Jim Calantjis on Chancellor Carmen Farina's "Fake News" in the Letter 1/16/17 to the NY POST

Jim Calantjis is a well-known, very respected advocate for teachers for many years. He has the following bio on his excellent blog School Leadership Team Support Center:

I am one of the founding members of the School Leadership Team Empowerment Alliance (an incorporated non-profit organization)along with Jacob Morris (a parent advocate from Manhattan) and Val Mello (formerly an education researcher at the National Center for Schools and Communities at Fordham University). I have been an educator in New York City schools for 23 years.I was elected as a teacher representative to our SLT in 1998 and served until 2006.During that time, I was Co-Chairman(2 years) and Chairman(2 years)of our School Leadership Team. I became an advocate for SLT empowerment in early 2004 as I saw that the NYCDOE was not supporting the collaborative role of SLTs as mandated by State law and Chancellor's Regulations. As a result, SLTs were shut out of the budget process and Principals began to dominate teams.Due to lack of training and lack of DOE committment, most teams are not functioning today. My purpose is to support parents and teachers on SLTs through this web site

View my complete profile

Below is his letter in response to Carmen Farina's letter to the NYPOST:

From: calantjis <calantjis@aol.com>
To: cgfarina <cgfarina@schools.nyc.gov>
Cc: sedelman <sedelman@nypost.com>; letters <letters@nypost.com>
Sent: Mon, Jan 16, 2017 11:51 am
Subject: Letter to NY Post by Chancelor Farina -1/16/2017

 Chancellor Farina in her letter to the NY Post entitled, "Progress in the City Schools" (1/16/2017) claims, " NYC's schools are the most successful they have ever been." She then cites certain "facts" to support her claims.

  

  However, when we delve more deeply into these assertions, we find them mostly hollow. She cites a graduation rate of 70.5% (2015-2016) but leaves out that only about 34.6% of these students are "college ready." "Many High Schools had 70% average graduation rates but college readiness rates lower than 20%."(Daily News, June 29,2016). She cites a college enrollment rate of 55%, as if that low number were anything to brag about,even though many of these students will never graduate due to inadequate academic preparation.A reason for this is that the High School graduation rate is inflated due to social promotion practices such as "credit recovery" and pressuring teachers to pass students regardless of merit.

 Chancellor Farina says the  dropout rate  "is the lowest on record", but at 9%, is still way too high for a school system of over 1.1 million students.

 While she cites that crime "is down 35% over 5 years", the problem of lack of discipline and disregarding of school rules is an issue that also needs to be addressed. Students are setting the tone in many of our middle and high schools while teachers feel helpless as administrators play the "blame game" and the DOE waters down discipline codes because of outside political pressure. Absenteeism and cutting of classes is rampant.

 The Chancellor mentions "record numbers of parents involved in their children's education", yet, School Leadership Teams, which  are made up of 50% parents are a scam. Principals have usurped the lawful responsibilities of School Leadership Teams to develop Comprehensive Educational Plans and participate in the development of school budgets. The DOE consistently undermines SLTs as legal school governance bodies. They have tried to keep  SLT meetings closed so that there is no transparency until the recent court decision on the Open Meetings Law.

 She states "working with dedicated teachers and principals",yet continues to maintain an ATR pool of teachers, guidance counselors, social workers,etc., who are dedicated educators. With nearly 1000 of these educators doing substitute duties in school rotation, the DOE wastes about 100 million taxpayer dollars a year. The ATR pool should be disbanned and these educators permanently placed.

 The Chancellor ends with the statement that everyone is entitled "to their own opinion, but not their own facts", criticizing  a Post Editorial citing " the city's failures to educate kids in its public schools". However, the facts the Chancellor states do not support the conclusion that the NYC schools are " the most successful they have ever been" and "moving in the right direction."

 The Chancellor is an experienced educator with many years in the NYC public school system. She knows what the real problems are and that they will only be fixed when we hold students to high academic standards and discipline expectations, respect our teachers, and truly invite parents to participate.

James Calantjis

NYC Educator

Middle Village, NY

James Calantjis, Proponent of School Leadership Teams and Participatory Democracy, Welcomes Supreme Court Decision That SLTs are Open Meetings

From Jim Calantjis:

This is a great victory and strong decision in keeping SLTs open to the public rather than hid in secrecy. However, just as important, was the statements made by the judge on page 9 of the decision. The judge affirmed that:

     "If it is filling its statutory role, a school's SLT is not  a mere advisor to the principal."

     " The role of an SLT in formulating its school's CEP is one of decision maker."

      "In fulfilling this role, the SLT acts in conjunction with and not subordinate to, the school's principal."

We should be communicating these facts to our SLTs, to embolden them to take back control of the process from the principals.

 

Dear Ms. Jackson-Chase,

Chief Legal Advisor for DOE)

 

Courtenaye Jackson-Chase

 

 It was a great pleasure to see the DOE's efforts to further marginalize School Leadership Teams defeated in today's court decision, Thomas v. DOE. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/262875757/Thomas-v-DOE-Decision-and-Judgment). 

  It is shameful that parents and teachers had to take the DOE to court to make the NYS Open Meetings Law applicable to SLTs. The legal department of the DOE has consistently tried to limit the powers and responsibilities of SLT's throughout the years, by deliberately misinterpreting State law or not enforcing it. This benign neglect even applied to its Chancellor Regulations (A-655,B-801) concerning the Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP) and budget responsibilities of SLTs. 

 Under the mission of "principal empowerment", lip service has been given to parental and teacher involvement in school governance, that is required through School Leadership Teams.

  It is important to note the following statements in the court decision, all on page 9:

"The role of an SLT in formulating its school's CEP is one of decision maker"

"In fulfilling this role, the SLT acts in conjunction with and not subordinate to, the school's principal"

"If it is fulfilling its statutory role, a school's SLT is not a mere advisor to the principal"

 

 School Leadership Teams are barely functioning with little or no training in CEP and budget matters, even though it is required by law. Principals have turned SLT's into  "informational Sessions" rather than shared decision making bodies concerning the development of CEPs as required.The DOE consistently refers to SLTs as advisory bodies.

Public Advocate Letitia James, who assisted Michael Thomas

 While the DOE was successful in taking away shared decision making in the development of the budget, SLTs still have budget responsibilities that are ignored. SLTs are to align the budget with the CEP in an active way as the law intends, not passively approve an alignment by the principal. They are also to advise the principal on all budget spending. This requires budget transparency and not secrecy,so that  SLTs can do their job.

 

 I realize that the legal department is working on behalf of the Chancellor and DOE leadership,who must accept primary responsibility for these many legal abuses that are intended to disempower SLT's. 

Sincerely,

James Calantjis

 

From Editor/Reporter Betsy Combier:

Carmen Farina made up her own rules for the SLT at PS 6: the group was made of 4 people. Carmen did not like the thought that anyone could challenge her authority as Principal, certainly not when it came to money - use of, secrecy in giving, paying out, etc.

 

I, a new parent to public schools for my children, reported her in 2001 for this violation of SLT rules, and the DOE reprimanded her:

 

Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City

Then she came after me, but was removed as principal.

Betsy Combier

James Calantjis Writes Carmen Farina: Stop The Bizarre Process of Observing ATRs

Jim Calantjis is a crusader. He took on the violations of law and process in School Leadership Teams, and has made a major impact on the information people who are on the SLT have and need to be effective.

Below is a letter he wrote both Chancellor Carmen Farina and UFT President Michael Mulgrew about ATRs being observed. Why did the UFT allow this? A highly trained professional becomes a substitute teacher, often not even in his/her subject area, then gets moved from school to school every week, and then has to deal with an observation that lasts all of a few minutes on what he/she taught in a classroom where the children are unknown, as is the curriculum?

C'mon, get these teachers back to their classrooms. Now.

Betsy Combier

Carmen Farina

To: cgfarina <cgfarina@schools.nyc.gov>
Cc: mmulgrew <mmulgrew@uft.org>
Sent: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 2:26 pm
Subject: Re: Roving ATR Supervisors

Dear Chancellor Farina,

 

  I thought I would inform you, in case you were not aware, about the ATR roving supervisors.

 

  The supervisors contact the ATRs and arrange to have them teach lessons in their subject areas in  schools they happen to be in that week. The ATR, whose job it is to cover classes and implement the absent teacher's lesson plan, is thrust into a teaching environment, where he/she does not know the students or the school environment. In many cases they are asked to teach  generic lessons and do not have access to classroom teaching resources. In essence,they are set up to fail, and at the mercy of the supervisors, who hold them and the lesson to unattainable standards.

 

  I think you can see how this practice certainly abuses the professionalism of teachers. They are being observed in an arbitrary and capricious manner without benefit of having a regular program or classes. They can not demonstrate effective classroom management, tone, differentiation of instruction or teaching rigor, in a one period lesson with students they do not know.

 

  ATRs should not be forced to conduct these high stakes lessons under these conditions. If the DOE wants to observe lessons, these teachers should be permanently placed in schools and in proper teaching environments.

 

 ATRs are valuable resources that are being wasted doing substitute work at high cost to city taxpayers. The DOE has hired 5000 teachers this school year while there are some 1200 ATRs.In addition,there is an ATR unit with several employees under Nicki Stanley at DOE central that adds to the cost along with the expense of roving supervisors.

 

 I hope you will take a close look in to this matter and dismantle this ATR unit and roving supervisors, placing ATRs back into permanent classroom settings.

 

Sincerely,

James Calantjis

Educator

 

The Case Against Carmen Farina