Hot off the Press

Our beloved Unity-New Action leadership, in order to serve you better, is in the process of selecting a replacement for the High School Academic VP. In order to give the illusion of democracy, a sacrificial lamb from New Action will run against Ms. Weingarten's Edwize mouthpiece, Leo Casey. Naturally, the Unity people will vote for the Unity candidate, producing a landslide victory.

I'll give Unity some free advice--rather than voting in a bloc, have some of your patronage employees vote with the New Action patronage employees. This will enhance the illusion of democracy, and perhaps even persude some of the remarkably apathetic teachers who make up the majority of our union (over 75% of whom failed to vote in the last union election).

I'm very familiar with Mr. Casey, as he has publicly libeled me on Edwize. Mr. Casey accused me of making up facts because I accurately reported that the LA Times and Green Dot both say there's no tenure in Green Dot schools (which are now involved in a partnership with the UFT).

Oddly, Mr. Casey fancies himself above the fray:

Educators are always teaching their students to... criticize ideas, not people.

To that end, Mr. Casey accused the United Teachers Party, a Unity opposition group, of Nazism. This is because, ostensibly, he objected to the iconography on their website. The now defunct UTP website reported that a complaint about their iconography and such was made to the Anti-Defamation League, and found to be without merit.

This is the person who will now represent the interests of high school teachers. I'm particularly excited about this because Mr. Casey pointedly refuses to talk to me. It's great to know I'll now be represented by someone who will not lower himself to answer my questions.

Thanks, Unity-New Action, for another lesson in "representative government."

Thanks to Norm

Rubber Room Randi

The NY Sun reports that United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is feeling the pressure from factions within the union to do something about the 700 teachers currently relegated to the 11 "rubber rooms" around the city.

Rubber rooms are where teachers accused of various misconduct charges sit awaiting their hearings.

Some teachers have been sitting in the rubber room waiting two years or longer for their due process.

Some teachers in the rubber room do not even know what specific misconduct charges have been brought against them because the NYCDOE is "protecting the investigations against them."

According to a recent complaint made by the UFT, rubber room conditions are so bad that many of them lack proper toilet facilities and contain exposed electrical wiring.

Weingarten, who has made all kinds of concessions to the mayor and the chancellor in recent contracts - including adding extra days, adding extra time, changing the grievance process for letters in files, bagging the seniority transfer system, and bringing back bathroom duty for teachers - claims she is ready to end the "public detente" between the union and the city and file a lawsuit over the rubber room controversy if the DOE doesn't react favorably to new rubber room guidelines she plans to send to the city next week.

The NY Sun article notes that plenty of union members are skeptical of Weingarten's new-found anger over the issue:

Ms. Weingarten's promise to ramp up pressure on the issue of rubber rooms comes as she is facing more pressure to act from inside her union and beyond. Factions have formed within the union to fight on behalf of teachers in rubber rooms, making suggestions ranging from hiring more staff to defend teachers to issuing subpoenas of state agencies on their behalf. One group, the Teacher Advocacy Group, plans to picket the union's Lower Manhattan headquarters Wednesday following a delegate assembly meeting, a retired teacher who is advising the group, Norman Scott, said. The group will carry signs charging that the union has "dropped the ball" on protecting teachers.

An independent filmmaker has also added to the fire with a documentary called "The Rubber Room," which several teachers said has generated interest from such high-profile outlets as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

Some in the union ridiculed Ms. Weingarten's push for compromise, saying it will not resolve what they described as the UFT's failure to provide teachers in rubber rooms with strong legal representation. "They need people that have some kind of understanding and background in employment investigations. They have nothing," a teacher who was placed in a rubber room and who is also a lawyer, Jeffrey Kaufman, said.

Now to be fair, the UFT has provided teachers in the rubber room with some legal representation - they have hired somebody with paralegal experience to join Weingarten's new anti-rubber room team. Two journalists from the NY Teacher have also joined it.

Gee, the person with paralegal experience ought to have Klein and Moneybags quaking in their union-busting boots.

Count me as also unimpressed by Ms. Weingarten's new-found anger over the rubber room issue.

Clearly she is unhappy with the bad press she's gotten both in and out of the union and figured she had to do something to make it look like she's doing something.

But given her track record of concessions and surrender on almost every important issue to come up during Bloomberg's term - from conceding total control of the school system to Mayor Moneybags to surrendering decades of hard-won job protections in recent contracts - she is clearly trying to create the appearance that she is doing something about the rubber rooms while actually doing nothing.

That's how she got the "public detente" between the city and the union established in the first place - by making it look like she is fighting Bloomberg and Klein while actually making concession after concession on important issue after important issue.

He's Going To Need More Money

The New York Daily News reports today that the New York City 2009 mayoral race is already well under way, with City Controller Bill Thompson, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr., and Congressman Anthony Weiner all quietly working behind the scenes to drum up endorsements and woo support from key constituencies.

One man not mentioned in the Daily News article is John Catsimatidis, the self-made billionaire supermarket mogul who also is making plans to run for mayor in '09.

Catsimatidis, owner, president and chairman of Red Apple Group and the Gristedes supermarket chain, just switched his political party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in hopes of following in Mayor Moneybags' footsteps into City Hall.

Mayor Moneybags used to be a Democrat, but he switched his party affiliation to Republican back in 2000 so he wouldn't have to run in a crowded Democratic primary where even his billions couldn't help him win.

Instead, Moneybags bought the Republican nomination and won two mayoral terms.

Catsimatidis is working off the same Bloomberg play book, hoping to by-pass the crowded Democratic field by switching to the GOP, dropping $20-$40 million in the Republican primary and buying the nomination.

His biggest rival for the GOP nomination may be Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Kelly has not announced for mayor but is believed to have some interest in following Bloomberg.

Catsimatidis sent a letter to Republican Party leaders explaining his change in party and his political platform:

“We can’t go back to the way this city was, in the years before two leaders, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, showed the nation and the world that common-sense Republican principles could tame a city that was viewed as unmanageable and had become synonymous with all that was wrong with urban America.”

Catsimatidis says he will work to keep crime low, the quality of life in New York high and New York politics from reverting back to "clubhouse politicians in smoke-filled back rooms."

Catsimatidis needs to do some serious explaining to New York City Republicans because the supermarket magnate is also Democratic fund-raiser and a top donor for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Catsimatidis, who seems willing to say or do anything to win, dismisses the changes in party affiliation as overblown:

"I was a Republican in the 1980's--a Ronald Reagan Republican," he said. "I donated to the Republican library. I supported George H.W. Bush. I helped build the chapel at Camp David under George H.W. Bush, and then I was chairman of the New York County dinner two years out of five under Roy Goodman. I've done a lot of Republican things. And I'm baaaack."

Now I don't want to undervalue $20-$40 million in political campaign funds, but I think Catsimatidis has some problems trying to win the mayoral race.

The biggest problem seems to be his mouth.

Say what you want about Moneybags, but he understands both discretion and public relations.

When he sexually harasses women, makes racially offensive remarks or engages in gender discrimination, he does it discretely in private while saying all the right (and politically-correct) things in public.

Plus he knows to pay people off and shut them up (see this November 1, 2005 Wayne Barrett article in the Village Voice for the details on six separate sex and race cases that Bloomberg bought silence in.)

Catsimatidis doesn't seem to understand discretion as much as Moneybags does, however.

I spent about a minute Googling him and came up with this interview of potentially damaging quotations he gave to The New York Observer in January 2007:

Yesterday, we chatted about some of the specifics of the Catsimatidis '09 agenda.

The price for the campaign? $30 million. "If it's going well and I want to spend 40, I'll spend 40. It doesn't matter."

In which party? "Most likely the Republican Party. I mean, I'm not a left-wing Democrat. I'm a Rockefeller Republican, the way Bloomberg is a Republican."

What makes you a Rockefeller Republican?

"I'm pro-people and pro-business."

And your vision for the future of New York?

"My number one concern is not chase the middle class out of New York. Do you want to turn New York into a downtown Detroit or downtown Cleveland? I love New York. I don't want to do that."

And what's that like?

"Downtown Cleveland? There's nobody down town except the people on welfare," Catsimatidis said. "You know, you need a mixed society, you need a little bit of everybody.

Everybody?

"When you talk about illegal aliens, they have a purpose too. I want illegal aliens, and I'll support them if they're paying their taxes, hard working families. But if they're here to live off the rest of us, then I'm not going to support them. If they're here to commit felonies and murders, I'll have them on the first boat out. You know, if it's within my power."

How would you like to be Catsimatidis' political handlers?

He hasn't even announced yet and he's said Cleveland is full of nothing but welfare mothers and illegal aliens are fine by him as long as they keep quiet, pay their taxes and work at Gristedes, but if they start causing trouble, he'll "have them on the first boat out..."

If I were advising Catsimatidis, the second thing I'd tell him is that $40 million isn't going to be enough to win.

The first thing I'd tell him is to shut up.

I'm in the Wrong Business

A friend of mine took his son to the emergency room a few weeks ago. The kid turned out to have a broken finger. However, after waiting two-and-a-half hours in an emergency room, the kid tired of waiting, and prevailed upon my friend to leave it till he could visit a doctor's office.

Last week my friend, who has no insurance, got a bill for $508 from the hospital, which had done nothing but record his name and address. Doubtless ink is more costly nowadays.

My friend wonders how much it would've cost if someone had actually examined his son's finger. When he called the hospital, he got a very serious talking-to about the policies, and how they must adhere to them for everyone.

I'm thinking of starting a hospital in my backyard, making everyone wait until they can't wait anymore, and billing them 500 bucks a head for the privilege.

Accountability Is For Public Schools

The Washington Post reports today that the Government Accountability Office has found that the first federally funded K-12 school voucher program designed to send low income children in Washington D.C. to "better-performing private schools" has allowed students to take classes in "unsuitable learning environments" and from teachers without bachelor's degrees.

The GAO report scrutinized the $12.9 million D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which has 1,900 students and 58 schools participating, and found that the program has failed to check whether schools are accredited or have all the required operating permits:

In a random sample of 18 schools reviewed by the GAO, two lacked occupancy permits, and four lacked permits needed for buildings used for educational purposes. At least seven of the 18 schools were certified as child development centers but not as private schools. In one case, a school was operating in a space designed for a retail store, the report says.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program also allows schools to "self-certify" whether they are in compliance with rules and regulations.

The Washington Scholarship Fund, a private entity made up of education reformers which oversees the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, told GAO investigators that it has conducted oversight visits to 42 different schools, but the GAO could only confirm 1 actual visit.

Between the "self-certification" rules and the lack of oversight from the Washington Scholarship Fund, many of the schools scrutinized by the GAO were found to have misled parents about school amenities and resources.

Now here in New York City, Mayor Moneybags and Chancellor Klein regularly educate children in contaminated factories and toxic waste dumps, so the GAO report citing the voucher program for allowing kids to take classes in "unsuitable learning environments" wouldn't raise too many eyebrows at the NYCDOE, but even Moneybags and Klein insist upon teachers having bachelor's degrees.

But apparently the education reformers at the Washington Scholarship Fund are a little more open-minded about the definition of "highly-qualified teachers" and have decided that a high school diploma is enough.

We haven't seen much outrage about this report from the usual suspects of "Public Schools Suck/Charter Schools & Voucher Systems Are Great" contingent, but you know they would be screaming to holy hell if a public school system somewhere in the U.S. was allowing teachers without bachelor's degrees to educate children.

Once again, we see how accountability and oversight are only for traditional public schools and unionized public school teachers.

The DoE Approach

My buddy the Pissed Off Teacher wrote a great piece about the much-derided "chalk and talk" approach to teaching. It's a wonder that we (having suffered through years of this method) are not all dribbling lunatics, if the lackeys of Klein and Bloomberg are to be believed. Apparently, the only possible way for anyone to learn anything is the workshop model, in which you the teacher talk for a maximum of ten minutes, and then have the kids discover the meaning of life in small groups.

In fact, Klein, Bloomberg and all the DoE, having been instructed the old-fashioned way, should disqualify themselves from instructing anyone on anything. To follow their way of thinking, only students educated in New York City schools utilizing the workshop model are qualified to teach anything to anyone. Sure, that sounds absurd. But when educrats visit my school, demanding we follow whatever trendy idea that's come down the pike (including renamed and repackaged greatest hits from years gone by), they invariably posture themselves as though they're carrying the Ten Commandments.

Such incredible ignorance is almost beyond belief. I'm a reader, and some authors I really like are Henry Fielding, Joseph Heller, Amy Tan, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Elmore Leonard. To say they all approach writing in the same way is ridiculous, yet they're all quite effective in reaching their readers. I don't know much about art, but I'm very much aware that different artists use different styles as well.

Teaching, at its best, is an art, and while it's not celebrated like literature or painting, great teachers have different approaches. I had wonderful English teachers in college who relied on lecture and discussion (the dreaded chalk and talk), and mediocre ones who relied on group work (some of whom obviously wanted to weasel out of doing any work themselves).

My favorite ESL colleague doesn't approach teaching remotely as I do, and wouldn't be very effective if she did. This is simply because she is her and I am me. Experienced teachers find their own voices and do what works for them. They can be far more inspirational than the cookie-cutter automatons the DoE (and many "educational experts") would like to see spit out for our children.

Teachers aren't widgets, and anyone who thinks they are has no business teaching, let alone running the largest educational system in the country. Great teachers don't simply raise test scores. They inspire our children.

Thanks to Ms. Cellania

No Child Left Behind Reauthorization On Hold

Preznut Bush held a press conference yesterday with civil rights leaders to urge Congress to reauthorize his signature No Child Left Behind education law.

The Washington Post reports that Bush says he is willing to compromise on some formulations in the law in order to get it reauthorized.

When asked if he was willing to compromise on standardized testing mandates, he said he wasn't.

When asked if he was willing to compromise on adjusting the consequences for schools that fall short of targets, he said he wasn't.

When asked what he was willing to compromise on to get reauthorization of the law done, he said he was willing to add additional standardized testing mandates to science and social studies, add additional monies for tutoring services (his brother, Neil, btw, is in the NCLB tutoring business), merit pay for teachers (he wants it), and provide additional opportunities for students in low-performing schools to transfer to better schools.

Of course these Bush proposals aren't actually compromises. He's been in favor of additional standardized testing in science and social studies, additional tutoring revenue for administration cronies, merit pay and student transfers since he was governor of Texas back in the 90's.

So what is he actually willing to compromise on?

Well, nothing.

You see, compromise for George W. Bush means you agree to what he wants and we call it a compromise. And then everybody in the Washington press corps has a "feel good/coming together" moment at the press conference as the preznut gets to announce his bipartisan compromise to the American people.

But as for actually compromising on core values he holds dear, Preznut Bush just doesn't go there.

One of those core values he holds dear is his belief that the No Child Left Behind law shouldn't actually be funded unless it can be empirically proven that those funds are going to administration cronies like his brother.

Even the civil rights leaders he held his little press conference with yesterday urged Bush to provide more money for education:

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said Bush's proposed 2008 budget includes $15 billion for the program, $9 billion short of what was needed four years ago. His organization has offered its own 10-point plan for overhauling the No Child Left Behind Act, including revamped performance measurements, full-day preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, and $32 billion to fund the program.

"You can build the best automobile," Morial said. "If you don't put enough gas in the tank, you're not going to get up to the speed you want to get to on a sustained basis. That's why we're for full funding."

But the preznut, who of course would compromise with Morial if only Morial would come around to his way of thinking on this, wouldn't commit to more funding.

You see, that's not his way of getting a compromise done.

In the meantime, No Child Left Behind reauthorization will remain on hold as interest groups on both the right and left fight for changes to the law and Preznut Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings hold fast to their no-compromise stance.

"No, That Would Be Unethical..."

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee stepped down from his post today after rumors spread that the board of the company was looking to replace him.

Sprint Nextel warned investors yesterday that the company continues to lose high value subscribers and won't meet its financial targets for annual revenue this year.

As CEO of Sprint, Forsee oversaw the $35 billion dollar acquisition of Nextel in 2005 to make Sprint Nextel into the nation's third largest wireless carrier.

But the Wall Street Journal reports Forsee had a difficult time merging the two different corporate cultures and wireless technologies.

In addition, Sprint Nextel is notorious for having some of the worst customer service in the wireless business. Customers have been leaving the company in droves.

In the third quarter, Sprint Nextel said it expects to lose about 337,000 subscribers in the important "postpaid" market segment -- customers who sign annual contracts and pay monthly bills.

I am one of those customers.

I became a Sprint subscriber back in 2004. My girlfriend's family uses Sprint and she wanted to have the same wireless company as they do to save money.

Little did we know that saving money with Sprint would cost us hundreds of extra dollars.

Sprint was always adding extra fees to the monthly bill for things we didn't ask for or use. For example, Sprint added camera features to our phone package a month after we signed our contract in 2004. For nearly three years, we were paying for this feature that we didn't know we had and certainly didn't want. And of course you have to be an accountant to read the Sprint bill and understand it correctly, so we didn't notice that we were being overcharged approximately $25 a month until earlier this year.

Then, when we tried to call and complain about the issue, we couldn't get anybody to take our calls. When we did get somebody at Sprint headquarters on the phone, they kept us on hold for over an hour while we waited to speak to somebody from "management". When the person from "management" finally did come on the phone, we lost contact with her because the Sprint signal, never very strong, dropped out and our call was disconnected.

We finally did fix the camera fees (although the company refused to refund our money even though they couldn't produce any evidence that we had asked for the camera features to be added to our phone package.) But right after that Sprint started charging roaming fees for calls received outside of our calling area. That added - surprise, surprise - $25 bucks to our monthly bill!

We decided to leave Sprint and find another wireless carrier. We had signed our contract with Sprint in April of 2004. The contract should have ended in April of 2006. Unbeknownst to us, however, Sprint Nextel had secretly extended the contract on one of the phone lines in March of 2007 so that when we tried to close our account, the charge was an extra $200 bucks.

This was too much. We googled "Sprint + customer complaints" and discovered the company has a reputation for 1) charging for things people don't want or ask for 2) adding features and/or changing customer plans every time customers call Sprint 3) secretly extending customer contracts and charging hundreds of dollars to close Sprint accounts with contracts that have already expired.

We wrote a letter to Sprint in which we listed the abuses and fraudulent practices Sprint had engaged in against us, noted how Sprint had a reputation for such customer abuse and fraud, told Sprint how we had contacted the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Federal Trade Commission, the NY Attorney General, and our congressman about the matter, and wanted redress for our grievances. (When we contacted our congressman, btw, his consumer affairs person was herself a Sprint customer who knew all about the problems with the company, since they had secretly extended her contract and had charged her fees for services she had never asked for.)

This time we got a letter back from somebody high up in management. We called the number given and got to speak with the person from management within two minutes of calling. We repeated our grievances from the letter and said we wanted out of Sprint. The Sprint person agreed to drop the breach of contract fees, the roaming charges, and the monthly bill. We went to T-Mobile right after that, set up a new plan, and left Sprint that night.

Forever.

Now here's the clicker. I don't know if T-Mobile is any better than Sprint in terms of customer service. I don't know if T-Mobile is honest when it comes to billing (although we have spoken to a number of people who have had both Sprint and T-Mobile and they all said that T-Mobile is a HUGE improvement over Sprint.)

But I do know this - when I accidentally clicked a button on my new T-Mobile phone that connected me to the Internet and when I mistakenly opened a text message from T-Mobile, I fully expected to be charged for both those mistakes. Sprint constantly sent text messages to us and charged for them (We never opened them after we learned of the charges, and now suspect that was where they were "offering" us new features for fees and notifying us of changes to our account.)

But when my girlfriend called T-Mobile to ask what the charges would be for those "mistakes," not only did she get a T-Mobile customer service rep within seconds of calling, but when she asked about the charges we had incurred, he said "No, we don't charge you for things unless we tell you. That would be unethical..."

My girlfriend began laughing. The T-Mobile rep asked what was so funny. She said she was a former Sprint customer and Sprint did that all the time. This was why were now T-Mobile customers.

The T-Mobile rep said he heard stories like that all the time.

Now that Sprint Nextel CEO Forsee is gone from the company, I bet he'd admit he has heard stories like that all the time too.

Which is why he's gone, along with 337,000 monthly subscribers this quarter.

I hope that the lesson learned by Sprint, Wall Street and businesses in general is that treating customers honestly and respectfully is a more effective business practice than defrauding them and squeezing every dime they can out of them.

Unfortunately, I suspect that lesson will not be learned.

In the meantime, I await my last Sprint bill to see if the Sprint manager was playing squarely with us.

I also await my first T-Mobile phone bill to see if they're playing squarely too.

Columbus Day

I'm a Gen X-er. When I was a kid in school, we celebrated Columbus Day by making little models of his ships and reading stories about what a "great man" he was.

Of course, in those days red meat, milk and sun were still considered healthy for you too.

These days, Columbus Day is more often observed with lessons like "Should We Celebrate Columbus Day?" than days given over to making paper models of Columbus' ships.

That's because many people now see Columbus' legacy as one of genocide and slaughter rather than discovery.

I'm an English teacher by trade, so I don't really bring up Columbus Day too much in my classroom, but I'm wondering how the elementary school teachers out there observe the holiday and how the history teachers approach it.

Is anybody still making paper models of Columbus' ships?

Just Like The Gambinos

Many state officials justify running state lotteries by saying that much of the money from the lotteries goes toward education. Of the 43 states that run lotteries, 23 earmark all or some of the lottery money to education.

But the NY Times reports today that as little as 1%-5% of the total revenue for K-12 education in states that earmark lottery funds for education actually comes from the lottery.

The Times says most of the money raised by the lotteries goes to maintaining them - that is to say, it is spent on advertising fees, lottery prizes and vendor commissions.

The Times also says that most state lotteries are raising the amount of their prizes in order to increase lottery players, further decreasing the amount of lottery money that goes toward education.

So why does any of this matter?

Well, the Times article says the rationale for the states to run legalized gambling - that the money goes to help children - is coming under increased scrutiny as at least 10 states look to privatize their lotteries.

States have long argued that the social ills often associated with gambling are mitigated as long as states themselves run the lotteries and the money goes for a good cause.

It's like one big bake sale for education - only with scratch-offs.

But most state lotteries long ago moved away from the "dollar and a dream" business model.

At least 15 states have introduced video poker and keno games to their lottery systems, which critics have labeled "video crack" for their extremely addictive qualities, and watched their lottery revenues sky-rocket.

A few states have introduced the "premium scratch-off ticket" - one that costs as much as $50 dollars to buy but has higher prize opportunities.

States are also trying to boost "core lottery players" - that is, those who spend way too much money every week on the lottery - by increasing the prize money in lotteries.

They are also considering turning state lotteries over to private companies in the gaming business who really know how to squeeze dollars out of gamblers - further transitioning state lotteries into one big Vegas-style competition.

So, the question becomes, if so little education money actually comes from state lotteries and the lotteries themselves have come to resemble one big legalized Vegas-style gambling opportunity for players, along with all the attendant social ills that come along with that, why are they still rationalized by state officials as "socially beneficial"?

Let's call lotteries what they are - legalized gambling.

They're not a big bake sale for education - they're revenue crack for states.

UFT Village

The NY Times reports that Comptroller Bill Thompson and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced yesterday that the city's Teachers’ Retirement System will provide $28 million dollars to finance low-cost housing for teachers and educators.

The New York City Housing Development Corporation will provide an additional $20 million in below-market loans to finance the housing project.

The 234 low-cost apartments for teachers and educators will be part of a larger housing development in the Bronx. Boricua College, a proprietary post-secondary school, will have its flagship campus in the development.

Monthly rents for the apartments will range from $806 for a studio to $1,412 for a three-bedroom apartment.

UFT president Randi Weingarten hailed the announcement of the low-cost teacher housing as a way to keep teachers from leaving the profession by providing them with affordable places to live:

“Teachers who work in the city want to stay in the city and want to live in the city,” Ms. Weingarten said yesterday. “They want to have families grow up in the city. They want to live in the communities in which they teach. That’s what they tell us all the time. This project is a way of doing that.”

There's one problem with Ms. Weingarten's solution - the Times says most UFT members won't actually qualify for the apartments because they make too much money:

To be eligible for a lottery for an apartment, applicants cannot earn more than 110 percent of the area median income, which is $76,000 for a family of four.

Many teachers will earn too much. Starting salaries are now $42,512.

The Times says charter school, private school and parochial school educators will also be eligible to apply for apartments in UFT Village or Weingarten Land or whatever the heck their calling this sham, but I suspect most of those folks won't get the opportunity to live there either.

Don't you get the feeling that the UFT leadership and Unity caucus cronies will write themselves a special "median income dispensation" to allow themselves to apply for the low-cost housing at UFT Village/Weingarten Land?

As soon as I saw this story this morning, the first thing I thought was, the Unity folks will be adding cheap three-bedroom apartments to the perks they already enjoy, like double pensions and plum after-school/summer jobs.

Which is just one more reason why I wouldn't want to live in UFT Village/Weingarten Land.

I just wish they weren't using my retirement funds to finance it.

Homework For Parents

A teacher at Montclair High School not only gives homework to his students, he gives it to their parents too.

Damion Frye has asked the parents of his students to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

Frye tells the parents if they don't complete the assignments, their child's grade may suffer.

Frye wants to keep parents involved in the education of their children. He thinks loading them up with some homework is an effective way to do it.

What do you think - good idea or gimmick?

Bloomberg Lied About Discrimination Lawsuit

The press is starting to follow up on the Bloomberg gender discrimination lawsuit and pin Mayor Moneybags down on some of the discrepancies in his story:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg acknowledged today that he discussed allegations in a federal lawsuit that his company mistreated pregnant women with the company’s management, seemingly contradicting a statement he made when the suit was filed last week that he knew “nothing whatsoever” about it.

“Well I didn’t know that they were going to sue them but clearly it was last week or so,” he said at a news conference in the South Bronx when asked when he learned about the allegations. “About that time I was told that there ‘was an allegation — we think there’s no substance to it whatsoever and the company will vigorously defend it.’ And that’s that.”

...

It remained unclear exactly when and what he learned about the allegations and his aides declined to elaborate. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit one week ago today accusing the company of engaging in a pattern of discrimination against women when they announced they were pregnant and returned from maternity leave.

Asked what he knew about the lawsuit that day, the mayor responded: “Nothing whatsoever. You’ll have to talk to Bloomberg L.P. I haven’t worked there, as you know, in an awful long time.'’

Asked that day if he was informed in any way of any aspect of the case, Judith Czelusniak, a spokeswoman for Bloomberg L.P., replied, “No.”

Ms. Czelusniak said today that she did not believe the mayor’s comments today contradicted their responses last week. “It doesn’t at all,” she said. “He learned about it when everyone else learned about it.”

The mayor’s response, however, does seem to suggest that he learned of the allegation before the lawsuit was filed.

Now maybe this is just smoke and there's nothing to the story.

But if so, why did Bloomberg not acknowledge last week that he talked to high-level Bloomberg L.P. managers about the coming gender discrimination lawsuit when he was asked by the press whether he knew anything about the lawsuit or had talked to anyone at Bloomberg L.P. about it?

I dunno, call me cynical, but didn't Moneybags acknowledge today that he lied to the press about the lawsuit?

And if he felt the need to lie about it once, will or (or has he) felt the need to lie about it at other times?

I hope the press keeps following this story and holds Bloomberg to the fire over it.

We need to get to the bottom of Bloomberg's role in the alleged gender and job discrimination problems at Bloomberg L.P.

Even if it will ruin the '08 election for David Broder, Patrick Healy, Jonathan Capehart and other Bloomberg cronies in the "serious" political press.

Bloomberg Himself Named In Discrimination Suit

Gee, what will David Broder say about this?

The three women involved in a federal suit against Bloomberg LP that charges gender discrimination are now saying Mayor Bloomberg and other top managers at the company created a culture hostile to pregnant women and new mothers.

The women filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday to add to the lawsuit filed last week by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the financial news information company.

The new 66-page complaint — which seeks nearly $482 million in cumulative compensatory and punitive damages — offers more specifics than the EEOC suit, and targets the mayor and the top lieutenants who took over for him when he left to go to City Hall for creating an environment conducive to discrimination.

"Upon information and belief, Michael Bloomberg is responsible for the creation of the systemic, top-down culture of discrimination which exists within Bloomberg," the complaint says. It says the highest levels of management "fostered, condoned and perpetuated" such an atmosphere.

The new motion is not only a blow to a company that has been surging on the business side, but could also be a major political setback for the mayor if he decides to run for president as a third party candidate.

It sure could be a blow to Bloomberg's run for president as a third party candidate, assuming the political press actually follows up on the allegations, including that Bloomberg is still running the company by attending weekly meetings with and taking daily phone calls from top managers at Bloomberg LP.

Bloomberg claims he has little contact with anybody at Bloomberg LP anymore and no say in how the company is run.

Which is the way it's supposed to be, since he's the mayor of New York.

At any rate, judging by the way Bloomberg has been covered in the political press so far, I have my doubts that this gender discrimination lawsuit will have much of a negative effect on his potential '08 run.

Just last night on Hardball, NY Times political reporter Patrick Healy (the guy who has written a 2000 word front page article about how many nights Bill and Hillary sleep together and another 1000 word front page article about Hillary's laugh) was falling all over himself to say Bloomberg is going to run in 2008 and make a good showing.

Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart joined Healy in effusively praising Bloomberg and his potential '08 run for the White House.

Never once did Capehart mention last night that he used to work for Bloomberg News or as a policy adviser for the Bloomberg campaign in 2001.

I don't know if Healy has ever worked for Bloomberg, but listening to him suck up to Moneybags last night on Hardball, it seems like he's keeping his options open.

I wonder if it were Bill Clinton being personally named in a gender discrimination lawsuit by three women alleging that Clinton had "created a culture hostile to pregnant women and new mothers" if Patrick Healy would find the time to write a 1000 word front page article about the suit.

I bet he would.

But since it's Moneybags being named, Healy ignored the suit and his newspaper buried the story deep in the Metro section.

I wonder what it is Bloomberg has to do to get his boys in the press to write something negative about him?

AFT Endorses Clinton For President

First Read reports that the American Federation of Teachers union has decided to publicly endorse Hillary Clinton for president.

This endorsement of Clinton is not a big surprise. Clearly Obama hurt his chances for union support when he told both AFT and NEA members that he supports merit pay for teachers based upon standardized test scores. While Edwards has worked very hard for labor support, his standing in both national and key primary and caucus polls is pretty low and the union wants to back a winner. So Clinton gets the nod.

The endorsement comes on the heels of a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Clinton solidifying her lead over Barack Obama (she leads him by 33 percentage points) and news last night that Clinton out-raised Obama $27 million to $20 million in third quarter political donations.

Clinton really looks like a lock for the Democratic nomination.

The only bad news she has gotten lately is a recent Newsweek poll showing Obama with a slim 2 point lead over her with likely caucus voters.

But barring a pre-election scandal (which is always a possibility with the Clintons) or an Obama win in Iowa (which could be a real momentum shift), I just don't see how she loses this nomination.

What do you think?

Does she have the Democratic nomination sewn up? And if so, can she actually win the White House? And if she does win the White House, will she be good for public education and teachers? Finally, if you're an AFT member, are you happy about the endorsement or would you rather have seen the union endorse another candidate or not tender an endorsement at all?

An Outside Agency

The NY Times reports today that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have agreed to create an "outside agency" to gather reams of data on New York City’s public schools and analyze the numbers to figure out what works and what does not in schools.

Finally Moneybags and Uncle Joel are going to open up the books to somebody outside of the Bloomberg administration and provide some transparency for the school system.

Finally somebody other than Klein/Moneybags is going to get look at the methodologies of Bloomberg's vaunted city tests and see if the score increases are real or fake.

Finally somebody is going to get to peer into Bloomberg's "reform movement" (three school reorganizations so far in six years) and see what is actually happening with it.

Finally we'll see some accountability from the people running the New York City school system.

Sounds great, right?

Well, not exactly.

You see, the "outside agency" that is being created to track all the school data (God, how Klein and Bloomberg love their data!!!) is full of Bloomberg cronies and other people with vested interests in making sure this "outside agency" only returns positive reports about Bloomberg's reform movement. Plus the agency is being funded by "education reformers" like the Gates Foundation with strong ties to Bloomberg.

Here is how the Times writes it up:

The partnership includes social scientists from New York University, Columbia University’s Teachers College and the City University of New York, who have already begun researching topics like school financing and high school choice.

...

The New York partnership has received initial financing from private organizations, including the Gates, Carnegie and Spencer foundations.

...

The governing board includes Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein; Randi Weingarten, the president of the city teachers’ union; William G. Bowen, the former president of Princeton University; and Robert L. Hughes, the president of New Visions for Public Schools, which has helped start dozens of small high schools in the city.

The Times article does acknowledge that some critics of the partnership have noted that including Klein and Weingarten on the governing board creates a conflict of interest. But then the Times article dismisses that argument by quoting John Q. Easton, a member of a similar education analysis group from Chicago, who says some part of the established education hierarchy has to be present or officials won't buy into the findings after they are published.

But taking a closer look at just who will be doing all the analysis and who will be paying for it, you'd have to say that nearly everybody in this supposed "outside agency" is connected to the school system.

Clearly Klein and Weingarten have vested interests in the outcome. Does anybody really trust what they are going to have to say about the school data?

Then you have Robert L. Hughes, a small schools guy who clearly is going to have a lot of positive things to say about small schools. Does anybody trust him to tell you why large schools are bad?

Then we have the whole thing being funded by "education reform movements" like the Gates Foundation that have already spent millions of dollars to push their small school/charter school agenda. Does anybody trust them to fund honest analysis?

The whole thing is a sham, but of course the Times writes it up uncritically and dismisses the legitimate criticism that this "outside agency" is rigged.

I don't know why they have to even go through all of this dog-and-pony show. Why not just issue the findings now and be done with it?

Let me help. Here is what the report will say when all is said and done:

Bloomberg's reforms are great.
More reform is needed.
Small schools are good, large schools are bad.
The school day needs to be longer.
The school year needs to be longer.
Teacher tenure is bad, merit pay is good.

You know how I figured out what their future report will say?

I went to Edin08, a website funded by many of the same groups funding this "outside agency," that is pushing the above "reform agenda" for the 2008 presidential campaign.

The Edin08 people are putting up at least $60 million to get their agenda across to the public and the presidential candidates and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this "outside agency" dog-and-pony show taking a look at the New York City school system is also on their expense account.

In any case, when the group finally releases their report, it will be meaningless drivel that will state what I have listed above and the news media, including the NY Times, will by-and-large report the findings uncritically just the way they have reported the creation of the group.

That's the beauty of having "education reform" being run by a billionaire media mogul mayor - he knows how to manipulate the media as masterfully as Andy manipulates Barney Fife every night on the TV Land channel.

Por supuesto

A horse is a horse, of course, of course.

But these folks claim Mr. Ed was a zebra.

Maybe they could get jobs at the DoE.

Loan To Learn, Debt For Life

The NY Daily News runs a story today about a woman from California who came to New York to make it as an interior designer.

She attended Pratt Institute and took on $95,000 in student loans to complete her education, a master's degree in interior design.

Pratt Institute, btw, was one of the institutions of higher learning that was exposed by NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for receiving kickbacks from student loan lenders to steer student business their way regardless of cost to the student.

Anyway, this student now owns her own interior design company, teaches spin classes at night and lives with her boyfriend in a very nice apartment across from the Brooklyn Museum.

All's well that ends well, right?

Well, not exactly.

You see, the woman - Danielle Fennoy - is drowning in debt as a result of her student loans:

Fennoy had visions of making it as an interior designer and eventually buying a big Brooklyn brownstone when she moved to New York six years ago from Pasadena, Calif.

But the $95,000 in student loans Fennoy took on to finance a master's degree in interior design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn are derailing her plans.

While Fennoy will take in about $55,000 this year from her Tribeca-based business, Make Design, and from teaching spin classes at a Brooklyn gym, she won't have much to show for it.

More than one quarter of her $36,744 after-tax income goes toward paying back her student loans. Add on her $850-a-month share of the rent, and other living and entertainment expenses, and Fennoy's average monthly tab exceeds her income by $1,068.

To pay her bills, Fennoy taps her Visa credit card with its 19.95% interest rate (she owes $1,637), and her rapidly depleting bank account, which has shrunk to $6,100 from $10,000 in the last two years.

"At the end of the day, I go home to my debts," Fennoy said. "It's such a weight on my shoulders."

Pratt loaded Fennoy up with private student loans - about 60k's worth - which currently are accumulating interest at a 8.5% rate.

She also carries another 35k in government subsidized loans with a more manageable but still sizeable interest rate.

Fennoy says she didn't understand what her financial obligations would be once she graduated from Pratt. She says Pratt didn't tell her, her parents weren't able to give her any guidance and she didn't ask enough questions about what she would have to pay later.

Fennoy doesn't know when, if ever, she will be able to pay the loans off.

The loan industry managed to get the federal government to write into law that student loans cannot be discharged for any reason in bankruptcy court, so Fennoy will have to try and pay them off. The Daily News notes that she should try and cut down on her expenses, especially her restaurant and bar tab. That's a very good point, but even cutting down those expenses will only save her about $3,300 a year, not nearly enough to make up the deficit.

She will still be drowning in debt.

Fennoy is not alone in her student loan nightmare. The Daily News reports that

As tuition has soared, student borrowing has grown at an average annual rate of 27% since 2000, and now totals $17.3 billion, according to the College Board.

As a teacher of high school seniors, I constantly tell my students that they must be judicious in their choice of college and take cost into account because living a life where their sole goal is to pay off student loan debt will not be fun and is not the reason they are attending college in the first place.

I tell them they're going to college to make better lives for themselves, not make better quarterly profits for Sallie Mae or Citibank.

Unfortunately, these days it seems college kids really are only going to school to increase the financial industry's profits.

Even with the recent college aid bill passed by the Democratic Congress and signed into law last
week by President Bush (Pell Grant increased to $5,400 by 2012, subsidized loan rates lowered to 3.4% by 2012, PLUS loan rates lowered to 4.5% by 2012), students are having an increasingly difficult time paying for college.

Right now, I am meeting with each of my 61 seniors, asking them about their choices for colleges, their choice of majors, and how they are going to pay for their education. I ask them their GPA and SAT scores and about their family's financial situations.

When kids say they want to attend schools like Pratt or NYU, I point out their family's finances, show them how much the education will cost per year (with Pell grants and TAP money subtracted if it looks like they will be eligible) and show them realistically how much debt they will be taking on per year to attend their "dream school."

More often than not, the debt figure is $25,000-$40,000.

I then multiply that number by 4 and show them what they will owe upon graduation. I explain approximately how much they will have to pay per month for their student loans and then ask them "Is this something you think you can do for the first 20 years out of college?"

More often than not, they feel it is not.

Nonetheless, I tell my students to apply to their dream schools and note that sometimes campus-based aid or need-based programs like HEOP or EOP can make up the difference in costs.

For a few students, it does.

For most, it does not.

Thankfully, more cost-effective alternatives like SUNY and CUNY schools exist for these students (though even SUNY and CUNY schools have seen soaring costs over the years.)

The overall point is to help my students make informed decisions about their college educations. I don't want them to end up like Danielle Fennoy after graduation - drowning in debt and despairing of ever paying that debt off.

I also don't want my students loading up their parents with thousands of dollars in PLUS loans. Schools like Pratt have a habit of offering 20k a year in PLUS loans to parents who live paycheck-to-paycheck or in subsidized housing and have no chance to ever pay that kind of debt off.

I want my students to be able to say "Going to college gave me more opportunities in life!",
not "Going to college loaded me up with a lifetime of debt that has kept me living at home working a job I hate so I can pay off Sallie Mae and Citibank every month!"

Who Really Belongs In The Rubber Room?

Leonard Brown, a veteran physics teacher at Cardozo High School, languishes in the New York City Department of Education Rubber Room these days after he was charged with "having made physical contact with a student" during a science demonstration when he asked her to push her hands up against him with all her weight.

Brown writes that he has been using this lesson for the past 18 years to demonstrate one of the axioms of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Brown says never in all that time has there been a complaint about impropriety during the lesson but nonetheless he now faces charges against him pursuant to the 3020a State Education Law.

This means the city is trying to have him permanently removed from the classroom and strip him of his teaching license.

While Leonard Brown sits in the Rubber Room awaiting his fate, another city employee continues to work unhindered despite some pretty serious discrimination and harassment charges made against him.

This city employee has been accused of the following:

* asking a female employee if she was giving her boyfriend "good" oral sex.

* saying "I'd like to do that" and "That's a great piece of a--" to describe women in the office.

* pointing out a young female employee and telling another female employee, "If you looked like that, I would do you in a second."

* telling a pregnant employee to "Kill it!" in reference to her baby and saying "Great! Number 16!" -- an apparent reference to the number of women in the company who were pregnant or had maternity-related status.

These are just some of the specific allegations made against this city employee.

There are others but they all add up to one thing - this city employee with immense power who supervises hundreds of thousands of other city employees has been accused of creating a work atmosphere where he and "other male managers at the company made 'repeated and unwelcome' sexual comments, overtures and gestures," and contributed "to an offensive, locker-room culture."

This city employee is of course Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, as I posted here on Friday, has been hit with at least three sexual harassment law suits in the past. He settled one out of court, paying the accuser off quietly and insisting upon a confidentiality agreement in the case. Another suit was quietly withdrawn by the accuser after her lawyer and Bloomberg's lawyers met for some "discussions." His company, Bloomberg LP, is currently being sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for gender discrimination after at least four female employees accused Bloomberg LP of discriminating against them either during pregnancy or upon their return from maternity leave.

Now it is true that the current discrimination allegations made against Bloomberg LP all allegedly took place after Bloomberg stepped down from day-to-day operations running the company, but the previous sexual harassment allegations were all made against Bloomberg himself and an argument can be made that the alleged gender discrimination practices currently pursued by the management of Bloomberg LP started when Mayor Mike himself was running the company (since all of the sexual harassment charges I detailed above stem from his time as CEO.)

I cannot fathom why it is that Leonard Brown, an 18 year teaching veteran who was simply trying to teach Newton's Law to students, sits in the DOE Rubber Room for months on end as the city cooks up reasons to fire him while Mayor Michael Bloomberg, accused of saying things like "That's a great piece of a--" and "If you looked like that, I would do you in a second" gets to run around Europe drumming up support and media buzz for his independent presidential bid.

I also cannot understand why there is not more outrage over these allegations from both the news media and the public.

Let's be honest here - wouldn't we hear a lot more outrage about these sexual harassment and gender discrimination charges if they were made against a teacher?

I know we would.

The teacher would be tried and convicted in the court of public opinion (otherwise known as the front covers of the NY Daily News and NY Post) while the UFT threw up their collective hands and said "Sorry, we've done all we can do."

And yet somehow Michael Bloomberg has managed to avoid serious scrutiny over some truly disturbing allegations that may or may not be true but certainly are much more troubling than what Leonard Brown is accused of doing in physics class and certainly shouldn't be glossed over the way they currently have been.

Have We Gone Too Far?

Bronx Assemblyman Michael Benjamin wants to make cupcakes the official children's snack food of New York State.

Benjamin's bill is in response to a ban on cupcakes at school birthday parties in some Long Island school districts.

These school districts want to combat obesity problems in children and have banned the cupcake as one of the prime offenders in the war against fat.

Benjamin acknowledges there is a huge problem with childhood obesity in this country, but thinks the school cupcake ban is going too far:

Benjamin said that while even his wife thinks his bill encourages childhood obesity, "it's a personal pet peeve of mine that everything that brings warm memories, the muffin mullahs want to cut out of our diet."

"I recognize that there are some overweight children and obesity is a rising problem among some of our children, but it makes no sense that school districts are banning cupcakes parties for little children," he went on.

Is Benjamin making a good point here? Are the food police going too far when they start banning cupcakes and other goodies from schools for even special occasions like birthday parties and holiday fests?

Or are these school districts right to ban sweets of all kinds from school in an attempt to get kids socialized into eating healthy early on in their lives?

I dunno, maybe there is a third way to deal with this problem. Maybe cupcakes could be allowed in school for very special occasions like birthday parties but otherwise banned from the school?

I tend to think the special occasion idea might work best.

I don't know about you, but I try and eat healthy as much as I can (lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat, etc.) but when it comes to special occasions, I like to celebrate with something fun like cupcakes or ice cream.

As good as carrots and hummus or a fresh fruit salad can be, there's nothing like cupcakes and ice cream to really mark the occasion "special."

And of course you can make the cupcakes or other goodies healthier than say the Tastycake/Hostess/local bakery loaded with lard and fat variety.

What do you think?