The Mayor's Incompetence and the Chancellor's Neglect and Lack of Skills Leave Parents On Their Own For September

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

According to parents, many NYC Department of Education teachers are not doing their jobs remotely and kids are just getting written assignments without any live teaching.

And according to UFT President Michael Mulgrew (UFT= United Federation of Teachers, the teachers' union), teachers will not be going back anytime soon:


Teachers will return in the fall if...
The city’s teachers union boss explains the COVID protection conditions for going back to school
By Michael Mulgrew, June 26, 2020
Opinion

This leaves parents, students, staff and employees wondering what will happen when September rolls in. This is not good. We are seeing two powerful men (Michael Mulgrew + NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza) battling for the $34 Billion dollars handed to the NYC DOE last year. It's always about money. Remember that.

This is the beginning of the end for the patterns and practice of the NYC DOE for the past two decades since Mayoral control took over, and changes were made to the UFT contract in 2005 (an example: in 2005 Randi Weingarten removed from the teachers' collective bargaining agreement the right to grieve letters to file). 

This is a good thing. In my opinion, the incompetence of Bill de Blasio points to the very obvious need to undo Mayoral control, elect all the members of the school board (the Panel For Educational Policy), and give parents once again the right to be heard and not pushed aside as trash.

Parents and teachers are not the only people who are frustrated with NYC's Mayor Bill:

Wiley Norvell (right), City Hall communications director, and Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s
press secretary (Twitter)

City Hall ‘demoralized’ by de Blasio as staffers jump ship

Betsy Combier
betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials 

Our politicians are slow learners: School approaches, and parents are left on their own

by Harry Siegel, NY Daily News, July 3, 2020

“We’re full steam ahead,” says the mayor.

“Schools will be opening in September. Each school will have a maximum number of kids that can be in that school with social distancing, using every conceivable space in that school” so that at least “some schools will be able to have all of their kids.”

But then the governor’s office says that “all such decisions are made by state government and not local government,” and that “the public should not be confused.” Confusingly, he hasn’t said a thing about his own policy — just that he alone has the power to make it.

And the teachers union says that “new federal funds, now being held up in Washington, are the only possible way New York City will be able to invest in the protective measures and staff required for schools to safely re-open in September — even on a limited basis.”

The union also says, more quietly, to teachers that they aren’t required to do synchronous instruction (you know, actual classroom teaching).

And Trump says, “I think we’re going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”

Man proposes and God disposes, of course, but no one is seriously proposing much here. The federal government hasn’t given any real guidance to the states. New York State hasn’t given any real guidance to local governments. (As Errol Louis noted: “New Jersey has a 104-page plan for reopening schools. New York has the usual petty power-play BS from Albany. And no plan.”) The city hasn’t offered any guidance to parents that they have any reason to trust.

Sure, Trump is a jackass and a menace, and yes, the fish stinks from the head. But “leaders” at every level of government keep talking about how they’re going to get things going again, without clearly defined rules and guidance. Everyone keeps outsourcing responsibility, so that it falls on parents to figure things out for themselves.

As The News noted, de Blasio has continued to put off hard budget choices even as tax revenue has plummeted. If Washington leaves a big hole in Albany’s budget, as it well might, there’s little doubt that Cuomo will pass that hole on to the city and the rest of the state’s local governments. Everyone keeps passing the buck, while talking about their leadership.

Hours after de Blasio’s big talk about reopening on Thursday, UFT boss Michael Mulgrew told NY1′s Jillian Jorgensen that City Hall “has refused to engage on any sort of how-to plan” about reopening schools. He added that for the mayor “to just pop up today and say ‘I’m opening schools’ is not going to give any comfort whatsoever.”

It was one thing to close schools through June in April, but quite another to have no plan for September in July. There’s still no evidence that Zoom school works for students. There’s no question that it’s been a disaster for working parents, and children with special needs, and a huge obstacle to restarting the economy or anything else.

The first four examples of child neglect provided by New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services are “failure to support a child’s educational need…failure to provide adequate food, clothing, or shelter, failure to provide medical or mental health care…and leaving a child alone who is not developmentally able to be left alone without adequate supervision.”

With the CARES Act unemployment benefit due to end later this month and New York City’s eviction courts back open again, many parents are facing a terrible choice between breaking the second rule of neglect, or breaking the first, third and fourth. Who wants to choose between supporting their children and neglecting them?

For parents who have the luxury of working from home, the same fundamental dynamic applies. Who can afford to lose their job — and their health insurance — now?

If you leave a 7-year-old in their room all day, every day, that’s child neglect. It’s also what the government is effectively telling parents to do.

harrysiegel@gmail.com

NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza Says To Parents: "Do As I Say, Not As I do"

Deputy Chancellor Josh Wallack

We parents know that in NY City there are different rules for people of different races, economic levels and political connections.

If you live on the Upper East side of Manhattan, for example, and you have a great income and job, you have the full array of options available to you, namely excellent private schools , charters, religious institutions and public schools. If you have money, the people who work at these schools will listen to you more often than not or you can hire an expensive lawyer to cut through the fake news and get what you want.

If you live in a poor neighborhood and/or you are black or Hispanic and/or you do not speak English well, you may not get what is given to parents with financial or political resources and connections unless you have the stamina to battle every administrator/educator at the public/charter/religious institution every day, sometimes every hour. A common theme for media reports on the NYC Department of Education is that NYC schools are racially segregated. I agree. I see it.

Many people don't want this, and I'm speaking as a parent/teacher advocate. I have 4 children who went through the public schools of NYC and I was able to get 3 of my 4 graduated before they were crushed. With one of my children the attacks and lies by people at the DOE showed me the way the NYC DOE works to crush parents and children and also allowed me to learn strategies to survive and win what was needed, which I now pass on to people who ask for my help.

I have written on this blog several times about my advocacy for parents, which is centered on the following: stay focused on what your child/career needs, and get out of the NYC public schools if you can. Don't allow your child to be a guinea pig for the bumbling curriculum changes of the NYC DOE, the huge class sizes, and the disrespectful behavior of administrators. I believe in school choice. I do not agree with Department pushpins such as Diana Ravitch, whose anti-charter talk is, as far as I am concerned, irrational and simply narrow-minded and wrong. Sure there are bad charters and there are good public schools. Each parent should be their own judge of which educational setting is best. Homeschooling? This can be ideal for the right child and the right family. Again, families should choose what is best for their child.... not Ravitch, not Carranza or de Blasio pushpins and not leaders of parent groups who want one thing: to have you agree with their perspective and stay in NYC public schools to help them fight for their agenda.

Astonishingly, Carranza's own army of Deputy Chancellors and Superintendents don't follow the policies that Carranza is ordering that all others follow, as you can see below in  two recent articles from the NY POST. Carranza clearly approves of his closest administrators' putting their children in screened schools and/or specialized high-schools, the same schools that are too racially unbalanced for the general public.

So at the same time that Carranza is promoting an end to screened admissions as well as testing for specialized high schools, his Deputy Chancellor, Josh Wallack, is ignoring these directives and putting his child in those very schools.

Parents, teachers, everyone else should not approve this "Do as I say and not as I do" policy.

Betsy Combier
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ blog
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials 


DOE official in charge of NYC admissions debate sent his child to top screened schoolby Selim Algar, NY POST, May 28, 2020

The Department of Education official overseeing the city’s school admissions debate is sending his child to a highly selective and disproportionately white Manhattan middle school, sources told The Post.

Deputy Chancellor Josh Wallack resides in Brooklyn’s District 15 in Park Slope, which scrapped screened admissions in 2018 to spur diversity in its racially segregated schools.

Among other roles, Wallack heads the Office of Student Enrollment, “which manages . . . efforts to advance school diversity and equity,” according to the DOE website.

But rather than enroll his child in one of these unscreened schools next year, Wallack instead successfully vied for a middle school spot at the competitive Institute for Collaborative Education in Manhattan’s District 2.

District 15’s decision to get rid of screens has sharply remade demographics at Park Slope’s top schools. For example, the white population at coveted MS 51 dropped from 47 percent to 28 percent while the number of low-income, homeless, and English Language Learner kids hiked from 34 percent to 56 percent, according to DOE figures.

At ICE, which extends from grades 6 through 12, the school is 48 percent white, 22 percent black, 19 percent Hispanic, and 7 percent Asian.

“The man has every right to send his kid to the school of his choice,” said a District 2 parent. “But for the DOE to moralize to others who do so or to try to get rid of those opportunities for other parents is a blaring double standard. It’s like we have two sets of rules.”

According to DOE records, there are no English Language Learners at the school, a category commonly correlated with recent immigrants to America.

In announcing a plan to diversify District 1 schools in 2017 through modified admissions, Wallack espoused goals that some said contradicted his eventual schooling choice.

“The aspiration we’ve set is that each school would reflect the socioeconomic and linguistic diversity of the district as a whole,” he told The New York Times that year.

Jean Hahn, a Queens activist, said parents were growing tired of an apparent chasm between the DOE’s public rhetoric and the personal choices of its top officers.

“The hypocrisy is just unbelievable,” she said. “Truly unbelievable.”

Wallack told The Post Thursday that he toured his local District 15 schools and was drawn to many of them.

“While my wife and I were impressed with so many of the D15 options, my son, an outspoken and determined young man, fell in love with ICE,” he said. “It is a diverse school in many ways, uses multiple measures for admissions and a progressive teaching approach. It was a uniquely good fit for our family.  We would have been thrilled at any number of schools in D15, but this was my son’s first choice.”

Wallack’s selection comes at a delicate moment in the ongoing war over the future of the city’s screened schools.

Opponents argue that they favor families with resources who are able to better prepare their kids for admission and should be completely eliminated.

Despite their predominance in the school system, many talented black and Hispanic kids are elbowed out of contention unfairly, critics charge.

“This appears to continue a pattern of privileged enrollment for upper echelon DOE staff,” said CUNY education professor David Bloomfield, who opposes screened public schools. “It also undermines confidence in the deputy chancellor’s commitment to diversity.”

Bloomfield argued that Wallack and his colleagues have been largely ineffective in combating entrenched school segregation.

“This is consistent with the foot dragging attitude of the de Blasio administration towards diverse enrollment,” he said.

A member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group, which opposes screened schools, also questioned the choice.

“There are a lot of parents committed to undoing this unjust system,” she said. “At some point we are going to need leaders to join us.”

Backers of screened schools contend that academically advanced kids should have the chance to learn in accelerated environments and that an expansion of competitive seats would boost diversity.

Eliminating them altogether, they argue, is misguided.

Veronica Flores, of The Bronx, who normally travels 90 minutes to a Gifted and Talented school in Manhattan each day because there are no local advanced programs for her daughter, questioned Wallack’s choice.

“If he believed in his own rhetoric he would have sent his child to a District 15 school,” she said. “But he is taking advantage of what the DOE speaks against. Hypocrisy is the word here on every level.”

The Institute for Collaborative Education enrolls roughly 500 kids.

It makes a point of not counting state exams towards entry and instead admits kids based on grades and individual interviews conducted by parents.

“Basically they curate as they please and somehow, just somehow, despite the demand, the school is half white,” said a District 15 parent. “It’s the same thing at Beacon and a lot of other places.”

Wallack is one of many top DOE officials who have demonstrated a preference for exclusionary schools.

Deputy Chancellor Cheryl Watson-Harris sent her kids to IS 154 Christa McAuliffe in Dyker Heights and Mark Twain for the Gifted and Talented in Coney Island – both of which are tightly screened. Ms. Watson-Harris will, it now seems, be moving to Georgia. [See prior posts, Ms. Watson-Harris wants to leave the NYC DOE, and Deputy Chancellor Dr. Andre Spencer has already found a job in Texas - Editor Betsy Combier].

Chancellor Richard Carranza sent his child to San Francisco’s top screened high school while leading that city’s school system but has since critiqued the practice during his time in New York.

Chancellor Richard Carranza with Students

‘Unbiased’ Department of Education just got caught playing rank politics

NY POST Editorial Board, May 27, 2020

“It might be problematic for word to get out that the DOE is encouraging folks to make noise,” wrote anti-testing activist Miriam Nunberg. But word did get out, and “problematic” isn’t the half of it.

Nunberg, co-chair of the New York City Alliance for School Integration and Desegregation, had already blasted word that top Department of Education officials were actively pushing for opposition to PLACE, a parents’ group trying to maintain standards in the city school system — specifically, the screened admissions at some of the city’s best middle and high schools.

The Post’s Selim Algar got his hands on both Nunberg’s original e-mail enthusiastically passing along the DOE request, and her followup asking people to keep quiet about how the supposedly nonpolitical bureaucrats are playing political hardball.

Chancellor Richard Carranza has gone to war against all selective admissions, charging that any effort to uphold standards is racist. To him, the top schools are bastions of “white privilege” — never mind that white students are usually in the minority at those schools.

And he’s exploiting the pandemic in his war: The state’s cancellation of year-end testing — and his own decision to end serious grading and all attendance-taking — badly complicates screening for the next round of selective middle-school admissions.

Carranza’s on record saying it’s wrong to “waste” this crisis. So when his DOE insists, “We have not yet made any decisions on this policy, and will not do so without hearing first from our students and families,” you’re right to roll your eyes.

Meanwhile, the chancellor still refuses to confront the real problem: Far too many public schools in the city’s poor and minority communities just don’t work — even as public charter schools in the same ’hoods regularly achieve excellence.

Carranza needs to quit trying to undermine schools that work and focus on replacing the ones that don’t.