Chalkbeat NY Stands Up for the Gates-Funded Little Guy

I was pretty surprised to read that the NY Regents are passing policy without the input of the public. I mean, that's a pretty serious breach of basic democracy, isn't it? On the other hand, I've been to a whole lot of public hearings about schools and school closings, and I've spoken at them too. Several were at Jamaica High School, closed based on false statistics, according to this piece in Chalkbeat.

The thing about public hearings is this--yes, members of the public get to speak. In fact, at Jamaica and several other school closing hearings, I don't remember a single person getting up to speak in favor of school closings. I've also been to multiple meetings of the PEP under Bloomberg where the public was roundly ignored. In fact, Bloomberg fired anyone who contemplated voting against doing whatever they were told. While he didn't make them sign loyalty oaths, the effect was precisely the same.

State hearings are different, of course. When former NY Education Commissioner Reformy John King decided to explain to NY that Common Core was the best thing since sliced bread, he planned a series of public forums. However, after the public said in no uncertain terms they disagreed, he canceled them, saying they'd been taken over by "special interests." The special interests, of course, were parents and teachers. He may have implied they were controlled by the unions, but of course the union leadership actually supported the same nonsense he was espousing.

In fact, the only meeting King went to where he found support actually was taken over by special interests, to wit, Students First NY. Only one non-special interest actually got to speak, and that was my friend Katie Lapham. Other than that it was a pro-high-stakes testing party. Doubtless this was King's view of a worthy public forum, and given that it's taken until now for Chalkbeat to stand up to the lack of forums, I have to question whether it's theirs too.

The big change Chalkbeat points to is a link claiming that the Regents "wiped out" main elements of the teacher evaluation law. If you bother to follow the link, you learn that this is a reference to the fake moratorium on high stakes testing, which the article itself later admits to be limited to the use of Common Core testing in grades 3-8. The fact that junk science rules absolutely everywhere else, and will in fact be increased in importance next year, is evidently of no relevance whatsoever.

While Chalkbeat acknowledges these changes were urged on by Governor Cuomo's task force, it fails utterly to make connections as to what forced Cuomo to start a task force, let alone pretend he gives a crap about education or public school teachers. This, of course, was a massive opt-out, in which over 20% of New York's parents told their children not to sit for tests that Cuomo himself referred to as meaningless. But rather than speak to any of its leaders, Chalkbeat seeks comment from a Gates-funded group I've never heard of called Committee on Open Government.

After all, why go to Jeanette Deutermann, or Leonie Haimson, or Jia Lee, or Beth Dimino, or Katie Lapham, when you can get someone who's taken Gates money? And just to round out the forum, Chalkbeat goes to Reformy John King's successor, MaryEllen Elia, who's taken boatloads of Gates money and is therefore an expert on pretty much whatever.

Chalkbeat also makes the preposterous assertion that the Regents allowing children of special needs a route to graduation should have been more gradual because schools were prepping them for tests they didn't need. While that may be true, this did not remove their option of taking those tests. Announcing the allowance this year and enabling it, say, next year, would've helped absolutely no one. You don't need to go to a Gates-funded expert to figure that out.

While it may have been nice to have public hearings, the fact is the public has gotten up and spoken, and without that, none of these changes would have occurred. It's remarkable that Chalkbeat NY doesn't know that.

Why Does Bill de B. Want Mayoral Control?

In the news, I've been reading that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants mayoral control to be permanent, rather than sunset every three years. Emperor Cuomo opposes this idea, for reasons beyond my meager comprehension. It could just be that he wants to stick it to de Blasio, who after all happens to be a powerful politician who is not Andrew Cuomo. Or it could just be that you can't predict the behavior of malignant narcissistic self-important self-serving sociopathic lunatics.  Who knows what evil lurks in the alleged heart of Andrew Cuomo?

Anyway, I know some of you may be eating, so I'll change the subject. Mayor de Blasio is much more of a mystery, because despite his being, admittedly, a politician, I've seen no signs he's insane. Mayoral control was a disaster under he whose name should not be spoken (Bloomberg, for those of you who are new here). He closed schools, created charters, placed lifetime teachers into the Absent Teacher Reserve, allowed them to be relentlessly stereotyped, and when it came up again, UFT leadership asked for some modifications, failed to get them, and supported it to again. That's what they call "solutions-driven unionism." No doubt you have some other term for it.

I guess everyone likes power, Bill de B. included. But here's the thing--the man ran on a platform that suggested he wished to stop, or at least slow down, the rampant reforminess that had been stinking up the place for the past decades. That was one of the reasons I worked for him, contributed to his campaign, and went to the inauguration. Sure, I froze to death, but it was worth it to see the sour pusses on Bloomberg and Cuomo, neither of whom the tasteful Mr. de Blasio invited to say word one.

But last year Emperor Andy decided that it was too much to allow de B. mayoral control. When de Blasio tried to stop Eva Moskowitz from spreading her corporate-backed charters, Andy went and passed some law saying if he wouldn't colocate them he had to pay for them anyway. Cuomo then became a big hero, appearing at the atrocious Albany rally to which Eva dragged all her little pawn/ students. I can't help but recall what UFT leadership did to block this, which was absolutely nothing. I also can't help but recall a very highly-placed source in NYSUT who assured me my union president approved of this.

So here's my real question--aside from the power over charter schools, which de Blasio doesn't have anymore, and the power to close schools and shuffle kids, making it appear something is happening when that is not the case, there are certain perks the mayor gets under mayoral control. One is the abomination called the PEP, the fake Board of Education that allows communities to get up and comment and then does whatever the hell the mayor wants. I'm not precisely sure why anyone who believed in democracy rather than dictatorship would want such a thing, but there you have it.

Cuomo appears to be doing the right thing here, but that's surely only because he has no understanding of the implications. If his reformy BFFs take Gracie Mansion again, they'll have to renew it just like he whose name should not be spoken. Of course, if even UFT will not oppose this awful idea, it won't much matter anyway. 

With Cuomo in place, mayoral control is only effective with a mayor like Bloomberg, who believes in Eva Moskowitz more than life itself. Cuomo has shown himself perfectly willing to block anything resembling sanity in mayoral control. So while there may be some marginal temporary benefit, somewhere, for Bill de Blasio in not having to renew mayoral control, in the long-run, it's a disaster for democracy, for New York City, and for 1.1 million schoolchildren.

And in the end, for this mayor, it's only as much control as Emperor Andy wishes to relinquish, with deep pocketed Moskowitz BFFs having a veto over absolutely everything. Say it ain't so, Bill.  Give power back to the communities that make up our public schools.

On Being Unhindered by Inconvenient Reality

It must be great to be Joel Klein. You can simply blame the UFT for everything. There's that awful contract that restrains you from doing all the wonderful work you aspire to. Never mind that you signed it and had a hand in writing it. And the best thing about it is that even if stuff isn't in the contract, you can just make it up and get it printed in the Atlantic. There's prestige for you. And in fairness, why should New York Times columnists and editorial writers corner the market on reforminess?

Klein laments that he could not meet with teachers because the contract prohibited it. I find that odd because I teach in the largest school in Queens and for his entire eight-year tenure the Kleinster did not see fit to set foot in our school even once. I've read the UFT Contract and I haven't seen the part that says a Chancellor may not enter the school building. In fact, both Cathie Black and Dennis Walcott visited my school and I didn't even file a grievance. Walcott and I actually spoke on several occasions.

But Joel Klein is different. He has deep and abiding respect for clauses in the UFT Contract, even if they do not exist. That's just the kind of guy he is. The union was completely uncooperative when Joel tried to reach out. Just look at how hostile then-UFT President Randi Weingarten looks in the photo above. You can just sense the absolute enmity between the two of them. Clearly she isn't cooperating with him at all.

Odd that Klein was so respectful of the Imaginary UFT Contract,  but had multiple issues abiding by the actual UFT Contract. If I'm not mistaken, one year he decided to deny all sabbaticals. I believe that was taken to arbitration and he lost. Odd that someone absolutely willing to unilaterally ignore the real contract would be so upset by clauses hindering his options under the imaginary one.

What's truly odd to me, though, is that several times I directly spoke to Klein at the PEP. Not only did he fail to utter a single word in response, but he appeared to be playing with his Blackberry and utterly ignoring every word I said about the then-massive overcrowding at Francis Lewis High School. I watched him do the same to James Eterno as he spoke the outrageous conditions at Jamaica High School. In fact, though Eterno emailed Klein about the false assumptions used to close Jamaica High School, that didn't stop Klein from going ahead and closing it on those very assumptions.

But of course that is reality, and Klein can't be bothered with such things when telling his story. That's what enables reforminess, actually. You can't get up and say there are billions of dollars in education and Eva Moskowitz needs to get her taste. You can't say you want to close neighborhood schools and make profits for your BFFs. You can't get up and say you're determined to ignore poverty and cut taxes for people who don't send their kids to public schools. Really, you can't get up and say, "I'm Joel Klein, or Mike Bloomberg, or John King, and I choose not to send my own kids to the schools I make up rules for."

Rather, you can write books about the way you choose to remember things. Because Eva Moskowitz, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and the other people who read such books are highly unlikely to fact-check or read blogs like this one. 

PEP Rides Again

I continually wonder what the purpose is of the PEP. They simply pass everything. Verizon is bullying its employees into all sorts of givebacks, despite great profits, and PEP approves a huge contract with them anyway. Massive demonstrations to the contrary, PEP simply does whatever Mayor Bloomberg wishes. Then they went and approved a bunch of contracts for outside agencies to run schools.

“These contracts will be approved, but they will not be reviewed before hand,” said Paola de Kock, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, who spoke in between Communication Workers of America strikers. ”What you will be approving tonight is unethical for our children.”

Is that what "reform" is all about? Seems to me, yes. Let's improvise. Let's try this. Let's try that. If it doesn't work, we'll blame the teachers, the union, the schools, close them, fire them, whatever. So what's the point of a deliberative body that barely deliberates and simply says yes to everything? Well, maybe it makes people feel better to get up and complain for two minutes. I've done that. But I never really thought I'd persuade a Bloomberg appointee.

So--why waste money on these meetings? Why not simply issue the proposals, signed and approved by Mayor4Life, and notate, "In your face, students, parents, and teachers," at the end? Maybe a little skull and crossbones to show they mean business. But the fact is, appearances notwithstanding, that's pretty much what we're getting right now.

How many teachers could we hire with the money we saved canceling these kangaroo courts?

Another Advantage of Mayoral Control

It's kind of incredible when we read of legislators voting on bills like the Patriot Act, which it's pretty much inconceivable they've read. You'd hope they'd vote no on the basis of not knowing what the hell the bills contain, but no one wants to be unpatriotic.

Closer to home, our Panel for Educational Policy often votes on contracts they haven't seen. There is a distinction here, though. It doesn't much matter whether or not PEP members see contracts, read them, understand them, or agree with them. We've known for years that when 8 of 13 members are chosen by the mayor, they vote the way they're instructed. In fact, early in Bloomberg's term, he simply fired a couple of members who were planning to vote against him.

So the primary difference between the federal and city legislators is that members of Congress, while beholden to whomever, need not necessarily vote a certain way 100% of the time. Bloomberg's appointees, however, have no choice whatsoever, and will lose their jobs if they exercise their consciences. Bloomberg is fine with that--he said something like mayoral control is just that. It's a little more than that, though. What it is, actually, is an end run against democracy. None of that stuff here in Fun City.

What we have is a billionaire mayor doing pretty much whatever the hell he sees fit. Sure, you can get up and talk for two minutes. You can express whatever POV you see fit. After you do that, the majority on the PEP will do whatever Bloomberg tells them to do. You see, democracy is messy. There are all these gray areas. Who knows what's really right or wrong?

But in Mayor Bloomberg's New York, there's none of that. He does what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants to do it. And if there are inconvenient laws saying he can't, say, run for a third term, directly affirmed by voters, he simply writes a few checks, twists a few arms, and gets what he wants anyway. No muss, no fuss.

And all the no-bid contracts a billionaire could salivate over.

Getting to Know You

It's encouraging, on rare occasions, to see major media face reality straight-on. While upstart GothamSchools lingers behind the curve, pushing blather from union-busting billionaire shills, Daily News columnist Michael Daly steps up to highlight the hypocrisy of Emperor Mike lecturing demonstrators about democracy. Having attended numerous hearings, I'm very encouraged to see such a mainstream voice describing them to a wide audience.

I've seen criticism of Mulgrew's remarks comparing Bloomberg to Egypt's Mubarak.  Actually, he was far from the first to make that comparison. Speaker after speaker said it. And sitting there, with what purported to be a panel  (though filled with Bloomberg appointees), one could certainly mistake if for a democratic process. However, if you know that Bloomberg controls the majority and fires anyone who disagrees with him, it's tough to sustain that illusion. Daly writes:

...the folks in that auditorium at Brooklyn Tech had no more real voice than the folks in Egypt.
Schools Chancellor Cathie Black and the ruling majority of the panel on stage are mayoral puppets. They hardly even pretended that whatever the people in the auditorium had to say made much difference.

"Not one person on the panel was actually listening," said Charm Rhoomes, who was there Thursday night as the mother of a student at Jamaica High School and the president of its PTA. "Even Cathie Black. She was on her BlackBerry."

Anyone who's attended these meetings knows the score. There's little immediate practicality in getting up to speak, as you'll certainly be ignored. That's why it's tough to discount the frustration in the crowd manifesting itself in chanting and loud criticism. I'm open to better ways of getting through to the likes of socialite Cathie Black, (whose behavior, it must be said, has been snide and unprofessional, whose contempt for the people whose children attend public schools is palpable).  I haven't got any, though.

I'd planned to go to the demonstration and go home, as it broke my heart to see the school closings, but a UFT contact alerted me to the walkout and persuaded me to stay later. At first blush, the UFT walkout seemed a good idea, showing we knew the futility of staying. I'm now getting messages we should have stayed all night, disrupting the meeting to the point where they could not have voted. Would delaying the meeting a week have really prevented the vote? If so, how? Wouldn't they have simply taken the vote at another venue? It's worth examining. Certainly playing by Bloomberg's rules hasn't benefited schools like Jamaica, blatantly closed on false premises.

Frankly, as someone who gets up at 5 AM to go to work, the notion of staying all night holds little appeal for me. Perhaps that's part of the DOE's plan--wear out the public and then do their dirty work in peace. Last year they stayed until the wee hours of the morning, waiting out most of the crowd. The main difference this year was most of their critics left earlier.

One important thing is what we agree on, and what many are finally, finally, beginning to see--that the dictatorial reign of Mayor4Life Bloomberg is an outright affront to democracy. That's our common ground, and that's what we build on.

The question is simple--what's the best way to do it?