Mike Bloomberg's Education Plan Is a Total Failure

The article below, printed by Bloomberg's ally The NY Daily News, tells only part of the story about the deliberate and malicious strategy of Mike Bloomberg to remove talented educators, both tenured and probationary, special needs children, and high poverty black and hispanic children from New York City public schools. At least the News is making a start in the right direction.

But watch out in the fall - the Bloomberg/Walcott/Corporation Counsel partnership will try to railroad the closing of the schools which won a temporary win in the Supreme Court.

Betcha I'm right. Prepare, expose, fight.

Betsy Combier

Bloomberg's new schools have failed thousands of city students 

  

Did more poorly on state reading tests than older schools with similar poverty rates

BY RACHEL MONAHAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

PUBLISHED: SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012, 3:00 AM

LINK

The signature Bloomberg administration reform of shutting down failing schools and replacing them with new schools has — itself — failed thousands of city students, a Daily News analysis finds.

The new schools opened under the mayor were supposed to have better teachers, better principals, and, ultimately, better test scores than the dysfunctional failure mills they were replacing.

But when The News examined 2012 state reading test scores for 154 public elementary and middle schools that have opened since Mayor Bloomberg took office, nearly 60% had passing rates that were lower than older schools with similar poverty rates.

The new schools also showed poor results in the city’s letter-grade rating system, which uses a complicated formula to compare schools with those that have similar demographics.

Of 133 new elementary and middle schools that got letter grades last year, 15% received D’s and F’s — far more than the city average, where just 10% of schools got the rock-bottom grades.

“It’s crazy,” said Tanya King, who helped wage a losing battle to save Brooklyn’s Academy of Business and Community Development, where her grandson was a student.

The school opened in 2005, then closed in 2012.

Tanya King

Instead of closing struggling schools and replacing them with something else that doesn’t work, King says, the city should help with extra resources to save the existing schools.

“You have the same children in the school,” she said. “What’s going to be the difference? Put in the services that are going to make the school better.”

Her grandson Donnovan Hicks, 11, will be transferred next fall for the seventh-grade into another Bloomberg-created school, Brooklyn’s Peace Academy, where just 13% passed the state reading exams this spring.

The News conducted its analysis by grouping 154 new schools into one of five poverty categories based on how many kids in the school were eligible last year to receive a free lunch. It then compared the percent of students who passed the state reading test in each school to the average passing rate for older schools in the same poverty group.

Of the 154 schools, 90 had lower passing rates than the average school in their group.

That translates to massive failure: Just 38% of students at elementary and middle schools created by the Bloomberg administration passed the reading exams, compared with 47% of students citywide.

The News analysis — which looked just at traditional public schools, not at charters — was not the kind of thorough academic study that could be used to draw absolute conclusions on the success of school closures, but three education experts said the method offers an important insight into the city’s reforms.

“This is additional evidence that these (new) schools are not performing better than their peer schools,” said NYU Prof. Robert Tobias, who led the city’s testing program before Bloomberg took office.

City officials defended their new schools, noting they serve students with higher needs than older schools and have improved at a faster rate in recent years.

“While there is still room to improve, these new schools’ proficiency rate is nearly double that of the schools they replaced in both math and English,” said Martin Kurzweil, senior executive director of the Education Department’s research, accountability and data office.

But critics of the administration say they would have hoped for better results.

“(The administration has) been focused on expanding school choice by creating small schools as the solution to school failure when they’re setting these schools up for failure,” said Coalition for Educational Justice parent leader Zakiyah Ansari.

rmonahan@nydailynews.com

NYC 3020-a Arbitrator Randi Lowitt Retaliates Against Christine Rubino In A New Decision Ordered By NY State Supreme Court

by Betsy Combier, Editor

Parentadvocates.org

LINK

 
Christine, an excellent NYC public school teacher, made a stupid comment on Facebook which she took off her page a few days later, but by then, a "friend" had given a printout to her principal. Christine was terminated by Arbitrator Randi Lowitt, and Christine appealed her decision. The NYS Supreme Court vacated the termination, then Lowitt ruled that Christine made her plight public so she has to be punished with two years' suspension without pay. Are there any adults in the audience? by Betsy Combier
           

Christine Rubino

Christine's story has so many sideshows going on, it looks like a circus. We need to look at the entire picture so that the Gotcha Squad stops trampling on the rights of tenured teachers, a group to which Christine has been returned. One thing is crystal-clear, however: The New York City Department of Education, The home and resting place for the Gotcha Squad and the "No Hire" List as well as Arbitrator Randi Lowitt are furious with Christine Rubino and her fearless stand against their lawless and vindictive punishments which harm her. She is my friend, and I am honoring her by writing as much as I possibly can about the retaliation and harm Christine has had to endure simply because she refused to be squashed by theNYC DOE, even though she never had a chance to succeed at her 3020-a. The new Decision from Arbitrator Randi Lowitt is simply vindictive and retaliatory. More about that below.

Perhaps you are not aware of the huge importance the case of Christine Rubino has to Labor Policy and Employment Law throughout the U.S. As far as I know, Christine's case is the first NYC case where a tenured teacher was terminated for making a comment on what she believed was her private Facebook page, while the NYC Department of Education did not have a social media policy. The lack of oversight by anyone at the NYC DOE is one gaping hole in the planning and implementation of any policy. I have spent more than 9 years studying the gaping holes and mistakes of the DOE, and every day I hear of another. Mayor Bloomberg may have wanted to be the "Education Mayor", but he will never reach his goal because he did not put anyone in charge who knew what he or she was doing. Read my articles "The Who Are You Kidding Award Goes To Joel Klein" and "Kleingate", and you may fill in the dots as to what my opinion is concerning the public school system which my 4 children went through and are now, thankfully, out of (as in graduated). 

Christine's Facebook comment was made after a full teaching day with difficult children. She called them "the devil's spawn" on her private Facebook page which she shared with approximately 125 friends, none of whom were children. She suggested she would like to take them to the beach a day after 6th grader Nicole Suriel died on the beach while on a trip with her class for raising money at Columbia Secondary School. A few days later christine took the comment down and has been apologizing to the worls ever since. When the DOE started to go after her 5 months later, two of them ended up verbally abusing a friend of Christine's who taped them. These two investigators wanted the friend to tell them that Christine forced her friend to say that she, not Christine, was the one who put the comment on Facebook. The tape of these two goons was played at Christine's 3020-a and Randi Lowitt thought she heard "proof" that Christine tried to interfere with the investigation of her comment on Facebook, and used the tape to terminate Christine. I heard different "proof" - that SCI uses verbal abuse to get witnesses to say what they, SCI investigators want, and the discussion was frightening.

There are many things wrong with Lowitt's "assessment", if you can call it that. I attended Christine's 3020-a, and watched Randi Lowitt and Attorneys Theresa Europe and Jeff Gamils very carefully. My opinion of Lowitt's "assessment" was, she knew that Theresa Europe and the DOE had to go after Christine and she, Lowitt knew that Christine had to be terminated, because there were too many other side shows going on which could expose the DOE's massive fraud on the City of New York and the parents of the NYC public school system.

If you read the transcript of the first day of the Hearing, you will see that Jeff Gamils, the DOE Attorney, wanted to bring in three witnesses, even though Christine did not have an Attorney. Christine objected, and Randi told her, "There is nothing to object to" (p. 46). Also, it may shocj people to realize that Claude Hersh, head of NYC NYSUT office, picked the Attorneys who would work on the case (and, by picking the Attorneys, he chose the arbitrator). See p. 43, Jeff Gamils talks about the email from Claude. Then, in the transcript of the last day we read that the investigators who interviewed Christine's friend in her car told her that if she did not do what they wanted her to do, she would be put into jail. (p. 1486). This is pretty tough stuff, folks.

Christine had to be punished, not just for her daring to blow the whistle on the DOE by having media at her hearing - I am considered 'press', and Christine asked Sue Edelman of the NY POST to attend - but because of her connection, by sheer coincidence, to the imbedded fraud at the DOE:

1. Nicole Suriel, whose name was never mentioned by Christine, did not have to die in the beach accident June 22, 2010. Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera, Principal of Columbia Secondary School, was running a scam operation to fund his fake non-profit, and Nicole's class won the trip to the beach for raising the most money. But he couldnt have chaparones or permission slips, because he did not want questions to be asked about where the money would go. After the accident, the teacher was fired, the AP was demoted and Dr. Maldonado-rivera was reprimanded. The parents are suing. How come the Principal was only reprimanded? The DOE knew all about the scam he was running, and could not allow him to speak up about it, or get angry at the DOE. Tom Allon, CEO of Manhattan Media and running for NYC Mayor in 2013, gave him an award in 2009 as "Principal of the Year". I guess Tom played along , or did not do his research.

2. Several of her students in Christine's class in June 2010 who were referred to in her very temporary post on Facebook as "the devil's spawn" are the same kids who blinded Kardin Ulysse at the Roy Mann Junior High School in Bergen Beach. All people who have heard about the blinding of Ulysse call the kids who did the ugly deed "punks" and "little hooligans". No one has been reprimanded for this, like Christine was.

3. The DOE despises people who make "the NYC Department of Education look bad". Trust me, I am at the top of the list for harm, and all four of my children were harmed while attending their public schools. David Pakter, also a very outspoken teacher brought to 3020-a, was also charged with "making the DOE look bad." He and I asked Randi Weingarten, President of the UFT at the time, to get the DOE to withdraw that charge, and the DOE complied. Francesco Portelos is a new addition to the despised teacher list. He created a blog and posts anything the DOE says or does to him after he blew the whistle on his Principal, Linda Hill. The fact that Christine Rubino allowed Sue Edelman to come to her 3020-a infuriated Randi Lowitt so much, that Randi stopped the hearing after she told Sue Edelman to leave, and Sue said no. Randi backed down afterwards, but remained furious, as you can see from her new decision giving Christine two year's suspension without payafter Judge Jaffe in the NYS Supreme Court wrote a decision saying that Christine's termination was "shocking to the conscience".

4. David Senatore, the "friend" on Christine's Facebook page who printed out her comment and gave it to the principal of Christine's school, was also a teacher at the same school. He was a "favorite" of the Principal, who was covering up Senatore's love for certain boys who attended the after school program. Senatore knew that Christine and others were aware of his taking boys home with him and letting them use his pool. Getting Christine out of the school was a convenient solution. An update on Senatore's story is that in March 2012 he was removed from the school, and has been awaiting charges while sitting at 335 Adams Street. He called me to ask me to help him find one of the boys he was fond of, and told me not to tell anyone. I reported this call, and I heard that teachers have written the investigators about Senatore's actions for several years with the boys in the after school program. 

This article is the third that I have written about Christine Rubino. Here are the other posts on this website and on NYC Rubber Room Reporter:

The True Story of Teacher Christine Rubino And Her Prosecution By The New York City Department of Education
and
New York State Supreme Court Overturns Arbitrator Randi Lowitt's Decision To Terminate Christine Rubino For Facebook Comments by Betsy Combier

After NY State Supreme Court Judge Barbara Jaffe decided that termination was a "shocking" penalty and remanded the case back to the NYC DOE for a lesser penalty, the Gotcha Squad Director Theresa Europe and her subordinate, Attorney Jeff Gamils, made sure that Arbitrator Randi Lowitt got the case again. This is outrageous, as Jaffe did not order the new penalty be decided by the same arbitrator.

Randi Lowitt should never have been given the authority to make a second determination for Christine Rubino, as she was, at Christine's 3020-a, not neutral at all, in my opinion. In NYC the panel of arbitrators who get appointed to hear cases are "permanent", meaning they stay for a year, and get re-appointed by Theresa Europe and Claude Hersh from NYSUT every June. Until April 1, 2012, when new rules changed the business of arbitration that dominates this panel, anyone would have considered the job as NYC Arbitrator a very good one, as each arbitrator was paid $1400-$2300/day, not the much less fees for arbitration under the rules of the American Aarbitration Association.

Each arbitrator gets a DOE Attorney and a NYSUT Attorney who stays with him or her for the year, or for many years. This leads, of course, to an extremely 'chummy' environment where the Respondent teacher's witnesses and defense may be forgotten.

Christine alienated Randi Lowitt the second day of her hearing. Christine was given Attorney Sean Kelly as her NYSUT Attorney, and on day one she knew this would not work for her. Kelly did not believe in her case, and at the pre-hearing kept telling her to resign. I was not in attendance at the pre-hearing, but Christine and I had discussed her case before it began, and she asked for an open and public hearing so that I could attend. Here is Christine's first email to me sent Feb. 12, 2011:

"To Whom it May Concern,
Hello, My name is Christine Rubino and I have been working for the NYC Board of Education for the last 14 years. I have been in the same school for all those years. I am now currently sitting at 131 Livingston Street waiting for my 3020 hearing to proceed (Pre-hearing is Wednesday, February 16th, and hearing is supposed to begin February 17th). My crime... A facebook comment that was made on my own time, from my own computer, that was not racial or sexual in nature. Nor, did this comment contain names of the place of my work. It didnt hurt or threaten anyone. It was an off the cuff comment, that was made out of just having a bad day. My privacy settings were set to private, and a confidential person took comments and showed AP, and Principal. who then lodged a complaint against me with the Office Of Special Investigation. The Board is looking to fire me over this. I have many notes in my file that prove I am an excellent teacher and do a great job, but for some reason they are going for the jugular on this. I do not feel the union is preparing the case like they should, and I am seeking outside counsel on Monday. The punishment does not seem to fit the crime, and I feel like I am being railroaded, and that a huge injustice is being commited against me. Is this something you might be interested in. I am a single mother of 2 children, and feel like this is just a little too over the edge, and the DOE is being unfair."

I called her up and have spoken to her almost every week, sometimes every day, ever since.

On the first day of the actual hearing I was there. Christine told Randi and Jeff Gamils that she would no longer use Shawn Kelly in the 3020-a. This shocked and angered Randi Lowitt. Her team was broken. Lowitt tried to get Christine to start the hearing without her new Attorney, Brian Glass, but Christine kept objecting to this, and finally Lowitt gave in and closed for the day, not so much for due process considerations, but because she was frustrated in not getting her way quickly. If you read the transcript of the first day of the Hearing, you will see that Jeff Gamils, the DOE Attorney, wanted to bring in three witnesses, even though Christine did not have an Attorney. Christine objected, and Randi told her, "There is nothing to object to" (p. 46). Also, it may shock people to realize that Claude Hersh, head of NYC NYSUT office, picked the Attorneys who would work on the case (and, by picking the Attorneys, he chose the arbitrator). See p. 43, Jeff Gamils talks about the email from Claude. Then, in the transcript of the last day we read that the investigators who interviewed Christine's friend in her car told her that if she did not do what they wanted her to do, she would be put into jail. (p. 1486). This is pretty tough stuff, folks. 


A side show to this side show is that on May 25, 2011, less than 1 month after the closing argument, there was a fire drill at 49-51 Chambers Street. I happened to be there for a hearing at which I was the paralegal. Everyone in the building had to exit the building, and all Arbitrators, Gotcha Squad, OPI personnel, everyone had to stand out side. A teacher who was going through his 3020-a with Attorney Kelly as his Attorney saw this person and I talking (the teacher was standing right behind me in line), and came over and said "Come with me." Kelly took this person a few feet away, turned towards the hundreds of people standing on the sidewalk, and started screaming at his client, "DO NOT SPEAK WITH BETSY COMBIER! ANYONE WHO SPEAKS WITH HER IS FIRED! SHE IS A CRIMINAL!" I decided to turn on the video on my smartphone, and walked calmly over to Kelly. I said to him, "Hey, Shawn, what's up with this? Where did you get this stuff from?" He told me that I was violating the law. I walked away, went back to the line.

Lowitt seemed to like Brian, but Christine had asked me to get media coverage and invited Sue Edelman of the NY POST. Sue had never been to a 3020-a, so she came. Lowitt was truly enraged, and told Sue that she could not sit in. Sue said that she did not have to leave, and this is an open and public hearing. Lowitt adjourned while she called a few people, and finally told everyone that she would "allow" Sue Edelman to stay. Sue is mentioned in Lowitt's second decision, below, that's how angry Lowitt was at that point with Christine, Sue, and probably me, as some sort of ringleader. Go figure.

As I have said in my previous articles, Theresa Europe, the Director of the Gotcha Squad and the ATU (Administrative Trials Unit) has her hand in every case, from a distance. I have seen her and spoken to her briefly whenever I see her at 51 Chambers Street quite often over the past 9 years. I have never attended a hearing where Theresa came and sat all day, many days of a hearing, as in Christine's case. I believe that she was making sure that Lowitt terminated Christine. It worked.

Lowitt's second decision after the remand back to the DOE is here. And now Christine is starting a second appeal. And on and on it goes, until nobody wins anything and everyone loses, all paid for by you, the public.

Are there any adults in the audience?

Betsy Combier

The Blackboard Award 2009 Goes To Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera

Nicole Suriel

Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera is quickly becoming a household name, due to the fact that he sent  Nicole Suriel and her class to the beach on June 22, 2010 without an appropriate number of chaparones, and no parent was offered nor signed a permission slip. Nicole Suriel died in the water (see more at the end of this post). He was reprimanded, teacher Erin Baily who was told to accompany the children was fired, and AP Sullivan was demoted.

This outraged parents, yet no one focused on the root problem: Dr. Maldonado-Rivera was running a scam at his school, raising money by having children compete in contests and raise money for his fake nonprofit, then win awards. That's how Nicole Suriel ended up on the beach without the necessary safety measures in place. The NYC DOE has given principals the authority to put fraud and corruption above students' health, safety, and welfare, and we all must stop the coverups and wrongdoing - I think by publicizing what is going on.

The NYC DOE knew all about the scam, as I and another parent have been in touch with an investigator from SCI since 2004 about these sorts of fraudulent money-taking scams, first at Stuyvesant High School where the antics of Paola De Kock have been documented, and then at Columbia Secondary School as well as at Shuang Wen. I still remember the day I spoke with the auditors of the Stuyvesant High School Parent's Association, and they whispered into the phone, "Betsy, there is so much money missing we could not do an audit."...when I reported this to SCI, Paola and her crew started their campaign to get rid of me and Mary Lok, the chinese parent also asking questions. Scott Stringer's Attorney Jimmy Yan left a message on my cell phone saying that he was pursuing answers, but he never followed up. I have Mr. Yan's message on my cellphone to this day, to remind me that Scott Stringer never helped me or the chinese parents find out where the money from the Stuy PA was stored or for what it was used.

Manhattan Media was convinced that by giving Dr. Maldenado-Rivera a Principal of the Year award, this would divert attention away from him and his school, so that the scheme to steal money from the parents could go on without anyone noticing. Manhattan Media gave a program called DELTA at Booker T. Washington MS 54 an award as middle school of the year in 2004, as a way to cover up the racial discrimination and special education fraud of Principal Larry Lynch. DELTA was not a middle school but an Honors program, one of 5, within MS 54.

Who gives the Blackboard Awards? None other than Tom Allon, running for Mayor in 2013. I, for one, will not be voting for him.

 

2009: Principals of the Year

Vision and Passion for Teaching
Big strides for school that caters to high-achieving minority students

Since the opening of Columbia Secondary School in fall 2007, Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera has immersed himself in education, spending 12 to 14 hours a day pushing students to succeed and providing support for teachers. In the little spare time that remains, he works on his book about public versus private school startups, and teaches a course at Columbia College. Then there’s the occasional substitute teaching; due to budget cuts, Maldonado-Rivera would rather cover a class himself than pay for a substitute.

“I can learn along with them and teach them at the same time,” he said. “If you don’t love them [your students], it’s not going to work. They need to feel like you care about them and about their future so much that they can trust you.”

Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera

Born and raised on a farm in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, Maldonado-Rivera, 47, attended an elite public school that had a partnership with the University of Puerto Rico. Maldonado-Rivera went on to earn two Ph.D.s—one in ecology and evolution at University of California Santa Barbara, and the other in science education at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College.

In 2006, he was tapped by the city and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger to create the Columbia Secondary School, a world-class secondary school that serves high-achieving minority students in Upper Manhattan. Foregoing a cushier job at an international private school that he helped create in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Maldonado-Rivera decided to return to a long term goal of his: providing underprivileged students with a world-class education.

In just three years, Maldonado-Rivera helped create a top-ranking public school that has a 7 percent acceptance rate. More than half of the middle schoolers come from low-income families, but 96 percent of students scored a 3 or a 4 on the 6th grade English Language Arts exam in 2007-2008, and 99 percent of 6th graders scored a 3 or a 4 on the math exam that same year.

Included in Columbia Secondary School’s rich curriculum is “J-term,” a June mini-semester that involves adventurous learning experiences at home or abroad, including a popular biodiversity trip to Puerto Rico with Maldonado-Rivera.

The school offers more than 50 enrichment courses, ranging from Egyptian art to genetics to bioethics.

“Middle school is where the fork occurs,” Maldonado-Rivera said. “If you’re going to hook them, it’s going to occur then. If you don’t, you have lost the battle.”

Teachers, parents and students all praise Maldonado-Rivera for revolutionizing the standard middle school curriculum.

“He was able to verbalize his vision,” said Beth Fidoten, mother of 8th grader Jacob Fidoten. “You have to have the vision but also the leadership to see it though. Principal Maldonado has both to galvanize a community and make it happen.”

Eighth grader Antonio Taveras’s favorite elective is Maldonado-Rivera’s course on marine biology. Though strict, “he is really good about using his sense of humor in class,” Taveras said.

Marianthi Markatou, a Columbia University biostatistics professor, took her daughter, Lilly Talal, out of a nearby private school so she could attend Columbia Secondary School in 6th grade. The reason was simple.

“Maldonado’s vision and passion for teaching,” she said, “is contagious.”

— Aline Reynolds

--
Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera,
Principal
Columbia Secondary School
425 W. 123rd St.
New York, N.Y. 10027
212-666-1278
www.columbiasecondary.org

Above: Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera leads one of the most popular “J-term” projects at Columbia Secondary: a biodiversity trip to Puerto Rico. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Teacher Fired After City Probe Deems Nicole Suriel's Death a Result of 'Poor Judgment' Reports Say 

Updated July 15, 2010 6:10am

By Simone Sebastian

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HARLEM — A first-year teacher was reportedly fired Wednesday after a city probe revealed that she let students who couldn't swim into the water during a beach field trip last month that ended in the drowning of 12-year-old Nicole Suriel.

Erin Bailey, a 26-year-old teacher at Columbia Secondary School who told her students, "If you can't swim, don't go in the water past your waist," was fired Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The school's assistant principal, Andrew Stillman, was demoted and its principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, was reprimanded.

"We will be reviewing the regulations on field trips and will be making appropriate changes in light of this tragedy," schools spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said, the paper reported.

The report on the city's investigation, headed up by Special Commissioner for the Department of Education Richard Condon, said the rookie eight-grade English teacher displayed "poor conduct" during the June 22 field trip. The report also faulted the school for failing to properly plan for the outing and for the lack of adult supervision.

The school's principal, Maldonado-Rivera, sent an e-mail to parents only the day before the trip saying students should come to school the next day "dressed to swim and play in the sun."

Assistant Principal Andrew Stillman, who has reportedly since been demoted to tenured teacher, was supposed to be on the trip to help supervise, but did not attend because he felt too overwhelmed with work, the report said.

That left Bailey a one of only three adults supervising the 24 students on June 22. The others were her 28-year-old boyfriend Joseph Garnevicus, who couldn't swim, and 19-year-old teaching intern Victoria Wong.

Wong saved at least four students, while an unidentified beachgoer saved one other. Bailey saved one child before she needed rescuing from the Coast Guard, who also said they pulled out another child.

But nobody could get to Nicole, whose body was discovered in the water an hour later.

The report also said that the school did not provide permission slips to parents for the trip. Instead, parents were given two "universal" permission slips at the beginning of the year that had them signing off on out-of-school trips and their children using the swimming pool at the school.

Several students interviewed in the report remembered Bailey telling them on that fatal day to stay in the shallow water. Some even remembered seeing the "No Lifeguard" signs that beach officials say were posted at every entrance to the beach that day. Bailey did not participate in the investigation and has a UFT lawyer representing her.

Oliver Storch, an attorney for the Suriel family, called the report "very thorough," and noted that it showed a series of failures in planning and supervision of the trip.

"This was a tragedy from the inception," Storch said. The report "speaks volumes. It's quite definitive on where the blame lies."

Storch said he is discussing the report with the Suriel family, but he would not comment on whether they would be filing a lawsuit.

"They are still destroyed and in terrible pain," he said.

The report was copied to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice "for whatever action she deems appropriate."

A spokeswoman for Rice said the DA "is engaged in a thorough review of the facts and circumstances concerning the tragic death of 12 year old Nicole Suriel."

Nicole Suriel's Life Ended Amid Panic After Weeks of Poor Planning Updated July 15, 2010 11:29am

LINK

The NYC Rubber Room Gotcha Squad Is Slammed By The New York State Supreme Court

Hippolito "Polo" Colon

Betsy Combier, Editor of Parentadvocates.org and NYC Rubber Room Reporter

Link

Arbitrator David Hyland ruled in February 2011 that a NYC Dean had to "learn her lesson" and pay $7,000 for after she left her office for several minutes and the father of the student who was being discussed as threatening to commit suicide took home a note his son had written on a napkin. Hyland punished Dean Nicole Moreno-Lieberman for not preserving a copy of the note and for her "serious negligence...impeded the investigation". NYS Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings says this fine is "shocking to the conscience...By delegating unbounded latitude to respondents and Hearing Officers in these administrative actions, the statutory and regulatory scheme leaves their decisions subject to untrammeled discretion." From Betsy Combier: Thank you, Judge Billings!!!

From Betsy Combier, Editor of Parentadvocates.org, ADVOCATZ.com and NYC Rubber Room Reporter, NYCourts-New York Court Corruption, NYC Public Voice and National Public Voice:

When I first started looking into the "NYC Rubber Rooms" and the teacher trials for tenured teachers, (3020-a) in 2003 after speaking with Polo Colon, teachers David Pakter, and Teddy Smith, I was stunned to see what was going on.

In my opinion, Mayor Bloomberg had made a business out of framing people.

Children and their parents were, and still are, bribed to lie about what a teacher has said or done, and the rewards are diverse, such as a higher score on a test, graduation from school, promotion to another grade level, etc, all done in secret with the administrators of the school and the Superintendents and even higher-ups, Deputy Chancellors and the Chancellor himself - or herself, as in the case of Cathie Black. Putting all of this together is not difficult, as few people believe that a public servant is actually out to "get" him or her until it is too late. If a teacher knew that the child(ren) were lying, all they had to do was contact the parent(s) or tell a superior what was going on, and sooner than a blink of the eye, the teacher is shot down with charges either about some corporal punishment that he/she didnt do, or the ever-ready charge of "actual" tampering with an investigation, which was slipped into Chancellor's Regulations A-420 in June 2009 is charged against him/her. Anyone can interpret what the term "actual tampering" means. My point here is, once the train has left the station, there is no stopping it.  At least, that's what Mayor Bloomberg, the UFT, NYSUT and private Attorneys want teachers subjected to the rubberization process to believe. It just is not legally sound. 

What is "Actual Tampering?"

"Actual" tampering, according to Federal law, specifically 18  U.S.C. §1503: "unlawful to "influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice" and  §1512, which proscribes intimidating, threatening, or corruptly persuading, through deceptive conduct, a person in connection with an official proceeding". Under 1503, a government agent must prove that a defendant acted "corruptly" with the specific intent to obstruct or interfere with the proceeding or due administration of justice. See United States v Bucey, 876 F.2d 1297, 1314 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v smith, 729 F. Supp. 1380, 1383-84 (D.D.C. 1990).

Acting "corruptly": some courts have defined this term as acting with "evil and wicked purposes" see United States v Banks, 942 F.2d 1576, 1578 (11th Cir. 1991), but at the very least to "act corruptly" under the statute, a defendant must have acted with the specific intent to obstruct justice. See United States v Moon, 718 F2d 1219, 1236 (2d Cir. 1983): United States v. Bashaw, 982 F.2d 168, 170 (6th Cir. 1992); United States v Anderson, 798 F.2d 919, 928 (7th Cir, 1986; ) United States v Rasheed, 663 F.2 843, 847 (9th Cir. 1981). Thus it is not enough to prove that the defendant knew that a result of his actions might be to impede the administration of justice, if that was not his intent.

Section 1512 specifically applies to "witness tampering": a defendant was proven to have knowingly engaged in intimidation, physical force, threats, misleading conduct, or corrupt persuasion with intent to influence, delay, or prevent testimony or cause any person to withhold objects or documents from an official proceeding. The defendant must be aware of the possibility of a proceeding and his efforts must be aimed specifically at obstructing that proceeding, whether pending or not;
§1512 does not apply to defendants' innocent remarks or other acts unintended to affect the proceeding. See United States v Wilson, 565 F. Supp. 1416, 1431 (S.D.N.Y. 1983). 

None of this applies to most of the specifications currently charged teachers in NYC, but the DOE Gotcha Squad spends hundreds or thousands of dollars trying to prove "actual" tampering, anyway. As I mentioned above, this is a business, and everyone profits (except the Respondent).

From 2003 to 2008 there was little, if any, opposition to the false claims business run by the NYC DOE and the Office of General Counsel, headed by Theresa Europe ("the Gotcha Squad"). See also my article on the misinformation of the Bloomberg/Klein/education mafia, Steven Brill for more on exactly how the Gotcha Squad works at 3020-a. Many people gave up, settled out of the 3020-a, resigned, or retired. The effect of getting out early, before an arbitrator determined a punishment for your supposedly horrific misconduct or incompetency at 3020-a, was to put you in a precarious position as an ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") without rights or without any job at all.

In Rethinking Wrongful Discharge: A Continuum Approach by Robert C. Bird, (University of Cincinnati Law Review, Winter, 2004, 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 517) Bird writes:
“Employers acting with just cause treat their employees with punctilious concern for fairness and equity. Only the most qualified employees are promoted. Office politics and arbitrary decision making do not infect the employment relationship...We hold "just cause" is a fair and honest cause or reason, regulated by good faith on the part of the party exercising the power. We further hold a discharge for "just cause" is one that is not for any arbitrary, capricious, or illegal reason and which is one based on facts (1) supported by substantial evidence and (2) reasonably believed by the employer to be true.”

The NYC panel of Arbitrators are told by the Gotcha Squad to disregard these well known rules. Alan Berg, an Arbitrator on the panel, exonerated a teacher brought to 3020-a before him, and told me that he was punished by Theresa Europe for making the decision that he did; following his determination, he was moved from the Administrative Trials Unit (ATU) to the dreaded Teacher Performance Unit or TPU. I have heard Gotcha Squad member Dennis Da Costa screaming at Arbitrator Anne Powers that she "better do what he says, "or else".She does as she is told by Dennis.

Additionally, Theresa Europe places everyone who has been charged on a blacklist which will hamper any employer from hiring you in the future. This blacklist is the notorious "Ineligible/Inquiry" List from which attorney Ed Wolf was able to remove Philomena Brennan. Ms. Europe can take people off if she wants, and she puts people on there also whenever she wants to, it seems to me. NYS Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger ordered Ms. Europe to tell her how she, Europe, put people on the list and took the names off, in the case of Philomena Brennan v NYC DOE (Index no. 112977/09).

The rubberization process is arbitrary, malicious, and discretionary.

First of all, the Rubber Room Gotcha Squad is a group comprised mostly of attorneys who are given the authority by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his allies in NYC to remove tenured teachers - or non-tenured, depending on the circumstances - from their classroom duties because someone in the chain of command at the NYC Department of Education wants them to be out of the school. It's very simple, really.

Secondly, the initial targeting is followed by a strategy of threats, humiliation, fear, and retaliation supported the Gotcha Squad as the group denies rights to anyone who opposes their false claims and conspiracy of harm. All anyone has to do to be a target is to ask, "Why?", or "Where's the money?" (See the story of how Francesco Portelos ended up reassigned and on his way to 3020-a).

Thirdly, the agents or messengers of harm must be protected, and given special status, so that those people who are fearless and refuse to be squashed by the Gotcha Squad's lawless lies and then the retaliation, threats and verbal abuse used to punish anyone who remains standing after #1 and #2 above, can be denied a resolution to the "problem", which is basically that these fearless souls won't go away never to be heard from again. Thus the Gotcha Squad's subgroups such as the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI), and Office of Special Investigation (OSI) are given authority similar to the SS in World War II (but not military; mostly civilian attorneys or people willing to follow the orders of the Mayor, the Chancellor, and the New York Law Department).

The UFT and NYSUT, the legal arm of the teacher's union, can and do act in the interest of the Unity caucus, and not in support of individual members. Very few members believe me when I tell them this before they are brought to 3020-a, but many believe this is true after the 3020-a is over, and the Hearing Officer has made a decision that often does not rest on any fact or law. NYSUT attorneys often do not do a good job defending the member at 3020-a because I was told, everyone charged is presumed "guilty". In fact, the Unity brass told me over and over again that all people housed in the infamous "rubber rooms" - which today are smaller rooms with a few re-assigned DOE employees in each room in an office or school - are not supposed to talk to each other, cannot dispute an investigator, and are guilty of whatever he or she is accused of, so don't try too hard to find a way to save his or her career. I worked for the UFT from 2007 to 2010, and I was hired by Randi Weingarten. I did not agree that everyone was automatically guilty of the specifications they were given, and I looked into each case. 

The DOE and UFT, in order to stop any employee targeted for termination from getting a vacatur or dismissal of the decision of an arbitrator, changed the rules for appealing a determination made at 3020-a in 1994 and several times afterward. The New York State Education Department Commissioner no longer was the office of jurisdiction where decisions were made to sustain or vacate the decisions made at 3020-a. After 1994 people not satisfied at 3020-a had to file an Article 75 to the New York State Supreme Court instead of NYSED. To many non-Attorneys, filing anything in court is frightening. That was, I am sure, the main reason for the change.

To further hamper anyone from appealing, the statute giving a petitioner 30 days to file an Article 75 was shortened to 10 days, with another 15 to amend. NYSUT attorneys never take on a case that was lost at 3020-a, this is another problem. After a 3020-a is closed and decided, NYSUT attorneys always write the client and say, in general, sorry you did not win at 3020-a, however, we are not going to help you appeal. Goodbye.

The New York State Supreme Court is a mangled mess right now, desperately in need of a total overhaul. The judges are arrogant with their immunity from prosecution, and some judges, like Cynthia Kern now on the 6th floor at 60 Center Street, could not care less about the facts in a case. She grants dismissal of any and all petitions filed by a teacher or any other DOE employee. Her loyalty is very much in the interests of the New York Law Department and the DOE.

Sometimes good decisions do come out of the supreme court. The case of Christopher Asch is a case that won a vacatur of the decision of arbitrator David Hyland. Asch signed his petition as "pro se". NYS Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez overturned the 6-month suspension, gave Chris his back pay, and ordered the reimbursement of the money spent on a psychiatrist.

Recently David Hyland was again overturned, this time by NYS Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings in the case of Nicole Moreno-Lieberman. Arbitrator Hyland ruled in February 2011 that a NYC Dean, Moreno-Lieberman had to "learn her lesson" and pay $7,000 after she left her office for several minutes and the father of the student who was being discussed as threatening to commit suicide took home a note his son had written on a napkin. Hyland punished Dean Nicole Moreno-Lieberman for not preserving a copy of the note and for her "serious negligence...impeded the investigation". NYS Supreme Court Judge Luck Billings says this fine is "shocking to the conscience...By delegating unbounded latitude to respondents and Hearing Officers in these administrative actions, the statutory and regulatory scheme leaves their decisions subject to untrammeled discretion."

Kudos to Judge Billings, who seems to see that the 3020-a arbitrators in New York City need a reality check and not just a check from the Gotcha Squad for throwing a case. 

COMMENT from Attorney Joy Hochstadt:

 

It's just the beginning, thousands of teachers are harassed and resign before they are brought up on charges. I was told that if I resigned before the charges were presented to me (four months after I was told I was under"investigation"), then I would leave with a clean record--Klaus Bornemann forgot to tell me I'd be on the I/I list forever unless I fought it in Court. I was naive, I believed the arbitrators would not debase themselves and be biased. 

 

Then my NYSUT Attorney told me my arbitrator fired everyone; in fact, the UFT had voted her off the panel, ten years ago, but the DOE offered the UFT an extra seat on the collective bargaining committee for as long as the UFT allowed Eleanor Glanstein to remain on the 3020-a permanent arbitrator panel. And so I was fired for being assigned by my Principal self-contained special ed classes for my entire program for an entire year when I have no license or background in dealing with special ed; most of the classes had students diagnosed as Emotionally Disturbed. Then they stipulated to my exemplary subject matter skills but said I was incompetent in classroom management, the administration had seen a student walk out without a pass to get a drink at a water fountain 1 foot from the classroom door. another called out his answer in class during an observation, the "do now" was 7 minutes for a class of students who find it difficult to focus and are distractable--it should be no more than 5 minutes, etc. What a waste when I was the best-prepared biology teacher that ever worked for the DOE. Therefore, the Principal would rather put me in a position where she could find B.S.'s fault with me than to allow the advanced and capable students to benefit from what I could imbue then with. The DOE attorney at the 3020-a said the assignment to special ed classes should not be mitigating because I would have had to grieve it and win (and my chapter leader told me it was too late in the term to change every teacher's program--but I grieved it before school started--the Principal elected not to hear it for 7 weeks!) The funny part is I offered to help--I wrote a comprehensive plan of incentives to get out students to strive to achieve starting with color-coded IDs which would let everyone know what grade placement the student had earned sufficient credits for along outings, Broadway shows, meals in Restaurants, to students of the "month" (a short enough time that students could show improvement--and there would be two cohorts --for best grades and for most improvement. Principal was so threatened she tried to put a letter in my file for distributing my proposal without her consent --UFT chapter leaders consent was all that was necessary, by precedent. 

 

Principal lost her school, DOE settled my lawsuit in my favor, and now all the other similarly situated teachers ask for my help --- but it takes the rare judge not to go along with the "program." What observers fail to understand is the scale at which this is being done. I try as best as I can to get the number of teachers given "U" ratings over the last 15 years, the number removed from regular assigments, the number unlawfully brought up on charges by their Principals who are afraid of losing their own jobs--the great old Principal with grandfathered tenure --do not do this --their schools are happy places to works at and have been for decades--it says more about the Principals than the teachers when one Principal sends 9 teachers to the rubber room in 2005-2006 and is voted Principal of the Year for 2006-2007--the Bloomberg Administration is rewarding the Principals for ousting tenured, high paid, and long-service teachers to save billions of $$$$$ by replacing them with cheap inexperienced, teachers who will never earn tenure, will never get vested in a pension plan that the city does not want to honor. Tier I teachers, almost a relic of the past if they worked from 22-62 retired a 100% final years salary plus no FICA, no Medicare tax, no state or city income tax ergo a pension payout equivalent to 125% prior take home. Tier I who worked from 22-42 and then did something else, as long as they had their QPP in Variable A, 13 years later at age 55 would retire at greater than 100% of what their final years pay was when they left--and only now is the life expectancy for teachers (no hard labor, nor dangerous assignments and adequate medical care covered by the employer) 30-40 years after they begin to get the payout. In order to avoid that cost there is an overwhelming pressure to lock in the pensions where they are rather than accrue an additional liability of ~$80,000.00 in lifetime payout for each year the teacher continues to teach beyond this year for teachers with 20 or more years in the system and $72,000.00/year for each year the teacher teaches until 20 years of service. So economics demands they get out all tier1-2 immediately if not before, that they get out tier 3-4 teachers ASAP and that only tier V teachers where the teacher pays most to the accumulation remain so the city does not go bankrupt. More important so that Bloomberg and his other billionaire friends do not foot the bill. 

 

When confronted with these facts. they answer that they are improving the schools as well--but they are not--it's Rumplestiltskin without the elf! The "bottom line" Principals do not know how to achieve higher test scores, so they blame the teachers who know that they can't do it, keep the submissive new and cheap teachers so at least they get kudos for savings. They scrub the scores and get big bonuses for student achievement, (they even embezzle to milk the system as their days are always numbered). And Bloomberg on behalf of himself and his friends have ended tenure, drastically reduced future pension obligations, lowered average salaries--and enriched the union because if there are 70,000 teachers earning S50,000.00 per year instead of 50,000 teachers earning $70,000/year then the UFT earns an additional $22,000,000.00 in union dues so it goes along. 

 

Betsy and I should write a book "Why the DOE does not care that Tyrone does not want to learn to read" --Mayoral control of the schools for reform was for the purpose of saving massive amounts of money. whether or not the students benefited, or even whether the students got less--Because just as the teachers assumed to be guilty or incompetent before the fact--it is worse than the students going to the public schools of NYC are presumed to not be amenable to getting an education, in any event--so at least we should save the money--and not all go bust in the process. 

 

It is a social Darwinism approach that the best teachers and the best students will outmaneuver the system and benefit from it. They'll even give me as an example, that I came to Randi's and her counsel's attention as someone wrongly removed and UFT hired NYSUT attorneys to prosecute a case on my behalf which the NYC Law Department settled almost immediately. They told me there was at least one case that did as well if not better. Demonstrable provable sexual harassment by a superior administrator against a DOE subordinate employee usually can do well. But wrongful 3020-a charges do not--I was very lucky. A group of us need to go to the legislature and get hearings because the problems that are seeking a solution need the legislature to intervene. The false accusations, defamation, loss of profession, mental anguish, blackballing I/I list--is simply criminal and intentionally so. Every prosecutor in the ATU and TPU must understand that they all are committing prosecutorial misconduct. It is as bad as prosecutors sending defendants they know to be innocent to life sentences just so they can add to their conviction rate! Please contact me to volunteer to work on a legislative initiative both to clue in the legislature as to what is going on, and to write and lobby new legislation for NYC that will restore integrity to a corrupt and misused disciplinary process.

Joy Hochstadt, Ph.D., J.D.

Officer of the Courts of the following Jurisdictions:

State of New York, State of New Jersey,

Federal District Courts: New York (Southern, Eastern); New Jersey  

Federal Appellate Court: Second Circuit Court of Appeals

United States Supreme Court 

 

JOY HOCHSTADT, P.C.

Attorneys at Law

300 Central Park West  Suite 2E

New York, New York 10024-1590

Tel. 212 580-9930 (cell for emergencies only 917 923 4536)

Fax 212 580 9322