Teacher Ben Friedman Wins His Appeal to Overturn His U Rating

Mr. Friedman overturns the dismissal of his Petition by New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael Stallman, a very biased and unfair judge. Maybe he will reform his attacks on teachers with this decision by his Supervisors.

Betsy Combier

Matter of Friedman v Board of Educ. of the City Sch. Dist. of the City of New York

2013 NY Slip Op 05598

Decided on August 13, 2013

Appellate Division, First Department

Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.

This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.

Decided on August 13, 2013 
Tom, J.P., Acosta, Renwick, DeGrasse, Richter, JJ.
10155 113309/11 

[*1]In re Ben Friedman, Petitioner-Appellant, The 

v

Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, et al., Respondents-Respondents.

Offices of Richard E. Casagrande, New York (Maria-Elena 
Gonzalez of counsel), for appellant. 
Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel, New York (Diana 
Lawless of counsel), for respondents. 

Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Michael D. Stallman, J.), entered April 6, 2012, which denied the petition to annul petitioner teacher's unsatisfactory rating for the 2007-2008 school year, and dismissed the proceeding brought pursuant to CPLR article 78, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, the petition granted, and the unsatisfactory rating annulled.

Respondents' determination to sustain the unsatisfactory performance evaluation was not rationally based on administrative findings that petitioner engaged in corporal punishment of students during the 2007-2008 school year (see Matter of Pell v Board of Educ. of Union Free School Dist. No. 1 of Towns of Scarsdale & Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 34 NY2d 222, 231 [1974]). There was no longer any documentation substantiating an instance of corporal punishment in petitioner's personnel file after the parties stipulated to the removal of two disciplinary letters from the file.

It is undisputed that Part 2(I) of DOE's Human Resources Handbook "Rating Pedagogical Staff Members" provides (1) that a teacher's evaluation must be supported by documentation in his/her personnel file; (2) that documentation removed from a file through grievance procedures is inadmissible in performance reviews; and (3) that documentation not addressed directly to a teacher is inadmissible in performance reviews, unless it is attached to and part of another document appropriately placed in the teacher's file. Moreover, materials placed in a teacher's personnel file must include a signature and date line for the teacher, evidencing that she has read the material and understands that it will be placed in the file, as well as a signature and date line for a witness; unsigned documents are inadmissible in evaluation reviews.

Here, there were two disciplinary letters addressing separate instances of corporal punishment. One of the requirements of the letter is to have an Office of Special Investigation (OSI) report attached in order to confirm legitimacy of the incident. The January 28, 2007 letter, which addressed a November 9, 2007 incident, did not have as an attachment the OSI report concluding that the allegation of corporal punishment on November 9, 2007 was substantiated. [*2]Moreover, the OSI report for this incident was not signed and dated by the teacher. The second disciplinary letter, dated May 21, 2009, attached the OSI report, which concluded that the November 29, 2007 incident was substantiated. However, both letters were removed from petitioner's file by stipulation, and the OSI report for the first incident, standing alone, was inadmissible. Thus, there remained no documentation in the record to support the unsatisfactory finding (see Appeal of Naomi Dowrie [46 Ed Dept Rep 273, Decision No. 15,506, Dec. 22, 2006], in which the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Education upheld the petitioner's appeal from an unsatisfactory rating on the ground that respondents had failed to follow their own procedures and had considered material that had been removed from her file through the grievance process, i.e., "materials not properly placed in [the] teacher's personal [sic] file"; Mangone v Klein, 2007 NY Slip Op 32475[u] [Sup Ct NY County 2007] [relying on Dowrie and denying DOE's motion to dismiss petition to set aside unsatisfactory rating upon finding that the petitioner's had nothing in her file other than a disciplinary letter that had been ordered to be removed following arbitration related to the allegations against him]).

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER 
OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.

ENTERED: AUGUST 13, 2013

CLERK

Principal fires security guards to hire art teachers — and transforms elementary school

Orchard Gardens

 

By Katy Tur, Correspondent, NBC News

link

ROXBURY, Mass. — The community of Roxbury had high hopes for its newest public school back in 2003. There were art studios, a dance room, even a theater equipped with cushy seating.

A pilot school for grades K-8, Orchard Gardens was built on grand expectations.

But the dream of a school founded in the arts, a school that would give back to the community as it bettered its children, never materialized.

Instead, the dance studio was used for storage and the orchestra's instruments were locked up and barely touched. 

The school was plagued by violence and disorder from the start, and by 2010 it was rank in the bottom five of all public schools in the state of Massachusetts.

That was when Andrew Bott — the sixth principal in seven years — showed up, and everything started to change.

“We got rid of the security guards,” said Bott, who reinvested all the money used for security infrastructure into the arts.

Orchard Gardens a one-time 'career killer'

In a school notorious for its lack of discipline, where backpacks were prohibited for fear the students would use them to carry weapons, Bott’s bold decision to replace the security guards with art teachers was met with skepticism by those who also questioned why he would choose to lead the troubled school.  

“A lot of my colleagues really questioned the decision,” he said.  “A lot of people actually would say to me, ‘You realize that Orchard Gardens is a career killer? You know, you don't want to go to Orchard Gardens.’”

But now, three years later, the school is almost unrecognizable. Brightly colored paintings, essays of achievement, and motivational posters line the halls. The dance studio has been resurrected, along with the band room, and an artists’ studio.

The end result? Orchard Gardens has one of the fastest student improvement rates statewide. And the students — once described as loud and unruly, have found their focus.

“We have our occasional, typical adolescent ... problems,” Bott said.  “But nothing that is out of the normal for any school.”

The school is far from perfect. Test scores are better, but still below average in many areas. Bott says they’re “far from done, but definitely on the right path.”

The students, he says, are evidence of that.

‘I can really have a future in this’

Eighth grader Keyvaughn Little said he’s come out of his shell since the school’s turnaround.

“I've been more open, and I've expressed myself more than I would have before the arts have came.”

His grades have improved, too. Keyvaughn says it’s because of the teachers — and new confidence stemming from art class.  

“There's no one particular way of doing something,” he said. “And art helps you like see that. So if you take that with you, and bring it on, it will actually help you see that in academics or anything else, there's not one specific way you have to do something.”

Keyvaughn has now been accepted to the competitive Boston Arts Academy, the city’s only public high school specializing in visual and performing arts.  

“All of the extra classes and the extra focus on it and the extra attention make you think that, ‘Hey, oh my gosh, I can really have a future in this, I don't have to go to a regular high school — I can go to art school,'” he said.

Chris Plunkett, a visual arts teacher at Orchard Gardens school in Roxbury, Mass., spoke with NBC's Katy Tur about the success of the arts program that led to an inspiring turnaround for students.

Chris Plunkett, who has taught visual arts at Orchard Gardens for the past three years, said the classes help develop trust between the faculty and students. During one particularly memorable project, he asked his eighth graders to write a memoir about a life experience and what they learned from it and then create a self-portrait.

“I couldn't believe how honest and candid they were, and how much I learned about them,” Plunkett said.  “I mean it was really, it was one of the most incredible things I've seen in eighth graders.”

Noting that kids need more than test prep, he added, it may have seemed “a little crazy” to get rid of the security guards to hire art teachers but “I definitely feel it was the right move in the end.”

The Second "Who Are You Kidding Award" Goes To Dennis Walcott

Dennis Walcott

NYC Department of Education Alleged "Chancellor" and the Strange Case of His So-Called "Contract"NY State Education Law Section 2590-h says that "The office of chancellor of the city district is hereby continued. Such chancellor shall serve at the pleasure of and be employed by the mayor of the city of New York by contract. The length of such contract shall not exceed by more than two years the term of office of the mayor authorizing such contract." You will be surprised that the NYC DOE believes this so-called "contract" is not public, and is an undated letter. Who are they kidding? The Second Who Are You Kidding Award goes to Dennis Walcott, the pretend NYC Chancellor.


When Joel Klein was the so-called "Chancellor" of the NYC Department of Education ("DOE"), I filed a Freedom of Information request for his contract, because Education Law Section 2590-H says that:

* § 2590-h. Powers and duties of chancellor. The office of chancellor of the city district is hereby continued. Such chancellor shall serve at the pleasure of and be employed by the mayor of the city of New York by contract.

The length of such contract shall not exceed by more than two years the term of office of the mayor authorizing such contract. The chancellor shall receive a salary to be fixed by the mayor within the budgetary allocation therefor.

He or she shall exercise all his or her powers and duties in a manner not inconsistent with the city-wide educational policies of the city board.

The chancellor shall have the following powers and duties as the superintendent of schools and chief executive officer for the city district, which the chancellor shall exercise to promote an equal educational opportunity for all students in the schools of the city district, promote fiscal and educational equity, increase student achievement and school performance and encourage local school-based innovation, including the power and duty to"....:

and then the law lists all the powers and duties of the person titled "Chancellor". Reading this, I saw that Joel needed a contract.

So, I filed a request for that contract. Joel Klein never received a contract, according to the Department of Education. See "The Who Are You Kidding??" Award Goes To Joel Klein The New York City Department of Education Pretender". In my opinion, Mike Bloomberg hired Joel Klein as a front for the actions he felt necessary, namely, to violate Education Law in the area of labor and employment, namely tenure rights. The Bloomberg administration is well-known for not signing contracts.

Susan Holtzman, the former Records Access person in charge at the NYC DOE Tweed building (52 Chambers Street, lower Manhattan), sent me the response that Joel had no contract, and she compensated for his not having a contract by sending me the contracts of two former NYC Chancellors, Harold Levy - who is an Attorney like Joel, also received a waiver from New York State, but ALSO a contract - and Rudy Crew, who did not need a waiver, but did get a contract. By the way, after Ms. Holtzman sent me this news, she was re-assigned to the position as Attorney for District 75 at 400 Second Avenue. Maybe she was not supposed to tell me that Joel had no contract. See what happened with my request for the contract of Dennis Walcott, the "new" chancellor after the disaster ofCathie Black ended.

When Cathie Black was run out of town, Deputy Mayor and token African American Dennis Walcott was given a waiver by New York State Commissioner Steiner to become "Chancellor" of the NYC public school system. This was around April 2011. I made a formal request for his contract in September, 2011, which was not filled until June 27, 2013. Joe Baranello, the current NYC Records Access person, has a problem with me because I posted his Facebook page on my blog NYC Rubber Room Reporter when I saw that he made fun of people dressed as Santa Claus and Jewish people. He is a gay man, and should know better than to make fun or judge anyone, but as far as I know he was not disciplined for his comments. No one who works for the "chief" - the Chancellor - is given any reprimands, it seems. But we don't know.

Anyway, as I am now a paralegal working in the compulsory arbitration known as "3020-a", I go by the letter of the law. The Education Law states that in order for the NYC Chancellor to have the power to charge/discharge an employee, he/she/ must have a contract (Section 2590-H)

Here is my Appeal to Courtenaye Jackson-Chase of my request for Walcott's contract, pursuant to FOIL, and Ed Law 2590-H after almost 2 years of delays and DOE "Gotcha Squad" Attorney Adrienne Austin gave Arbitrator James A. Brown the "contract" in camera because, she insisted, the "contract" was not public:

Appeal of Deliberate, Arbitrary and Capricious Delay in Responding To FOIL #7990

Dear Ms. Courtenaye Jackson-Chase: June 7, 2013

I am hereby appealing the denial of access to the contract of Dennis Walcott, Which was requested in a Freedom of Information request filed by me in September 2011 and given the number F7990 by your Records Office and Mr. Joseph Baranello.

Here is my Freedom of Information request:

From: Betsy
Date: Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:54 AM
Subject: FOIL request "Walcott"
To: Baranello Joseph , FOIL@schools.nyc.gov

Cc: Betsy Combier
Parentadvocates.org
Betsy Combier, Editor, Reporter
betsy.combier@gmail.com

September 10, 2011

Mr. Joseph A. Baranello
Central Records Access Officer
Office of Legal Services
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 hereby request to inspect records or portions thereof pertaining to:

1) The entire online and hard copy personnel file of New York City Board/Department of Education employee Dennis Walcott. I request all records at all locations of the New York City Board/Department of Education, including 65 Court Street, the Department of Investigation, the Corporate Counsel, and all payments made to him from an expense account and/or paid to another employee, arbitrator, etc.

2) All references and education history listed in Dennis Walcott’s resume

3) The employment contract of Dennis Walcott with all appendices and with a complete listing of his duties and responsibilities, schedules of performance reviews, and to whom he must report for the performance review.

4) any emails letters or documentation from or to Patrick Sullivan that mention the name “Betsy Combier”.

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. Please include the label “Walcott” in all correspondence that refers to this FOIL request.

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 phone me.

RELEVANT ADVISORY OPINIONS

www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/ftext/f13952.htm

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

RELEVANT LOCAL LAW

Rules of the City of New York -- Title 43 -- Mayor -- §1-05(c)(3)
"If a request does not adequately describe the records sought, the records access officer shall notify the requesting party in writing that his request has been denied, stating the reasons why the request does not meet the requirements of this section and extending to the requesting party an opportunity to confer with the records access officer in order to attempt to reformulate the request in a manner that will enable the agency to identify the records sought."

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
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Director, Theaterkids, Inc.
President, The E-Accountability Foundation

Since September 2011 the extensions of time to complete my request #F7990 are:
October 7, 2011
December 8, 2011
January 9, 2012
February 7, 2012
April 12, 2012
May 24, 2012
January 18 2013
February 19, 2013
March 19, 2013
April 16, 2013
May 14, 2013
You can easily verify these dates by going to your colleague, Joseph Baranello, with whom you work at Tweed.
It is indeed disturbing that Ms. Adrienne Austin, Esq., an Attorney under your Supervision, would inform me and the Attorney I am working with in the case of N.K. , that the Walcott contract we requested in our Motion To Dismiss - and we stated that there was none - does indeed exist, and would be immediately given to Hearing Officer James Brown for in-camera review because we, Attorney David Barrett and myself, could not see it. Ms. Austin's email to us is below. Please make a note of the fact that Ms. Austin sent us the email with the " " around the word contract; we did not write this:

From:  Adrienne Austin
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 10:26 AM
To: Jim Brown; David Barrett, esq.
Subject: RE:

Good Morning,

I have a copy of the Chancellor's "contract." I will provide it for an in camera review by Mr. Brown, but I will not be turning it over as it is part of a confidential personnel file.

Adrienne Austin | Agency Attorney
Administrative Trials Unit
NYC Department of Education
49-51 Chambers Street, Rm. 600
New York, New York 10007
T: (212) 374-6884
F: (212) 374-1229
aaustin4@schools.nyc.gov

Some time between May 16 and May 30, 2013, Ms. Austin gave Arbitrator James Brown, Esq., the "contract". On June 3, 2013, Arbitrator Brown stated in the record of the 3020-a Hearing of N. K., that he, Brown, had reviewed the "contract" dated April 18, 2011 and found that Dennis Walcott was indeed able to delegate probable cause to Superintendents and Principals. His denial of the Motion To Dismiss is based upon his review of this "contract". His opinion, with the date of the "contract" as April 18 2011 was uploaded to TEACH on May 30, 2013.

As I did file a FOIL request of Joel Klein's "contract" and received two answers, which were (1) Klein never had a contract; and (2) Klein had a contract - basically a letter welcoming him to the Chancellorship. See my article, " The "Who Are You Kidding??" Award Goes To: Joel Klein, New York City Board of Education Pretender".

Susan Holtzman sent me the employment contracts of Rudy Crew and Harold Levy, both of which were submitted in our Reply to Ms. Austin's oral argument made in opposition to our Motion To Dismiss, all these documents are available on the TEACH website under the case of N.K.

Below are some of the supporting opinions of Robert Freeman, in reference to the contract being a public document:

http://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f8582.htm
http://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f7687.htm
http://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f18075.html
http://docs.dos.ny.gov/coog/ftext/f14257.htm

If Ms. Austin put the quotation marks around Dennis Walcott's "contract" because she believes it is not really a contract but an agreement or welcoming letter such as Mike Bloomberg sent Joel Klein, it is still discoverable:

Geneva Printing Co. and Donald C. Hadley v. South Seneca School District, Supreme Court, Monroe County, July 12, 1982 --
"Memorandum of Understanding" between superintendent and principal found to be available following in camera inspection; since the memorandum detailed direction and instructions regarding
the performance duties, it was found to constitute instructions to staff that affect the public and a final agency determination; disclosure would not result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, as record was clearly relevant to the performance of official duties; cited opinion of Committee. Current Law: §§87(2)(b), 2(g)(ii), (iii) (copied from: http://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/caselaw_foil.html)

On the issue of stalling me from receiving the documents requested under FOIL #7990 and all the others, I will be filing a Notice of Claim against Mr. Joseph Baranello and others who are, I assume, willingly, recklessly, and arbitrarily treating me in a way that not only does not comply with the law, but is different from other members of the public and the press. I may have information that your press office has given out the April 18, 2011 letter/contract for Dennis Walcott to other people requesting the "contract", prior to today, and may have given me the "contract" to which Ms. Austin refers.

The law gives you 10 days to send me the documents, including the contract, of Dennis Walcott. My email address is betsy.combier@gmail.com. I expect to have the documents on or before June 24, 2013, as I know, from my sources, that all the documents requested are held at Tweed under your control. Please cease and desist from this disparate treatment.

Thank you for your attention and cooperation.

Sincerely,

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog

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

Ms. Austin also told us that we had to file a Freedom of Information ("FOIL") request for the "contract" if we wanted a copy. This means that she knew the contract was, indeed, a public document. Gosh, so confusing!!!!!

On June 27, 2013, two (2) days past the 10 day deadline for responding to my appeal, DOE Attorney Jackson-Chase had the Baranello team send me Dennis Walcott's "contract" under the heading "released June 27, 2013". They did not title the letter as a "contract".

Here is what the NYC DOE says is the "contract":

Contract of Dennis Walcott

Please note that there is no term for Walcott, as in end of his employment, and he did not put a date under his signature, if indeed he signed it at all. Additionally, there is no reference to his authority to hire and/or fire employees as the employing board. Walcott is not given any performance review, he has no Chancellor's Committee or any other decision-making body as he is stated as having.

On June 4, 2013 Walcott would not swear or affirm under oath to tell the truth at a City Council meeting on the budget. Education Committee chair Robert Jackson allowed him to testify anyway.

What a scam.

Betsy Combier
Editor of Parentadvocates.org

Bloomberg dragging his feet over open records request
LINK

Posted By Greg Campbell On 2:32 PM 08/14/2013 In Daily Caller News Foundation | No Comments

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office is ignoring an open records request by a Colorado reporter that could shed light more light on how deeply involved the anti-gun mayor has been in Colorado politics lately.

Reporter Todd Shepherd, who runs the Drudge-like Complete Colorado website, wrote on Wednesday that Bloomberg’s office has been incommunicado regarding his request for documents under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

Bloomberg’s office received Shepherd’s request on June 3 and promised on June 13 to respond with a status update within 20 business days.

“If I’m counting my holidays correctly, that means I should have been contacted with the status update on or about July 15 or 16,” Shepherd wrote. “It’s now August 13, and I have received nothing.”

Shepherd emailed two people in the FOIL division of the New York City mayor’s office and has had no response.

It’s been no mystery that Bloomberg has had his fingers in Colorado politics as the Democratic-controlled state legislature passed a slate of controversial gun control bills this year. Open records obtained by Shepherd show that Bloomberg, who founded the anti-gun Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, called Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper at two critical points during the gun control debate in the capitol.

And Bloomberg has promised to help the campaigns of Colorado Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron, Democrats who are facing Sept. 10 recall elections because of their support of the gun laws.

“Yes, I’m going to give some money, because I think they’ve done what’s right for the people of Colorado,” he’s quoted as saying in The Capital, an online New York politics site. “The people of Colorado are Americans. It shows leadership and I think you have an obligation to support those that you agree with.”

Shepherd didn’t specify what sort of documents he’s seeking from Bloomberg and wrote that there’s no guarantee that he will learn anything worthwhile.

“[But] we know for sure nothing can be learned as long as no documents are provided,” he wrote.

“Bloomberg’s office is thumbing their nose at the New York Freedom of Information Law,” he continued. “It’s unacceptable, they should be taken to task by other media that care about the integrity of open records laws, and they should prioritize my now-overdue request. But I won’t hold my breath.”

A message left at Bloomberg’s FOIL office by The Daily Caller News Foundation was not immediately returned.

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Constitutional Rights Cannot Be Waived

The issue here is: NYSUT and the UFT tell tenured members that they do not have the "right" to rely on any rule, law, or regulation which may be contained in Education Law 3020-a, only Article 21G, and the memorandum of agreements (MOA) signed by the UFT and the Department.

I started questioning this in 2005, and continue to do so. How can Constitutional rights be waived?

See the case below.

Justia.com Opinion Summary: Boaz began working for FedEx in 1997, under an agreement that stated: “To the extent the law allows an employee to bring legal action against Federal Express Corporation, I agree to bring that complaint within the time prescribed by law or 6 months from the date of the event forming the basis of my lawsuit, whichever expires first.” She began took on additional responsibilities, previously handled by a male employee, without corresponding compensation, 2004-2008. Boaz sued FedEx in 2009, asserting claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201, and the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. 206(d). The district court held that, although the claims were timely under the statutes, they were barred by the agreement. The Sixth Circuit reversed, based on Supreme Court precedent prohibiting an employee from waiving rights under those laws.

PDF file  

NYC Educator on the Total Failure of Bloomberg's Public School "Reform"

Here in Bizarro World Massive Failure Is Good News

 

 

 

LINK

I just read at Diane Ravitch's blog that Mayor Bloomberg has joined fellow know-nothings Joel Klein and Arne Duncan in hailing the massive failure on Common Core exams as a good sign. I'm rarely at a loss for words, but I don't know precisely what to say to this.

How on earth is a two-thirds failure rate anything to boast about? This is the same guy who, after defying the twice-voiced electoral will of the people, bought himself a third term. Am I the only one who remembers the surreptitiously Gates-funded motto, "Keep It Going, New York?" Actually, what Bloomberg and Geoffrey Canada, who was running the campaign, wanted to keep going was a test score rise based entirely on the tests having been dumbed-down. And then when the gains were made moot, which Ravitch had predicted years earlier, Bloomberg and Klein said that was a victory too.

So here's the message from Michael Bloomberg. If test scores go up, it's a great success. If they stay the same, it is also a great success. And if they plummet, that is also a great victory. I keep saying, "Being reformy means never having to say you're sorry," but intending it as ironic. Apparently, it's the unvarnished truth.

It turns out that when you revolve your philosophy around things like junk science evaluation and standards that have been established to be effective absolutely nowhere, you can just say any damn thing you feel like. When circumstances change, you can continue to say any damn thing without concern that you're contradicting yourself. It doesn't matter if your past statements are recorded all over the mainstream media and can be checked with a one-minute Google search.

Anyone who thinks it's OK to subject hundreds of thousands of children to failure, based on nothing, is simply unfit to care for them. And anyone who boasts of massive failure while demanding teachers be fired for the same is a massive, deluded hypocrite. I don't want to mention any names, like Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, because I wouldn't wish to embarrass anyone. I'm a sensitive guy.

Finally, I'm pleased to tell you that while today's Daily News posts yet another E4E column on Common Core, it also features commentary from Diane Ravitch, Zakiyah Ansari, and yours truly.

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Common Core--Being Reformy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

The new Common Core test scores are about to come out, and are anticipated to be a disaster. This, naturally, will give further credence to the corporate-created myth that our schools are in crisis and need to be "reformed," despite the fact that CC itself is quite reformy. The fact that no one actually knew what would be on the tests is of no importance, nor is the fact that this system has never been proven, let alone tested, anywhere.

The papers will write editorials about "failing" schools, and will revel in this as proof that unionized teachers are goofing off when they should be teaching. Of course, since no one knew what would be on the tests, no one could prepare students for the tests. And, of course, we don't really know what passing or failing these tests establishes.

In fact, even today, elementary and middle schools haven't got a curriculum for this all-important program. The thing about reformy programs is they are absolutely urgent. That's why we can't wait to find out whether or not they work. In fact, in the case of things like VAM and merit pay, the fact that they have failed everywhere they've been tried is no reason to stop using them. In times of crisis, we must do whatever Bill Gates says we must do, no matter how counter-productive or idiotic it is.

So despite the fact that these tests have not been established to determine anything whatsoever, they will be used to place teachers on a fast track to unemployment, one of the long-cherished goals of reformy people everywhere. So what if we vilify a few more city teachers for no reason whatsoever?  As long as we can fire them, we're making progress.

Now I don't know whether or not these tests will establish anything. But when the scores are as abysmal as projected, they'll be used as a battering ram to trash working teachers. Why on earth didn't teachers prepare kids for the tests they had never seen? Why didn't they spend a little time going over the material that didn't exist?

And, of course, in schools with high numbers of learning disabled and ESL students, the scores will be lower, and reformy Arne Duncan will press for their closure. Never mind that every school targeted for closure has had high numbers of such students. That's just a coincidence. It must be the fault of the unionized teachers.

It can have nothing to do with the lack of planning and preparation. We are simply to assume that Common Core is wonderful, despite the fact there is no evidence whatsoever.

Because reformy Arne Duncan says so, and that ought to be enough for anyone.

Xian Barrett, Chicago Teacher. Gone.

Rick Perlstein

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Where the past isn’t even past.

Education Reform, Chicago-Style

Rick Perlstein on August 1, 2013 - 8:55 PM ET

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Rally to protest school closings and teacher layoffs in Chicago. (AP Images)

Xian Barrett is the kind of hero-teacher about which they make sentimental, inspiring movies. A young, handsome guy of Chinese extraction, he was a statistics expert at a computer startup before he turned to teaching; then, working at a tough inner-city high school, he hit on an idea. Xian spoke Japanese. A lot of the kids he was teaching were reading manga, and riveted by martial arts culture. Because Percy Julian High was a “non-selective enrollment” school—the kind where they don’t expect much of kids—they would never get a chance to take a Japanese class. So he started one himself. Soon, it was massively popular—dozens of tough black kids, buckling down and learning something very, very difficult. And because of that, they were thriving like never before in all their subjects. “For a lot of kids Japanese was a gateway drug to academic success,” he told me this past spring when I interviewed him for my article on Chicago activism. He got a $6,000 grant from the Japanese consulate. A student of his gave a speech accepting the award—in Japanese.

Soon after that, in 2010, Xian was laid off from Julian.

For another of the ways Xian also helped his students thrive was by advising them in their political activism. Not guiding them; his kids never would have stood for that—when I sat in on a meeting of the thriving group Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools in the basement of a DePaul University building, their hottest term of derision was “adultism”: activist jargon for “pushy grownups telling us what to do.” Xian just helped facilitate, and gave advice when he was asked. He was also one of the founders of the Chicago Teacher’s Union’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), the militant faction led by current CTU president Karen Lewis, who won the strike last year against Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Although Xian wouldn’t say so, it’s hard to think of any other reason than his activism and dedication to teach as a hell-raiser, in order to educate hell-raisers, that he was fired.

Xian won’t say it—but I interviewed the student who gave the speech in Japanese, a really smart kid named Jeremiah Raye, who will. He described life at Julian after the a new principal, one beloved of the suits at the school board, arrived and ended up firing his favorite teacher: “The atmosphere changed…oppressive, to be honest with you. She usually targeted teachers who were more for the students…she would pretty much threaten certain teachers’ jobs, and then my junior year they got fired, like Mr. Barrett. The teachers that weren’t cut were the ones who were either neutral teachers or the ones who were on the side of the board.” Incidentally, with the layoff the Japanese program was gone with the wind, too—leaving $2,000 of the $6,000 grant on the table.

Xian next landed at Gage Park High, a school with a history: it was through this neighborhood of classic Chicago bungalows, once all-white, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched for open housing in 1966, got a rock thrown at his head, and famously said, “I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.” Gage Park ain’t all white any more; it’s one of the roughest inner city schools in town. The kind of place, in other words, where teachers like Xian Barrett love, are needed most, and thrive. As he wrote recently on his blog, “Teacher X,” “This was my best teaching year by far. Better than the year that I raised the scores the most; better than the year I won that national teaching award”—the U.S. Department of Education Teaching fellowship. “This year I listened most deeply to the largest portion of my students and learned to support them in all the right battles: for student voice, against sexism, homophobia, ableism, and racism, for student/teacher unity and against the school-to-prison pipeline. The classroom was open and the youth shared amazing personal stories…. I would not trade this year away for 100 years as the football star I dreamt I would become when I was a tiny little 10-year-old who didn’t really understand the physics of professional football.”

Here’s the thing: blog post was written to respond to the public outpouring of response that followed the news this week that Xian had been laid off again. At Gage, Xian had helped students who led a symbolic boycott of standardized tests. Maybe that’s why he was laid off again.

If so, his principal had a nice bit of cover—his layoff was part of the axing of 2,113 Chicago Public School employees who got the ax in what is being sold as an absolutely necessary budgetary move.

Yeah, right.

Displaying the sensitivity for which city government under Mayor Rahm Emanuel has become known, the layoffs came just before the announcement of the awarding of a $20 million no-bid contract to train principles and other administrators, to an outfit called “Supes Academy,” for which Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has recently enjoyed a lucrative consultation contract. Supes is co-run by an “education reform” hustler named Gary Solomon who took a settlement with a suburban Chicago district in 2001 for allegedly sending sexual explicit e-mails to students; he went on to such sterling and selfless educational endeavors as sales associate for Princeton Review (CPS was one of his clients). His partner Thomas Vranas, whose online biography, the sterling Chicago education reporter Sarah Karp found, boasts “that he got his start by creating an urban tutoring program in Chicago that served 8,000 students. However, none of the biographies specify the name of the tutoring program and he did not respond to e-mail questions about it,” and “that he started a wireless Internet company, a sales and marketing company and a venture capital firm. None of the companies are named.”

The firings, incidentally, also came shortly after Mayor Emanuel announced a $55 tax-increment financing grant to a very rich private university, DePaul, to build a basketball arena on the lakefront. The grant is especially horrifying because it makes mincemeat of the standard “TIF” formula—where the money is ostensibly paid back to the city in the form of future property tax revenues—because the land the arena is to sit upon will be effectively tax-exempt. It looks like a straight up giveaway.

But the city can’t afford to pay teachers like Xian Barrett. Make no mistake about that.

As for Xian, he’s leaving teaching for a while: “I’ve decided to that this might be the right time to step away from the classroom for a moment. I realize looking back that I’ve neglected self-care for quite a long time, and do not have the energy to work with a new group of amazing young people to build to a new vista. This isn’t a permanent state, but with each heartbreak, we must heal.” But he’ll still be teaching, he says, in his own way: I will take my expertise to teach those failing to run our society.”

That’s what guys like Xian always do. When I interviewed Xian this summer, I asked him how high-stakes testing has changed his life as a teacher. He answered, “It’s sort of omnipresent and it takes away from what should be going on. All of our professional development now is around testing and managing data.” But, he emphasizes, it is crappy data—which, as an algorithm expert and a rotisserie baseball obsessive, he should know. “I love statistics, but that’s what’s so frustrating about it: it’s as if the sabermetric revolution happened in baseball but instead of Nate Silver leading it, you know, it was somebody with no understanding of mathematics—maybe what we’re seeing is education reform by the people who [insisted on the predictive value of] game-winning RBIs and ERA.”

As for his former student Jeremiah Raye, he’s doing great at DePaul University, majoring in world studies. Mr. Barrett, and his home-brewed Japanese program, helped change his life. But don’t you worry: Xian Barrett won’t be changing any lives like that any time soon. More and more every day, the Chicago Public Schools will be safely rid of the likes of him.

Rick Perlstein goes inside the resurgent protest movement fighting back against Rahm Emanuel’s austerity agenda.