ATR Status: what does this mean?

I first met Polo Colon in 2004, because David Pakter told him he had to speak with me. Polo was in a rubber room, one of the oldest in NYC, at 25 Chapel Street in Brooklyn. He was put into a 3020-a for bringing to the DOE's attention that Principal Lisa Carabello had done some terrible things in her school.

He is a whistleblower. He is my friend. And he is an ATR.

Betsy Combier

By daniellebalbi 

 

Polo Colon, 63, is wearing a spiffy brown suit–accessories include suspenders and a matching fedora. He orders camarones fritos, aguacate, and maduros (fried shrimp, sliced up avocado, and fried plantains)–all in Spanish, of course. He points to the small park outside the diner window, and describes the diversity and convenience of his neighborhood – Bushwick. He grew up in the area, attended Bushwick High School, and raised a family of his own there. Bushwick is his stomping grounds, he said. 

Just last week, Colon– a teacher in the New York City public school system since 1971–was asked to sign in at the middle school he was teaching at for the week rather than slide his attendance card across the board. For someone outside of the public school system, different ways of clocking in may seem meaningless, but it is telling of the hierarchy within the school’s staff: teachers with a permanent job assignment at a school can merely slide their card into the “present” box, whereas visiting teachers must sign in. 

“I told her [the secretary] that I’m only doing this for her,” he said.

For Colon, someone who has been a teacher for over forty years, being asked to “sign in” isn’t customary. But as a teacher in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool, the practices he would normally be awarded are expired.

Colon is one of approximately 800 ATRs roaming the New York City public school system. These teachers are no longer treated with respect – not by the United Federation of Teachers, and not by the Department of Education. The ATR pool is comprised of fully licensed, fully certified teachers who have lost their permanent job positions, typically because of school closures. They find themselves roaming from school to school on a weekly basis, essentially being assigned the work of a substitute teacher.

These teachers, who have devoted years of their lives teaching students in New York City’s public school system, are treated as dispensable and are reminded of their expendability everyday.

The absent teacher reserve serves as an intermediary between the guarantee of a permanent position and actually being laid off. Teachers in the ATR pool receive the same salary and benefits, but their new job description fits that of a substitute teacher. They are no longer employed by one public school, but are employed directly by the Department of Education, and float from school to school on a weekly basis.

In 2011, Mayor Bloomberg jeopardized the jobs of over 4000 teachers, with his contested policy of shutting down “failing” schools.” Through bargaining between the United Federation of Teachers and New York City’s Department of Education, the Absent Teacher Reserve was created in 2005, for teachers who found themselves in the “rubber room”– either unable to find a permanent job because of a closing school or because they were targeted for termination.

Sam, who chose to use a different name, has been a teacher in New York City for twelve years. One year after he transferred to a different middle school, it was shut down, and he became an ATR. “I’ve been an ATR for three years, and with this colocation situation, where the DOE uses one building for three to five schools, the original school loses teachers because it loses space for its students,” he said.

 Many of these ATRs are just like Colon, who has been a teacher for over forty years–teachers who have devoted years teaching, and are now unemployable.  This is because of the Department of Education’s “fair market funding formula,” according to Norm Scott, a former New York City public school teacher. Scott, now retired, worked as a public school teacher from 1967 until he officially retired in 1997. Even after that, he continued to work in New York City public schools until 2005, coordinating robotics programs at schools in his district.

 “You could have a school full of $100,000 teachers, or full of $50,000 teachers. What Joel Klein (the former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education) did was penalize schools by limiting the number of teachers with these salaries and put a penalty on schools that hired these people,” Scott said.

 Sam described the ATR position as a way to “deprofessionalize the profession, to weaken job seniority, and job security,” with, what is often, “a humiliating rotation.” 

Colon began his career as a teacher in 1971, as an assistant preschool teacher at a daycare program in Harlem. “I just enjoyed it,” he said. “As a musician, I could do music and art with them–I just love watching children develop and helping them to develop.”

Soon after, Colon got married and had two daughters. Because of his family, Colon decided to further pursue his career in education. He became certified in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Education (degrees for teaching in preschools and elementary schools) and he earned a Common Branches License for teaching core subjects. He even completed the School Administrative Supervision and School District Administrative licenses for principal certification.

 In 1989, Colon began working at P.S. 120 in Bushwick. After seventeen years of working there, in 2006, he launched an investigation against the school’s new principal, Liza Caraballo. He accused her of violating the No Child Left Behind Act and the New York City Health Code.

 After the incident, Colon was assigned to a rubber room in downtown Brooklyn. He explained that the rubber room was full of teachers who had been charged with various things and were on their way to termination, but were still employed by the DOE.

The room was set up like a cafeteria, with long, six-person tables. Teachers could spend weeks or months there, but in many cases they were stuck in the rubber room for years. Since there were no students to teach, and no assignments to do, teachers would sit at the tables and either linger and waste time, or try their best to be productive.

“People wrote books–actual books,” said Colon. One woman, he explained, got a PHD, allowing her to get another teaching license.

Colon spent three years in the rubber room, seeing his colleagues come and go. He is finally able to work in schools again, and as an ATR, he is given weekly assignments,  never in one school for too long.

Marc Epstein taught history at Jamaica High School in Queens for 16 years, and in the 2011-2012 school year, he received a letter from the Department of Education informing him that he–alongwith half of his fellow teachers at Jamaica–were now a part of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool.

Epstein, who has continually written about violence in public schools, wrote apiece called “New York City Ronin Teacher,” which, after being published in the Huffington Post, found its way onto the blogs of ATRs, ATR community pages, and the websites of education reformers.

“At the end of the day the teacher-ronin [ATRs] are expendable. After all, when you go to the movies and buy popcorn, does it matter who puts the popcorn in the box, or if there is a new person behind the counter every three weeks?” Epstein wrote.

Sam recalled when he was told he would become an ATR. “It was a really curt debriefing. ‘Okay, we’ve lost some numbers, we had to let some people go,’ – that’s how it went,” he said. “it was a debriefing but it was a little too curt for my taste.

Feeling like a substitute teacher is inevitable for an ATR. Teachers aren’t even able to make their own classroom lesson plans.

“100k a year to do nothing,” said Colon. But he remains optimistic because he loves his students.  “I see myself as a specialist that comes in. I have to impress on [students] that I’m not just a sub.”

One of Colon’s greatest concerns as an ATR is that he finds the DOE takes no issue in violating its own health and safety codes. For the last few weeks, he has been teaching in middle schools, for which he does not have his license. He has reached out to the DOE and UFT in regards to the matter. All of his complaints have been ignored.

“We often get put into things that are outside of our licensed area,” said Sam, in reference to his weekly rotations. “We’re either doing the best we can under challenging curriculum if we’re working outside of our licensed area, or we’re bringing lessons that have been made up already for the grade level.”

However, ATRs also face struggles outside of the classroom.

“A lot of us struggle with the idea of being a substitute. Substitutes don’t have multiple years of experience, and aren’t entirely certified unless they’ve retired already,” said Sam. “But students don’t really refer to us as that–staff does. So we take that as a professional slight.”

Since the implementation of the ATR policy, forums and blogs have popped up all over the internet, not only criticizing the creation of the absent teacher reserve pool, but condemning Bloomberg’s idea of education reform. NYC ATR and NYC Rubber Room are two of the more well known blogs that cover news from the absent teacher reserve pool, and allow teachers in the pool to communicate with their fellow co-workers in the same situation.

Teachers in the absent teacher reserve pool do not have their own classroom, their own students, or their own community. And they have resorted to the internet to–a majority of the time–anonymously sending in accounts of their struggles in their new positions, just to cope.

Colon is not bitter despite what he has been through in his final years as a teacher. He is optimistic and is looking forward to finally retiring in Spring 2013, so he finally has time to pursue his musical interests.

However, the future for other ATRs remains bleak. The DOE recently implemented more teacher evaluations, especially for ATRs, which the UFT has supported. Norm Scott, who has worked alongside ATRs, explained the tension within teachers in schools.

“You walked into a school [as an ATR] and you were branded as being a loser,” he said. “They created this ATR system for teachers who could not get jobs and they vilified them. Each year it was a competition with the next round of ATRs, so people are being attacked as incompetent teachers.”

New York City’s Department of Education has hosted several job fairs, advertising them specifically to the ATR community. However, the job fairs are not only for ATRs, but for anyone interested in a teaching position. Sam, who is still stuck in the system, emphasized the union’s failure to support teachers in his situation.

 “We go to these job fairs and its really a show. What goes on is that they hire quite openly and are very solicitous towards the people who are just finishing up their education studies and they literally give a cold shoulder and left handshake who have fifteen and twenty years in the school system,” said Sam.

“We have gestations of being sold out not just by the city, but by the union,” he said. “What they should be doing is respecting the contract.”

The Case Against Carmen Farina, Former Bloomberg/Diana Lam Partner in Crime

There is a lot of talk about Carman Farina returning to a position of power over the New York City Department of Education.

This would be, in my informed and personal opinion, a huge error. Carmen invented fear as a way to run a school. She got rid of 80% of the teachers there when she took over, and if a parent or child got in her way, there was no mediation. Retaliation was immediate. I don't now, nor have I ever, bought into the "curry-favor-to-get-where-you-want-to-be", but this is Carmen's weapon. Her allies are the people in power at the moment, her assistants and friends, the people too scared to say no to her.



Carmen Farina

Nothing takes away the fact that Carmen Farina diverted the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts money from the school. Where did it go? I worked with Carmen for more than 2 years, setting up the Arts Together Community Partnership, a great program with a goal to raise arts money from the community for the school. Carmen loved it, until I asked, "Where's the money?" In about 1 day she - Carmen Farina - called me up at home and cursed at me with words I have not heard since. She screamed the curses at me and I listened, then I hung up. I couldn't move or breathe. Carmen then told me and my ATCP committee that she had thrown the entire project into the garbage, and we must never speak of the Arts Together project again. The following February she was removed from PS 6 to become the Superintendent of District 15 in Brooklyn, her home borough.
A source told me that a request was made to PS 198 Principal Gloria Buchery to "create" paperwork on the Annenberg Grant, but she refused.

My youngest daughter entered PS. 6 on the upper east side of Manhattan (81st and Madison Avenue, to be exact), in September 1997. My daughter got accepted into the Gifted and Talented program there. After two years, Carmen ended G&T because "all kids can learn".

None of my other three children had been in public school for kindergarten or any elementary grades, so I was really excited about this new adventure into NYC's finest education. I knew many people who had attended PS 6 when I was at Nightingale Bamford, a private school on 92nd street a few blocks away. My twin sister and I attended Nightingale grades 1-12.

PS 6 was a great school. Before Carmen changed it into a "Do it my way or take the highway".

Sorry, Bill, I'm not with you on this one. She retired because of her complicity in the scandal involving Lee McCaskill, and then there is the un-democratic manner in which she invented teacher terror, parent intimidation, and children's suspensions. See also this article. And then there is Bill De Blasio's reliance on Carmen, and this is the disaster about to happen, if he goes with her to be Chancellor. He is being seriously misinformed if he believes she is a leader worth bringing to the NYC public school system once again.

I fully expect Carmen , her too afraid allies, or her husband Tony to start an immediate retaliation scheme against me. Go ahead!! You will see it on this blog. To the readers of this blog: when you hear that someone is "crazy", a "criminal", everybody hates him/her, or whatever, you should never believe it until there is proof. There is a method to my advocacy that makes them characterize my "madness" this way in order to justify their wrongdoing.

Betsy Combier

Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City
Parentadvocates.org has spoken to teachers, parents and administrators for more than three years about Mrs. Farina and her actions as she rose in the ranks of the New York City Department of Education. E-Accountability OPINION: unsatisfactory; Recommendation: resignation or termination

re-posted from my website, Parentadvocates.org 

It is much too early to tell whether she'll have the job permanently," Bloomberg told the Daily News in March. "But I have not heard one bad word about her."

From the desk of Betsy Combier, former Executive Board member of the PS 6 PTA, who worked closely with Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina for 2 years until May 23, 2000. That afternoon, after finding out that PS 198 did not receive equal part of the $225,000 Annenberg Challenge for the Arts Grant money in partnership with PS 6, (at an Annenberg Conference Ms. Farina sent me to at Riverside Church), I asked "where is the money?", a question that spurred a telephone call from Ms. Farina to my home during which she accused me of hiring/firing all the arts teachers at PS 6, taking the money (I never touched any money, never saw checks, never knew anything about the finances of the school), and speaking for PS 6, my worst crime.

Carmen Farina's appointment as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education is as clear a message as the the New York City public has received to date that our Mayor simply is not listening to anyone outside of his immediate inner circle.

For the past three years The E-Accountability Foundation has interviewed parents and teachers at PS 6, in District 15 (Brooklyn), and from region 8, where Mrs. Farina was Regional Superintendent before being appointed Acting Deputy Chancellor of the NYC DOE in February, 2004, and then made Deputy Chancellor in May. Her disdain for parents - aside from those who she brings into her closed circle of friends - is legendary, and her School Leadership Team Bylaws at PS 6violate almost every clause in the "Green Book" on SLT Regulations. She was reprimanded by the Director of the Parent Advocacy and Engagement Office, Jamal Young, in a May 2001 letter to me, sent to Carmen, Superintendent Shelley Harwayne, and several other people. Nothing was done about the Bylaws or the SLT at PS 6, but Jamal's aunt Birdie Blake-Reid was found guilty of improper payments of public funds to employees, and fined by the Conflict of Interest Board soon after.

Mrs. Farina is a Master at threatening retaliation for any deed that she does not support, and she follows up her threats quickly and forcibly.

Mrs. Fariña has been given the task of defending the city's work with special education students and the mayor's third-grade retention plan, among all the other items on the Mayor's agenda. She gets an A for spinning information that is false and misleading, making it sound legitimate, and silencing anyone who questions the data or her presentation. She has the power to have people who work for her scream and threaten parents and teachers so that she doesn't have to do all the work herself. This is a Master at work, as we uncover the major disgrace that is special education in New York City. Mrs. Farina gleefully told a packed Hunter College auditorium in May that she completed 12,000 evaluations in the month of March. We did our math, and divided 12,000 by 23, the working days in March. This means that more than 521 children were 'evaluated' every day, and the only way this could happen is if someone was paid to sit in a room, put a signature to a stack of evaluations, and throw the children's needs into the garbage. We do not believe that an in-depth evaluation of all the services and requests for assistive technology for each child was done.

What else do we know about Carmen?

Carmen Farina was the Principal of PS 6 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for 10 years. During that time she developed a highly efficient teaching group, she kept the scores on standardized testing high, she implemented an almost total "fuzzy math" curriculum, ended the Gifted and Talented Program, kept teachers in their place by instituting fear for speaking out against her in any way, and denied parents who dared to confront her on anything any involvement in the School Leadership Team or on the PTA or any school committees. Parents asked questions about $225,000 for three years' partnership with PS 198 under the Annenberg Challenge for the Arts Grants, but this money was never accounted for. Under the grant guidelines from Annenberg, the Principal was responsible for establishing the evaluation. This, we believe, was a mistake. We wrote letters, tried to reach by telephone, and attended events of, the Center For Arts Education in order to ask questions about the implementation of the arts programs at PS 6 and PS 198, but no one would speak to us. District 2 Superintendent Shelley Harwayne would not speak to us. Ms. Cynthia List, former person in charge of School Leadership Teams, told me that she had "been told not to speak with me." We also wrote the Special Commissioner For Investigations, Mr. Ed Stancik. His office never replied:

Mr. Edward Stancik
Special Investigator
65 Court Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201 May 17, 2001

Dear Mr. Stancik,

I am writing this letter to ask you to investigate Mrs. Carmen Farina, and her actions pertaining to the allocation of money received from the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts Grant.

Mrs. Farina was Principal of PS 6 from 1982 to February 1, 2001. She left in February to become Interim Acting Superintendant of District 15 in Brooklyn. In 1997 the Annenberg Foundation gave PS 6 and PS 198 in Manhattan a grant of $75,000 per year ( thus giving these schools more than $225,000 for performing arts programs ). This partnership between PS 6 and 198 was supposed to be used by both schools in partnership, and was to hire artists and groups for both schools.

I started working with Mrs. Farina at PS 6 on a program called The Arts Together Community Partnership (ATCP) in 1997. This group was designed to follow the Annenberg grant and raise money for the performing arts at both schools after the grant ended. I did not work on the grant itself, and had no knowledge of the money or artists involved with the Annenberg Grant.

In May, 2000, Mrs. Farina called me up and, completely out of the blue, accused me of taking the money from the Annenberg grant, and of hiring and firing all the artists in the school. She threw my work on the ATCP in the garbage, and wrote The Center For Arts Education and ArtsConnection that I was hiring and firing everybody.
Since this time I have found out:

1. No one knows what arts programs PS 198 had, if any. Some people I spoke with said that there seemed to be no partnership at all.

2. The Principal of 198 at the time, Ms. Gloria Buchery, has been removed, and has refused to tell anyone what partnership existed, if any. She has not spoken with anyone about the Annenberg money.

3. The Treasurer for PS 6 has told me that even though all the Annenberg money was kept at PS 6, no one on the Executive Board knew what was being spent, or to whom it was going to. Mrs. Farina had total control over the funds.

4. This year, the 5th Grade at PS 6 did not have arts classes, even though the Grant does not end until June of this year. My daughter, in 3rd Grade, was told that her drama class was cancelled due to lack of money.

We parents at PS 6 and PS 198 want to know where the $225,000 was allocated, when, and to whom. Please investigate this and Mrs. Carmen Farina.

Thank you. Mrs. Farina may be reached at:

District 15
Acting Superintendant
360 Smith Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-330-9300

Home: 29 Tiffany Place #PH3
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Please let me know, as a member of the parent organization desiring this investigation of Carmen Farina, what you find.
Betsy Combier

The Annenberg money was particularly troubling, as there was no accountability for the funds, and indeed the Annenberg Foundation does not consider this a successful program.

In October 1997 I spoke with Carmen about helping her fundraise for the arts. She asked me to help her find a way to raise money for the arts at PS 6 when the Annenberg grant ran out. Over the next several days I thought about a parent-driven project that would be centered around a community association for the arts. Carmen loved the idea, so for the next 8 months I and several other parents discussed what is now known as "The Arts Together Community Partnership".

PS 6's grant from Annenberg was part of the Annenberg Challenge for the Arts, designed to partner two very different schools so that each could provide and share the grant money and arts programs. The Arts Together Community Partnership worked as a parent-driven organization that brought funds into both schools through a membership/community association. In March 2000 Carmen gave us $2000 to produce the ATCP brochure, and we were able to print 1000 copies for $1995. She loved it.

Carmen asked me to speak with the partner school's Principal, Gloria Buckery (former PS 198 Principal, now Region 6 Superintendent). I went over immediately with the brochure, and Gloria joined the Arts Together Community Partnership on the spot, donating $25.00. I brought the check back to PS 6 and left it with Carmen, as one of my rules is to never hold money that belongs in a school bank account.

Then, a strange thing happened. Carmen did not let me know what she would want the parents to do. We were meeting in the school cafeteria, but whenever we had a logistics problem, Carmen just did not answer. Then she told me that she wanted me to attend the Annenberg Conference on how to follow the grant with arts-funding ideas. I went to Riverside Church on May 23, 2000 for the conference, and went to an afternoon session at which I spoke very briefly about the ATCP. Two teachers from 198 told me at the end of the day that they had never heard of The Arts Together Community Partnership! They seemed very surprised to see the logo, with PS 6 on one side, and PS 198 on the other, because they did not know if, indeed, there were any arts programs at 198 funded by Annenberg. I was very concerned. When I returned home I received a telephone call from Carmen Farina, and she was extremely upset. She screamed that I was firing all the Annenberg artists, I was hiring others, I was taking the money, and I would not get away with it. She said, "You have NO right to speak for PS 6". I was stunned.
The next day I did exactly what she wanted, and that was to resign from my lunchtime club - helping 4th and 5th graders learn about charitable organizations - and my position on the PTA Executive Board. A few days later I received a letter in the mail that told me Carmen and Jane Gordan, the PTA President as witness, had thrown all the Arts Together Community Partnership materials into the garbage. Carmen wrote that I would NEVER set this project up at PS 6. Luckily, I had several brochures at home.

In 2003 Carmen spoke at the New York City Council about her new community Organization Program, "First Tuesdays". She said that all the restaurants in 15 were joining this program to supply needed After School money to district schools. The idea was very similar to the ATCP. So, I guess Carmen liked the ATCP after all! Just to make sure, I called Mr. Weiss up at the District 15 office, and asked him about "First Tuesdays". He told me that Carmen had thought up this wonderful program while at PS 6, and had set it up there very successfully. I asked him to send me the information, which he did.

On February 1, 2001 Carmen Farina became Superintendent of District 15 and left PS 6. As many of my friends wanted me to run for PTA President at PS 6, I decided to run. On April 24, 2001 I presented my program to the PS 6 community in the auditorium, and noticed Carmen entering the room. She started screaming that I had maligned her name, that no one should vote for me, that I was suing everyone at PS 6 and should never be allowed to run for any office, and other statements equally defamatory. I did not see anyone in the room breathing. Carmen sat down in the front row and glowered at me. I lost to Jane Gordan, who was removed early into the 2002-2003 school year by her own Board.

Carmen never wanted parents to be involved at PS 6, and was often shutting parents out of the school and the classrooms. She does not like School Leadership Teams, as she told us when the "Green Book" on SLT regulations came out, and she told the Executive Board "we are not going to do this." The SLT Bylaws that she wrote with the help of a few members of the Executive Board stated that there were "4 members of the PS 6 SLT: the Principal, the Assistant Principal, the PTA President and the PTA Vice-President. [The regulations are that SLTs must have between 10-17 members]. Article 6.2 of the SLT Bylaws states that " As Open Meetings Law does not, according to Central Board apply to SLTs,"and that parents would not be allowed to attend SLT meetings unless invited. When we parents questioned this policy, we heard that Carmen told the District 2 office that she had received a waiver from the rules. Ms. Gwen Hopkins, at the Board of Education Parent Engagement Office, thought this was very funny. She called me and told me that she heard the waiver claim, and that the one person who had the only copy of this waiver took it with them when they left the BOE. So no one knew where it was. Teachers we spoke to were very happy to see her leave. Below is an email from a retired special education teacher [parentadvocates.org is protecting her by not posting her name]:

"As the parent of a public school student and a retired special education teacher who worked in District 15 during Ms. Farina's tenure as superintendent, I strongly disagree with your take on her. She was autocratic and a whole language and constructivist math fanatic.She came into schools with a nasty attitude and a clipboard checklist and cared only about bulletin boards, word walls, desk arrangements and book leveling. It was Farina who set up the deliberately misleading introduction of the new curriculum at P.S. 172, claiming their remarkable success was due to "Month-by-Month Phonics" when the school had in fact been using Open Court, a highly structured reading program, at the time of the test results. She brought in Laura Kotch, an even colder, nastier proponent of lock-step whole language, who introduced the insidious Month-by-Month Phonics, designed to shut up those of us concerned with results while failing to teach decoding. [any] praise of Carmen Farina was disheartening to many of us who worked with her."

On April 30, 2004, the NY SUN published our letter:

Carmen Farina's Old School:
No one represents, in my opinion, all that is wrong with the New York City Department of Education better than the new acting deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, Carmen Farina. ['Farina's Old School Finds It hard To Match Her Results", Julia Levy, Page 1, April 23, 2004]. I am a former PS 6 parent who believes in transparency, accountability, respect for everyone, and honest reporting of statistics and test results. Carmen, unfortunately, seemed to be not interested in any of these.
She did not believe in School Leadership Teams, so she set up the PS 6 Team with 4 appointed people (the minimum allowed are 10, and all members are supposed to be elected) and wrote Bylaws which clearly opposed any parent involvement - Clause 6.2 of the PS 6 SLT Bylaws reads:
"By directive of the Central School Board, "open meetings" laws do not apply to SLTs, therefore uninvited guests will not be permitted to attend or participate in the meetings."
"Univited" guests are, of course, PS 6 parents, teachers, anyone outside the 4 people (who were the Principal, the Assistant Principal, the CSA representative and the PTA President). She pushed these Bylaws through Central by telling everyone that PS 6 had a waiver. No one ever found a copy.
Carmen, as she always does, retaliated. After leaving PS 6 and in the position of Superintendent of District 15, on April 24, 2001attended the PS 6 PTA meeting at which I spoke about running for PTA President. As soon as I finished my campaign speech she screamed that I should not be elected for undermining her, maligning her name, and other equally defamatory remarks to the 70 or so parents in attendance. No one who was in that room that evening ever forgot this outburst.
Carmen never told us where the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts money was. We saw that PS 6 had some arts programs, but our partner school, PS 198, did not seem to have any. She would not answer our questions. When we asked where the funds for PS 198 were, Carmen went on the attack, and threw the Arts Together Community Partnership, a parent-driven organization designed to help fund and publicize the arts at PS 6 when the Annenberg grant ended, into the garbage. She then accused us of interfering in the allocation of the Annenberg money by hiring and firing the dance teachers, a claim that was totally unfounded and ridiculous. We did stop asking questions, in fear of the welfare of our children at the school.
We were told by teachers that Carmen took the brightest kids randomly out of testing rooms to give them as much time as necessary to complete tests. We would compare notes after the tests to find out which children had been moved to another room.
Carmen stopped the PS 6 Gifted and Talented program, and to the present day parents of exceptionally bright children try to move them elsewhere. She implemented policies of "fuzzy" math and whole language to the extent that many teachers told us "their hands were tied",and "get instruction from a tutor". Scores at the school in math have gone down since she left.
Carmen gathers around her a group of loyal supporters who do not allow anyone to say anything uncomplimentary about her. Nothing anyone says outside of this clique is listened to or respected.
When I was in grade school I learned that history repeats itself. Carmen Farina as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education is a step back into the dark ages of school reform where transparent budgets, people respecting the views and opinions of others, and accountability just dont exist.

Betsy Combier
parentadvocates.org

And those "high scores" that PS 6 reports are not what they seem. Parents compared notes on how many of the brightest kids were taken out of the testing room and tested separately - presumably to give these kids all the time in the world, so that they could get perfect scores? These kids certainly did not have special needs or 504 accommodations. The scores themselves are suspect: this just in from our Math experts:
Keep in mind, Carmen Farina left PS 6 in January, 2001. In 2004 the National Academies reported that there is no scientific basis for Carmen's math programs.

~If one tracks cohorts of PS 6 kids (3rd graders in 1999, 4th graders in
2000 and 5th graders in 2001), the number who score in Level 4 in math drops
precipitously each year.

~In 2000, PS 6 had the greatest decline in District 2 in Performance Level 4
math achievement on the 4th grade test (28% pt drop!) - much greater than
any other schools'. Some schools' 4th grade Level 4 scores actually rose.
Districtwide, 4th grade Level 4 achievement dropped 6% pts that year.
Districtwide, 4th grade passing scores remained flat at 76% passing in 1999
and 2000.

~In 2001, PS 6 had the greatest decline in Performance Level 4 on the city
test (3rd and 5th grades) (23% pt drop!) - greater than any other school's
Level 4 declines, some schools' Level 4 scores rose. Districtwide, Level
4 scores on the city test dropped 6% pts (same as in 4th grade the year
before ) Districtwide city test passing scores dropped 3% pts, 2000: 61.2
2001: 58.3

~ There were nowhere near the precipitous drops out of Level 4 4th grade
scores (state test)that PS 6 showed (1999-2000) in the other TAG schools. In
the same year (2000-2001) PS 6 Level 4 declines were also highest among TAG
schools on the 3,5,6 grade test (citywide test) One TAG school's scores
improved slightly (PS 11) while the others showed some decline (following
the district trend), PS 124 and PS 130 came close to the level of PS 6
decline.

Betsy Combier,
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Founder and President, The E-Accountability Foundation
President, ArtsNexus and The Arts Together Community Partnership (thrown into the garbage by Carmen Farina May, 2000)

PS 6 School Leadership Team Bylaws written by Carmen Farina in 2000

NYC Deputy Chancellor Rewards Gifted, Privileged Kids in NYC Public Schools by Raising 4 Years of AP Grades

For more on Carmen Farina and District 2, go towww.nychold.com

Related Articles:

False Claims of Special Education Successes Cloud the Bloomberg/Klein Reform

Despite Too Many Questions of Improprieties, Carmen Farina is Named Deputy Chancellor For the New York City DOE

Carmen Farina to the Head of the Class?

LINK

by Ben Max

Speculation is heating up about who Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will appoint as the next chancellor of the City’s Department of Education. Many names have been bandied about for months, with rumors emerging of late about certain individuals who de Blasio has been interested in, but are not interested in the job, and others who may be qualified, but don’t quite align with the mayor-elect’s education philosophy – or that of his teachers union, parent, and advocacy group allies.

And then there’s Carmen Farina.

Farina may fall into that former group, that of those de Blasio is interested in for chancellor, but are not interested in the job. Reports of late say that de Blasio has been attempting to convince Farina, his long-time adviser and ally, to come out of retirement to run the school system. Whether or not she will do so should be known soon and as they negotiate and she deliberates, Capital New York wrote about how the relationship between de Blasio and Farina began and developed over the past two decades, aptly titled “The woman who shaped de Blasio on schools.”

Farina, a former deputy chancellor, superintendent, principal and teacher appeared on an education policy panel at the CUNY Graduate Center on November 11th, part of an event focused on progressive recommendations for the next administration. The event, co-hosted by CUNY’s John Mollenkopf and City Council Member Brad Lander (de Blasio’s successor on the city council and co-chair of the council’s Progressive Caucus) was entitled “Moving New York City Forward in 2014 and Beyond.”

Deeper speculation about the possibility of Farina becoming the next chancellor prompted me to revisit my notes from her appearance that day – as far as I know, her most recent public statements on education policy.

Farina gave her initial remarks after each of the other five panelists had spoken and she immediately expressed her agreement with the parent representative on the panel, Ocynthia Williams. Williams had, naturally, spoken about the importance of the next administration creating more connectivity among parents, teachers, and the Department of Education. She advocated for the community school model and repeatedly hit on the theme of changing the overall culture of the DOE and the specific cultures at many of the city’s schools.

Moving into her own comments, Farina said that while smart people have been running the school system, the City has lost the heart and soul of educating. She said that education must be based on joy, not fear, and that the city must focus on seventh grade, help PTAs grow and partner, take a new approach to educating (and even housing) homeless youth, and establish school-union partnerships which lead to students graduating with a union card.

The meat of Farina’s comments were laying out her broader vision for the city’s schools, which, she said, is “five ‘C’s and one ‘E’.”

Farina’s five ‘C’s are collaboration (as opposed to competition, she said), communication, capacity building, content, and “celebration, celebration, celebration.” Her ‘E’ is efficiency.

 On collaboration, Farina advocated for establishing “sister schools” by which similarly populated schools, one that is struggling and one that is working, would partner and their principals would communicate regularly. Explaining her second ‘C’ of communication, she discussed the need for DOE and school leadership to be consistently providing for open dialogue, asking what principals and teachers need, offering help, and fostering more personal contact.

 She said that the Panel for Education Policy, or PEP, must be a real policy check, speak for communities, and listen to Community Education Councils (CECs) to gain better understanding of the cultures in different neighborhoods.

On capacity building, Farina said that the Department’s quality review must be better, that the quality reviewers must be carefully evaluated themselves, and that quality reviews must be followed with support.

Her thoughts on content included praise for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the implementation of which continues to be the source of much conflict. Farina noted that CCSS needs tweaking for some schools, especially those for career and technical education. She also said that teacher professional development must be returned to being school-based, where teachers stay at their schools to work together, teach each other, and, at times, bring someone from the outside into the school to lead sessions.

For her fifth ‘C,’ celebration, Farina, fittingly, became the most animated, saying that teachers are tired of hearing how bad they are, that people become educators because they want to make a difference and we must stop berating them. She said that teachers must be allowed to experiment, to have fun – noting that she did “all sorts of crazy things” when she was teaching, including having her class secede from the school when studying the Civil War. Testing in a limited and targeted way is important, she said, but so is celebrating successes, both large and small.

On efficiency, Farina argued that there is too much redundancy in the system, that a clearer hierarchy with more stability and consistency is needed. Educators need to know who to call when, she said, and that all those working in the system need to know who they are accountable to and who is accountable to them.

Will Ms. Farina soon have the entire New York City public school system accountable to her and vice versa? Stay tuned.

 [More on Mayor-elect de Blasio and on his transition and administration]

New York State Trial Lawyers' Association on Auqui v Seven Thirty One Limited Partnership, et al.

 

Thanks to the efforts and support of a remarkable coalition of lawyers, labor and community groups, the Court of Appeals today  [Dec. 10, 2013] reversed its ruling in Auqui v. Seven Thirty One Limited Partnership, et al. It was a wise decision.  If the Court's original ruling had been allowed to stand, injured workers would have been unjustly denied the opportunity to seek justice in the courts while receiving Workers Compensation benefits.  

 

As many of you know, in the Auqui case the Court of Appeals had, for the first time, granted collateral estoppel effect to decisions of the workers’ compensation board in third-party actions regarding disability issues. The decision jeopardized the right to jury trial on those issues and would have a serious impact on the ability of injured workers to seek justice through the court system, while also undermining the workers’ compensation system.

 

Today’s unanimous ruling vacated the earlier decision, and held that a decision of the workers’ compensation board as to duration of disability could not be granted preclusive effect, holding that:

 

Given the realities of these distinct proceedings, the finder of fact in a third-party negligence action, in its attempt to ascertain the extent of plaintiff's total damages, should not be bound by the narrow findings of the Board regarding the duration of plaintiff's injury or his need for further medical care.

 

This critical decision will ensure that injured workers will continue to be able to hold responsible third-parties accountable and to have their day in court. A copy of the full decision is available here.

 

Special thanks for their commitment and foresight in fighting to obtain a rarely granted re-argument must go to Immediate Past President Michael Jaffe as well as appellate counsel for the plaintiff and Amicus Committee Chair Annette Hasapidis.

 

In addition, an unprecedented coalition of lawyers, labor and community organizations worked tirelessly over many months to achieve this remarkable victory.  For their tremendous dedication and efforts to ensure that workers’ rights are protected, we would particularly like to thank:

• NYSTLA’s Amicus Committee;
• New York State Bar Association;
• AFL-CIO;
• New York City Central Labor Council; 
• Building and Construction Trades of Greater New York;
• Injured Workers Bar Association;
• Workers Injury Law and Policy Group;
• New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health;
• Make the Road New York;
• New York Communities for Change;
• Center for Popular Democracy;
• The Black Institute; and
• Citizen Action of New York.

NYC Department of Education Gave Eva Moskowitz Favored Treatment

Eva Moskowitz

Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy Got Preferential DOE Treatment, Emails Show

LINK

NEW YORK CITY — WhenEva Moskowitz starts a new charter school, top officials at the city’s Department of Education move heaven and earth to meet her demands.

During the past two years, the DOE gave Moskowitz’s controversial chain, Success Academy, rent-free space in city school buildings to open 14 new co-location sites. In each handover, Moskowitz demanded the DOE deliver the space clear of furniture and broom-swept by 5 p.m. on the last day of the school year, according to sources and emails obtained by DNAinfo New York.

But since students used the space until the second-to-last day of the school year, the DOE was left with less than 36 hours to clear the area — costing the department tens of thousands of dollars in overtime from contracted workers scrambling to meet the onerous deadline.

“The cost was astronomical,” a DOE insider told DNAinfo New York. “We don’t have to do it the very last day of school. There’s absolutely no need for this.” 

The high-octane moves, insiders say, show the preferential treatment that DOE officials — including deputy schools chancellor Kathleen Grimm — give Success Academy, whose 22 schools serve just 6,700 of the city’s 1.1 million students.

Emails obtained by DNAinfo highlight the special relationship the high-profile school leader has with the DOE.

John Shea, the DOE's chief executive of the school facilities division, emphasized in a May 17, 2012 message to his subordinates the importance of meeting Moskowitz's deadline.

“What I need from you all is that, if it looks like a principal will not be out of these rooms by 6/29 [the last day of the 2011-12 school year], someone needs to tell me,” Shea wrote. “Kathleen [Grimm] volunteered to call principals who play games with vacating. But I need to know ahead of time — not Monday, July 2. Eva will start calling me Saturday morning if rooms aren’t empty.”

A former city councilwoman who chaired the council’s education committee, Moskowitz founded Success Academy in 2006. In the last few years, she has opened schools in Williamsburg, Cobble Hill, Fort Greene, Harlem, Union Square and elsewhere. Each school shares space with public schools.

Admirers have lauded the chain for turning out high-performing students and for being a juggernaut fundraiser. Critics have complained that Success Academy uses disciplinary tactics that weed out special-needs students and have fumed that the well-funded chain doesn't deserve free rent.

Moskowitz's high salary and brusque manner have also made her a polarizing figure. But the special connection she has to DOE brass is what really irks her peers and critics.

Her unparalleled access was on display when she rattled off an email at 7:02 a.m. on June 28 — the last day of that 2012-13 year — to Grimm, Shea and Thomas Taratko, the executive director of the department’s office of space planning.

Success Academy was getting space in eight DOE buildings to open schools. Moskowitz reminded the DOE officials that they needed to have each space cleared by the end of the day.

“As you know we will move stuff if it is not out by 5 p.m. as the agreed upon time [and] date when all stuff is removed,” Moskowitz wrote. “We have been discussing for months!!!”

“Let’s avoid the sequel to movegate 2,” she added, referring to the 2010-11 school year, when the DOE didn't meet her deadline.

Grimm responded two and a half hours later, saying her team was monitoring the moves.

Success Academy administrators kept tabs on the schools throughout the day, as scores of DOE-contracted movers cleared desks, chairs, student cubbies, computers and boxes of belongings and placed them in storage.

By 5:05 p.m., Success Academy director Kris Cheung emailed Shea, Taratko and Grimm to commend them on the progress of the moves. But Cheung also highlighted two spaces — a school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant and one in Crown Heights — that still had furniture in classrooms and lockers in the hallway.

Grimm responded three minutes later asking for an update from Shea, who in turn emailed his top lieutenants to make sure the moves were under control. The work crews eventually cleared the remaining furniture that night.

Clearing space at the eight locations cost the city $124,000 in the 2012-13 school year, sources say.

The DOE refers to the moves as school restructurings. In total, the DOE spent $1.4 million on restructurings — for public and charter schools — at 153 locations during the 2012-13 school year, according to records obtained by DNAinfo. That means clearing space for Success Academy at the eight sites accounted for 9 percent of the total costs. 

At the end of the 2011-12 school year, Success Academy received space in six DOE school buildings. That year the DOE shelled out $125,000 to make room for the chain under the same deadline. The total cost of school restructurings for that year was $1.6 million.

Education Department sources said that in each school year, clearing space for Success Academy could have been done for half the amount if the work were spread out over a few days, eliminating the need for extra manpower and overtime. The DOE could have then spent the saved money on fixing up schools, the sources said.

“All of this takes away from repair work, our core mission,” a source said.

Success Academy wants the speedy space clearings so its construction team can quickly begin construction.

“The earlier move date and meeting the move deadline allows us to do all the building work so we can start our school year on the right foot,” Moskowitz wrote in an email to Grimm after a successful move one year.

However, Success Academy construction crews don’t enter the school until after July 4, meaning the DOE really has a few days to pull off the moves, sources said. Also no other charter school gets to move into a new space so early, according to sources.

When Bill De Blasio becomes mayor on Jan. 1, Success Academy may lose its favored status in Tweed Hall. De Blasio has criticized the Bloomberg administration’s special treatment of the charter chain and has said he wants Moskowitz to start paying rent for DOE space.

But with just weeks to go in Mayor Bloomberg’s term, DOE officials are working to arrange speedy move-ins for Success Academy in at least four schools in June 2014, according to sources.

Normally, DOE officials hold meetings on making space for Success Academy in the spring. This year, they started meetings in November, sources said.

Shea also recently approved the promotion of a Moskowitz-friendly DOE deputy facilities manager to director of schools facilities for northern Brooklyn, sources said.

Joseph Lazarus was chosen for the position, even though other in-house candidates had more experience and qualifications, sources said. Before his promotion, Lazarus was a deputy facilities manager for schools on the northwest side of Manhattan, where he was known for helping Success Academy schools get extra resources for repair work.

Lazarus did not respond to a request for comment.

The Education Department and Success Academy also did not respond to requests for comment.

Black Mail - The Cathie Black Emails From Sergio Hernandez

Black Mail

Cathie Black

From Sergio Hernandez:

In 2011, I filed a lawsuit against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seeking access to records concerning his controversial appointment of Cathie Black, the former chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, to run the city’s public school system.

The case has been covered by Gothamist, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, NPR, Thomson Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Wall Street Journal. Links to those stories and updates on the case can be found here.

There is also an index of filings and documents from the case, which can be viewed online here.

- See more at: http://cerealcommas.com/?page_id=265#sthash.XFwa4ITY.dpuf

New Cathie Black Emails

1 Reply

200 MB of new Cathie Black emails, fresh from the NYC Department of Education's FOIL office.

Please enjoy:

F9359-2013-12-06-resp (final).pdf
CBlack CH FOIL 12-6-2013.pdf
File 01-Nov 2010-release version.pdf
File 02-Nov 2010-release version.pdf
File 03-Dec 2010-release version.pdf
File 04-Dec 2010-release version.pdf
File 05-Dec 2010-release version.pdf
File 06-Dec 2010-release version.pdf
File 07-Jan 2011-release version.pdf
Hernandez CB release.pdf

- See more at: http://cerealcommas.com/?p=890#sthash.4WzzpmM8.dpuf

NYC DOE Will Spend $1 Million To Train 120 Teachers in Computer Science and Coding

December 9, 2013, 4:55 pm 9 Comments

Teachers Tell Us How to Fix Science and Math

By DAVID FIRESTONE, NY TIMES

LINK

 

A middle school math class in Chippewa Falls, Wis., on Oct. 18, 2013.

 

There was some good news today for New York City high school students interested in computers — the city’s Department of Education announced it would spend $1 million in public and private money to train 120 teachers in computer science and coding. Dozens of new computer science classes taught by newly trained teachers will open in high schools across the city next fall, and Chancellor Dennis Walcott said they would eventually expand to elementary and middle schools.

That’s exactly the kinds of hands-on exposure to real-world jobs that is lacking in thousands of school districts across the country. As the first editorial in our science and math seriesnoted on Sunday, only 19 percent of American high school students have taken a computer science course. Many students who might have excellent coding abilities are never exposed to the subject, missing out on promising career paths.

That’s often because teachers themselves have no idea how to write a computer program. Many educators who commented on the editorial said they wanted better preparation for the math and science courses they teach.

“I know firsthand that underprepared teachers is a HUGE issue,” wrote Beth Z., a math teacher in Alaska. “We have a ‘math’ teacher right now who majored in HISTORY. How do you get people who major in mathematics to go into teaching? The job is often thankless and quite stressful. Plus, other people are always telling you how to do your job.”

Including, obviously, editorial writers. But you don’t have to be a professional pontificator to know that teacher preparation is incredibly important. More than half of the 6.7 million high school students studying physical sciences are learning from teachers who didn’t major in those subjects, as the editorial noted. A lesser percentage are learning math from teachers who didn’t major in math, or who aren’t certified to teach it.

“Ideally, every child would be trained by someone knowledgeable in the field,” wrote Kris C., an educator from Middleton, Wis. “This should stretch down to elementary as well, as my son had some misleading and damaging experiences as deep math concepts were poorly or inaccurately explained.”

But some teachers pointed out that a major or a certification is no guarantee of excellence in the classroom. A.W., who is getting a post-graduate degree in elementary education in North Carolina, said that some of his fellow students are less than impressive. “Unfortunately, most of my cohort can hardly keep up with elementary mathematics,” he wrote. “I am shocked at the low intellectual capacity of my cohort. And these are graduate students. Most of them can hardly solve the problems, and most are reporting that they would rather teach lower grades than have to teach fractions, decimals, probability, and hands-on equations.”

And many commenters made the familiar arguments that only higher pay will attract better teachers, or that they are being driven away by the cult of the standardized test.

The dialogue, though, was stimulating and intelligent, and the special design of the comments section on this series allows readers to see responses to each section of the editorial, and to sort them by the background of the writers. Some of the most interesting comments, in fact, came from students, who are often the most knowledgeable about what it takes to get them interested. We invite you to spend time reading through the comments, and to add your own as the series continues for the next two weeks.