10.7 billion this year, much of it in bonuses — almost exactly the amount they are receiving in the first phase of the bailout. "You can imagine the devilish grins on the faces of Morgan Stanley employees," writes Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil. "Not only did we, the taxpayers, save their company...we funded their 2008 bonus pool."
It didn't have to be this way. Five days before Paulson struck his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated a similar bailout — only he extracted meaningful guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.
In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives — all before taxpayers are paid back.
No wonder it took just one hour for Paulson to convince all nine CEOs to accept his offer — less than seven minutes per bank. Not even the firms' own lawyers could have drafted a sweeter deal.
The day after it met with the nation's top banks, Treasury announced that it had selected the firm that would receive the juiciest contract of all: that of "master custodian." The winning company will be to the bailout what Halliburton is to the military: the contractor of contractors. It will purchase toxic debts from Wall Street, service them and auction them off in the future — a so-called "end-to-end process." The contract is for a minimum of three years.
Seventy firms applied for the gig; the winner was Bank of New York Mellon. Describing the scope of the megacontract, bank president Gerald Hassell said, "It's the ultimate outsourcing — because the Federal Reserve and the Treasury do not have the mechanics to run the entire program, and we're essentially the general contractor across the entire program. It's going to cross our entire company."
This raises an interesting point: Has the Treasury partially nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the other way around? Is it Treasury that has been partially privatized by Wall Street, its massive rescue plan now entirely in the hands of a private bank it is directly subsidizing?
Shortly after receiving the contract, Hassell told investors that his institution is now well-positioned to profit from the market meltdown. "There's a lot of new business that's going on even in this chaotic marketplace," he said, "and so some of those things have been very positive to us." Just how positive, we don't know, because Treasury has blacked out the 10 lines of the "master custodian" contract that reveal how much Bank of New York Mellon will be paid. Though Treasury says it will release the information eventually, the secrecy goes beyond anything the Bush administration attempted in Iraq. Even Halliburton's dodgy contracts came with price tags attached.
Still, when the terms of the contract do become public, they may turn out to be surprisingly modest. Goldman Sachs has apparently offered to fulfill at least one bailout contract for free. Altruism may not be their only motivation. The real money at stake in the bailout lies not in payment for the work but in how the work is done. Think about it: If you're the one selling your debts to the government, wouldn't you also want to help decide which debts are eligible and how much they're worth? "The financial firms with assets to sell are in many instances the same firms the Treasury will rely on to value and manage the assets it is buying," The New York Times observed. "That is an invitation for these firms to set the price too high or to indulge in other mischief at the taxpayers' expense."
Bank of New York Mellon has a bad record for mischief. It is embroiled in a $22.5 billion money-laundering lawsuit in Moscow and has been forced to pay out a $14 million settlement in a related case. Though the bank's "master custodian" contract with Treasury prohibits unethical conduct, the arrangement seems rife with opportunities for abuse. According to its most recent earnings report, Bank of New York Mellon holds $1.2 billion in subprime mortgage securities. That means that in addition to the $3 billion it will receive as part of the equity program, it will also be eligible to apply for taxpayer money from the program it is being paid to administer. Neither the bank nor Treasury would comment on this direct conflict of interest.
On the same day that he allocated the first $125 billion to the banks, Secretary Paulson announced the largest federal budget deficit in U.S. history. Buried in his statement was a preview of the next phase of the financial disaster. The deficit numbers, he declared, reinforce the need to "pursue policies that promote economic growth and fiscal responsibility, and address entitlement reform." He was referring to Americans who feel entitled to receive Social Security in their old age and Medicaid when they are sick. Those programs, Paulson implied, might not be able to survive the budget crisis he is currently creating for the next administration.
This is why the stakes of the bailout are so high: Unless we get a good deal, there will be nothing left over after the banks are done feeding to pay for the meager services now provided in exchange for taxation, let alone for the more ambitious initiatives promised on the campaign trail. The spiraling cost of saving Wall Street from its bad bets is already being used as an excuse for why we can't solve our many other crises, from health care to climate change.
There is a better way to fix a broken financial system. Treasury's plan to buy up the toxic debts never made sense and should be immediately scrapped — a move that would also handily get rid of most of the crony contractors. As for purchasing equity in banks, the next round of deals — and there will be more — has to start from the premise that the banks are bankrupt and will therefore accept whatever terms we choose to impose, including real regulatory oversight. The possibilities of what could be done if a chunk of the banking system were genuinely under public control — from a moratorium on home foreclosures to mandatory investment in green community redevelopment — are limitless.
Because here is what George Bush and Henry Paulson are hoping we won't figure out: When a society no longer has enough money to pay for its most pressing needs, there are worse things than discovering you own the banks.
This article was first published in Rolling Stone. See original documents related to this article.
The Bailout: Bush's Final Pillage
By Naomi Klein, The Nation, October 29, 2008
In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.
When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.
The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese--a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.
How else to make sense of the bizarre decisions that have governed the allocation of the bailout money? When the Bush administration announced it would be injecting $250 billion into America's banks in exchange for equity, the plan was widely referred to as "partial nationalization"--a radical measure required to get the banks lending again. In fact, there has been no nationalization, partial or otherwise. Taxpayers have gained no meaningful control, which is why the banks can spend their windfall as they wish (on bonuses, mergers, savings...) and the government is reduced to pleading that they use a portion of it for loans.
What, then, is the real purpose of the bailout? I fear it is something much more ambitious than a one-off gift to big business--that this bailout has been designed to keep pillaging the Treasury for years to come. Remember, the main concern among big market players, particularly banks, is not the lack of credit but their battered share prices. Investors have lost confidence in the banks' honesty, and with good reason. This is where Treasury's equity pays off big time.
By purchasing stakes in these institutions, Treasury is sending a signal to the market that they are a safe bet. Why safe? Because the government won't be able to afford to let them fail. If these companies get themselves into trouble, investors can assume that the government will keep finding more cash, since allowing them to go down would mean losing its initial equity investments (just look at AIG). That tethering of the public interest to private companies is the real purpose of the bailout plan: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing all the companies that are admitted to the program--a number potentially in the thousands--an implicit Treasury Department guarantee. To skittish investors looking for safe places to park their money, these equity deals will be even more comforting than a Triple-A rating from Moody's.
Insurance like that is priceless. But for the banks, the best part is that the government is paying them--in some cases billions of dollars--to accept its seal of approval. For taxpayers, on the other hand, this entire plan is extremely risky, and may well cost significantly more than Paulson's original idea of buying up $700 billion in toxic debts. Now taxpayers aren't just on the hook for the debts but, arguably, for the fate of every corporation that sells them equity.
Interestingly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both enjoyed this kind of unspoken guarantee. For decades the market understood that, since these private players were enmeshed with the government, Uncle Sam would always save the day. It was the worst of all worlds. Not only were profits privatized while risks were socialized but the implicit government backing created powerful incentives for reckless investments.
Now, with the new equity purchase program, Paulson has taken the discredited Fannie and Freddie model and applied it to a huge swath of the private banking industry. And once again, there is no reason to shy away from risky bets--especially since Treasury has not required the banks to give up high-risk financial instruments in exchange for taxpayer dollars.
To further boost confidence, the federal government has also unveiled unlimited public guarantees for many bank deposit accounts. Oh, and as if this wasn't enough, Treasury has been encouraging the banks to merge with one another, ensuring that the only institutions left standing will be "too big to fail." In three different ways, the market is being told loud and clear that Washington will not allow the country's financial institutions to bear the consequences of their behavior. This may well be Bush's most creative innovation: no-risk capitalism.
There is a glimmer of hope. In answer to Senator Corker's question, Treasury is indeed having trouble dispersing the bailout funds. It has requested about $350 billion of the $700 billion, but most of this hasn't yet made it out the door. Meanwhile, every day it becomes clearer that the bailout was sold on false pretenses. It was never about getting loans flowing. It was always about turning the state into a giant insurance agency for Wall Street--a safety net for the people who need it least, subsidized by the people who need it most.
This grotesque duplicity is an opportunity. Whoever wins the election on November 4 will have enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds--not after the inauguration, but right away. All deals should be renegotiated immediately, this time with the public getting the guarantees.
It is risky, of course, to interrupt the bailout. The market won't like it. Nothing could be riskier, however, than allowing the Bush gang their parting gift to big business--the gift that will keep on taking.
This article was first published in The Nation.
The Roots of the Financial Crisis
Both of Naomi's pieces deal with the corruption of the proposed "bailout" process -- but what forces created the financial crisis in the first place? Naomi's partner Avi Lewis devoted his half hour weekly show, Inside USA on Al Jazeera English, to providing an in-depth answer to that question. His terrific report makes complex financial concepts accessible to any viewer, and he interviews some of our favorite analysts, including Robert Johnson, Dean Baker, and Michael Hudson. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 here.
Don't forget to check out Naomi's Facebook and MySpace pages.
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Monday, November 03, 2008
Urgent: Is your school on this list?
Please distribute widely!
The deadline for voting for the merit pay program in schools is this Thursday, November 6th.
Paying teachers to raise test scores is damaging to our kids, our schools and our entire educational system!
Below is a letter you can use to create conversation around the issue of merit pay. Below the letter is the list of schools that are voting this week. If you know ANYONE at any of these schools please forward this email to them.
Dear Colleagues,
The offer to have our school participate in the merit pay pilot program was thrown at our school community without giving us enough time to carefully consider the consequences. Here are some thoughts to consider before making this important decision.
Some Things to Consider Regarding Merit Pay:
- The proposed plan implies that the most reliable measure of a school’s success are the student’s test scores.
- By accepting this plan we are encouraging the use of high stakes testing and encouraging teachers to teach to the test.
(You get money only if students perform well on a test!)
- This plan diverts our attention from the real questions we should be asking our union and our city government: why isn’t this money going to reduce class size, increase teacher salaries in general, and increase arts and other enrichment programs.
- This plan creates a situation where the principal, someone the principal designates and two UFT members sit behind closed doors and decide how the money will be divided. This has the potential for some inequitable decisions as well as for creating a divisive atmosphere in our school.
- Merit pay implies that the problem in our schools is that teachers are not working hard enough. “If only those teachers would try a little harder, our students would succeed”. It does not address any of the larger issues that we know impact our students’ success.
- By accepting merit pay, we are sending the message that we agree with the analysis that teachers are the problem.
- We have to meet 100% of the goal to get the money.(We still do not know how the goals will be set, or who will set them). If we vote for this plan, and only reach 99% of our goal, we only get 50% of the money ($1500).
- If we vote for this plan, and reach 74% of our goal, we get nothing.
-With all of the issues to consider and unanswered questions, why are we being rushed to make such a hasty decision.
- Finally, what we do in our school will impact what happens in New York City, and what happens in New York sets a precedent for the nation. We have a responsibility to carefully weigh this decision.
P.S. 015 Roberto Clemente (Manhattan)
P.S. 188 The Island School (Manhattan)
47 The American Sign Language and English Dual L (Manhattan)
Coalition School for Social Change (Manhattan)
Unity Center for Urban Technologies (Manhattan)
J.H.S. M044 William J. O'shea (Manhattan)
M.S. 256 Academic & Athletic Excellence (Manhattan)
P.S. 007 Samuel Stern (Manhattan)
J.H.S. M045 John S. Roberts (Manhattan)
P.S. 050 Vito Marcantonio (Manhattan)
P.S. 096 Joseph Lanzetta (Manhattan)
Tito Puente Education Complex (Manhattan)
P.S. 146 Ann M. Short (Manhattan)
P.S. 155 William Paca (Manhattan)
The Bilingual Bicultural School (Manhattan)
Park East High School (Manhattan)
Central Park East High School (Manhattan)
Academy of Environmental Science Secondary High Sc (Manhattan)
Heritage School, The (Manhattan)
P.S. 046 Arthur Tappan (Manhattan)
P.S. 154 Harriet Tubman (Manhattan)
P.S. 161 Pedro Albizu Campos (Manhattan)
P.S. 194 Countee Cullen (Manhattan)
Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School (Manhattan)
Duke Ellington (Manhattan)
P.S. 005 Ellen Lurie (Manhattan)
P.S. 018 Park Terrace (Manhattan)
P.S. 028 Wright Brothers (Manhattan)
P.S. 048 P.O. Michael J. Buczek (Manhattan)
P.S. 098 Shorac Kappock (Manhattan)
P.S. 115 Alexander Humboldt (Manhattan)
P.S. 128 Audubon (Manhattan)
Juan Pablo Duarte (Manhattan)
P.S. 153 Adam Clayton Powell (Manhattan)
P.S. 173 (Manhattan)
21st Century Academy (Manhattan)
P.S./I.S. 278 (Manhattan)
City College Academy of the Arts (Manhattan)
M.S. 319 - Maria Teresa (Manhattan)
M.S. 321 - Minerva (Manhattan)
M.S. 324 - Patria (Manhattan)
High School for International Business and Finance (Manhattan)
P.S. 001 Courtlandt School (Bronx)
P.S./M.S. 029 Melrose School (Bronx)
P.S. 156 Benjamin Banneker (Bronx)
P.S. 161 Ponce De Leon (Bronx)
P.S. 179 (Bronx)
M.S. 203 (Bronx)
P.S. 220 Mott Haven Village School (Bronx)
South Bronx Academy for Applied Media (Bronx)
Academy of Public Relations (Bronx)
Academy of Applied Mathematics and Technology (Bronx)
Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (Bronx)
Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High (Bronx)
P.S. 062 Inocensio Casanova (Bronx)
P.S. 093 Albert G. Oliver (Bronx)
James M. Kiernan (Bronx)
P.S. 146 Edward Collins (Bronx)
M.S. X201 (Bronx)
Gateway School for Environmental Research and Tech (Bronx)
Millennium Art Academy (Bronx)
New School #2 @ P.S. 60 (Bronx)
The School for Inquiry and Social Justice (Bronx)
Banana Kelly High School (Bronx)
School for Community Research and Learning (Bronx)
BRONX ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)
Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers (Bronx)
P.S. 053 Basheer Quisim (Bronx)
P.S. 055 Benjamin Franklin (Bronx)
P.S. 058 (Bronx)
P.S. 073 Bronx (Bronx)
P.S. 090 George Meany (Bronx)
P.S. 109 Sedgwick (Bronx)
P.S. 126 Dr Marjorie H Dunbar (Bronx)
P.S. 132 Garret A. Morgan (Bronx)
P.S. 230 Dr Roland N. Patterson (Bronx)
I.S. 232 (Bronx)
P.S. 236 Langston Hughes (Bronx)
Urban Science Academy (Bronx)
New Millennium Business Academy Middle School (Bronx)
I.S. 339 (Bronx)
Ryer Avenue Elementary School (Bronx)
P.S. 032 Belmont (Bronx)
P.S. 046 Edgar Allan Poe (Bronx)
P.S. / I.S. 54 (Bronx)
J.H.S. 080 The Mosholu Parkway (Bronx)
P.S. 085 Great Expectations (Bronx)
P.S. 159 Luis Munoz Marin Biling (Bronx)
P.S. 246 Poe Center (Bronx)
P.S. 306 (Bronx)
Bronx Dance Academy School (Bronx)
P.S. 310 Marble Hill (Bronx)
P.S. 315 Lab School (Bronx)
The Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigat (Bronx)
M.S. 390 (Bronx)
M.S. 391 (Bronx)
M.S. 399 (Bronx)
Belmont Preparatory High School (Bronx)
P.S. 041 Gun Hill Road (Bronx)
P.S. 068 Bronx (Bronx)
P.S. 112 Bronxwood (Bronx)
J.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa (Bronx)
J.H.S. 144 Michelangelo (Bronx)
Bronx Academy of Health Careers (Bronx)
Christopher Columbus High School (Bronx)
P.S. 044 David C. Farragut (Bronx)
P.S. 057 Crescent (Bronx)
P.S. 061 Francisco Oller (Bronx)
P.S. 066 School of Higher Expectations (Bronx)
P.S. 092 Bronx (Bronx)
J.H.S. 098 Herman Ridder (Bronx)
P.S. 150 Charles James Fox (Bronx)
PS 195 (Bronx)
P.S. 211 (Bronx)
Business School for Entrepreneurial Studies (Bronx)
East Bronx Academy for the Future (Bronx)
Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School (Bronx)
Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies (Bronx)
The School of Science and Applied Learning (Bronx)
BRONX REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)
High School for Violin and Dance (Bronx)
High School of World Cultures (Bronx)
Bronx Coalition Community High School (Bronx)
Wings Academy (Bronx)
Monroe Academy for Business/Law (Bronx)
Monroe Academy for Visual Arts & Design (Bronx)
P.S. 093 William H. Prescott (Brooklyn)
Dr. Susan. S. McKinney Secondary School of the Art (Brooklyn)
P.S. 270 Johann DeKalb (Brooklyn)
Academy of Business and Community Development (Brooklyn)
ACORN Community High School (Brooklyn)
M.S. 571 (Brooklyn)
P.S. 120 Carlos Tapia (Brooklyn)
P.S. 196 Ten Eyck (Brooklyn)
P.S. 297 Abraham Stockton (Brooklyn)
Automotive High School (Brooklyn)
The Bergen (Brooklyn)
P.S. 015 Patrick F. Daly (Brooklyn)
I.S. 136 Charles O. Dewey (Brooklyn)
P.S. 172 Beacon School of Excellence (Brooklyn)
New Horizons School (Brooklyn)
Secondary School for Journalism (Brooklyn)
Metropolitan Corporate Academy High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 025 Eubie Blake School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 028 The Warren (Brooklyn)
Whitelaw Reid (Brooklyn)
P.S. 243 Weeksville (Brooklyn)
P.S. 262 El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Brooklyn)
M.S. 267 Math, Science & Technology (Brooklyn)
P.S. 304 Casimir Pulaski (Brooklyn)
P.S. 309 George E. Wibecan (Brooklyn)
P.S. 335 Granville T. Woods (Brooklyn)
Boys and Girls High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 012 (Brooklyn)
Adrian Hegeman (Brooklyn)
P.S. 167 The Parkway (Brooklyn)
P.S. 191 Paul Robeson (Brooklyn)
I.S. 246 Walt Whitman (Brooklyn)
M.S. K394 (Brooklyn)
Stanley Eugene Clark (Brooklyn)
School for Human Rights, The (Brooklyn)
Paul Robeson High School (Brooklyn)
I.S. 068 Isaac Bildersee (Brooklyn)
Canarsie High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 072 Annette P Goldman (Brooklyn)
P.S. 108 Sal Abbracciamento (Brooklyn)
P.S. 149 Danny Kaye (Brooklyn)
P.S. 158 Warwick (Brooklyn)
P.S. 213 New Lots (Brooklyn)
J.H.S. 302 Rafael Cordero (Brooklyn)
W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High (Brooklyn)
P.S. 109 (Brooklyn)
P.S. K315 (Brooklyn)
P.S. 041 Francis White (Brooklyn)
Rachel Jean Mitchell (Brooklyn)
P.S. 155 Nicholas Herkimer (Brooklyn)
P.S. 156 Waverly (Brooklyn)
P.S. 184 Newport (Brooklyn)
P.S. 298 Dr. Betty Shabazz (Brooklyn)
Rose B. English (Brooklyn)
Newtown High School (Queens)
R. Vernam (Queens)
I.S. 053 Brian Piccolo (Queens)
P.S. 197 The Ocean School (Queens)
P.S. 253 (Queens)
August Martin High School (Queens)
Samuel Huntington (Queens)
P.S. 034 John Harvard (Queens)
Humanities & Arts Magnet High School (Queens)
P.S. 092 Harry T. Stewart Sr. (Queens)
P.S. 111 Jacob Blackwell (Queens)
P.S. 018 John G. Whittier (Staten Island)
P.S. 020 Port Richmond (Staten Island)
Horace Greene (Brooklyn)
P.S. 075 Mayda Cortiella (Brooklyn)
P.S. 086 The Irvington (Brooklyn)
P.S. 106 Edward Everett Hale (Brooklyn)
P.S. 123 Suydam (Brooklyn)
P.S. 151 Lyndon B. Johnson (Brooklyn)
J.H.S. 291 Roland Hayes (Brooklyn)
I.S. 347 School of Humanities (Brooklyn)
I.S. 349 Math, Science & Tech. (Brooklyn)
Bushwick School for Social Justice (Brooklyn)
Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellen (Brooklyn)
P.S. K077 (Brooklyn)
The deadline for voting for the merit pay program in schools is this Thursday, November 6th.
Paying teachers to raise test scores is damaging to our kids, our schools and our entire educational system!
Below is a letter you can use to create conversation around the issue of merit pay. Below the letter is the list of schools that are voting this week. If you know ANYONE at any of these schools please forward this email to them.
Dear Colleagues,
The offer to have our school participate in the merit pay pilot program was thrown at our school community without giving us enough time to carefully consider the consequences. Here are some thoughts to consider before making this important decision.
Some Things to Consider Regarding Merit Pay:
- The proposed plan implies that the most reliable measure of a school’s success are the student’s test scores.
- By accepting this plan we are encouraging the use of high stakes testing and encouraging teachers to teach to the test.
(You get money only if students perform well on a test!)
- This plan diverts our attention from the real questions we should be asking our union and our city government: why isn’t this money going to reduce class size, increase teacher salaries in general, and increase arts and other enrichment programs.
- This plan creates a situation where the principal, someone the principal designates and two UFT members sit behind closed doors and decide how the money will be divided. This has the potential for some inequitable decisions as well as for creating a divisive atmosphere in our school.
- Merit pay implies that the problem in our schools is that teachers are not working hard enough. “If only those teachers would try a little harder, our students would succeed”. It does not address any of the larger issues that we know impact our students’ success.
- By accepting merit pay, we are sending the message that we agree with the analysis that teachers are the problem.
- We have to meet 100% of the goal to get the money.(We still do not know how the goals will be set, or who will set them). If we vote for this plan, and only reach 99% of our goal, we only get 50% of the money ($1500).
- If we vote for this plan, and reach 74% of our goal, we get nothing.
-With all of the issues to consider and unanswered questions, why are we being rushed to make such a hasty decision.
- Finally, what we do in our school will impact what happens in New York City, and what happens in New York sets a precedent for the nation. We have a responsibility to carefully weigh this decision.
P.S. 015 Roberto Clemente (Manhattan)
P.S. 188 The Island School (Manhattan)
47 The American Sign Language and English Dual L (Manhattan)
Coalition School for Social Change (Manhattan)
Unity Center for Urban Technologies (Manhattan)
J.H.S. M044 William J. O'shea (Manhattan)
M.S. 256 Academic & Athletic Excellence (Manhattan)
P.S. 007 Samuel Stern (Manhattan)
J.H.S. M045 John S. Roberts (Manhattan)
P.S. 050 Vito Marcantonio (Manhattan)
P.S. 096 Joseph Lanzetta (Manhattan)
Tito Puente Education Complex (Manhattan)
P.S. 146 Ann M. Short (Manhattan)
P.S. 155 William Paca (Manhattan)
The Bilingual Bicultural School (Manhattan)
Park East High School (Manhattan)
Central Park East High School (Manhattan)
Academy of Environmental Science Secondary High Sc (Manhattan)
Heritage School, The (Manhattan)
P.S. 046 Arthur Tappan (Manhattan)
P.S. 154 Harriet Tubman (Manhattan)
P.S. 161 Pedro Albizu Campos (Manhattan)
P.S. 194 Countee Cullen (Manhattan)
Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School (Manhattan)
Duke Ellington (Manhattan)
P.S. 005 Ellen Lurie (Manhattan)
P.S. 018 Park Terrace (Manhattan)
P.S. 028 Wright Brothers (Manhattan)
P.S. 048 P.O. Michael J. Buczek (Manhattan)
P.S. 098 Shorac Kappock (Manhattan)
P.S. 115 Alexander Humboldt (Manhattan)
P.S. 128 Audubon (Manhattan)
Juan Pablo Duarte (Manhattan)
P.S. 153 Adam Clayton Powell (Manhattan)
P.S. 173 (Manhattan)
21st Century Academy (Manhattan)
P.S./I.S. 278 (Manhattan)
City College Academy of the Arts (Manhattan)
M.S. 319 - Maria Teresa (Manhattan)
M.S. 321 - Minerva (Manhattan)
M.S. 324 - Patria (Manhattan)
High School for International Business and Finance (Manhattan)
P.S. 001 Courtlandt School (Bronx)
P.S./M.S. 029 Melrose School (Bronx)
P.S. 156 Benjamin Banneker (Bronx)
P.S. 161 Ponce De Leon (Bronx)
P.S. 179 (Bronx)
M.S. 203 (Bronx)
P.S. 220 Mott Haven Village School (Bronx)
South Bronx Academy for Applied Media (Bronx)
Academy of Public Relations (Bronx)
Academy of Applied Mathematics and Technology (Bronx)
Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (Bronx)
Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High (Bronx)
P.S. 062 Inocensio Casanova (Bronx)
P.S. 093 Albert G. Oliver (Bronx)
James M. Kiernan (Bronx)
P.S. 146 Edward Collins (Bronx)
M.S. X201 (Bronx)
Gateway School for Environmental Research and Tech (Bronx)
Millennium Art Academy (Bronx)
New School #2 @ P.S. 60 (Bronx)
The School for Inquiry and Social Justice (Bronx)
Banana Kelly High School (Bronx)
School for Community Research and Learning (Bronx)
BRONX ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)
Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers (Bronx)
P.S. 053 Basheer Quisim (Bronx)
P.S. 055 Benjamin Franklin (Bronx)
P.S. 058 (Bronx)
P.S. 073 Bronx (Bronx)
P.S. 090 George Meany (Bronx)
P.S. 109 Sedgwick (Bronx)
P.S. 126 Dr Marjorie H Dunbar (Bronx)
P.S. 132 Garret A. Morgan (Bronx)
P.S. 230 Dr Roland N. Patterson (Bronx)
I.S. 232 (Bronx)
P.S. 236 Langston Hughes (Bronx)
Urban Science Academy (Bronx)
New Millennium Business Academy Middle School (Bronx)
I.S. 339 (Bronx)
Ryer Avenue Elementary School (Bronx)
P.S. 032 Belmont (Bronx)
P.S. 046 Edgar Allan Poe (Bronx)
P.S. / I.S. 54 (Bronx)
J.H.S. 080 The Mosholu Parkway (Bronx)
P.S. 085 Great Expectations (Bronx)
P.S. 159 Luis Munoz Marin Biling (Bronx)
P.S. 246 Poe Center (Bronx)
P.S. 306 (Bronx)
Bronx Dance Academy School (Bronx)
P.S. 310 Marble Hill (Bronx)
P.S. 315 Lab School (Bronx)
The Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigat (Bronx)
M.S. 390 (Bronx)
M.S. 391 (Bronx)
M.S. 399 (Bronx)
Belmont Preparatory High School (Bronx)
P.S. 041 Gun Hill Road (Bronx)
P.S. 068 Bronx (Bronx)
P.S. 112 Bronxwood (Bronx)
J.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa (Bronx)
J.H.S. 144 Michelangelo (Bronx)
Bronx Academy of Health Careers (Bronx)
Christopher Columbus High School (Bronx)
P.S. 044 David C. Farragut (Bronx)
P.S. 057 Crescent (Bronx)
P.S. 061 Francisco Oller (Bronx)
P.S. 066 School of Higher Expectations (Bronx)
P.S. 092 Bronx (Bronx)
J.H.S. 098 Herman Ridder (Bronx)
P.S. 150 Charles James Fox (Bronx)
PS 195 (Bronx)
P.S. 211 (Bronx)
Business School for Entrepreneurial Studies (Bronx)
East Bronx Academy for the Future (Bronx)
Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School (Bronx)
Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies (Bronx)
The School of Science and Applied Learning (Bronx)
BRONX REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)
High School for Violin and Dance (Bronx)
High School of World Cultures (Bronx)
Bronx Coalition Community High School (Bronx)
Wings Academy (Bronx)
Monroe Academy for Business/Law (Bronx)
Monroe Academy for Visual Arts & Design (Bronx)
P.S. 093 William H. Prescott (Brooklyn)
Dr. Susan. S. McKinney Secondary School of the Art (Brooklyn)
P.S. 270 Johann DeKalb (Brooklyn)
Academy of Business and Community Development (Brooklyn)
ACORN Community High School (Brooklyn)
M.S. 571 (Brooklyn)
P.S. 120 Carlos Tapia (Brooklyn)
P.S. 196 Ten Eyck (Brooklyn)
P.S. 297 Abraham Stockton (Brooklyn)
Automotive High School (Brooklyn)
The Bergen (Brooklyn)
P.S. 015 Patrick F. Daly (Brooklyn)
I.S. 136 Charles O. Dewey (Brooklyn)
P.S. 172 Beacon School of Excellence (Brooklyn)
New Horizons School (Brooklyn)
Secondary School for Journalism (Brooklyn)
Metropolitan Corporate Academy High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 025 Eubie Blake School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 028 The Warren (Brooklyn)
Whitelaw Reid (Brooklyn)
P.S. 243 Weeksville (Brooklyn)
P.S. 262 El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Brooklyn)
M.S. 267 Math, Science & Technology (Brooklyn)
P.S. 304 Casimir Pulaski (Brooklyn)
P.S. 309 George E. Wibecan (Brooklyn)
P.S. 335 Granville T. Woods (Brooklyn)
Boys and Girls High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 012 (Brooklyn)
Adrian Hegeman (Brooklyn)
P.S. 167 The Parkway (Brooklyn)
P.S. 191 Paul Robeson (Brooklyn)
I.S. 246 Walt Whitman (Brooklyn)
M.S. K394 (Brooklyn)
Stanley Eugene Clark (Brooklyn)
School for Human Rights, The (Brooklyn)
Paul Robeson High School (Brooklyn)
I.S. 068 Isaac Bildersee (Brooklyn)
Canarsie High School (Brooklyn)
P.S. 072 Annette P Goldman (Brooklyn)
P.S. 108 Sal Abbracciamento (Brooklyn)
P.S. 149 Danny Kaye (Brooklyn)
P.S. 158 Warwick (Brooklyn)
P.S. 213 New Lots (Brooklyn)
J.H.S. 302 Rafael Cordero (Brooklyn)
W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High (Brooklyn)
P.S. 109 (Brooklyn)
P.S. K315 (Brooklyn)
P.S. 041 Francis White (Brooklyn)
Rachel Jean Mitchell (Brooklyn)
P.S. 155 Nicholas Herkimer (Brooklyn)
P.S. 156 Waverly (Brooklyn)
P.S. 184 Newport (Brooklyn)
P.S. 298 Dr. Betty Shabazz (Brooklyn)
Rose B. English (Brooklyn)
Newtown High School (Queens)
R. Vernam (Queens)
I.S. 053 Brian Piccolo (Queens)
P.S. 197 The Ocean School (Queens)
P.S. 253 (Queens)
August Martin High School (Queens)
Samuel Huntington (Queens)
P.S. 034 John Harvard (Queens)
Humanities & Arts Magnet High School (Queens)
P.S. 092 Harry T. Stewart Sr. (Queens)
P.S. 111 Jacob Blackwell (Queens)
P.S. 018 John G. Whittier (Staten Island)
P.S. 020 Port Richmond (Staten Island)
Horace Greene (Brooklyn)
P.S. 075 Mayda Cortiella (Brooklyn)
P.S. 086 The Irvington (Brooklyn)
P.S. 106 Edward Everett Hale (Brooklyn)
P.S. 123 Suydam (Brooklyn)
P.S. 151 Lyndon B. Johnson (Brooklyn)
J.H.S. 291 Roland Hayes (Brooklyn)
I.S. 347 School of Humanities (Brooklyn)
I.S. 349 Math, Science & Tech. (Brooklyn)
Bushwick School for Social Justice (Brooklyn)
Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellen (Brooklyn)
P.S. K077 (Brooklyn)
Bloomberg's Term-Limits Coup: Heroes, Villains, and Wimp
Bloomberg's Term-Limits Coup: Heroes, Villains, and Wimps
Brutal brawling in the first throwdown of the 2009 elections
By Tom Robbins
published: October 29, 2008
So much for New York City sophisticates. Last week's rush by 29 self-inflated council members to gut term-limits laws—approved by voters in two separate referendums—was the kind of thing that's supposed to happen only in countries south of the border, or those with "-stan" at the end of their names.
Council opposition leader Bill de Blasio hit that note squarely outside City Hall after the vote. "This is 2008 in the biggest, most sophisticated city in the United States of America, and what happened here was more reminiscent of a banana republic," he lamented.
Right before the roll call on a vote he knew he was about to lose, de Blasio rose in the council chambers and tried one last weapon: shame. "George Orwell in particular would love the arguments being made today by the Speaker, the Mayor, and others, that by taking away the voters' right to decide this issue, we are giving them more of a choice." He added a warning: "The people of this city will long remember what we've done here today, and the people will rightfully be unforgiving. We are stealing like a thief in the night their right to decide the shape of democracy."
Mark that claim as the first throwdown of the 2009 elections. As he furiously lobbied for his term-extension bill, Mike Bloomberg famously promised council members that "people do forget about these things." He'd better hope so.
De Blasio predicted that Bloomberg and Council Speaker Chris Quinn's scheming and dealing to force-feed the bill to wavering council members last week will eventually be discovered and exposed. I'm not so sure.
For instance, who was that mystery man sitting in the Subway sandwich shop across from City Hall on the first day of the hearings? The guy with the cash-filled envelope doling out dollars to those who showed up early to grab front-row seats and wave pro-Bloomberg signs? One likely suspect, a well-practiced Brooklyn campaign worker, denied it. "It's nothing to do with me, man," he insisted. The search continues.
So does the hunt for the telephone bank that routed pro-Bloomberg calls directly into the offices of council foes of the mayor's bill. Who paid for that? Not us, said an administration official who suggested a friendly labor group was behind it.
The mayor's was a no-fingerprints operation. He closed out his 2005 campaign committee last year, never even bothering to report a poll his aides admitted he did last spring—months before the financial crisis hit—to check the public pulse for extending term limits (there was none; a pulse, that is).
And what was it that made council first-termer Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn burst into tears just before switching sides in the great debate? One minute Mealy was calling Bloomberg "a dictator," and the next she was meekly voting his way. After composing herself, Mealy explained to former allies that she was just looking for a few extras from the powers-that-be. "She said she was tired of not getting X, Y, and Z for her district," said one member.
Mealy's was the most pitiful of last week's performances. A former transit worker, she won office three years ago, beating an entrenched political dynasty in a campaign expertly run by the Working Families Party and its lead organizer, Bill Lipton. The WFP worked its heart out last week to defeat the mayor's bill, trying to make up for a total public default by its member unions. Mealy too walked away. Bad karma followed: After the vote, she broke her collarbone in an auto crack-up on the BQE.
The amiable Jimmy Vacca of the Bronx also went from hero to goat. An early "No" on the extension bill, Vacca wilted under pressure from Bloomberg allies. The carrot-topped councilman's voice squeaked on the council floor as he tried to justify his switch. Whose sentiments swayed him? Mom's. "She said, 'You mean I may not have the right to vote for who I want to?' 'Yes, mom,' I told her."
There's got to be a special place in a council hall of shame for the likes of Robert Jackson of Upper Manhattan. Explaining his "Yes" vote on the floor, Jackson invoked the memory of his excellent and long-serving predecessor, the recently deceased Stanley Michels. But it was Michels—as related in Jack Newfield's book The Full Rudy—who selflessly rejected an overture from the Giuliani administration to introduce a resolution ending term limits.
David Yassky's collapse may be the sorriest part of the whole sorry episode. One of the best and brightest in the council class of 2002, he earnestly pursued the business of government, paying special heed to matters of ethics. Somewhere along the line, ambition trumped honor. Last week, he chose the mayor's political shortcut over a tough hike up a moral mountain, wagering that district voters won't really care.
Quinn's own seamless transition from principled opponent of overturning term limits to ruthless architect of their undoing was equally hard to watch. Last December, after months of analysis, she pronounced herself irretrievably opposed to amending the law. It took Bloomberg a few minutes to flip her back his way. She adopted the mayor's mantra that crisis dictates change. She didn't bother explaining why first-term members deserve their own shot at a third term that won't begin until 2013—long after this particular crisis has passed. She didn't have to. She needed their votes. It was that simple.
You had to wonder what dybbuk got into the Council Speaker that she had the dismal Larry Seabrook give the opening prayer for Thursday's session. Seabrook, poster child for council slush-fund abuse, skipped the morning vote on the bill by the governmental operations committee, where he is one of just seven members. His excuse? "They were installing windows in my apartment."
The brutal drubbing that good government took last week could be read plainly on the faces of its staunchest advocates. Public-interest lawyer Gene Russianoff—the city's conscience for 25 years—sat forlornly in the council chambers before the vote. His usual powerful ally, the Times editorial board, had that morning shamed itself again with another pro-Bloomberg pitch. "It doesn't look good, does it?" he said. Behind him sat Dick Dadey of the Citizens Union, which twice endorsed the mayor and relies on a hefty annual Bloomberg contribution. Dadey courageously bucked him on term limits nonetheless.
Still, there were flashes of hope. As you looked across the room wondering where New York's Barack Obamas were, up popped feisty and resilient Letitia James of Brooklyn, denouncing democracy's hijacking. A few rows behind was Gale Brewer from the West Side, as true a public servant as the city has. Brewer openly pined for a third term at a job she loves, but ultimately cast her vote against the mayor she admires, saying, "We bear a heightened responsibility." Rosie Mendez, of the Lower East Side, did the same, as did Charles Barron, David Weprin, Tony Avella, Eric Gioia, John Liu, Jimmy Oddo, and a dozen others who stood tall.
Bloomberg and Quinn may have carried the day, but you had to believe they bought themselves a world of future political pain in doing so. As any tinpot banana republic generalissimo will tell you, the next coup is always around the corner.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Enrollment in gifted program drops 50% and minority admissions skid
BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, October 29th 2008, 8:00 PM
A new policy aimed at making the city's coveted gifted programs more diverse has backfired - causing a 50% plunge in enrollment and a decline in minority admissions.
The Bloomberg administration replaced the patchwork of entrance criteria with a unified testing system in 2007, but did not mandate a cutoff score.
Thousands more children took the exam last year, but too few qualified to fill the slots, forcing the Education Department to drop the passing score from 95% to 90%.
"Im not surprised by the outcome," said Kim Sweet, executive director at Advocates For Children.
"I think when you shift toward admission criteria that relies so heavily on standardized tests, it seems that you're bound to import some of the bias that comes with those tests."
Of kindergartners accepted into the city's gifted and talented programs this year, more than half were white.
That's in sharp contrast to the general population, where only 18% are white. And, while 41% of this year's kindergartners are Latino, just 9% of kids in gifted and talented programs are.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the process.
"We have taken critical steps to expand gifted and talented - including extensive outreach that has led to many, many more students being tested. But, we won't compromise standards and thereby dilute our programs," he said.
Part of the problem was that children who qualified didn't live in the neighborhoods where the programs were offered.
Teresa Mahr's daughter Brianna was admitted, but she would have had to bus her child - at her own expense - to Manhattan from Whitestone, Queens.
"It was inequitable," she said. "It's the wealthiest people in Manhattan whose kids could go to those programs."
Klein said the DOE was planning to add citywide programs in Queens and Brooklyn next year.
mkolodner@nydailynews.com
With Elizabeth Lazarowitz
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, October 29th 2008, 8:00 PM
A new policy aimed at making the city's coveted gifted programs more diverse has backfired - causing a 50% plunge in enrollment and a decline in minority admissions.
The Bloomberg administration replaced the patchwork of entrance criteria with a unified testing system in 2007, but did not mandate a cutoff score.
Thousands more children took the exam last year, but too few qualified to fill the slots, forcing the Education Department to drop the passing score from 95% to 90%.
"Im not surprised by the outcome," said Kim Sweet, executive director at Advocates For Children.
"I think when you shift toward admission criteria that relies so heavily on standardized tests, it seems that you're bound to import some of the bias that comes with those tests."
Of kindergartners accepted into the city's gifted and talented programs this year, more than half were white.
That's in sharp contrast to the general population, where only 18% are white. And, while 41% of this year's kindergartners are Latino, just 9% of kids in gifted and talented programs are.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the process.
"We have taken critical steps to expand gifted and talented - including extensive outreach that has led to many, many more students being tested. But, we won't compromise standards and thereby dilute our programs," he said.
Part of the problem was that children who qualified didn't live in the neighborhoods where the programs were offered.
Teresa Mahr's daughter Brianna was admitted, but she would have had to bus her child - at her own expense - to Manhattan from Whitestone, Queens.
"It was inequitable," she said. "It's the wealthiest people in Manhattan whose kids could go to those programs."
Klein said the DOE was planning to add citywide programs in Queens and Brooklyn next year.
mkolodner@nydailynews.com
With Elizabeth Lazarowitz
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A Parent On NCLB
With this year's election hype focused on the economy and health
care, it seems the impact of No Child Left Behind on working-class
families has been overshadowed by other issues. Not for me.
Reauthorization of NCLB was expected to go to a congressional vote
but has been postponed until after the presidential election. As the
mother of three children in public schools, I would like to see this
bungled attempt at education reform left behind.
Somehow our public education system has interpreted this law to mean
that today's young children will write like accomplished authors,
conduct experiments according to strict scientific methodology and
zip through algebra and geometry without learning basic math. All at
the same tender age when their not-so-distant forebears were trapping
bugs in jars, writing fanciful stories, and savoring the aroma of
teacher-prepared mimeograph practice sheets for plain old ordinary
arithmetic.
In the 1980s, a national report on U.S. education sounded the alarm
that "Johnny can't read," echoing a report from three decades
earlier. I was as appalled as anyone.
But make no mistake. NCLB goes far beyond requiring the schools to
teach reading (which they still don't do very well). My youngest
child was required to read "fluently" — with no pauses to decipher
unfamiliar words — in his first nine weeks of first grade. His
reading material included discussions of the political and social
structure of a Hawaiian township, complete with multisyllabic words
and Hawaiian names. His teacher recommended retention. I fought it,
and he got summer school instead (along with hordes of other
disillusioned young scholars).
The irony of NCLB is that those kids who can't keep up — whose
parents can't afford expensive tutors or give up their jobs to
provide oodles of one-on-one assistance — are in more danger than
ever of getting left behind as educators insist they must do away
with so-called "social promotion."
Since that disastrous first-grade year, I have been called to at
least one conference annually letting me know that my child is
failing to be more than he can be. Educators deliver this news with
straight faces, despite the fact that they have failed to teach
phonics, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, or
cursive writing. (Such lessons may seem simple, but they help develop
essential concentration and memory skills.)
My youngest studies as instructed, makes steady progress and rarely
misses class. Yet he scores poorly in the never-ending stream of
assessments. The school system's answer? A notation of "below grade
level" on the report card and the threat of retention. My son would
be entitled to a government-subsidized tutor, I was told, only after
he fails a grade.
I can trace the madness to my oldest child's fourth-grade year, 2000-
01, when NCLB was on the road to approval. Requirements for promotion
included her ability to fill out a job application. She was 9.
Ridiculous, yes, but relatively harmless.
My second child entered kindergarten that year. Homework consisted of
cut-and-paste exercises and measuring household items. Using scissors
would help my child develop fine motor skills for writing, I was
told, and measuring things would foster an appreciation for real-life
math applications. My pleas for the child to bring home writing
practice and simple math worksheets fell on deaf ears. To this day,
her handwriting is illegible, and she doesn't like math any better
because she knows how to measure a doorknob.
Since then, it has been one fad or alleged silver bullet after
another, as educators experiment with shortcuts and ways to get
parents "involved," which is code for making them pseudo-teachers.
Never mind that parents work long hours and have no spare time to do
the government's job.
In Hillsborough County, since 2003-04, parents of children as young
as 8 have been coerced into coaching strictly structured science
experiments that belong in the higher grades. At my child's
elementary school, participation is mandatory by third grade. Weary
parents joke wryly about staying up until midnight working on display
boards and graphs, trying to wrestle their offspring's childish
curiosity into something that resembles an MIT-caliber experiment.
The government's Web site www.ed.gov/nclb claims the act holds
schools accountable. All I see is the pressure that has fallen on
children and their parents. Without the recognition that there are no
one-size-fits-all teaching methods and the funding for a true
education fix, NCLB is detrimental to my family. It undermines
childhood pleasures and threatens to destroy my son's self-esteem. I
want it to go away.
Susan Green lives in Hillsborough County.
care, it seems the impact of No Child Left Behind on working-class
families has been overshadowed by other issues. Not for me.
Reauthorization of NCLB was expected to go to a congressional vote
but has been postponed until after the presidential election. As the
mother of three children in public schools, I would like to see this
bungled attempt at education reform left behind.
Somehow our public education system has interpreted this law to mean
that today's young children will write like accomplished authors,
conduct experiments according to strict scientific methodology and
zip through algebra and geometry without learning basic math. All at
the same tender age when their not-so-distant forebears were trapping
bugs in jars, writing fanciful stories, and savoring the aroma of
teacher-prepared mimeograph practice sheets for plain old ordinary
arithmetic.
In the 1980s, a national report on U.S. education sounded the alarm
that "Johnny can't read," echoing a report from three decades
earlier. I was as appalled as anyone.
But make no mistake. NCLB goes far beyond requiring the schools to
teach reading (which they still don't do very well). My youngest
child was required to read "fluently" — with no pauses to decipher
unfamiliar words — in his first nine weeks of first grade. His
reading material included discussions of the political and social
structure of a Hawaiian township, complete with multisyllabic words
and Hawaiian names. His teacher recommended retention. I fought it,
and he got summer school instead (along with hordes of other
disillusioned young scholars).
The irony of NCLB is that those kids who can't keep up — whose
parents can't afford expensive tutors or give up their jobs to
provide oodles of one-on-one assistance — are in more danger than
ever of getting left behind as educators insist they must do away
with so-called "social promotion."
Since that disastrous first-grade year, I have been called to at
least one conference annually letting me know that my child is
failing to be more than he can be. Educators deliver this news with
straight faces, despite the fact that they have failed to teach
phonics, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, or
cursive writing. (Such lessons may seem simple, but they help develop
essential concentration and memory skills.)
My youngest studies as instructed, makes steady progress and rarely
misses class. Yet he scores poorly in the never-ending stream of
assessments. The school system's answer? A notation of "below grade
level" on the report card and the threat of retention. My son would
be entitled to a government-subsidized tutor, I was told, only after
he fails a grade.
I can trace the madness to my oldest child's fourth-grade year, 2000-
01, when NCLB was on the road to approval. Requirements for promotion
included her ability to fill out a job application. She was 9.
Ridiculous, yes, but relatively harmless.
My second child entered kindergarten that year. Homework consisted of
cut-and-paste exercises and measuring household items. Using scissors
would help my child develop fine motor skills for writing, I was
told, and measuring things would foster an appreciation for real-life
math applications. My pleas for the child to bring home writing
practice and simple math worksheets fell on deaf ears. To this day,
her handwriting is illegible, and she doesn't like math any better
because she knows how to measure a doorknob.
Since then, it has been one fad or alleged silver bullet after
another, as educators experiment with shortcuts and ways to get
parents "involved," which is code for making them pseudo-teachers.
Never mind that parents work long hours and have no spare time to do
the government's job.
In Hillsborough County, since 2003-04, parents of children as young
as 8 have been coerced into coaching strictly structured science
experiments that belong in the higher grades. At my child's
elementary school, participation is mandatory by third grade. Weary
parents joke wryly about staying up until midnight working on display
boards and graphs, trying to wrestle their offspring's childish
curiosity into something that resembles an MIT-caliber experiment.
The government's Web site www.ed.gov/nclb claims the act holds
schools accountable. All I see is the pressure that has fallen on
children and their parents. Without the recognition that there are no
one-size-fits-all teaching methods and the funding for a true
education fix, NCLB is detrimental to my family. It undermines
childhood pleasures and threatens to destroy my son's self-esteem. I
want it to go away.
Susan Green lives in Hillsborough County.
A Brooklyn Tech Librarian Is Fined for Promoting His Daughter’s Book
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/21/nyregion/22librarian_600.jpg
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Robert Grandt, a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School, put his daughter’s book on display and mentioned it in a newsletter.
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Published: October 21, 2008
For 39 years as an educator, Robert Grandt has been promoting other people’s books. So this year, when his daughter helped create a graphic novel of “Macbeth,” Mr. Grandt could not resist bragging a little in the newsletter he distributes as a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Mr. Grandt’sdaughter, Eve Grandt, co-illustrated a version of “Macbeth.” He said he was taken aback by conflict-of-interest charges. "I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it," he said.
“Best New Book: Grandt, Eve, ‘Shakespeare’s Macbeth — The Manga Edition,’ ” he wrote under the heading “Grandt’s Picks.”
He also placed a few copies of the book at a library display table, and posted a sign: “Best Book Ever Written.” If someone were interested, they got a book free.
But one person’s parental pride is another panel’s ethical transgression.
On Monday, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced it had settled a case it had brought against Mr. Grandt for promoting his daughter’s work. He agreed to pay a $500 fine and admit in a three-page stipulation that he had violated the city ethics code.
Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way.
“There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”
The New York City Charter warns public servants about taking actions in their official roles that benefit them personally, and the conflicts board is empowered to interpret the code and bring cases. Last week, for example, the conflicts board ruled that City Council members would not violate the charter if they were to vote to extend or abolish the term limits now scheduled to remove them from office.
Mr. Grandt, on the other hand. ...
“It’s unbelievable,” the 61-year-old former social studies teacher said.
Officials of the conflicts board declined to comment on their reasoning.
Mr. Grandt, one of three librarians at Brooklyn Tech, said he had donated many books to the library, including a copy of the book by his 28-year-old daughter, her first as an illustrator. The book, published in February by Wiley Publishing, is a drawn version of the Shakespeare text, an approach that, among other things, might entice young readers’ interest in the classics. Adam Sexton is listed as author and Candice Chow as co-illustrator.
A reviewer on Amazon wrote that the book was “far superior to Cliff Notes or the old Classic Comics” as a primer on the play.
Mr. Grandt said his daughter was paid a few thousand dollars for her drawings. “There are so many good ones,” Mr. Grandt said, flipping through the illustrations, some rather gory. “I like these full-page ones. They have a Gothic air to them.”
Mr. Grandt said he did not envision that putting a few copies of his daughter’s book on a table or promoting it in the newsletter last spring would cross the line.
“I’m supposed to, as part of my job, display new books and encourage the kids to read new books,” he said. “So here, I displayed my daughter’s book and encouraged the kids to read it and am told that I had done something illegal.”
Trouble first surfaced in June, he said, when he was summoned to an assistant principal’s office. Representatives from the city’s Department of Investigation were there to ask about the book.
In August, the conflicts board sent him a letter telling him he could lose his job and be stripped of his teaching license. He recalled the board wanted to impose a $1,000 fine. Mr. Grandt could not find a lawyer to represent him for less than that amount, but he and his wife, a legal secretary, were ultimately able to negotiate a lower fine.
The biggest punishment, though, according to Mr. Grandt, was feeling he had no choice but to remove the book from the school’s library.
“I decided not only would I take the table down, but I’d better remove the book from the catalog and take it permanently off the shelves,” he said, figuring “that would be the best course of action.”
IN THE MATTER OF ROBERT GRANDT
COIB CASE NO. 2008-609
OCTOBER 17, 2008
SUMMARY: The Board fined a Librarian for the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”) $500 for using his position to promote a recently-published book illustrated by his daughter. The Librarian acknowledged that in the April/May 2008 edition of his school’s Library Newsletter, which newsletter it was among his job duties to prepare, he included a section on “Best New Book” featuring the name of his daughter and her recently-published book. The Librarian also acknowledged that, around the same time, he set up a table in the school’s library with copies of his daughter’s book and a sign stating “The Best Book Ever Written” with the name of his daughter and her book. The Librarian admitted that his conduct violated the City of New York’s conflicts of interest law, which prohibits a public servant from using or attempting to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant, which would include the public servant’s child. COIB v. Grandt, COIB Case No. 2008-609 (2008).
STIPULATION AND DISPOSITION:
WHEREAS, the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board (the “Board”) and Respondent Robert Grandt wish to resolve this matter on the following terms,
Respondent Robert Grandt states the following:
1. From June 2, 1969, to the present, I have been employed by the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”), most recently as the Librarian assigned to Brooklyn Technical High School.
2. During that time, I have been public servant within the meaning of Chapter 68 of the City Charter (“Chapter 68”).
3. Among my duties as Librarian at the Brooklyn Technical High School, I prepare a bimonthly Library Newsletter. In the April/May 2008 edition of the Library Newsletter, I included a section on “Best New Book” that listed in large bold typeface the name of my daughter and of a recently-published book that she illustrated.
4. In or around the time of the distribution of the April/May 2008 edition of the Library Newsletter, I set up a table in the school’s library with a sign stating “The Best Book Ever Written” and the name of my daughter and of her book. The table included a display of a few copies of my daughter’s book.
5. I represent to the Board that at the time I took these actions, I did not realize that they represented a conflict of interest. I took these actions out of pride for my daughter. 2
6. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that by using my City position as a Librarian to promote a book illustrated by my daughter, I violated Chapter 68, specifically City Charter § 2604(b)(3). City Charter § 2604(b)(3) states: “No public servant shall use or attempt to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant.” Pursuant to City Charter § 2601(5), a person “associated” with the public servant includes a child.
7. In recognition of the foregoing, I agree to pay a fine of Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) to the Board upon signature of this Disposition, by money order or by cashier, bank, or certified check, made payable to the “New York City Conflicts of Interest Board.” 8. I agree that this Disposition is a public and final resolution of the charges against me. 9. I knowingly waive on my behalf and on behalf of my successors and assigns any rights to commence any judicial or administrative proceeding or appeal before any court of competent jurisdiction, administrative tribunal, political subdivision, or office of the City or the State of New York or the United States, and to contest the lawfulness, authority, jurisdiction, or power of the Board in imposing the penalty which is embodied in this Disposition, and I waive any right to make any legal or equitable claims or to initiate legal proceedings of any kind against the Board or any members or employees thereof relating to or arising out of this Disposition or the matters recited therein. 10. I confirm that I have entered into this Disposition freely, knowingly, and intentionally, without coercion or duress, and after having had the opportunity to be represented by an attorney of my choice and having declined that opportunity; that I accept all terms and conditions contained herein without reliance on any other promises or offers previously made or tendered by any past or present representative of the Board; and that I fully understand all the terms of this Disposition. 11. Any material misstatement of the facts of this matter, including of the Disposition, by me or by my attorney or agent shall, at the discretion of the Board, be deemed a waiver of confidentiality of this matter. 12. The Board accepts this Disposition and the terms contained herein as a final disposition of the above-captioned matter only, and affirmatively states that other than as recited herein, no further action will be taken by the Board against Respondent based upon the facts and circumstances set forth herein, except that the Board shall be entitled to take any and all actions necessary to enforce the terms of this Disposition. 3
13. This Disposition shall not be effective until all parties have affixed their signatures below.
Dated: September 25, 2008 /s/
Robert Grandt Respondent
Dated: October 17, 2008 /s/ Steven B. Rosenfeld Chair NYC Conflicts of Interest Board
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Robert Grandt, a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School, put his daughter’s book on display and mentioned it in a newsletter.
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Published: October 21, 2008
For 39 years as an educator, Robert Grandt has been promoting other people’s books. So this year, when his daughter helped create a graphic novel of “Macbeth,” Mr. Grandt could not resist bragging a little in the newsletter he distributes as a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Mr. Grandt’sdaughter, Eve Grandt, co-illustrated a version of “Macbeth.” He said he was taken aback by conflict-of-interest charges. "I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it," he said.
“Best New Book: Grandt, Eve, ‘Shakespeare’s Macbeth — The Manga Edition,’ ” he wrote under the heading “Grandt’s Picks.”
He also placed a few copies of the book at a library display table, and posted a sign: “Best Book Ever Written.” If someone were interested, they got a book free.
But one person’s parental pride is another panel’s ethical transgression.
On Monday, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced it had settled a case it had brought against Mr. Grandt for promoting his daughter’s work. He agreed to pay a $500 fine and admit in a three-page stipulation that he had violated the city ethics code.
Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way.
“There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”
The New York City Charter warns public servants about taking actions in their official roles that benefit them personally, and the conflicts board is empowered to interpret the code and bring cases. Last week, for example, the conflicts board ruled that City Council members would not violate the charter if they were to vote to extend or abolish the term limits now scheduled to remove them from office.
Mr. Grandt, on the other hand. ...
“It’s unbelievable,” the 61-year-old former social studies teacher said.
Officials of the conflicts board declined to comment on their reasoning.
Mr. Grandt, one of three librarians at Brooklyn Tech, said he had donated many books to the library, including a copy of the book by his 28-year-old daughter, her first as an illustrator. The book, published in February by Wiley Publishing, is a drawn version of the Shakespeare text, an approach that, among other things, might entice young readers’ interest in the classics. Adam Sexton is listed as author and Candice Chow as co-illustrator.
A reviewer on Amazon wrote that the book was “far superior to Cliff Notes or the old Classic Comics” as a primer on the play.
Mr. Grandt said his daughter was paid a few thousand dollars for her drawings. “There are so many good ones,” Mr. Grandt said, flipping through the illustrations, some rather gory. “I like these full-page ones. They have a Gothic air to them.”
Mr. Grandt said he did not envision that putting a few copies of his daughter’s book on a table or promoting it in the newsletter last spring would cross the line.
“I’m supposed to, as part of my job, display new books and encourage the kids to read new books,” he said. “So here, I displayed my daughter’s book and encouraged the kids to read it and am told that I had done something illegal.”
Trouble first surfaced in June, he said, when he was summoned to an assistant principal’s office. Representatives from the city’s Department of Investigation were there to ask about the book.
In August, the conflicts board sent him a letter telling him he could lose his job and be stripped of his teaching license. He recalled the board wanted to impose a $1,000 fine. Mr. Grandt could not find a lawyer to represent him for less than that amount, but he and his wife, a legal secretary, were ultimately able to negotiate a lower fine.
The biggest punishment, though, according to Mr. Grandt, was feeling he had no choice but to remove the book from the school’s library.
“I decided not only would I take the table down, but I’d better remove the book from the catalog and take it permanently off the shelves,” he said, figuring “that would be the best course of action.”
IN THE MATTER OF ROBERT GRANDT
COIB CASE NO. 2008-609
OCTOBER 17, 2008
SUMMARY: The Board fined a Librarian for the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”) $500 for using his position to promote a recently-published book illustrated by his daughter. The Librarian acknowledged that in the April/May 2008 edition of his school’s Library Newsletter, which newsletter it was among his job duties to prepare, he included a section on “Best New Book” featuring the name of his daughter and her recently-published book. The Librarian also acknowledged that, around the same time, he set up a table in the school’s library with copies of his daughter’s book and a sign stating “The Best Book Ever Written” with the name of his daughter and her book. The Librarian admitted that his conduct violated the City of New York’s conflicts of interest law, which prohibits a public servant from using or attempting to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant, which would include the public servant’s child. COIB v. Grandt, COIB Case No. 2008-609 (2008).
STIPULATION AND DISPOSITION:
WHEREAS, the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board (the “Board”) and Respondent Robert Grandt wish to resolve this matter on the following terms,
Respondent Robert Grandt states the following:
1. From June 2, 1969, to the present, I have been employed by the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”), most recently as the Librarian assigned to Brooklyn Technical High School.
2. During that time, I have been public servant within the meaning of Chapter 68 of the City Charter (“Chapter 68”).
3. Among my duties as Librarian at the Brooklyn Technical High School, I prepare a bimonthly Library Newsletter. In the April/May 2008 edition of the Library Newsletter, I included a section on “Best New Book” that listed in large bold typeface the name of my daughter and of a recently-published book that she illustrated.
4. In or around the time of the distribution of the April/May 2008 edition of the Library Newsletter, I set up a table in the school’s library with a sign stating “The Best Book Ever Written” and the name of my daughter and of her book. The table included a display of a few copies of my daughter’s book.
5. I represent to the Board that at the time I took these actions, I did not realize that they represented a conflict of interest. I took these actions out of pride for my daughter. 2
6. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that by using my City position as a Librarian to promote a book illustrated by my daughter, I violated Chapter 68, specifically City Charter § 2604(b)(3). City Charter § 2604(b)(3) states: “No public servant shall use or attempt to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant.” Pursuant to City Charter § 2601(5), a person “associated” with the public servant includes a child.
7. In recognition of the foregoing, I agree to pay a fine of Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) to the Board upon signature of this Disposition, by money order or by cashier, bank, or certified check, made payable to the “New York City Conflicts of Interest Board.” 8. I agree that this Disposition is a public and final resolution of the charges against me. 9. I knowingly waive on my behalf and on behalf of my successors and assigns any rights to commence any judicial or administrative proceeding or appeal before any court of competent jurisdiction, administrative tribunal, political subdivision, or office of the City or the State of New York or the United States, and to contest the lawfulness, authority, jurisdiction, or power of the Board in imposing the penalty which is embodied in this Disposition, and I waive any right to make any legal or equitable claims or to initiate legal proceedings of any kind against the Board or any members or employees thereof relating to or arising out of this Disposition or the matters recited therein. 10. I confirm that I have entered into this Disposition freely, knowingly, and intentionally, without coercion or duress, and after having had the opportunity to be represented by an attorney of my choice and having declined that opportunity; that I accept all terms and conditions contained herein without reliance on any other promises or offers previously made or tendered by any past or present representative of the Board; and that I fully understand all the terms of this Disposition. 11. Any material misstatement of the facts of this matter, including of the Disposition, by me or by my attorney or agent shall, at the discretion of the Board, be deemed a waiver of confidentiality of this matter. 12. The Board accepts this Disposition and the terms contained herein as a final disposition of the above-captioned matter only, and affirmatively states that other than as recited herein, no further action will be taken by the Board against Respondent based upon the facts and circumstances set forth herein, except that the Board shall be entitled to take any and all actions necessary to enforce the terms of this Disposition. 3
13. This Disposition shall not be effective until all parties have affixed their signatures below.
Dated: September 25, 2008 /s/
Robert Grandt Respondent
Dated: October 17, 2008 /s/ Steven B. Rosenfeld Chair NYC Conflicts of Interest Board
Monday, October 27, 2008
Teachers' Survey Finds that Policing and Excessive Suspensions Undermine Learning, and Teachers Support Human Rights Approaches to Discipline
Support Human Rights Approaches to Discipline
For Immediate Release - New Report
Teachers' Survey Finds that Policing and Excessive Suspensions Undermine Learning, and Teachers Support Human Rights Approaches to Discipline
Report available at - http://www.nesri.org/Teachers_Talk.pdf
Contact: Elizabeth Sullivan, NESRI, Ph: 646-342-0541, Fax: 212.385.6124,
liz@nesri.org, www.nesri.org
Sally Lee, Teachers Unite, Ph: 212-675-4790, sally@teachersunitesall,
www.teachersunite.net
NEW YORK - October 22, 2008. Teachers in New York City public schools say that punitive approaches toward children, such as aggressive policing,
suspensions and other reactive strategies, undermine the human right to
education by failing to address the causes of conflict and criminalizing the
school environment, according to a report by Teachers Unite and the National
Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI).
In the report, "Teachers Talk: School Culture, Safety and Human Rights,"
teachers call for preventive and constructive approaches to discipline that
create positive school cultures, teach behavior skills and use conflict
resolution. Among the largest threats to safety in schools, teachers cited
overcrowding, lack of quality training for teachers, inadequate numbers of
guidance counselors and social workers, and the lack of opportunities for
teachers, students and parents to influence discipline policies.
Sally Lee, Executive Director of Teachers Unite said, "the observations
shared by these teachers are powerful arguments for a new vision of safety
in the schools where they work, and powerful indictments of the city's
approach to education in general. Youth of color in particular, who make up
over 85% of the student population in New York City, are criminalized in
schools and denied their right to education by the lack of resources."
Based on surveys of more than 300 middle and high school teachers in over
136 public schools across the city, as well as focus groups with more than a
dozen teachers, the report finds that:
* Less than 45% of teachers said that exclusionary punishments, like
suspensions, are effective. By contrast, over 80% of teachers said that
conflict resolution, guidance counseling and mediation are effective for
improving discipline and safety in school.
* Over 59% of teachers said that School Safety Agents (SSAs) only
sometimes treat students with respect, and 13% said they never or rarely
treat students with respect.
* Over 18% of teachers said they have intervened on behalf of students
in incidents involving the police or SSAs. 42% of those teachers intervened
because of harassment or disrespectful behavior on the part of police
personnel towards students, or because they felt SSAs or police were
instigating or escalating a conflict.
* In schools with permanent metal detectors, 67% of teachers said that
students are always (23%) or sometimes (44%) late to first period class
because of metal detectors.
"Teachers Talk" proposes a human rights framework as an approach to
reforming discipline and improving school climate. The Convention on the
Rights of the Child, an important human rights treaty that is widely adopted
throughout the world, recognizes discipline as part of an educational
process to develop the social skills of students, encourage learning,
increase school attendance, and protect the dignity and safety of the child.
In surveys and focus groups, New York City teachers call for policies and
practices that protect these basic human rights standards and reflect a
holistic approach to improving safety. Teachers call for smaller classes,
more engaging curriculum, more access to guidance counselors and social
workers, classroom management and conflict resolution training, mediation
programs and restorative practices.
The report highlights positive models being used in three New York City
public schools - Eastside Community High School in Manhattan, Banana Kelly
High School in the Bronx and the James Baldwin School in Manhattan. At
Eastside Community High School, for example, the 100% RESPECT Campaign
involves students and staff in a process to discuss and define what respect
means in their community. Six months after the campaign was implemented in
the middle school grades, suspensions dropped by 45%.
Eastside Community High School was in the news a year ago when an incident
between a student and a School Safety Agent escalated, resulting in the
arrests of both the student and the principal who tried to prevent police
from taking the student out the front door in handcuffs. In many schools in
New York City that are working to create positive climates, the aggressive
presence of police is undermining their efforts.
"The Department of Education needs to support every school in New York City
in developing their own positive approach to discipline. New York City has
fallen behind other major school districts, like Chicago and Los Angeles,
which have embraced proactive citywide frameworks for discipline, like
restorative justice and Positive Behavior Supports, that guarantee students'
human right to education and dignity in school," says Elizabeth Sullivan,
Human Right to Education Program Director at the National Economic and
Social Rights Initiative (NESRI).
The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative is a non-profit
organization that works with organizers, policy advocates and legal
organizations to promote human rights in the United States. Teachers Unite
is a non-profit organization building a movement of public school teachers
who play a critical role in working for social justice. Both organizations
are funded by private foundations and individual donors.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Long Battle Expected on Plan to Fire Teachers
D.C. Union Being Aided By National Organization
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 25, 2008; B01
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and the Washington Teachers' Union -- aided by its national parent organization -- are digging in for what could be a protracted struggle over Rhee's plan to fire instructors deemed to be ineffective.
School officials have posted job openings for an unspecified number of "helping teachers" to counsel instructors who have received notice to improve or face termination. Principals have been asked to identify teachers who can be placed on the so-called 90-day plan, which gives teachers 90 school days -- or about five months -- to upgrade their performance. The helping teachers will also document all assistance given to instructors and report to central office administrators, according to the job description posted on the D.C. schools Web site.
The teachers union is gearing up to respond. In a letter to members earlier this month, WTU President George Parker said the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) will join the Washington local to "provide support and strategies" to instructors designated for the 90-day plan. Parker said this will probably come in the form of help from AFT and local union staff members who will work with targeted teachers to avoid dismissal.
"Our role for any teacher in the 90-day plan is to make sure they get the necessary support," Parker said.
School officials have declined to say how many of the city's 4,000 teachers they would like to replace. The 90-day provision has been on the books for years but has been difficult for school principals to administer. Paperwork, numerous binding deadlines for conferences with teachers and a series of required classroom observations are a major commitment of time. The helping teachers have also been a part of the evaluation system but are nearly always in short supply.
Rhee wants to reshape the city's teacher corps with instructors willing to tie job security to improved student achievement. Her proposal to boost salaries into the six figures, in exchange for a weakening of tenure protections, technically remains on the bargaining table as negotiations for a labor contract continue.
But union opposition to the plan, which requires teachers seeking top pay levels to go on probation for a year and risk dismissal if they do not meet performance standards, has significantly dimmed its prospects.
As a result, both sides are beginning to move the fight from the conference room into the schools.
In an August interview, AFT President Randi Weingarten said the national union was "not involved" in the Washington contract. But it has actually played a significant behind-the-scenes role, driven by the potential national impact of Rhee's salary plan -- especially its targeting of teacher tenure. An AFT national representative, George Bordenave, has been detailed to the Washington Teachers' Union offices for the past several months. The AFT also paid for a membership poll this summer that revealed opposition to Rhee's plan by a 3-to-1 margin. In large public gatherings of teachers, however, sentiment seems more evenly split.
Parker said in his letter that the local union is "working closely" with the AFT to formulate a response to Rhee's salary package. It is expected that the response will call for a larger District investment in developing the skills of teachers and less emphasis on their possible dismissal.
In an Oct. 8 letter to the New York Times, Weingarten called Rhee's salary plan one she "intends to impose upon teachers, not one she hopes to develop with teachers. And it is one that will, in effect, create a temporary work force of highly paid, transitory teachers who will spend much of their time looking over their shoulders at one another -- not at the children in front of them."
There is a history of tension between Rhee and Weingarten, who also serves as head of the New York City teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers. The New Teacher Project, the nonprofit organization founded by Rhee, wrote a report critical of a 2005 labor contract negotiated by Weingarten that eventually resulted in New York City paying $81 million in salary and benefits to teachers unable to find positions at other city schools after their jobs were eliminated.
George Jackson, an AFT spokesman, said Weingarten was not available yesterday for an interview. Rhee, asked whether she regarded the AFT's involvement as unwarranted or inappropriate, called it "disingenuous."
"The national union's claims that they have no involvement in local negotiations have been patently false," she said in a statement. "If the national [union] wants to insert themselves in this negotiation then they should be at least honest about their involvement."
Rhee is also developing a new teacher evaluation system, to be fully implemented next fall, based on test scores and other achievement benchmarks yet to be announced.
Parker told teachers in his letter that administrators have a right to set evaluation methods. But he also said that the union can contest the details if they will be harmful to teachers. Such a challenge would come in the filing of a complaint with the District's Public Employee Relations Board.
"The WTU will legally challenge any such process that is unfair to our members," Parker wrote.
Rhee said earlier this month that she had hoped to secure the changes she wanted and pay teachers well. But the $200 million in foundation money for the first five years of the program was contingent on a labor deal that broke new ground, she said.
When talks stalled, she announced a "Plan B" to bypass the negotiating table and use the 90-day provision and a new evaluation process to eliminate weak teachers.
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 25, 2008; B01
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and the Washington Teachers' Union -- aided by its national parent organization -- are digging in for what could be a protracted struggle over Rhee's plan to fire instructors deemed to be ineffective.
School officials have posted job openings for an unspecified number of "helping teachers" to counsel instructors who have received notice to improve or face termination. Principals have been asked to identify teachers who can be placed on the so-called 90-day plan, which gives teachers 90 school days -- or about five months -- to upgrade their performance. The helping teachers will also document all assistance given to instructors and report to central office administrators, according to the job description posted on the D.C. schools Web site.
The teachers union is gearing up to respond. In a letter to members earlier this month, WTU President George Parker said the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) will join the Washington local to "provide support and strategies" to instructors designated for the 90-day plan. Parker said this will probably come in the form of help from AFT and local union staff members who will work with targeted teachers to avoid dismissal.
"Our role for any teacher in the 90-day plan is to make sure they get the necessary support," Parker said.
School officials have declined to say how many of the city's 4,000 teachers they would like to replace. The 90-day provision has been on the books for years but has been difficult for school principals to administer. Paperwork, numerous binding deadlines for conferences with teachers and a series of required classroom observations are a major commitment of time. The helping teachers have also been a part of the evaluation system but are nearly always in short supply.
Rhee wants to reshape the city's teacher corps with instructors willing to tie job security to improved student achievement. Her proposal to boost salaries into the six figures, in exchange for a weakening of tenure protections, technically remains on the bargaining table as negotiations for a labor contract continue.
But union opposition to the plan, which requires teachers seeking top pay levels to go on probation for a year and risk dismissal if they do not meet performance standards, has significantly dimmed its prospects.
As a result, both sides are beginning to move the fight from the conference room into the schools.
In an August interview, AFT President Randi Weingarten said the national union was "not involved" in the Washington contract. But it has actually played a significant behind-the-scenes role, driven by the potential national impact of Rhee's salary plan -- especially its targeting of teacher tenure. An AFT national representative, George Bordenave, has been detailed to the Washington Teachers' Union offices for the past several months. The AFT also paid for a membership poll this summer that revealed opposition to Rhee's plan by a 3-to-1 margin. In large public gatherings of teachers, however, sentiment seems more evenly split.
Parker said in his letter that the local union is "working closely" with the AFT to formulate a response to Rhee's salary package. It is expected that the response will call for a larger District investment in developing the skills of teachers and less emphasis on their possible dismissal.
In an Oct. 8 letter to the New York Times, Weingarten called Rhee's salary plan one she "intends to impose upon teachers, not one she hopes to develop with teachers. And it is one that will, in effect, create a temporary work force of highly paid, transitory teachers who will spend much of their time looking over their shoulders at one another -- not at the children in front of them."
There is a history of tension between Rhee and Weingarten, who also serves as head of the New York City teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers. The New Teacher Project, the nonprofit organization founded by Rhee, wrote a report critical of a 2005 labor contract negotiated by Weingarten that eventually resulted in New York City paying $81 million in salary and benefits to teachers unable to find positions at other city schools after their jobs were eliminated.
George Jackson, an AFT spokesman, said Weingarten was not available yesterday for an interview. Rhee, asked whether she regarded the AFT's involvement as unwarranted or inappropriate, called it "disingenuous."
"The national union's claims that they have no involvement in local negotiations have been patently false," she said in a statement. "If the national [union] wants to insert themselves in this negotiation then they should be at least honest about their involvement."
Rhee is also developing a new teacher evaluation system, to be fully implemented next fall, based on test scores and other achievement benchmarks yet to be announced.
Parker told teachers in his letter that administrators have a right to set evaluation methods. But he also said that the union can contest the details if they will be harmful to teachers. Such a challenge would come in the filing of a complaint with the District's Public Employee Relations Board.
"The WTU will legally challenge any such process that is unfair to our members," Parker wrote.
Rhee said earlier this month that she had hoped to secure the changes she wanted and pay teachers well. But the $200 million in foundation money for the first five years of the program was contingent on a labor deal that broke new ground, she said.
When talks stalled, she announced a "Plan B" to bypass the negotiating table and use the 90-day provision and a new evaluation process to eliminate weak teachers.
Michael Bloomberg's Velvet Coup
Is Mayor Mugabe an outrageous comparison?
By Tom Robbins
Village Voice
published: October 22, 2008
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-22/columns/michael-bloomberg-s-velvet-coup/
*
Mugabe? OK, it's an outrageous comparison. Forgive me. Mike Bloomberg would never shut down newspapers or use brutal thugs against dissenters in order to hold onto power. He doesn't have to. He buys them.
Mugabe is for the likes of Charles Barron, the radical councilman who embarrassed the city a few years ago by hosting the Zimbabwean tyrant at City Hall. Funny thing, there was Barron at last week's council hearings demanding to be heard on the mayor's bill to gut term limits—a reform confirmed in two separate voter referendums—in order to give himself four more years in office. There was Barron offering the simplest route to continued democracy: Do nothing.
"Why do we have to change anything?" he asked after Mario Cuomo's lead-off testimony supporting Bloomberg's bid. "The people have spoken twice already. Why not just leave things as they are?"
Barron's simple questions were matched only by The New York Times's fearless editorial page. Alone of the city's dailies, the Times refused to bend its principles. By changing the rules at this late date, the Times warned, the mayor "will tarnish his legacy and further weaken the systems of checks and balances that are essential to . . . democracy."
Uh, wait. Sorry, wrong day. That was the Times in August lecturing President Álvaro Uribe of Columbia "lest he become just another strongman" by grabbing a third term in violation of his country's constitution.
Let's see. Here it is. How could I miss it? It's got that tough, right-to-the-point headline: "The Mayor's Dangerous Idea." The mayor "wants to extend his current term of office," the editorial forthrightly states. "This is a terrible idea. . . . The very concept goes against the most basic of American convictions, that we live in a nation governed by rule of law." Bless the good old Times. Others may cut and run in the face of tyranny. It forever stands tall.
Wait! How did that sneak in here? That was the Old Gray Lady taking Rudy Giuliani to the ethical cleaners back in September 2001—that month of true fear and fiscal panic—when he sought a mere three more months to remain in office.
I know it's here somewhere. Oh, right, that one: "It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to legislatively rewrite a law that voters have twice approved at the ballot box. . . . It makes us uncomfortable too. . . . But we have concluded now that changing the law legislatively does not make us nearly as uncomfortable as keeping it." Hmmm. Well, never mind.
Welcome to Bloomville, where up is down and down up, where it's Charles Barron hoisting democracy's flag, while the Times connives with the Post and the News to provide cover for the coup. Where tycoons of business and real estate call the shots while the once-mighty unions fall meekly into line or merely whisper their opposition for fear of offending the once and future mayatollah. Where a cabal of thieves calling themselves council members leap aboard Bloomberg's ship as eagerly as Somalian pirates lurking for booty in the Indian Ocean.
Yes, Bloomville. We may as well give him naming rights, too. He's bought and paid for everything else. We are inside Jimmy Stewart's unwonderful world where muddled old Bedford Falls has come under one-man rule and morphed into an antiseptic version of anything-goes Pottersville.
Could Columbia's Uribe—or any dreaded Latin American strongman—have done any better at mustering proxies to defend his putsch? Consider the elder Cuomo: The ex-governor was as charming as ever, offering a rambling denunciation of term limits and a sterling endorsement of a continued Bloomberg mayoralty. "He is spectacularly well-suited to the task," said Cuomo.
Once the champion of the poor and the forgotten, Cuomo now carries the business card of the city's elite, a group passionately committed to keeping one of its very own in City Hall. Cuomo is of counsel to Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the law firm that serves as the Washington lobbyist for Bloomberg L.P., the mayor's $22 billion corporation. The firm is also defending the company in a discrimination lawsuit brought by 58 female Bloomberg employees. Last summer, it handled the $4.4 billion buyout of Bloomberg's longtime partner, Merrill Lynch.
The ties stem from close friendship: Top Willkie partner Richard DeScherer handles the Bloomberg family foundation and is an executor of the mayor's estate. He serves on Bloomberg L.P.'s executive committee and, oh yes, on the city's sports foundation. How better to help a friend than to send forth the firm's most famous envoy to do battle for one more mayoral term?
The taint of Bloomberg's multibillion-dollar reach—as mayor, businessman, and philanthropist—fell on many of the true believers who testified in favor of the mayor's end run around the 15-year-old term-limits law.
Here was Geoffrey Canada, celebrated Harlem anti-poverty fighter, whose reasoning for giving the council and Bloomberg an added term conveniently mirrored the mayor's own: "The city is facing its worst crisis in memory," he said. Was that the great Geoff Canada talking? Or was it the director of an organization that depends on $18 million in city contracts and the mayor's "anonymous" private donations?
Echoing Canada was George McDonald, president of the Doe Fund. The homeless-assistance group also benefits from the mayor's private giving and holds $25 million in city contracts. McDonald didn't wait for the hearings. On Columbus Day, he dispatched a crew of Doe Funders to the parade to cheer the mayor with signs proclaiming "Now More Than Ever." Newsday's Dan Janison watched these antics. "Must have been an impromptu decision to volunteer for this on a holiday," he noted.
Outside the council chambers, McDonald began sputtering when Henry Stern, former parks commissioner and foe of the mayor's bill, asked him if his city contracts had influenced his thinking. "You're saying I'm corrupt!" McDonald shouted. "We get $10 million from the city, and we do good work!"
Actually, fear was the most corrupting factor in City Hall last week: fear of angering a mayor who may well rule until 2013. Fear paralyzed the city's most powerful unions—the only possible political counterweight. The teachers' union quietly passed a resolution calling for term limits to be submitted for a new referendum—the thrust of a bill proposed by leading council dissenters Bill de Blasio and Tish James. The union never even issued a press release on it. The battlefield was left to the Working Families Party, of which the teachers are influential members. The WFP mounted a valiant campaign with a tiny budget. It had $50,000 for a TV ad buy opposing the mayor. Last year, the teachers' union spent $2.1 million on its Albany lobbying alone.
Labor's loudest voices at the hearings were in mayoral lockstep. Leaders of the building trades talked about how good Bloomberg has been for construction jobs. The uniformed municipal union leaders repeated in tandem the mayor's mantra that regular elections are the real term limits. Unmentioned were recent generous contracts or the ones now pending. AWOL from the scene was the biggest municipal workers' group, District Council 37. The union's city contract is currently being negotiated.
Only plucky Arthur Cheliotes, leader of Local 1180's city administrative workers, stepped forward to defend labor's honor. Cheliotes looked lonely as he waited hours to speak. "The mayor has cleverly gamed the system by not letting term limits get on the ballot this November," he said when he finally testified.
By the way, did you know that dissident labor leaders keep getting killed in Uribe's Columbia?
By Tom Robbins
Village Voice
published: October 22, 2008
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-22/columns/michael-bloomberg-s-velvet-coup/
*
Mugabe? OK, it's an outrageous comparison. Forgive me. Mike Bloomberg would never shut down newspapers or use brutal thugs against dissenters in order to hold onto power. He doesn't have to. He buys them.
Mugabe is for the likes of Charles Barron, the radical councilman who embarrassed the city a few years ago by hosting the Zimbabwean tyrant at City Hall. Funny thing, there was Barron at last week's council hearings demanding to be heard on the mayor's bill to gut term limits—a reform confirmed in two separate voter referendums—in order to give himself four more years in office. There was Barron offering the simplest route to continued democracy: Do nothing.
"Why do we have to change anything?" he asked after Mario Cuomo's lead-off testimony supporting Bloomberg's bid. "The people have spoken twice already. Why not just leave things as they are?"
Barron's simple questions were matched only by The New York Times's fearless editorial page. Alone of the city's dailies, the Times refused to bend its principles. By changing the rules at this late date, the Times warned, the mayor "will tarnish his legacy and further weaken the systems of checks and balances that are essential to . . . democracy."
Uh, wait. Sorry, wrong day. That was the Times in August lecturing President Álvaro Uribe of Columbia "lest he become just another strongman" by grabbing a third term in violation of his country's constitution.
Let's see. Here it is. How could I miss it? It's got that tough, right-to-the-point headline: "The Mayor's Dangerous Idea." The mayor "wants to extend his current term of office," the editorial forthrightly states. "This is a terrible idea. . . . The very concept goes against the most basic of American convictions, that we live in a nation governed by rule of law." Bless the good old Times. Others may cut and run in the face of tyranny. It forever stands tall.
Wait! How did that sneak in here? That was the Old Gray Lady taking Rudy Giuliani to the ethical cleaners back in September 2001—that month of true fear and fiscal panic—when he sought a mere three more months to remain in office.
I know it's here somewhere. Oh, right, that one: "It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to legislatively rewrite a law that voters have twice approved at the ballot box. . . . It makes us uncomfortable too. . . . But we have concluded now that changing the law legislatively does not make us nearly as uncomfortable as keeping it." Hmmm. Well, never mind.
Welcome to Bloomville, where up is down and down up, where it's Charles Barron hoisting democracy's flag, while the Times connives with the Post and the News to provide cover for the coup. Where tycoons of business and real estate call the shots while the once-mighty unions fall meekly into line or merely whisper their opposition for fear of offending the once and future mayatollah. Where a cabal of thieves calling themselves council members leap aboard Bloomberg's ship as eagerly as Somalian pirates lurking for booty in the Indian Ocean.
Yes, Bloomville. We may as well give him naming rights, too. He's bought and paid for everything else. We are inside Jimmy Stewart's unwonderful world where muddled old Bedford Falls has come under one-man rule and morphed into an antiseptic version of anything-goes Pottersville.
Could Columbia's Uribe—or any dreaded Latin American strongman—have done any better at mustering proxies to defend his putsch? Consider the elder Cuomo: The ex-governor was as charming as ever, offering a rambling denunciation of term limits and a sterling endorsement of a continued Bloomberg mayoralty. "He is spectacularly well-suited to the task," said Cuomo.
Once the champion of the poor and the forgotten, Cuomo now carries the business card of the city's elite, a group passionately committed to keeping one of its very own in City Hall. Cuomo is of counsel to Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the law firm that serves as the Washington lobbyist for Bloomberg L.P., the mayor's $22 billion corporation. The firm is also defending the company in a discrimination lawsuit brought by 58 female Bloomberg employees. Last summer, it handled the $4.4 billion buyout of Bloomberg's longtime partner, Merrill Lynch.
The ties stem from close friendship: Top Willkie partner Richard DeScherer handles the Bloomberg family foundation and is an executor of the mayor's estate. He serves on Bloomberg L.P.'s executive committee and, oh yes, on the city's sports foundation. How better to help a friend than to send forth the firm's most famous envoy to do battle for one more mayoral term?
The taint of Bloomberg's multibillion-dollar reach—as mayor, businessman, and philanthropist—fell on many of the true believers who testified in favor of the mayor's end run around the 15-year-old term-limits law.
Here was Geoffrey Canada, celebrated Harlem anti-poverty fighter, whose reasoning for giving the council and Bloomberg an added term conveniently mirrored the mayor's own: "The city is facing its worst crisis in memory," he said. Was that the great Geoff Canada talking? Or was it the director of an organization that depends on $18 million in city contracts and the mayor's "anonymous" private donations?
Echoing Canada was George McDonald, president of the Doe Fund. The homeless-assistance group also benefits from the mayor's private giving and holds $25 million in city contracts. McDonald didn't wait for the hearings. On Columbus Day, he dispatched a crew of Doe Funders to the parade to cheer the mayor with signs proclaiming "Now More Than Ever." Newsday's Dan Janison watched these antics. "Must have been an impromptu decision to volunteer for this on a holiday," he noted.
Outside the council chambers, McDonald began sputtering when Henry Stern, former parks commissioner and foe of the mayor's bill, asked him if his city contracts had influenced his thinking. "You're saying I'm corrupt!" McDonald shouted. "We get $10 million from the city, and we do good work!"
Actually, fear was the most corrupting factor in City Hall last week: fear of angering a mayor who may well rule until 2013. Fear paralyzed the city's most powerful unions—the only possible political counterweight. The teachers' union quietly passed a resolution calling for term limits to be submitted for a new referendum—the thrust of a bill proposed by leading council dissenters Bill de Blasio and Tish James. The union never even issued a press release on it. The battlefield was left to the Working Families Party, of which the teachers are influential members. The WFP mounted a valiant campaign with a tiny budget. It had $50,000 for a TV ad buy opposing the mayor. Last year, the teachers' union spent $2.1 million on its Albany lobbying alone.
Labor's loudest voices at the hearings were in mayoral lockstep. Leaders of the building trades talked about how good Bloomberg has been for construction jobs. The uniformed municipal union leaders repeated in tandem the mayor's mantra that regular elections are the real term limits. Unmentioned were recent generous contracts or the ones now pending. AWOL from the scene was the biggest municipal workers' group, District Council 37. The union's city contract is currently being negotiated.
Only plucky Arthur Cheliotes, leader of Local 1180's city administrative workers, stepped forward to defend labor's honor. Cheliotes looked lonely as he waited hours to speak. "The mayor has cleverly gamed the system by not letting term limits get on the ballot this November," he said when he finally testified.
By the way, did you know that dissident labor leaders keep getting killed in Uribe's Columbia?
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Chronic Absence - 90,000 a month or more
NY Times on the issue.
Leonie Haimson reports:
The Milano school report on the problem of chronic absenteeism in elementary schools is posted here: http://www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/strengthening_schools.html
Excerpt:
The center’s analysis of Department of Education (DOE) data found that more than 20 percent of the city’s elementary school pupils were chronically absent during the 2007–08 school year—that is, they missed at least 20 days of the 185-day school year. In districts serving poor neighborhoods, the numbers are even higher. In the south and central Bronx, in central Harlem, and in several neighborhoods in central Brooklyn, 30 percent or more of the pupils were chronically absent, according to the analysis. In contrast, only 5.2 percent of pupils were chronically absent in District 26, which serves the middle class neighborhood of Bayside, Queens… Of the 725 public schools serving elementary grades (excluding charter schools and schools serving severely disabled children), 165 have chronic absentee rates of 30 percent or more…
There are bureaucratic reasons as well. For example, when the building housing P.S. 2 in the
Morrisania section of the Bronx was redesigned to serve high school students, the younger children were reassigned to a school building nearly half a mile away. A large number of pupils simply don’t make it to the new location every day. At P.S. 2, an astonishing 42 percent of the students had more than 20 absences in the 2007–08 school year, according to the analysis of DOE data by the Center.
New York City parents have also long complained of erratic and unpredictable school bus service. Children who take school buses tend to have lower rates of attendance than those who walk to school, because a child who misses a bus may have no other way to get to school, according to school officials. Special education students can be inexplicably assigned to schools on the other end of their borough, reports one Bronx family worker.
***MEDIA ADVISORY***
DEPUTY MAYOR FOR EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DENNIS M. WALCOTT TO DISCUSS SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY IN ENSURING SUCCESS OF ALL STUDENTS AT FORUM SPONSORED BY THE NEW SCHOOL’S
CENTER FOR NEW YORK AFFAIRS
Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development Dennis M. Walcott will speak at a forum addressing the impact of chronic absenteeism in New York City public schools, following the release of a report from The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs, Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families. Deputy Mayor Walcott will talk about the importance of creating in all schools a culture that recognizes that failure for our students, regardless of their family or life circumstances, is not an option. He will also reinforce the Department of Education’s efforts to hold schools accountable for students’ academic achievement, and highlight efforts to combat chronic absenteeism and the role of community collaboration and partnerships in that work.
Leonie Haimson reports:
The Milano school report on the problem of chronic absenteeism in elementary schools is posted here: http://www.newschool.edu/milano/nycaffairs/strengthening_schools.html
Excerpt:
The center’s analysis of Department of Education (DOE) data found that more than 20 percent of the city’s elementary school pupils were chronically absent during the 2007–08 school year—that is, they missed at least 20 days of the 185-day school year. In districts serving poor neighborhoods, the numbers are even higher. In the south and central Bronx, in central Harlem, and in several neighborhoods in central Brooklyn, 30 percent or more of the pupils were chronically absent, according to the analysis. In contrast, only 5.2 percent of pupils were chronically absent in District 26, which serves the middle class neighborhood of Bayside, Queens… Of the 725 public schools serving elementary grades (excluding charter schools and schools serving severely disabled children), 165 have chronic absentee rates of 30 percent or more…
There are bureaucratic reasons as well. For example, when the building housing P.S. 2 in the
Morrisania section of the Bronx was redesigned to serve high school students, the younger children were reassigned to a school building nearly half a mile away. A large number of pupils simply don’t make it to the new location every day. At P.S. 2, an astonishing 42 percent of the students had more than 20 absences in the 2007–08 school year, according to the analysis of DOE data by the Center.
New York City parents have also long complained of erratic and unpredictable school bus service. Children who take school buses tend to have lower rates of attendance than those who walk to school, because a child who misses a bus may have no other way to get to school, according to school officials. Special education students can be inexplicably assigned to schools on the other end of their borough, reports one Bronx family worker.
***MEDIA ADVISORY***
DEPUTY MAYOR FOR EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DENNIS M. WALCOTT TO DISCUSS SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY IN ENSURING SUCCESS OF ALL STUDENTS AT FORUM SPONSORED BY THE NEW SCHOOL’S
CENTER FOR NEW YORK AFFAIRS
Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development Dennis M. Walcott will speak at a forum addressing the impact of chronic absenteeism in New York City public schools, following the release of a report from The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs, Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families. Deputy Mayor Walcott will talk about the importance of creating in all schools a culture that recognizes that failure for our students, regardless of their family or life circumstances, is not an option. He will also reinforce the Department of Education’s efforts to hold schools accountable for students’ academic achievement, and highlight efforts to combat chronic absenteeism and the role of community collaboration and partnerships in that work.
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