The New York City Comptroller Built a Fiscal Transparency Website, and Now It's Open Source

NYC Comptroller John Liu

BY MIRANDA NEUBAUER | Thursday, June 6 2013

LINK

The source code of New York City's Checkbook NYC platform is now available for other governments to download, modify and reuse, New York City Comptroller John Liu announced during Thursday's Personal Democracy Forum.

Checkbook NYC is a web application that presents data from the city's financial management systems online. Users can view or download information about city spending, broken down by agency or vendor, for example. In addition, information about contracts, payroll and disbursements is linked together, rather than existing in separate silos. It also offers API access that developers can use to build other applications on top of raw data about city spending, as well as bulk data downloads. The comptroller's office has also promised to make city income data available on the platform soon.

Liu also announced that the information technology companies Oracle and CGI had agreed to develop automated data feeds known as adapters between their financial management systems and the Checkbook NYC system. Oracle and CGI's support means cities that use their software to manage finances could also adapt Checkbook NYC for their use.

REI Systems, which has worked with the city on developing Checkbook NYC and making it available in open-source format, also volunteered to provide technological expertise and tools to Oracle and CGI to test the automated data feeds and host so-called sandbox development sites for a small number of the companies' state and city financial management system clients.

Altogether, Oracle, CGI and REI have invested over $1 million in resources to help make the platform available to other cities, according to a press release.

Plans are under way to organize a "Checkbook NYC" hackathon in the fall to bring together civic activists, software developers and entrepreneurs to develop applications based on the platform, according to the press release. In addition, discussions are under way to form a consortium of governments to collaboratively manage the source code and jointly share costs of future enhancements.

The code is available under the AGPL 3.0 license at Github.

At Thursday's PDF event, Deputy Comptroller Ari Hoffnung gave a demonstration of the platform, which first launched in 2010 and was revamped earlier this year.

Hoffnung said Liu was very much interested in setting up a system would be just as easy for the public to interact with as buying a book on Amazon or checking a banking statement online.

"How many New Yorkers know what an API is?" Hoffnung asked.

With Checkbook NYC, he said, at a cost of less than $3 million, information from the city's financial management system for 4,000 users within city agencies, a system supported by CGI, is now potentially accessible to all 8 million New Yorkers and beyond.

In his remarks, Liu, also a candidate for mayor, emphasized that Checkbook NYC not only puts pressure on city agencies to spend tax money more efficiently, but also shows city contractors how much their competitors are charging, putting pressure on them to bring down costs. He emphasized that the expansion of Checkbook to other cities would benefit New York City as well.

"If the city of L.A. decides to adopt Checkbook, and then builds a mapping app, NYC can benefit could from that," he said.

In theory, New Yorkers could enter their zip code and see investments in their neighborhood. The data feeds offered by the companies would lower the barrier for other governments to adopt the system because they allow the governments "with the flip of a switch to feed their financial data into checkbook. "

Noting the large amount money state and local governments spend on information technology, "in an era of scarce resources, we have to invest dollars more strategically," he said.

In a statement, Socrata said it would support Checkbook by offering it as a turnkey cloud service, and enhancing the platform with open APIs for developers and data analysis and visualization tools for the public.

Hoffnung said the Comptroller's Office has been in many conversations with other cities and states about adopting the platform, and noted that the availability of the data feeds meant other governments wouldn't have to spend resources on data extraction and data mapping, services that would instead be provided to governments "at no cost to jump start the process."

In the city's press release, several cities and civic groups praised the new open source nature of the platform and expressed interest in it.

"New York has provided a very easy-to-use transparency portal to gain access to budget, payroll and departmental expenditures, to the point that not only will the citizens of New York benefit, but internal departments will benefit by having easy access to their own information for better management and accountability,” Steve Reneker, general manager and CTO of the City of Los Angeles Information Technology Agency said in the statement. “The City of Los Angeles will be looking into leveraging this open source solution to provide similar benefits.”

“We applaud New York City and Oracle for the work they are doing to promote financial transparency,” Maryland's Montgomery County Controller Lenny Moore said in the statement. “Montgomery County is a leader in open data and is always working to make government spending more accessible and easier to understand for our taxpayers. We are intrigued by the possibility of deploying an open Checkbook.

“Checkbook NYC is by far the most sophisticated city-budget transparency app to date," Adam Stiles, co-creator of Open Budget Oakland added in the statement. “By making Checkbook available to cities nationwide, NYC is enabling a common framework to understand city spending that could one day allow, for example, apples-to-apples comparisons of spending across cities.”

“Checkbook NYC is a flagship example of the emerging ecosystem of interoperable, useful, and reusable civic tools," said Code for America Chief of Staff Abhi Nemani. "This is the kind of project Code for America hopes to support in city after city.”

The NYC DOE Desperation - Its A Long Shot

The Common Core: A Bizarre but Revealing Picture Tells a Thousand Words

June 5, 2013
LINK

A couple of days ago a bizarre if not surreal poster appeared on the entranceway wall of the school in which I work. Issued by the New York City Department of Education, touting both the challenges and wonders of the highly dubious educational cure all Common Core State Standards, the poster is aimed at New York City parents. In large print are the words: “ This Spring We’re Aiming Higher.” It makes a point of warning parents, among lots of fluff, that on account of the rising standards of the Common Core, their childrens’ all revealing test scores will go down this year.
But not to worry, parents, the poster goes on to say, in the end, because of the Common Core, your kids will be prepared “for college and a career.”
Nothing-new here. This kind of drivel about the wholly untested Common Core has been repeated with cast iron certainty ad nauseum from coast to coast.
But the words are accompanied by a photograph and it is here that things get interesting. The picture of what appears to be a 10 year old boy shooting a basketball at a basket that is not merely distant but ludicrously distant. The child appears to be almost beneath the opposite basket. To tell this child this is a challenge is to not understand the meaning of the word. The child has not a prayer of making the shot. Indeed, neither would many grown men. But then again, most grown men would know what the little boy in the picture would not: there is only one scenario where one would even consider taking such a shot — a moment of absolute desperation when your team is behind at the buzzer and you fling the ball and hope for the best. And they would know something else: they would know that only an absolute fool or an absolute sadist would have you practice such a shot.
It is, to say the least, a curiously cruel choice of a metaphor, particularly considering the audience it is aimed at. If some gym teacher had my kid taking such shots I’d question not merely his or her competence, but his or her sanity. Indeed, only someone with no knowledge whatsoever of basketball or the fragility of a child’s psyche would ever request such a moronic task. It virtually insures failure. Yet, for all its absurdity it is completely consistent with the towering arrogance and self-righteous certainty of the promoters ( and owners and profiteers ) of the Common Core and indeed, all of the “education reformers.” After all, this is the same crew that under the No Child Left Behind act insanely demand that every child in America be proficient in English and Math or they shut down their schools.
All of this, of course, could be dismissed as making too much of a silly poster but for the fact that while musing over the image I could not help but recall Diane Ravitch’s prescient comments on a purloined copy of this years Common Core aligned fifth grade English Language Arts test: “ I read the passages and the questions based on them. My reaction was that the difficulty level of the passages and the questions was not age-appropriate. Based on test questions I had reviewed for seven years when I was a member of the NAEP board, it seemed to me that the test was pitched at an eighth grade level. The passages were very long, about twice as long as a typical passage on NAEP for eighth grade. The questions involved interpretation, inference, and required re-reading of the passage for each question.”
Ravitch’s conclusions on the actual test – that fifth graders were tested with eighth grade level work — could easily be seen as the intellectual equivalent of demanding that little kids shoot a basket from the opposite side of the court: could easily be seen, that is, as exposing either an imbecile’s idea of raising standards or as an integral part an extraordinarily cynical long term plot to set American children up to fail by the millions to create a rationale for privatizing public education.
I see the later.

The Issue of Building Codes and Accountability

By the way, several years ago I looked up fire codes and building codes; I found that charter schools and public schools had different rules. How is that, in a co-location?

Betsy Combier

 

EXCLUSIVE: 90% of schools have at least one building code violation: city

There are nearly 1,200 public school buildings and those structures tallied up 9,693 open building and environmental violations. These can include loose wires, stuck doors and inadequate ventilation. I.S. 195 in Harlem had 124 open violations, the highest count of any school building, but 57 schools in total had more than two dozen each.

BY BEN CHAPMAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

LINK

PUBLISHED: SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013, 2:30 AM

UPDATED: SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013, 2:30 AM

CHRISTIE M FARRIELLA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

I.S. 195 in Harlem had 124 open violations, the highest of any school building in the city. In March 2012, Principal Rashaunda Shaw said there was also a ‘problem with rodent and insect infestation.’

RELATED STORIES

• City’s new evaluation system makes firing underperforming teachers easier
• State education officials to reveal new teacher evaluation system Saturday
• Why charter school myths are spreading 
• New York City will double money for training teachers

Education officials fail to make the grade when it comes to keeping public schools free of building code violations and environmental problems, according to city data.

More than 90% of city schools have at least one outstanding building code violation, an analysis of school inspection records by the school cleaners union shows.

Loose wires, stuck doors and inadequate ventilation are just some of the problems at 1,100 school buildings with at least one open violation as of May 23.

RELATED: EVALUATE TEACHERS, IMPROVE SCHOOLS

Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ President Hector Figueroa said conditions in many of the school buildings could be harmful to students and staffers.

“At the least, these violations are a distraction and a source of discomfort,” said Figueroa. “And in many cases, they could actually present a health hazard.”

The Intermediate School 195 building in Harlem had 124 open violations, the highest count of any school building in the city.

RELATED: CITY TO DISCUSS DEZONING PLAN IN HARLEM

The W. 133rd St. structure houses four schools. It has dozens of violations for problems with elevators, lighting and building maintenance.

SEIU32BJ.ORG

Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ President Hector Figueroa said conditions at some of the schools ‘are a distraction and a source of discomfort,’ also noting that ‘in many cases, they could actually present a health hazard.’

When city inspectors visited in March 2012, IS 195 Principal Rashaunda Shaw said there was also a “problem with rodent and insect infestation” in the building.

The city operates about 1,200 public school buildings and as of Wednesday, those structures had 9,693 open building and environmental violations. Fifty-seven schools had two dozen open violations or more.

RELATED: CITY SCHOOLS WHIP UP GOURMET LUNCHES

Many of the open violations were reported months or years ago. Union officials blamed the slow repairs on cuts to city funding of school maintenance and repair projects.

School capital budgets were reduced significantly in the past several years, union officials said, including a $700 million decrease adopted in fiscal year 2011.

Although some of those cuts were restored in later years, union officials said the 2010-14 school capital budget remains reduced by more than $500 million compared with the 2005-09 budget.

Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the agency is spending more than $3 billion in building improvements under its capital plan.

Feinberg said the open violations in city schools are not emergencies and the agency is working to correct them.

“We maintain clean and safe schools,” said Feinberg. “Any serious maintenance-related complaints are addressed immediately, and noncritical complaints are prioritized with the repair work for the building.”

bchapman@nydailynews.com

First Look at New Teacher Evaluation Process

City education department awards itself a win on teacher evals

by Philissa Cramer, at 7:59 pmLINK

Before briefing reporters with their take on the teacher evaluation system that State Education Commissioner John King imposed on the city today, the Department of Education distributed a colorful chart making the case that King had sided with with its proposal.

According to the chart, King fell closer to the department’s position than the UFT’s on several issues, including the number of days allotted for arbitration, the use of student surveys, and the length of the agreement. The chart does not mention other issues where the UFT’s positions won out, such as the number of Danielson Framework components that will count or other details about the way observations will have to be documented.

“I consider this a major victory for our students and our staff,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott said.

Union chiefs offer first takes on state-imposed evaluation plans

by Philissa Cramer, at 7:07 pmLINK

UFT President Michael Mulgrew offered what appeared to be a tepid endorsement of the teacher evaluation system that State Education Commissioner John King imposed today,while Mulgrew’s counterpart at the principals union was more favorable about the new plan for rating his members.

Ernest Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Superintendents, said in a statement that his union had actually reached a deal on evaluations with the city Department of Education late Friday, “with the strong intervention of Commissioner King.” He said the deal resembled what had almost been finalized back in January, when the city’s negotiations with the teachers union fell apart just before a state deadline.

Logan praised the new evaluation system, saying that it “preserves many of the same tools our principals are accustomed to while at the same time substantially improving our due process protections and safeguards.” It also provides for helping principals improve, which the old system did not do, he said.

Mulgrew’s reaction was more circumspect. In a statement posted to the UFT’s website shortly after King released details of the plan, Mulgrew expressed satisfaction that teachers will be allowed to challenge the evaluations process before they receive their ratings and that teachers will have an equal say with their administrators in recommending which tools are used to measure student growth.

“New York City teachers will now have additional protections and opportunities to play a larger role in the development of the measures used to rate them,” he said. “Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s desire for a ‘gotcha’ system, as Commissioner King noted today, New York City ‘is not going to fire its way to academic success.’”

But he also signaled that the union has a speedy timeline for seeking revisions to the plan. King announced that the plan would be in effect through the 2016-2017 school year. But Mulgrew said the specifics would remain in effect “unless and until they are altered in collective bargaining with the new mayor who takes office in seven months.”

The evaluation system that King imposed includes some wins for the UFT and some clear losses. Principals will have to consider all 22 components of the Danielson Framework for assessing classroom instruction, which the union wanted. But starting in the 2014-2015 school year, student surveys will count for 5 percent of ratings for almost all teachers — something that the union had vehemently opposed.

The full statements are below. From UFT President Michael Mulgrew:

New York City teachers will now have additional protections and opportunities to play a larger role in the development of the measures used to rate them. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s desire for a “gotcha” system, as Commissioner King noted today, New York City “is not going to fire its way to academic success.”

The precise measures of student learning established by this ruling will be in effect unless and until they are altered in collective bargaining with the new Mayor who takes office in seven months.

As the UFT requested, there will now be additional arbitration slots that will allow teachers to challenge any violations by supervisors of the new evaluation process before they reach the stage of actual ratings.

The state has also ruled that teachers will be evaluated on all aspects of the Danielson framework, as the UFT had proposed, in opposition to the DOE’s insistence that fewer measures be used.

In individual schools, teachers will have an equal say with administrators on the committee that will recommend the instruments that each school will use.

Despite the Mayor’s claims to the contrary, the major components of the new statewide system – such as the four categories of Highly Effective, Effective, Developing and Ineffective – are part of the statute or are regulations;  as such, have never been subject to “sunset;”  they can be changed by the Legislature or the Commissioner.

And from CSA President Ernest Logan:

After a full day of arbitration yesterday, CSA and DOE reached an agreement on an APPR Plan for Principals. This deal was reached late last night with the strong intervention of Commissioner King, and finalizes the agreement we were on the verge of signing in January. We are pleased to report that our agreement is consistent and reliable as it preserves many of the same tools our Principals are accustomed to while at the same time substantially improving our due process protections and safeguards. For the first time, we’ve negotiated a true yearlong improvement plan for any Principal rated “developing” or “ineffective” with regular cycles of feedback from superintendents. Additionally, we negotiated a strong appeals process, including the step of an independent hearing officer. Our rating scales will continue to yield the differentiated results that our Principal Performance Review has had in the past. We look forward to the implementation of this agreement and will have more details this week.

ACR/ATR Meeting

Next ACR/ATR meeting: June 6, 

Skylight Diner, 402 W 34th Street (at 9th Avenue), Manhattan, 5:00 pm.

Betsy Combier Files a Second FOIL Request After Francesco Portelos Receives a Letter From ATU Director Laura Brantley

Before Francesco Portelos showed his true colors as a man who likes to threaten and defame other people, I did what he asked me to do, and that was to file a Freedom of Information request for information about the principal of his school, Linda Hill. See below.

But first, an update on my opinion about Mr. Portelos:

Editorial: Is Francesco Portelos a Danger to Tenure Law? by Betsy Combier

Francesco Portelos' Poison - Threats To Principals

Francesco Portelos: "A Troublemaking, Combative, and Disgruntled Employee", Loses His Federal Case by Editor Betsy Combier

Francesco Portelos and His "Victim Complex"

OP-ED: Why Cyberstalker Francesco Portelos and His Bully Mob, UFT Solidarity, Failed

Parents against teacher tenure say they're being harassed by educator

EDITORIAL: Cyberstalker Francesco Portelos and His Blame Game Must Be Stopped

Teacher’s tweets threaten kids in tenure suit: parents

Contact me if you are being charged with 3020-a, have had a bad experience with Francesco Portelos, or have been in a "new" rubber room at betsy.combier@gmail.com

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

Dear Mr. Baranello,

I believe that Ms. Laura Brantley meant to put Ms. Erminia Claudio, and not Ms. Claudio Erminia, in her email to Francesco Portelos? If not, please give me the title, contact information and authority of "Claudio Erminia" to find probable cause against Mr, Portelos.

Thank you,

Betsy Combier

Editor

ParentAdvocates.Org

NYCRubberRoomReporter.Blogspot.Com  
Betsy Combier, Editor / Reporter
betsy.combier@gmail.com 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                    May 26, 2013

Mr. Joseph A. Baranello
Central Records Access Officer
Office of the General Counsel
New York City Department of Education
52 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007

JBaranello3@schools.nyc.gov

FOIL@schools.nyc.gov

Dear Mr. Baranello:

Under the provisions of the New York Freedom of Information Law, Article 6 of the Public Officers Law, I request copies of the following items:
1) All documents, notes, memos, emails, or recordings made when Superintendent Erminia Claudio contacted Laura Brantley, Attorney, about the matter concerning Francesco Portelos and his 38 charges, and/or probable cause in his case. Please see the letter attached from Laura Brantley to Francesco Portelos.

Erminia Claudio

2)  All documents, notes, memos, emails, or recordings made when ATU Attorney Laura Brantley contacted Superintendent Erminia Claudio about the matter concerning Francesco Portelos and his 38 charges, and/or probable cause in his case. 

3) The name, title, contact information for any person who assisted either Laura Brantley or Eminia Claudio in "finding" probable cause for Mr. Portelos' 38 charges.

Superintendent Erminia Claudio

4) The name, title, and contact information for the charging attorney at the Administrative Trials Unit who wrote the 38 charges against Mr. Portelos.

5) The name, title, and contact information for the charging attorney at the Administrative Trials Unit who wrote the probable cause form.

6) The name, title, and contact information for the person(s) who recommended that Francesco Portelos be suspended with pay.

7) The particulars of what the title of Ms. Brantley means, specifically "as designee for Dennis M. Walcott, Chancellor", and any and all rules, regulations, or law which gives her this authority and title.

8) How Dennis M. Walcott has the powers and duties of "Chancellor" pursuant to law.

If the records have been removed from their original locations, please cause a diligent search to be conducted of all appropriate file rooms and storage facilities.

If any record has been redacted, please identify which categories of information have been redacted, and cite the relevant statutory exemption(s).

If you have any questions relating to the specific record(s) or portion(s) being sought, please email me at betsy.combier@gmail.com so that we may discuss them.

Here is the contact information for Ms. Claudio:

Erminia Claudio
Superintendent
Community School District 31
715 Ocean Terrace
Staten Island, New York 10301
718-420-5667
Fax: 718 420-5665
eclaudi@schools.nyc.gov

RELEVANT ADVISORY OPINIONS
 www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/ftext/f13952.htm     

www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/ftext/f14287.htm   

As you know, the Freedom of Information Law requires that an agency respond to a request within five business days of receipt of a request.  Therefore, I would appreciate a response as soon as possible and look forward to hearing from you shortly.  If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name and address of the person or body to whom an appeal should be directed. 

                                                                   Sincerely,


                                                                   Betsy Combier

Betsy Combier Files A FOIL Request For the Names, Titles,etc., of The People Who Voted Probable Cause At An Executive Session on Francesco Portelos' Charges