The Mayor and UFT Agree To Avert Teacher Layoffs

The deal made to avert layoffs seems to me (as well as everyone else not currently working for Mulgrew or Bloomberg) to be another UFT "We're not going to fight Mike Bloomberg" concession that did not have to be made. Another give back was the UFT allowing Geoffrey Canada a green light to co-locate his charter school industry in public schools - I think  this undermines the UFT-NAACP lawsuit which opposes this, now for organizations OTHER that Canada's. This makes no sense. But politics often makes no sense unless you know the backstory.

Betsy Combier

June 24, 2011
Deal Will Avert Plan to Lay Off City Teachers
By FERNANDA SANTOS, NY TIMES

The threatened layoffs of 4,100 teachers in New York’s public schools were averted under a deal that the Bloomberg administration, the City Council and the teachers’ union reached on Friday night.

Details were still being worked out, but the agreement calls for concessions from the United Federation of Teachers and money from the Council.

Under the deal, the union would agree to suspend teacher sabbaticals for a year and permit teachers without a permanent assignment to be used more regularly as classroom substitutes. In addition, the Bloomberg administration would concede that 2,600 teachers would be lost to attrition, 600 more than estimated, saving additional jobs. On one hand, the resolution spares Mr. Bloomberg from becoming the first mayor in nearly 40 years to impose mass teacher layoffs. On the other hand, though, it threatens to undermine his credibility, given that he has declared for two consecutive years that layoffs were inevitable, only to see them averted in a budget deal.

The budget plan also allows the Council to keep open 20 fire companies that the mayor had ordered closed, and it may be able to restore at least some of the cuts he planned for day care services and librarians.

Still, it appeared that up to 1,000 city workers — many of them in health care jobs — would be laid off.

In a news conference at the Education Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan on Friday night, Mr. Bloomberg said he was disappointed he could not avoid all layoffs. Still, he said, “this is a budget that will keep our city strong, but it is also a budget that faces fiscal reality.”

Asked whether he thought his credibility had been hurt, the mayor defended his approach, saying the city faced extremely bleak and unpredictable economic circumstances.

The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, standing by the mayor’s side, praised the deal. “New Yorkers can rest easy tonight knowing that our children will still have great teachers,” she said.

Mr. Bloomberg had taken an aggressive posture during the negotiations, emboldened over the past days by the victories scored in Albany and Trenton against public-sector unions and becoming more emphatic about his demands. But in the end, he and the teachers’ union, one of his most vociferous opponents, had to reach an agreement, helping to balance a $66 billion budget that had a $4.6 billion gap.

A different rescue proposal fell apart on Thursday, after the city rejected an offer from the Municipal Labor Committee, a group representing roughly 100 municipal unions, for $262 million to be taken from a health care reserve fund they jointly manage. By then, Ms. Quinn and the teachers’ union president, Michael Mulgrew, had been secretly meeting for days.

Once the other deal collapsed, talks between Ms. Quinn and Mr. Mulgrew moved into overdrive.

On Friday morning, officials of the city’s Education Department made their way to the union’s headquarters to determine what would and would not be on the table. By late afternoon, the two sides had come to an agreement.

Ms. Quinn, meanwhile, worked to sell the plan to Mr. Bloomberg, emerging as the crucial figure in the process.

The budget must be approved by the full Council by Thursday.

Javier C. Hernandez contributed reporting.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Deal To Avert Layoffs
LINK

I wanted to wait a few hours before writing my take on this because as soon as I saw the headline on the Times story last night around 10:45 PM ("Teachers Union Agrees To Concessions To Avoid Layoffs"), I just about wanted to head down to 52 Broadway and break windows.

I had visions of the UFT handing Bloomberg hundreds of millions of dollars from the health care fund, agreeing to salary step freezes and other payroll concessions or opening up the Pandora's Box of health care costs and agreeing to some kind of containment clause.

Those were the kinds of things the mayor wanted in this fight once it became clear that Sheldon Silver and the Assembly were not going to change LIFO for him and allow him to mass lay off the ATR's.

But as I dug into the story a little, I started to see that the "concessions" the mayor claims he got from the deal aren't exactly the kind of sweeping, money-saving concessions he claimed he needed in order to not lay teachers off.

According to Gotham Schools, the two concessions that the UFT granted Bloomberg are canceling sabbaticals for 2012-2013 (supposedly will save $17 million) and allowing ATR's to be used as day-to-day substitutes in their districts (supposedly will save $43 million.)

The total savings from the UFT concessions is $60 million.

The mayor was saying he needed somewhere between $240 million and $377 million in savings in order to avoid layoffs.

Instead he got (at least according to Gotham Schools), $60 million.

Now the city council supposedly agreed to pony up more money for schools too, though I have not seen a number figure on that, so perhaps the "savings" Bloomberg got out of last night's deal is closer to $100 million, but nonetheless it is nowhere near what he claimed he needed in order to avert layoffs.

On the mayor's side, he admits that he lowballed the number of teachers that will be lost to attrition, that schools WILL still take huge cuts to their budgets (while central office at Tweed and the technology consultants will NOT) and will STILL see higher class sizes and fewer teachers next year.

So there is no doubt that the UFT DID concede on issues here that they should have NEVER conceded on.

To review, there is a budget surplus.

Bloomberg was lying about the need to lay teachers off.

He was making a political gambit to get LIFO changed so he could lay off ATR's this year and then lay off senior teachers every year thereafter, dramatically remaking the teaching corps. of NYC into at-will employees.

But he lost that gambit when the Assembly didn't jump when he said "Cash!"

So he was left with a difficult choice - either back down and lose face (and once again be revealed as a lying sack of shit when it comes to layoffs) or continue with the farce and say he needed to do layoffs anyway, despite the surplus.

The UFT had the moral and the political high ground on this.

Public opinion polls show that people despise the mayor, despise his policies, and REALLY despise his education policies.

People KNOW that Bloomberg has been wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on crooked technology projects.

Consultants hired by Bloomberg are being arrested left and right for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the city.

And Bloomberg has budgeted $900 million in additional technology spending for the DOE next year even as he claimed he needed to save $377 million by laying teachers off.

So as I say, the UFT had almost all the cards in this game.

In my opinion, they should have conceded nothing.

They should have gone on the air in mass with CityTime scandal commercials, showing the parade of criminal consultants arrested for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in city funds, played tapes of Bloomberg on his radio show claiming victory on CityTime and saying what a swell project it is and the stolen money just, you know, slipped through the cracks, and then noted that the mayor plans to hand out another $900 million in consultant funds and technology upgrades next year even as he refuses to conduct oversight over these projects, refuses to take responsibility for all the stolen cash so far and insists that he MUST lay teachers off to save the city money.

Seriously, on the face of it, it was absurd for Bloomberg to claim he needed to lay off teachers to save $377 million in the same week that the U.S. attorney announced $600 million had been stolen by crooked consultants in Bloomberg's CityTime project.

So the UFT should not have conceded a thing when they had these kinds of cards.

In addition, the ATR concession is worrisome to me - it is just another sign that ATR's will eventually be sold out by Mulgrew and Company.

It is just a matter of time.

Next year when Bloomberg claims poverty again and starts handing out cash in Albany to get LIFO changed, you can bet that one of the concessions he will want in order to avoid layoffs will be on the ATR's.

And the UFT looks like they are ready to sell them out.

But all things considered, the concessions the UFT made could have been worse.

They could have conceded a couple of hundred million from the health care fund, money Bloomberg would have used to pay outside consultants for his crooked technology contracts.

They could have conceded health care or pension containment costs.

They could have conceded furlough days (or furlough weeks) or agreed to a salary step/longevity freeze.

They didn't do any of that (though on the health care fund front, Mulgrew certainly tried!)

I dunno if it's just that I have gotten cynical about the UFT in my middle age, but when I thought about last night's deal a little, my take was "Sure, the UFT snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, but it's not as bad a defeat as I thought it was going to be."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the union.

But given the serious defeats suffered by labor unions in Jersey and other states and given the concessions agreed to by CSEA in contract negotiations with New York's Tea Party Governor Cuomo, I guess it's not as bad as it could have been.

I know that's the official line from the Unity and New Actions parties at the UFT.

In a way they're right.

But it also doesn't bode well for the future that the official line of the UFT is "Sure, we had to give stuff up even though Bloomberg had a surplus and didn't need to do layoffs, but hey, it could have been worse!"

I suspect next year when we do this shit all over again (and make no mistake, unless Bloomberg is arrested, resigns in disgrace or dies suddenly of an ego attack, we will do this all over again next year), it will be worse.

And if you're an ATR next year, they will try and make your life a living hell, worse than they have already made it, in order to get you to quit.

That's the goal - get senior teachers and ATR's off the payroll.

The concessions the UFT agreed to last night will help the mayor do just that on the ATR front.

And there will still be fewer teachers next year, class sizes will still be higher than they were this year and Bloomberg still gets to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on crooked consultants.

Not the worst deal the UFT leadership could have made, but certainly not the good one they're claiming it to be either.

Posted by reality-based educator at 6:43 AM

9 comments:


Pogue said...

To me, they let him off the hook once again. As politicians, and parents, and students, and teachers are banding together more and more, the UFT provided him an out.

I would've preferred he sweat this summer, and all its political heat, out.

We have given so much over the years. I look forward to the day when the UFT says Stop, and then starts getting some things back.

That day was not yesterday.

June 25, 2011 7:55 AM

Anonymous said...

Well said folks!!

June 25, 2011 8:02 AM

ed notes online said...

Perfect analysis. I just shot from the hip last night the minute I heard of the deal. The UFT did have the high ground and let it slip away instead of hammering Bloomberg. But they are not our advocates but mediators.

June 25, 2011 8:31 AM

Anonymous said...

Hey...they gotta protect that double-tenure cushiness at 52 Broadway, no ?

UFT sucks and needs to be overthrown.

June 25, 2011 8:41 AM

Anonymous said...

Do you think sabtaiclas will EVER be reinstated...?

June 25, 2011 8:41 AM

Anonymous said...

I agree with most of your opinion however there are a few wrinkles that should be looked into. Currently per diem substitutes are for the most part are denied unemployment insurance for the summer months. In years prior to 2007 most claims for unemployment if denied were won at appeal. Then Joel Klein began the Sub-Central Registry and had the city claim that per diems were ASSURED of finding day to day work via the registry. The administrative law judges bought into this position and since then have interpreted the part of labor law that denied per diem teachers unemployment benefits. Now with the influx of more than 15oo absent teacher reserves to cover day to day substitute assignments it is the responsibility of the uft to inform the per diem members (dues paying members)of their right and urgency to file for July and August. Also the DOE has reorganized districts and schools within the geographic districts now are miles and boroughs apart. If an ATR lives in Brooklyn and is assigned to a coverage in Staten Island when will they be informed? By public transportaion the trip is a minimun of 2 hours. Will the DOE honor pre-2001 district lines or the current reorganized district area?Food for thought.

June 25, 2011 8:42 AM

Anonymous said...

Frankly, the UFT disgusts me. Whatever happened to ORGANIZED labor? It seem to me that the many unions across the country have to work together and support one another's causes. The UFT trying to claim that it did what it took to avoid massive layoffs is a sad, pathetic joke.

June 25, 2011 9:55 AM

Anonymous said...

Read Mulgrew's "victory" statements last night, praising that fat blowhard Quinn, and "Bloomberg-with-a-tan Walcott"...Mulgrew is just another political hack making his way in city politics for his own cushy self interests...what a hack.

There NEVER were going to be layoffs this year, and ANYWAY if there were layoffs, they would have been newbie Teach For Americas, and the like. So instead he dumps on the mostly veteran ATRs...? The hand writing is on the wall people...it's time to overthrow the UFT...they are double agents in this war.

June 25, 2011 10:24 AM

Anonymous said...

i think the deal makes it transparent to the broad public that bloomberg was lying about the need for layoffs.

the sabbatical concession is laughable as a substantial cost reduction--i can't imagine that at any given time there are more than 100 teachers out of 75,000 on sabbatical; please correct me if anyone knows better. while on sabbatical, teachers take a 30 % pay cut and i'm sure are not replaced by new hirings.

the atr deal seems to be more problematic, and as noted previously here, needs to closely monitored as to where it's leading.

here's what needs further watching for me : the fact that bloomberg would withdraw his claws so relatively easily, and look so bad in doing so, while future mayoral candidate quinn , who has promised to continue the crusade against seniority and tenure, emerges as a heroine of sorts. there's more here than meets the eye. to our uft leadership : what's the deal ?

June 25, 2011 11:52 AM

Warm and Fuzzy Story of The Week: Bronx UFT Office Gives Awards For Collaborating With School Administrators

Bronx UFT leader Jose Vargas

I felt all warm and fuzzy when I read about the Collaboration Awards celebration given by the Bronx UFT office. Now I dont have to try to answer all the questions I get every day from teachers in Bronx schools asking me why Jose Vargas, Jeff Huart and the rest of the team in the Bronx wont help them when a "principal from hell" goes on a rampage.

Take Principal Richard Bost of Fordham Leadership Academy, for instance, who was found guilty by SCI of sexually abusing his payroll secretary. I wrote an article about him in June 2010. Blogger jd2718 wrote a story about him and about the theft of the $7000 which was to go to the robotics club but was deposited in the personal bank account of Assistant Principal Francine Palmer-Mullings. Meredith Kolodner, Staff writer at the NY Daily News, wrote about him. Blogger friend Chaz wrote about Bost, highlighting the latest NY Teacher (May 26, 2011) article "Bully!" published while one of his teacher victims, Michael Mullen, attended his 3020-a arbitration hearing on charges brought by Bost. Mullen's girlfriend was the secretary that was sexually abused by Bost, so of course he - Mullen - had to go.

Principal Richard Bost has been the subject of several sexual harassment charges and is alleged to have a record of retaliating against critics. Also, DOE officials have pointed to “serious failures in leadership” as a root cause of the Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology’s placement on the state’s list of Persistently Lowest Achieving schools.

I was asked to do the suspension hearing of a boy in the same building but at another school and his sister told me that when she came to the school with her mom for the parent-teacher conference Bost followed her
everywhere. She thought he was "creepy".

So, I guess the reason that Guidance Counselor Diane Gallagher, Math Teacher Mike Mullen, and all the other teachers are no longer working in FLA's classrooms is that the UFT awards Collaboration, not dissention.

Wait. Just ocurred to me that Gallagher, Mullen and the teachers terrorized by Bost are UFT members, deserving of help by their reps at the Bronx UFT office....what say you, Jose?

Betsy Combier

Second annual UFT Bronx borough office Collaboration Awards

District 8 Representative Carmen Quinones (left) with PS 69 Principal Sheila Durant and Chapter Leader Helen Efstathiou (right).

Recognizing teamwork
by Micah Landau, published June 23, 2011
LINK

As UFT members well know, teamwork between teachers and administrators is key to a school’s success. When principals refuse to work with teachers, schools — and students — suffer. That’s why the union’s Bronx borough office held its second annual Collaboration Awards on June 9 to recognize Bronx chapter leaders and principals who have forged successful partnerships to support their students.

“If there is not collaboration in a school between the principal, chapter leader, teachers and parents, then we would be working in isolation,” said Jose Vargas, the union’s Bronx borough representative and host for the evening. “And if there is not a good leader steering the ship, that ship is not going anywhere.”

Karen Alford, the union’s vice president for elementary schools, echoed Vargas’ comments.

“We know that when adults work well together, it’s good for children,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

Veteran physical education teacher Manny Lopez, from the South Bronx’s IS 190, was among the many chapter leaders honored at the event.

UFT Bronx Special Representative Jeff Huart with PS 33 Chapter Leader Paulette Patterson (left) and Principal Lynette Santos.

“We collaborate so we can give something more to the students,” Lopez said of his partnership with Principal Dianajade Santiago, herself a former special education teacher who continues to substitute for absent faculty members.

Among their achievements, the pair, which meets every morning before classes begin and remains in communication throughout the day, has worked to introduce French into the school’s curriculum and to implement a school-based option to use the 37.5 minutes of extended time for lesson planning and professional development.

“You rarely hear of principals who protect teachers’ rights. This is one,” Lopez praised Santiago.

Another chapter leader-principal pair, Vicky Figueroa-Vidal and Kenneth Thomas, said they are working together to increase parent involvement at CS 134 in the Morrisania section of the Bronx.

“We want to make the community part of our school,” said Figueroa-Vidal, a 5th-grade teacher. “We want parent involvement, but it’s hard.”

She had only praise for Thomas, a former teacher and chapter leader at CS 61.

“He’s always willing to listen to the concerns of the teachers,” Figueroa-Vidal said. “When it’s possible, we find a solution that works for everyone.”

And the winners are ...

Chapter leaders and principals from the following Bronx schools received awards:

PS 18, PS 30, PS 65, MS 223, MS 203, PS 335, PS 69, PS 55, MS 327, PS 90, CES 126, PS/MS 218, PS 7, PS 33, PS 45, PS 118, PS 159, PS 306, PS 360, IS 390, PS 396, The Globe School for Environmental Studies, PS 169, MS 462, PS 153, PS 112, New Day Academy, CS 92, CS 134, IS 190, CS 196.

15 NYC Employees Are Busted For Unemployment Fraud

Who is watching the city bank?

15 NYC Employees Busted For Unemployment Fraud
Posted on Tuesday, 21 of June , 2011 at 9:20 pm
northcountrygazette.org/2011/06/21
NEW YORK—Fifteen current and former employees of the City of New York, most of whom were City “seasonal” employees, who fraudulently obtained a total of approximately $79,840 in unemployment insurance payments, have been arrested.

The Department of Investigation’s investigation found these defendants falsely claimed to the New York State Department of Labor they were unemployed, when in actuality they were working for a City agency and receiving City wages.

The individuals are charged with stealing amounts that range from $3,107 to $14,432. The City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS”) reimburses DOL for unemployment insurance benefits paid to City employees and did so in these cases.

Since 1998, and including these arrests, DOI has arrested 121 City employees on charges of illegally collecting more than $430,000 in unemployment insurance benefits. The majority of those arrests have been of “seasonal” employees who work for City agencies for part of the year. They are entitled to collect unemployment insurance benefits when not working during the off-season but may not lawfully claim and collect unemployment benefits while actively employed and collecting City wages.

The arrests include individuals who worked for the City Department of Parks and Recreation (“DPR”), Human Resources Administration (“HRA”), Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (“DOITT”), New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), Board of Election (“BOE”), Department of Health and Mental

Hygiene (“DOHMH”), Department of Sanitation (“DSNY”), and the Department of Transportation (“DOT”).

Nine of the individuals arrested currently work for the City and their cases will be referred to the appropriate agency for disciplinary action.

Each of the 15 individuals arrested is charged with third degree grand larceny, a class D felony. Upon conviction, a class D felony is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Following are brief descriptions of the charges. In each case, the defendants falsely claimed to DOL they were unemployed, DOL paid unemployment benefits, and DCAS reimbursed DOL for each amount disbursed:

* • ORQUIDIA WADE, 30, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between January and November 2009, when in fact she was working as a DOITT call center representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $14,432 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • EARLEY WATFORD, 45, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between May 2009 and July 2010 when in fact he was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations Watford allegedly illegally collected approximately $8,506 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WATFORD has been working as a City seasonal aide since July 2007, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour.

* • WILLIAM LENNON, 51, of Manhattan, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between August 2009 and February 2010 when in fact he was working as a DOHMH Public Health Advisor during that period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,974 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. LENNON began working for DOHMH as a Public Health Advisor in November 1993 and currently receives hourly wages of $20.68 in that position.

* • JOHN BLACK, 54, of Manhattan, is charged with certifying he was unemployed between November 2009 and May 2010 when in fact he was working as an HRA Job Training Participant and, then, as a DPR seasonal aide, during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,242 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • CALVIN WARD, 39, of Queens, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between March and December 2010 when in fact he was working as a DOT Assistant City Highway Representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $6,075 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WARD began working DOT in March 2008 and is an Assistant City Highway Representative receiving an hourly wage of $22.03.

* • TONIA WALKER, 32, of Brooklyn, is charged with certifying she was unemployed between May and September 2010 when in fact she was working as an HRA eligibility specialist during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $5,950 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. WALKER began working at HRA in May 2010, currently is an eligibility specialist, and receives an annual salary of approximately $36,602.

* • BEVERLY ATKINS, 45, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between November 2009 and February 2010 when in fact she was working as a DOITT call center representative during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $4,158 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. ATKINS began working at DOITT in November 2009, is currently a call center representative, and receives an annual salary of approximately $32,761.

* • MARGARET SCALISCE, 62, of Staten Island, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between May and September 2009 when in fact she was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $4,108 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. SCALISCE has been working as a City seasonal aide since June 2000, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour.

* • ESTHER CAMACHO, 55, of Manhattan, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between September 2009 and February 2010, when in fact she was working as a NYPD school crossing guard during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,798 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. CAMACHO began working as a school crossing guard in April 2000 and currently receives hourly wages of $12.90 in that position.

* • JOHN MCCLAIN, 53, of Brooklyn, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between January and June 2010 when in fact he was working as a DSNY Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,485 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • ARTHUR WANNER III, 35, of Queens, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between October 2009 and January 2010 when in fact he was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,366 in
unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

WANNER has been working as a City seasonal aide since August 2004, currently works at DPR, and receives $15.78 an hour.

* • DELORES GRAHAM, 55, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying to DOL she was unemployed between May and September 2009 when in fact she was employed as a DPR Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,266 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • ANTHONY HALL, 25, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying he was unemployed between May and July 2010 when in fact he was working as a BOE clerk during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,192 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • JOYCE BENSON, 46, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between May and October 2009 when she was in fact working as a DPR Job Training Participant during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,179 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint.

* • SANDRA DIAZ, 39, of the Bronx, is charged with falsely certifying she was unemployed between September 2008 and August 2010 when in fact she was working as a DPR seasonal aide during that time period. As a result of those misrepresentations the defendant illegally collected approximately $3,107 in unemployment insurance benefits, according to the criminal complaint. DIAZ has been working as a City seasonal aide since July 2007, currently works at DPR, and receives $14.98 an hour. 6-21-11

Education Next 2005 Asked Sol Stern and Joe Williams To weigh in On Mayoral Control in NYC

Sol Stern

Six years later, my vote goes to Sol Stern. I have written before about Joe, who in my opinion should have helped all the teachers, children and parents who discussed with him their horror stories when he was a reporter for the Daily News by publishing the stories. He did not and then came out with his book. Assistance to those in need must be timely.

my 2 cents

Betsy Combier

Education Next published an article in 2005 on how we should look carefully at exactly what we want in NYC public schools, cause we might get it (i.e. Mayoral control):

In one of the more extreme examples of ancient wisdom proved true, many education reformers are wondering if they should have been more careful about what they wished for in New York City. Please let the mayor run the schools: that was the mantra.

Mired for decades in Byzantine bureaucracy that wasted untold millions of dollars and incalculable numbers of student academic lives, the New York City school system was wrestled to the ground by a billionaire mayor, and almost everyone applauded.

Four years later, where are we? Not far, says Sol Stern, an early supporter of the new regime. Joe Williams, however, is more inclined to give the Bloomberg bunch a pass, at least for now.

A Negative Assessment by Sol Stern

Minority kids soar in reading,” screamed the banner headline on the New York Post’s front page earlier this year. Along with its rival tabloid, the Daily News, the Post supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s education reforms and now has credited those reforms for a “record setting” 10 percent improvement in the city’s scores on state-administered 4th-grade reading tests.

Actually, it’s anyone’s guess why the 4th-grade scores rose so sharply this year at the same time that the 8th-grade reading and social studies scores went from bad to worse (with only 32.8 percent of city 8th graders meeting state standards in reading and 20 percent in social studies). It could well be due to broader educational forces or to changes in testing procedures. Either could explain why 4th-grade scores were up throughout the state, and student gains in Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers were even more impressive than in Gotham (see Hanushek, “Pseudo-Science”).

In any case, no reputable researcher would rely on a one-year bump in some test scores to judge the efficacy of a new program. In the absence of independent confirmation by testing experts, one should remain highly skeptical of the claims of Mayor Bloomberg and his supporters that his instructional initiatives are working.

Unfortunately, this is also an election year, which means that political spin is likely to drown out reasoned debate about what policies are most likely to work in inner-city classrooms. The premise of mayoral control was that the public would finally be able to hold someone accountable for the schools. But the billionaire mayor has almost unlimited resources to win an electoral spin war, regardless of the reality in the classroom. In addition to dipping into his private fortune for unlimited campaign ads touting his test score gains, he has total control of a $15 billion education empire that doles out jobs and no-bid contracts to potential critics and spends millions on a well-oiled public relations machine, but spends nothing on independent research or evaluation of classroom programs. This has consequences for the national education debate as well. If Bloomberg is reelected, his model of reform through dictatorial mayoral control will surely be urged on other troubled urban school districts.

Before that model is exported anywhere else, however, serious thought ought to be given to what the mayor promised and what he has actually delivered.

City Hall Rules

It once seemed to be a good thing for education reform that Mike Bloomberg was so rich. Having financed his first election campaign completely out of his deep pockets, Bloomberg was unencumbered by debts owed to the system’s entrenched interest groups, including the powerful union representing 80,000 teachers. In this favorable political climate, the new mayor was quickly able to persuade the state legislature to vest him with total control of the schools. Even the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) supported the reform legislation after Mayor Bloomberg gave the teachers a 16 percent across-the-board wage hike (plus an extra 5 percent for beginning teachers).

Crammed with thousands of redundant bureaucrats and patronage appointees, the Board of Education’s labyrinthine headquarters building at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn was the most notorious symbol of the old regime. The mayor seized control of the building, cleaned out the time-servers and the patronage nests, and then sold off the property to the highest bidder. A few hundred top administrators who survived the purge were relocated to the newly renovated Tweed Courthouse building a few hundred feet from City Hall, where the mayor could keep a close eye on them.

The mayor seemed equally bold in his selection of Joel Klein, former chief of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, as schools’ chancellor. The highlight of Klein’s career to that point was his prosecution of the Microsoft Corporation for antitrust violations. Bringing in a “trust buster” to help reinvent a monopoly public school system was hailed by many education reformers (myself included) as a stroke of genius and more proof of Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment to radical change.

Bloomberg and Klein then created what appeared to be a streamlined structure for efficiently managing the city’s 1,300 schools. Instead of overlapping administrative layers operating through 32 separate school districts, there would now be one clear chain of command extending vertically from the mayor’s office to the chancellor, then down through ten regional superintendents, and finally to the principal of every school in the system.

So much for the Management 101 part. What happens in the classroom of the new order?

The mayor presented his master plan, called Children First, in an inspired Martin Luther King Day speech in January 2003. Standing in front of a portrait of Reverend King at the Schomburg cultural center in Harlem, he described the effort to improve the schools as a “civil rights” battle. The administration’s new approach, Bloomberg said, was to allow the chancellor’s office to “dictate the curriculum and pedagogical methods,” including a reading program with “a daily focus on phonics.” The mayor also promised, “Our teachers will all employ strategies proven to work.” A few days later Chancellor Klein announced that the mainstay of the new citywide literacy curriculum would be a program called Month-by-Month Phonics.

The references to phonics and “strategies proven to work” seemed like a calculated hint that the businessman mayor would favor a return to “basics.” This was music to the ears of education traditionalists bemoaning the use of unproven progressive methodologies in inner-city classrooms. Still, Bloomberg also offered plenty of red meat to those reformers pushing for school choice, competition, and incentives in education. Vouchers remain off the table in New York, but Chancellor Klein soon came out for the next best thing: charter schools. He also pressed for reform of the onerous work rules in the teachers’ contract, including eliminating the seniority provisions, making it easier to fire incompetents, and establishing a system of merit pay.

For pushing these market-style initiatives, Klein and Bloomberg have been celebrated in the media and the business community as courageous visionaries, even revolutionaries. Two of the nation’s most influential education philanthropies, the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation, are deeply invested in Bloomberg’s structural reforms and see them as national models of reform. The same Bill Gates whose company was prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein has given Chancellor Klein at least $70 million for creating hundreds of new small high schools and charter schools. And California billionaire Eli Broad, who helped finance the Children First planning phase, predicted that Bloomberg and Klein would soon succeed in turning around the schools.

Calamity of the Lams

The only reform that ever matters in education is doing whatever it takes to lift student academic achievement and reduce the scandalous racial gap in learning. Unfortunately, somewhere along the road to the brave new world of charter schools and market incentives, Bloomberg and Klein either forgot, or never comprehended in the first place, that all good education, and, even more so, education for disadvantaged children, starts with systematic and explicit instruction in the basic skills of literacy, numeracy, and other foundational academic subjects. By that standard, there is nothing at all revolutionary about the progressive pedagogy that now rules New York’s schools. Even worse, the administration’s authoritarian attempts to impose a single instructional approach throughout the system have so demoralized and frightened rank-and-file teachers that it is now virtually impossible for the city to get much-needed reforms of work rules in the next teachers’ contract.

The selection of Month-by-Month Phonics in January 2003 provided the first clue that there was an instructional void at the heart of the Bloomberg/Klein reforms. Not only has this program never met the “proven to work” standard set by the mayor; it isn’t even a systematic phonics program, despite its name. Even the authors of the program concede the point. Phonics, they argue, is only “one-quarter of a well-balanced literary diet.”

The authors’ invocation of “balance” was a giveaway. Real phonics instruction teaches children about the sounds of spoken language and how letters represent those sounds. “Balanced literacy” is the brand name for an instructional approach that adds a dollop of phonics to an otherwise whole-language reading program in which children are encouraged to “construct” or decipher meaning from so-called authentic texts. It’s a clever marketing ploy that allows school districts to appear to be responding to growing pressure from lawmakers and parents for explicit phonics instruction while doing the opposite.

Mayor Bloomberg likely was never told that Month-by-Month Phonics was part of a stealth whole-language program. The same excuse can’t be made for Chancellor Klein, who chose to surround himself with a palace guard of progressive educators who all hate phonics. The key managerial decision in this regard was Klein’s selection in August 2002 of Diana Lam as deputy chancellor for teaching and learning at $250,000 per year, the same salary as his own, surely one of the most embarrassing hiring decisions in the history of New York City government. Lam flamed out in less than 18 months after she was caught in a nepotism scandal, but the education damage she caused during her brief tenure was incalculable.

As schools’ chief in Providence, Rhode Island, Lam assiduously promoted balanced literacy and “fuzzy” math programs, but the results were nothing to write home about. Fifty-four of the 55 schools in the district were listed by the state as “low performing” when she got there. After she left, three years later, only one of those schools had moved up a notch. Nevertheless, Klein gave her control over curriculum and pedagogical decisions during the planning stages of Children First. It was Lam who convinced Klein that balanced literacy, with its phony phonics component, should be used in virtually all schools.

With Klein’s approval, Lam also managed to wipe out one of the few instructional programs that actually met Mayor Bloomberg’s “proven to work” standard. It’s an explicit phonics program called Success for All that was put into 50 of the city’s lowest-performing schools in the late 1990s. Reading scores went up in those schools for four consecutive years. Yet despite the program’s good track record and the $27 million that the city had invested in it, Lam dumped it without even so much as a phone call to the program’s developer, Robert Slavin. “She decided on the first day not to listen to other voices,” Slavin said.

Klein and Lam launched their jihad against phonics at a rather inopportune moment. The National Reading Panel commissioned by Congress had concluded, based on an analysis of 52 randomized scientific studies, that effective reading programs, especially for kids living in poverty, require “systematic and explicit” instruction in phonics. Because of this converging scientific consensus, the No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to demonstrate that they are using reading programs that have been tested for their efficacy through scientific studies in order to qualify for federal reading funds.

Mayor Bloomberg was warned repeatedly by federal and state education officials that Month-by-Month Phonics wouldn’t qualify for the $34 million annually in reading funds available to the city. In a letter to Bloomberg, Klein, and Lam, seven noted reading specialists, including three who had served on the National Reading Panel, said that Month-by-Month Phonics is “woefully inadequate,” “lacks a research base,” and “puts beginning readers at risk of failure in learning to read.” The federal government would be guilty of malpractice if it funded a reading program that its own experts said “puts beginning readers at risk of failure.” That alone should have led Bloomberg and Klein to reverse course immediately in the interests of the children and to fire Diana Lam.

Instead, the Bloomberg administration treated the scientists’ letter as a political and public relations problem. Enter Professor Lucy Calkins of Teachers College, the doyenne of balanced literacy in New York, with $6 million in city contracts to train teachers for the program. Although the experts’ letter was private, Calkins rounded up a posse of 100 ed-school professors, most of whom had nothing to do with reading instruction, to write a counter-letter made public by the administration. It was hardly hot news that education school professors hate phonics. Nevertheless, the administration tried to persuade the public that the letter with 100 signatures outweighed the one from a mere seven reading scientists, as if an educators’ plebiscite could resolve the evidentiary questions about the effectiveness of the reading program.

After stonewalling for almost a year, Chancellor Klein found a way out of the dilemma. He agreed to install a phonics program called Harcourt Trophies in only 49 schools in order to qualify for the federal funds. Klein’s gamesmanship was unnecessary and tragic. It should have been a no-brainer for the city to pick up more than $200 million in federal funds over six years for something it should have been doing all along. So why would an education administration that claims to care only about the interests of kids decide to use a reading program, Month-by-Month Phonics, that does not meet the standard for effectiveness established by a broad consensus of scientists?

The Romance of Progressivism

The answer is that the progressive educators empowered by Chancellor Klein shudder at the thought that science confers validity on the practice of teaching young children to read through heavily scripted lessons in letter/sound correspondence. Their pedagogical starting point is the great Romantic idea, starting with Rousseau, that children learn naturally (including learning to read). Thus the role of the teacher is to facilitate this natural process through hands-on, “constructivist” activity in “child-centered” classrooms. This can be seen vividly in a CD video distributed by the chancellor’s office to all teachers in 2003 and that was still posted on the Department of Education’s (DOE) web site as of May 2005.

As the video opens, Klein announces, “This CD will walk you through the research upon which we based our decisions regarding our program choices.” The implication is that the city’s search for the “best practices” was intellectually serious. Not so. Otherwise, this instructional guide would not be dominated by the pedagogical principles of a radical education guru from Australia named Brian Cambourne, who believes that teachers ought to encourage their students to achieve a “literacy for social equity and social justice.”

Professor Cambourne says he came to his theories when he discovered that many of his poorly performing students were actually quite bright. To his surprise, almost all demonstrated competence at challenging tasks in the real adult world, including poker. This led to the brainstorm that children learn better in natural settings with a minimum amount of adult help. So important does Joel Klein’s education department deem Cambourne’s theories to be that it instructs all city teachers to go through a checklist to make sure their classroom practices meet the down-under education professor’s “Conditions for Learning.” Which of four scenarios most accurately describes how your classroom is set up? teachers are asked. If the teacher can claim “a variety of center-based activities, for purposeful learning using different strategies, and for students to flow as needed,” she can pat herself on the back. But if her classroom is set up “for lecture with rows facing forward,” she must immediately change her practice.

You might ask whether there’s any evidence for such pedagogy. It’s “weak to nonexistent,” according to Reid Lyon, former head of all reading research at the National Institutes of Health. “The philosophical and romantic notion that children learn to read naturally and through incidental exposure to print and literature has no scientific merit whatsoever.”

That hasn’t deterred Chancellor Klein in the least. Constructivist pedagogical guidelines are forced on classroom teachers in weekly “professional development” sessions that are closer to a military boot camp than any serious inquiry into the best classroom practices. No dissent is allowed. Teachers are given lists of “nonnegotiables,” a strange and embarrassing concept for any education enterprise. Thus students must not be sitting in rows. Teachers are forbidden to stand at the head of the class and do “chalk and talk” at the blackboard. There must be a “workshop” (students working in groups) in every single reading period. Teachers are also provided with classroom maps indicating the exact location of the teacher’s desk, the students’ writing stations, and exactly how much of the wall space should be set aside for posting student work. Also nonnegotiable is that every elementary school classroom must have a rug.

Is it surprising then that Chancellor Klein is facing a revolt from teachers like 13-year veteran Jackie Bennett, from a Staten Island high school? Ms. Bennett’s problem is that she believes it’s not a sin to bring her knowledge of great literature to her students, even if she occasionally lectures. After all, Bennett has a master’s in English literature from Columbia University, exactly the kind of academic attainment we supposedly want more of from our teachers.

“DOE administrators talk about balance,” Ms. Bennett recently wrote in an unpublished letter to the New York Times.

What they really want is all-group, all the time. What’s more, the message is clear: when we visit your classes and the kids are not in groups, you have one strike against you.

My recent experience at staff development is illustrative of just how clear that message is intended to be. After spending the morning working with my colleagues on a small group activity that entailed busywork that did nothing to further our development as teachers, we returned to a whole-class discussion to briefly assess what we had learned. I raised my hand and asked if there was any research tying group work to better test scores. The answer was no.

My behavior was reported to the Local Instructional Superintendent, and two days later, my assistant principal asked me to forgo attendance at the remaining meetings. I had, it seems, been kicked out of staff development. Had I made a ruckus? No. But I had asked uncomfortable questions. I had thought critically. Though the City’s Department of Education gives lip service to teaching kids to think critically, it is clear they want those critical thinking skills taught by drones.

Tyranny in the Classroom

Chancellor Klein has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on mandated professional development sessions of the kind that Jackie Bennett describes. Yet there’s no research evaluating the effectiveness of a program that is eating up so much of the city’s budget and its teachers’ precious time. New York City has nothing like the independent research consortium, based at the University of Chicago, which provides objective third-party evaluation and analysis of performance data supplied by the Chicago school system.

What’s indisputable, however, is that the intellectually vacuous nature of these sessions and the central administration’s tyranny over classroom instruction is demoralizing many excellent and successful teachers. The city will surely lose many of them. “There isn’t one teacher I know who doesn’t say they would leave if they could,” says Norman Scott, a 35-year veteran classroom teacher and publisher of an independent newsletter for city teachers. In the meantime thousands of teachers have taken to the streets in union-organized protests over Klein’s instructional dictatorship. “Let teachers teach,” say the placards carried at these demonstrations. At a recent UFT rally, union president Randi Weingarten said: “We knew that a top-down, command and control management and rigid, lockstep teaching mandates would be demoralizing. But I never imagined that guidelines for, say, the workshop model, complete with its limit of ten minutes of direct instruction, would devolve into orders to use it every day, for every lesson and every group of students.”

Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have countered that all the tumult in the street is nothing but posturing over a contract dispute. The UFT wants more money, they say, but no reform of the work rules. They are right that the existing contract is a lousy deal for everyone involved. I have been writing about the contract’s excellence-killing seniority rules, its lockstep pay schedules, and its other inflexible regulations for years (see “Façade of Excellence,” Education Next, Summer 2003). In fact, Joel Klein once told me he had read my critique of the contract, and from time to time he has even borrowed my quip that this is the ultimate “we-don’t-do-windows” labor agreement.

The problem is that, because Chancellor Klein has tyrannized all teachers with mindless directives about their classroom practices, he has forfeited any chance of getting significant work-rule changes. Why would any self-respecting teacher be willing to give Chancellor Klein even more power over his or her professional life? Come to think of it, Chancellor Klein has managed to incorporate one of the worst characteristics of the teachers’ contract into his own professional development regime. It’s the pernicious idea that all teachers are of equal value to a school and should be treated accordingly. Thus the contract mandates that the math teacher with a Ph.D. who teaches AP calculus is on the exact same pay scale as the 7th-grade gym teacher. The teacher who works 60 hours a week, spending extra time with students and parents, is equal to the teacher putting in the contractual minimum of 6 hours and 40 minutes per day.

But consider Chancellor Klein’s professional development program. It is meant to indoctrinate and remold virtually every teacher in the system, regardless of that teacher’s level of academic attainment, years of experience, established record of success, or personal teaching style. All are herded into professional development boot camp, the 13-year veteran with a master’s deg

-Sol Stern is the author of Breaking Free: Public SchoolLessons and the Imperative of School Choice.

On the Positive Side by Joe Williams

Principal From Hell Strikes Again: Howard Kwait, John Bowne High School

Howard Kwait

I know a teacher undergoing his "trial" (3020-a) right now, whom I believe was falsely accused by the principal, Howard Kwait. When this teacher was removed from his school and criminalized like so many other innocent victims of the Bloomberg-Klein-Black-Walcott regime, where was the outrage?

Principal Kwait made a huge error in allowing an arrest of the daughter of a diplomat from India, but he also made the false claims process of the Gotcha Squad an international issue. Krittika Biswas was accused of sending obscene emails to her teacher. Of course there was no real "investigator" on hand to ask what the facts in the case really were before arresting her, happens every day to an unsuspecting teacher. Now, the improper and scandalous violation of rights is international. Perhaps something will change? Richard Condon and his riot police may be investigated? It's certainly  time for that to occur.

Why cant the press expose principals who terrorize New York City public school teachers?

Round-Up: The Strange Case of Krittika Biswas
Wall Street Journal
LINK

India’s media erupted with indignation today over the case of Krittika Biswas, the daughter of an Indian diplomat serving at the Indian Consulate General in Manhattan, who claims she was wrongfully arrested after being falsely accused of sending obscene emails to her school teacher, according to reports.

The 18-year-old was reportedly kept in custody for more than 24 hours on Feb. 8 and also was sent for more than a month to a special suspension program by her school despite being cleared by investigators. She filed a notice of claim May 6 saying that she is suing New York City, among others, for $1.5 million.

Ms. Biswas had reportedly tried to claim diplomatic immunity. But a U.S. State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, was quoted by NDTV as saying that the immunity does not extend to family members of diplomats.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in New Delhi said in an emailed statement: “We are aware of press reporting regarding filing of a lawsuit by the daughter of an Indian consular officer. However we have no comment on this ongoing litigation.”

The Deccan Herald reported that Krittika felt ill-treated in custody, saying: “Krittika alleged that she was not allowed to use the bathroom for a long-time”. It added some other unsavory details, “that she couldn’t drink water from a water fountain because it had another person’s vomit, and although it was really cold, she could not use the blanket because it was really dirty.”

In addition to the lawsuit, the girl’s lawyer also suggested that the City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, give her a key to the freedom of the city. But Mr. Bloomberg seemed unlikely to grant the request, according to The New York Post (which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.)

Ms. Biswas is gaining some support for her plight on Facebook. A group called “’Krittika Biswas’-Price of Every Tear Will Be Paid” was set up this morning. The group as of Thursday afternoon had 86 “likes.” But it remains to be seen what broader ramifications her case may have. “We don’t know if such strange kind of events will really have an impact on India-U.S. relations,” said one Indian official.

Indian diplomat's daughter claims she was falsely arrested for obscene emails

By YOAV GONEN, NY POST, May 24, 2011
LINK

An Indian diplomat’s daughter who claims she was falsely arrested and suspended for sending obscene emails to teachers at her Queens high school is suing the city for a whopping $1.5 million – and even a key to the city, her lawyer said today.

In a notice of claim filed on May 6, John Bowne HS senior Krittika Biswas, daughter of the vice counsel at the Consulate General of India in Manhattan, Debashish Biswas, said her claims of diplomatic immunity were ignored when she was cuffed and locked up for more than 24 hours on Feb. 8 after a shoddy probe by administrators into the emails.

Even after the Queens DA dropped the charges and expunged her arrest from the record, school officials booted the 18-year-old girl to an offsite suspension center for more than a month, according to the claim.

It was only after principal Howard Kwait found the real perpetrator that Biswas was allowed back into school.

“The basis for this targeted inquiry was as criminally malicious as it was reckless,” Biswas’s lawyer Ravi Batra said during a news conference.

In addition to unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, Batra curiously suggested that Mayor Bloomberg could perhaps give “a key to the City to Krittika Biswas as a token of heartfelt sorrow for the unbecoming pain inflicted upon her.”

Batra also claims that officers failed to read Biswas Miranda rights and "continued to inquire about her computer usage."

The Joel Klein-Wireless Generation-No-Bid Contract-New Deal

Now we can all see how this works:

Joel Klein

Joel Klein ("JK") is brought to New York City by Mayor Mike Bloomberg to be the Attorney-in-fact, "Chancellor-in-name-only", and then JK proceeds to deny all rights to all groups protesting what he says and does, as required. Then, when too many people get angered by Joel's gruff manner (Bloomberg wants only smooth operators, because it is by sugar-coating the "I despise you and I'm going to hurt you" procedure that things get done quickly) he suddenly - and without any search for qualified candidates -  appoints a person who is being let go from her publishing house for incompetence (Cathie Black) because he can, then realizes

Robbie Newman, Denise and Dennis Walcott

his mistake and appoints as "Chancellor-in-name-only" smooth operator Dennis Walcott. Meanwhile, JK is allowed to pursue business prospects that reek of conflicts of interest  over at the NY Daily News, where he, JK, is revered as the guru who changed the face of public education in America (see below, where John Merrow - whose boss is the same as JK's, is, in my opinion, delusional):
Love or loathe him, Joel Klein is the person most responsible for shaping U.S. schools today
BY JOHN MERROW, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER, Sunday, June 05, 2011

Who is America's most influential educator? Some would probably name Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education and cynics might suggest Bill Gates, because of his foundation's heavy involvement in education policy, or a teachers' union leader like Randi Weingarten.

In this parlor game, other names would emerge: Oprah Winfrey, anyone? Other competitors for the title would be Big Bird and friends on Sesame Street and Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. Millions of young children learn from the former and by now hundreds of thousands of students have been - and are being - taught by Teach for America corps members.

But the evidence suggests that our most influential educator is a lawyer who only very briefly taught in public school and never had the formal credentials to lead a public school system. Even now, as he earns megabucks working for a media giant, his influence is felt across the nation - in New Jersey, Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, Conn., New Orleans and elsewhere.

This man is a believer in public education - which, he says, transformed his life. His father had to quit high school and he grew up in public housing. He credits his teachers in Queens for giving him "a worldview and a sense of opportunity and purpose."
 
That's why, when in 2002 Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked him to run the city's schools, Joel Klein turned his back on his million-dollar law practice and budding career as a media executive at Bertelsmann, Inc. to become New York City's schools chancellor.

Much has been made of Klein's influence on the city's public schools over his nearly nine years as chancellor. Most of the words have been kind and deservedly so. After all, he took on a huge and hidebound system and began whacking away on day one, pausing only occasionally to catch a breath.

Combative by nature, Klein could bristle rather easily. Always well prepared, Klein dazzled with numbers and, when the numbers didn't support his case, he found other ways to attack.

His critics - and there are many - discount the academic achievements Klein boasted about, particularly after the flabby nature of state tests was exposed and scores were recalibrated, leading to significantly lower gains for many public schools on his watch. They say he was obsessed with test scores and didn't pay enough attention to genuine learning. He maintains that he was the first to raise doubts about the tests.
 
One critic, the anti-testing group FairTest, accuses Mr. Klein of leading New York and the country in "dangerous directions." In a statement, it charges that he "promoted the overuse and misuse of standardized tests to judge students, control curriculum and instruction and rate schools, teachers and principals - even though the tests are inadequate for all these purposes. In doing so, he undermined teaching and learning even while claiming to improve them." It adds that Klein - and by extension his protgs - are "part and parcel of a larger trend, exemplified most by No Child Left Behind, that reduces schooling to test prep."

A more comprehensive critique comes from Weingarten, who clashed with Klein when she led the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and who has continued the arguments now that she is president of the national union, the American Federation of Teachers. In response to my question, she offered this analysis:

"Joel had a great opportunity when he became chancellor. He is bright, he had the mayor's trust and he had the power. He had an infusion of new funding from the equity lawsuit, the city's growing revenues and a new teachers' contract that lengthened the school day and significantly increased teacher pay, including new teachers."

But, Weingarten concludes, he failed to take advantage. "He led through divisiveness and as a result, we lost the opportunity to make this school system an example of sustained and growing student achievement for all to emulate. He disregarded the public schools that were working, preferring instead to focus on charters. He dismantled programs that worked, like the Chancellor's District and apropos of that rather than using the flexibility embedded in the DOE-UFT contract, he often ridiculed it, even after he negotiated its terms. When his actions did not produce results, he re-organized and pointed fingers, blaming teachers and their union."

However, even his critics ought to give Klein credit for longevity, tenacity and some genuine improvements. The bureaucracy has been streamlined, graduation rates are up and thousands of adolescents are now attending high schools where they are more than just a number. On his watch, the New York schools opened about 125 small high schools, in the process shutting down dozens of "dropout factories," scary huge places where most students were poorly served. Because he encouraged charter schools, thousands of kids, mostly poor and minority children, are now better served.

But what distinguishes Klein from other reformers - a point far too rarely forgotten when observers are assessing his legacy - is his influence beyond the system he ran.

His geographical influence is vast:

School superintendents in Chicago (Jean-Claude Brizard), Baltimore (Andres Alonso), Newark (Cami Anderson), Montgomery County, Md. (Joshua Starr). South Orange, N.J. (Brian Osborne), Christina, Del. (Marcia Lyles) and New Haven (Garth Harries).

Then there's the State Superintendent in New Jersey, Chris Cerf; and the Superintendent of Louisiana's "Recovery School District" in New Orleans, John White, who is rumored to be in line to become that state's superintendent.

It doesn't end there. Two other leaders were nurtured by Klein, although neither reported to him directly. One is the current New York City chancellor, former Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, whom Klein often refers to jokingly as "my other wife." The other is Michelle Rhee, the controversial former chancellor of the schools in Washington, D.C. She is unstinting in her praise.

"Like many of the new superintendents across the country now, I got my position as chancellor of the Washington D.C. Schools in large part because of Joel Klein," she wrote in an email. "His best piece of advice to me was, 'Lead from the front, don't get mired in the middle.' His intolerance and impatience for low expectations and low academic achievement of kids put the fire into a lot of us and certainly helped to keep me motivated."

Although Rhee has moved on to found a national organization, Students First, her policies apparently remain in place and Walcott has changed little since taking over in New York City.

So are these men and women disciples who wear "What Would Joel Do?" buttons on their lapels? Not likely, because he says he looked for "people who were tough-minded, independent and would tell me what they think (not what they think I want to hear)." Regarding discipleship, Klein wrote in an email, "I hope they ask WWJD but in the end make up their own mind. After all, they're accountable."

In at least two districts, Baltimore and New Haven, the leaders have moved away from Klein's antagonistic posture toward unions. Both have forged new relationships and, coincidence or not, are showing improvement in student performance and graduation rates.

Still, even as the personal stamps are inevitable, Klein's powerful imprint is unquestionable.

As for Klein, he has not left education entirely. He's now working on education technology projects for the News Corporation - with an ambitious plan to modernize, among other things, the delivery of lessons to students and assessment data to teachers and administrators. That could be a sweet spot given that his new boss, Rupert Murdoch, recently derided public schools as "Victorian" and inappropriate for today's world.
**************************************

It's all baloney, except the part that says that JK denied all rights to all people in New York City. The education take-over is the result of $millions spent on marketing policies and concepts that have never been successful. The partners he always had (the Clintons) and the new allies bought for him while "Chancellor-not" (by "allies" I mean everyone who has, or wants to do work with Bloomberg) now are rallying behind him as the guru of a New Deal (see below). NYSUT, the legal arm of the UFT here in NYC, pretends to object. When will JK and Bloomberg be throwing NYSUT and the UFT another bone?

NYSUT blasts no-bid contract to company headed by Joel Klein
NYSUT Media Relations - June 9, 2011
LINK

ALBANY, N.Y. June 9, 2011 - New York State United Teachers today expressed outrage at a Daily News report that the state Education Department appears ready to award a $27 million no-bid contract to a company headed by former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and owned by News Corp., publisher of the New York Post.

“When a deal smells as bad as this one, you have to ask: Is the push to use standardized test scores to evaluate teachers really about improving teaching and student achievement? Or, is it about finding ways for Wall Street and big corporations to cash in on Race to the Top?” asked NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi.

Iannuzzi said NYSUT would ask the state comptroller to reject the contract, and the state attorney general’s office to investigate any conflicts of interest in the awarding of the Race to the Top contract, less than a month after the Board of Regents rushed through new regulations that allow school districts to potentially double the weight of standardized tests in teacher evaluations.

NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira questioned why the state Education Department tried to quietly award the contract to the Wireless Generation/Klein/News Corp. enterprise. “The Regents chancellor and state Education Department leaders demand ever-increasing transparency and accountability from teachers, but pay lip service to transparency and accountability when it comes to awarding lucrative contracts to their friends and political allies,” she said.

The Daily News reported today that Wireless Generation, a company purchased for $360 million by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in November 2010, was in line to receive the no-bid contract. Wireless Generation has developed software to track student test scores and is one of Murdoch’s first forays into for-profit education technology. In a speech in Paris last Month, Murdoch said Wireless Generation could be a gateway to a $500 billion education technology market, according to The Wall Street Journal.

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

NYC Council President Christine Quinn Makes a False Plea For Ed Funds

Christine Quinn

Christine Quinn voted for Mayor Bloomberg's third term, over the protests of her constituents. She obviously, in my opinion, thinks that the slight nudge in the direction of reducing the budget of the DOE will pacify the New York City public school parents who have been, for 9 years, fully informed by my co-contributors to my website Parentadvocates.org and blog NYC Rubber Room Reporter as well as the other excellent blogs such as Chaz's School Daze, NYC Educator and JD 2718, into believing that she is defending our children and teachers. We are not fooled.

If Quinn was a true advocate for the children, parents and teachers of NYC, she would blast Mayor Boomberg for his 8 years of attacks on tenured teachers without researching whether or not all the tenured teachers who are now fired deserved this fate while spending millions of dollars to the Gotcha Squad, attorneys, and arbitrators to produce false claims about innocent people; would blast Bloomberg and Klein, Black and Walcott for violating Public Services Law, Civil Rights and due process of children, parents and everyone else in order to control the factory formerly known as the New York City public school system.

There is money in NYC to keep every teacher in his/her job. Do away with the people at Tweed, execpt for 5 people: An accountant, a Federal program compliance officer, a special education director, a Records Access Director, and an elected Chancellor WITH a contract who can be fired if he/she doesnt do the job.
Why do our teachers have to be the fall guys for the Deutsche Bank scandal, the CityTime scandal, the special education and medicare fraud, etc? We are angry and we are not going to take it anymore.

Ms. Quinn, you lost our vote years ago.

Betsy Combier, Editor

June 1, 2011, 1:18 pm
Quinn Proposes $75 Million in Education Budget Cuts
By FERNANDA SANTOS
LINK

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn on Wednesday proposed roughly $75 million in cuts to the Department of Education’s budget to help avert the elimination of 6,100 teachers through layoffs and attrition for the school year that begins in the fall.

It was Ms. Quinn’s first specific pronouncement on education spending since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed balancing the city’s budget by reducing the number of teachers the city employs, and it sends a clear signal that there are still big differences between the City Council and City Hall over how to bridge the city’s multibillion-dollar budget gap.

Ms. Quinn plan includes cuts to technology and transportation spending, and to the Education Department’s public-information and legal staff. In addition, it recommends reducing the number of people assigned to the Office of Family Information and Action, which has been the target of much criticism because of its flaws in running the elections for parent representatives in citywide councils that play a role in decisions like school rezoning, construction and budgets.

"We’re not just saying, ‘No,’ ” Ms. Quinn said in an interview. “We’re saying, ‘No to layoffs and here are our suggestions.’ ”

Ms. Quinn’s office distributed a statement with her suggested cuts just as Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott had begun his testimony at a City Council hearing on department’s general expenses, where he offered a staunch defense of the spending decisions it has made and once again affirmed the need for teacher layoffs.

Ms. Quinn acknowledged that $75 million is only a fraction of what is needed to avoid the cuts to the city’s teaching staff, but, she said, “that’s a step in the right direction.” She said the Council would continue to scrutinize the budgets of other city agencies to come up with additional savings, but she did not ultimately make the promise that many parents and teachers had been hoping she would make: to pass a budget that would not include teacher layoffs.

“I’m going to do everything in my power” to avoid the layoffs, Ms. Quinn said. “I’m going to fight as hard as I can.”

Here are Ms. Quinn’s proposed cuts:

The Department of Education spends $8 million every year in teacher recruitment. She proposed canceling the effort and spending half of that to train existing teachers on licensed specialties, like special education. Savings = $4 million.

Cutting three positions at the department’s press office. Savings = $280,000.

Eliminating 10 positions at the Office of Family Information and Action. Savings = $940,000.

Merging the Office of Family Information and Action with the Office of Public Affairs, which would enable the elimination of two additional positions. Savings = $375,000.

Reorganizing school-support staff by realigning responsibilities among the schools’ 60 network teams, which employ 12 to 14 people apiece, and reducing the number school superintendents, who make an average of $200,000 a year, by 10. Savings = $2 million.

Reducing what Ms. Quinn characterized as an overestimation of the projected growth in expenses in areas like special education, contract payments and prekindergarten, which would free up $35 million in the next fiscal year.

Scheduling a 1 percent cut to the pupil-transportation budget. Savings = $7.5 million.

Reducing legal-service contracts and possibly the number of workers in the Education Department’s legal office, which employs 133 people. Savings = $3 million.

Enacting a more modest increase in technology spending — 30 percent over the current amount, instead of 76 percent, as the department has proposed — and cutting technology contracts to fiscal 2010 levels. Savings = $13.2 million.

Use more in-house training to reduce the cost of hiring professional-development contractors. Savings = $9 million.

A Department of Education official rebutted some of Ms. Quinn’s suggestions, noting that school district superintendents are mandated by law. the official acknowledged that the department employs perhaps five high-school superintendents over the legal requirement; Ms. Quinn is proposing to cut 10 superintendents.

The official, who requested anonymity so as to speak candidly about Ms. Quinn’s proposal, pointed out that the press office eliminated two positions two weeks ago, and that some people on its staff are not assigned to media relations. One employee, for example, staffs Panel for Educational Policy meetings, among other duties. As for her proposed cuts to projected spending, the official said it comes with great risk because the department could run out of money in the middle of the year to finance a certain expense.
the complete coverage prepared for Friday’s print editions.


How the Council Members Voted [Chart and Map]

Judith Hederman, NYC DOE Director of Financial Operations, Resigns Under Investigation

Education Dept. official who oversaw $43M contract resigns amid corruption investigation
Juan Gonzalez - News, Friday, May 13th 2011, 4:00 AM
LINK

A Department of Education executive who supervised a major computer consulting firm that is under investigation for possible corruption has suddenly resigned.

Judith Hederman, the $168,000-a-year executive director of the DOE's division of financial operations, submitted her resignation on May 4, DOE officials confirmed.

That was the day the Daily News reported that Richard Condon, the schools' special commissioner of investigation, had filed court papers saying a "high-level" executive at the DOE with "oversight" over the $43 million contract of Florida-based Future Technology Associates, had a "personal relationship" with one of the owners of FTA.

FTA, which has not been charged with wrongdoing, is under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest," the court papers say.

An affidavit submitted by Condon's deputy, Gerald Conroy, as part of a court dispute over the agency's subpoena power, did not identify the DOE official. A source at the DOE has since confirmed it was Hederman.

The affidavit said the unnamed official, who was interviewed under oath on April 14, initially denied having a personal relationship with either of FTA's owners, Tamer Sevintuna or Jonathan Krohe.

Four days after that interview, the official's lawyer called Condon's office and retracted the original denial of a personal relationship.

Hederman worked at the DOE since 1995. For nearly two years, until last November, she supervised the FTA contract.

She did not respond to phone calls and email requests in the past week for comments. Sevintuna and Krohe have repeatedly declined to respond to questions.

For more than a year, Condon's office has been probing a web of companies that Sevintuna and Krohe secretly controlled and utilized as subcontractors for themselves, including two that supplied consultants in Turkey and India to service the DOE computer system remotely.

FTA's contract bars the company from subcontracting or using outside consultants, and officials say the firm never told them about the practice.

Some of the Turkish workers, The News has found, were paid as little as $3,370 a month by a separate firm Sevintuna and Krohe owned in Turkey, yet FTA billed the DOE $22,400 a month for the labor of those workers. At least six were still on the DOE payroll as recently as March.

Nearly two years ago, The News began asking DOE officials about the unusual aspects of the agency's contract with FTA.

For example, the firm has never had any established offices, even though it has supplied as many as 80 consultants at a time to the DOE and has received close to $100 million from the school system over the past decade.

FTA headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., is a mailbox in a UPS store. So is a second address in Brooklyn.

Another FTA subcontractor, MERA consulting, which received $14 million from the DOE contract, was wholly owned by Krohe. MERA's main address was another mailbox in the same Florida UPS store.

Only weeks after Condon's investigators began asking questions about MERA, Krohe dissolved the company.

Much of this appears to have happened while Hederman was supervising the contract. Hederman is gone, but the probe continues.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

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Pay for each of the FTA employees is equal to that of Schools Chancellor Joel… Computer geeks at Future Technology Associates earn more than Joel Klein does
BY JUAN GONZALEZ - NEWS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
LINK

Taxpayers shelled out an average of $250,000 last year for each of 63 computer consultants a little-known Florida-based firm supplied to the Department of Education.

That's more than $15.7 million of our money going to Future Technology Associates, which landed a DOE contract in 2005 - the same year the company was founded. The company's job is to integrate the school system's financial accounting system with other city agencies.

That contract began at $2.5 million a year. Since then, it has been repeatedly extended - mushrooming to $15.7 million in fiscal year 2009

Story from The New York Post:

Schools $candal gal quits

by SUSAN EDELMAN and YOAV GONEN, May 13, 2011

The Department of Education's chief of financial operations has quit amid a probe into her relationship with a contractor under investigation for overbilling, sources told The Post.

Judith Hederman, executive director of the Division of Financial Operations, was making $168,000 a year when she abruptly resigned last week, according to education officials.

The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation confirmed that it is investigating Hederman, 42, but declined to provide further details.

Court records show that the commissioner has been engaged in a lengthy probe of Future Technology Associates, a computer consulting firm that Hederman had overseen and shared offices with since as early as 2005.

FTA has a three-year, $43.2 million contract to integrate the DOE's payroll and finance system with that of the rest of the city's agencies.

Documents show the probe of the firm involves "allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest, unethical conduct or other misconduct."

That includes accusations that FTA has been hiring its workers through multiple contracts so that the "hourly fee for the consultant's services was marked up before being passed on to the DOE."

However, the breadth of the probe was so wide that a Manhattan Supreme Court judge granted a petition by the co-owners of FTA, Tamer Sevintuna and Jonathan Krohe, to quash a subpoena requiring them to appear before probers.

City officials are still challenging that determination.

Hederman's husband, also is a highly paid DOE accountant, when reached by phone said his wife had no comment.

She joined the DOE in April 1992 as an accountant and was a payroll administrator when FTA landed its first contract in 2005.

She was also listed as the contract manager when the firm signed its latest three-year deal.

A lawyer for Sevintuna declined comment, and Krohe's lawyer was unavailable.

The allegations against FTA echo recent charges filed against another DOE contractor, Willard (Ross) Lanham, who allegedly bilked the city of $3.6 million by using layers of subcontractors to jack up costs.

Additional reporting by Andy Campbell and Dareh Gregorian

susan.edelman@nypost.com