Campbell Brown Surfaces In Dean/Adam Skelos Corruption Case Wiretaps

From the Politico NY morning email update on education:

SURPRISE GUEST IN THE DEAN SKELOS TAPES: CAMPBELL BROWN: 

From phone call between Adam and Dean Skelos Dec. 14. 2014:  

“AS: What are you up to?  

DS: Um going into the city. Meeting with some billionaires.  

AS: Who are you meeting with?  

DS: On school tax credit stuff. Campbell Brown.  

AS: Oh. Ok.  

DS. A reporter, former reporter. 

AS: Dad, you gotta take these names down….All I need is contacts. I’ll take care of the rest.” 

(Dean laughs)

Some billionaires and Campbell Brown meet with crooked Dean Skelos over "school tax credit stuff".

Love it.

Maybe they could have gotten exactly what they wanted on the "school tax credit stuff"" if they had provided Adam Skelos with a no-show job at Families for Excellent Schools.

Just so long as they didn't ask him to, you know, show up for work.

Campbell Brown To Hammer De Blasio For Not Being Reformy Enough

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — Campbell Brown, the former news anchor turned anti-teacher tenure advocate, is hoping her keynote address Wednesday night to the Business Council of New York State's annual conference will spur its members to focus attention on education reform.

...

Brown said she will focus her speech on student achievement and income inequality and that the keynote, which she will deliver at The Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing, will also take issue with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose policies “not only have been inadequate but, in many situations, have made the situation worse.”

“We can’t afford to have incremental changes. We don’t need any more speeches. We need real change,” Brown said.

We can't afford incremental changes - we need drastic, sudden, dramatic change.

Interestingly enough, Brown gets lumped in politically with "conservatives".

In fact, her husband Dan Senor was one of the "conservatives" who helped bring drastic, sudden, dramatic change to Iraq. 

That went well, didn't it?

So you know the drastic, sudden, dramatic change Brown wants to bring to the education system will go just as swimmingly.

When Brown says de Blasio's policies “not only have been inadequate but, in many situations, have made the situation worse," she can look to husband Dan and the policies he helped engineer in Iraq as a model.

Union, NYSED Argue That Campbell Brown's Anti-Tenure Suit Is Moot With New APPR Changes

From the Post:

The teachers union and state officials argued Tuesday that a lawsuit challenging New York’s tenure policy should be tossed because Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature approved a new law tightening teacher accountability.

The changes make the tenure suit moot, lawyers defending the state claimed during oral arguments in Staten Island Supreme Court.

“We live in a different world ­today than when this action was filed,” said Assistant State Attorney General Steven Banks.

Cuomo and lawmakers approved in April a tougher tenure law that more closely links teacher job ratings to the test scores of their students. The new law also awards tenure after four years instead of three.

The lawyer representing plaintiff Campbell Brown and the NYC Parents Union claimed the changes to the tenure law were just "windowdressing" and the suit should go forward.

Windowdressing?

Tenure is effectively abolished under the new APPR law.

If a teacher receives two consecutive ineffective ratings, the district may bring a 3020-a proceeding and the burden of proof shifts to the teacher with the hearing completed within 90 days.

If a teacher receives three consecutive ineffective ratings, the district must bring a 3020-a and the only defense a teacher can use is fraud or mistaken identity with the hearing completed within 30 days.

How the hell are those windowdressing changes to tenure?

Those are drastic changes that essentially abolish tenure protections since a tenured teacher can be fired based upon his/her APPR rating.

Brown is also aiming at LIFO seniority - the last in, first out rules for layoffs - so it's possible the suit will go forward based on that.

But for Brown's lawyer to claim that the new APPR law only provides "windowdressing" changes that do not affect the core tenets of tenure - well, that's just absurd.

Michelle Rhee's Husband, Kevin Johnson, Target Of New Sexual Harassment Complaint

The Sacramento Bee:

A former aide in the Sacramento city manager’s office filed a claim last month against Mayor Kevin Johnson alleging the mayor sexually harassed her multiple times over a seven-month period at City Hall, according to a copy of the claim obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

The employee – identified in the claim as Estrellita Ilee Muller, 32 – alleged that she was summoned to the mayor’s private library at City Hall by Johnson’s security officer and that the mayor pressed his body against her, felt her torso and tried to kiss her. Muller filed the claim with the City Clerk’s office in April and is seeking $200,000 in damages, according to the document. She also filed a formal discrimination complaint with the city’s human resources director in October 2014 – a complaint that was found insufficient by that office.

Read the whole Bee article - the city's investigation into the complaint sounds rigged for the "insufficient evidence" outcome.

This would not be the first time Kevin Johnson has been accused of sexual harassment and or other sexual-related crimes - he has a pattern of this kind of behavior:

In 1997, Johnson signed a draft confidential settlement with a Phoenix teenager who had claimed the former NBA player molested her, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Bee in 2008. The agreement amount was $230,000, according to the document.

The settlement stemmed from a 1996 investigation by Phoenix police into an allegation that Johnson, who was 29 at the time, disrobed in the presence of a 16-year-old girl and touched her inappropriately. The allegations were made to police by the girl’s therapist.

Johnson denied the allegations and no criminal charges were filed in the case.

In 2008, soon after Johnson launched his first mayoral campaign, a police report filed by a former teacher from Sacramento High School surfaced alleging that a 17-year-old student at the school told the teacher Johnson had approached her from behind, massaged her shoulders and touched her breasts.

Sacramento police later said the girl recanted her story and found the allegation to be unfounded.

Johnson founded the nonprofit St. HOPE organization that operates Sacramento High School as a charter school.

A separate allegation made in teacher Erik Jones’ report charged that Johnson tried to get into bed with a volunteer from the Hood Corps program, an urban volunteer program that was part of St. Hope. Police did not investigate that allegation because the young woman was not a minor.

There are not at least four allegations against Johnson - the 16-year old in Phoenix, the 17 year at KJ's charter school, a teacher at the same charter school and now a city employee.

The Muller complaint alleges there are other incidents with city employees that have been covered up:

The claim states that Muller’s supervisors at City Hall “failed to take appropriate action to protect” her from the alleged incident or “subsequent incidents of harassment.” The claim states Muller told “several representatives of the city regarding the conduct of Mr. Johnson on several separate occasions” and that those representatives “offered no helpful advice and took no action in response to receiving the information.”

“Plaintiff alleges on information and belief that Mr. Johnson had acted inappropriately with respect to other city employees and representatives in the past and that representatives of the city knew, or had reason to know, of facts establishing this,” the claim states. “Notwithstanding this, city representatives did nothing to effectively deal with the situation or to protect plaintiff and similarly situated employees.”

Imagine Kevin Johnson was a teacher instead of Michelle Rhee's husband.

What would Campbell Brown, Michelle Rhee, and the rest of the education reform contingent be saying about this?

Right now all we get from them is silence.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=c

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article21025047.html#storylink=cpy

Save The Date: Andrew Cuomo, Campbell Brown To Raise Money For Success Academies at Cipriani on Monday April 20, 2015

In case you haven't gotten your tickets already:

Monday, April 20, 2015 Success Academy Charter Schools
Third Annual Spring Benefit.   6:30 pm.   Cocktails and dinner.   Business attire.   Honoring Eli Broad.   Chaired by Campbell Brown, Joel Greenblatt, Daniel S. Loeb, John Scully, Regina Scully.   Tickets from $1,250.00.   Tables from $15,000.00.   Cipriani 42nd Street.   New York.   Contact: Julianna Harder.   (212) 245-6570.   Event address: 110 East 42nd Street, New York.   Event web address: www.successacademies.org.  

More incentive to attend:

CUOMO TO HEADLINE SUCCESS ACADEMY BENEFIT—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: Governor Andrew Cuomo will be the keynote speaker at Success Academy's annual spring benefit this April, according to an invite sent to Success employees this weekend. Cuomo and Success C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz officially became allies last winter, when Cuomo stepped into a battle between Moskowitz and Mayor Bill de Blasio, declaring he would ‘save charter schools’ at a massive Albany rally partially organized by Success. The event will be held April 20 at Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan, and will be co-chaired by Success board members Campbell Brown, Daniel Loeb, Joel Greenblatt, and Regina and John Scully. http://bit.ly/1tT6Edx

NY Teacher has a suggestion:

Don't forget, Cuomo was scheduled to speak at the Success Academy Charter Schools Spring Benefit on April 20th; 6:30 pm at Cipriani (42nd St). If he does attend it would be a great place to demo/rally/press.

So does Norm Scott:

A massive protest in front of Ciprianis would be an appropriate response.

Seems like a great opportunity to all at once let Eva Moskowitz, her hedge fund supporters, Campbell Brown and Andrew Cuomo know what you think of them and their "reforms."

Campbell Brown Anti-Tenure Lawyer Uses Obsolete Data To Argue Tenure Must Be Abolished

From the WSJ:

Tenure laws are “not a gift to teachers,” Richard Casagrande, a lawyer for New York State United Teachers, told the court. “These laws empower teachers to teach well.”

...

Jay Lefkowitz, representing nine families organized by Partnership for Educational Justice, said granting tenure after three probationary years was like a “rubber stamp” because so few were denied it, and three years was too short a time to tell who deserved the benefit.

He cited a study finding that from 2004 to 2008, legal proceedings to dismiss an ineffective teacher spanned an average of 830 days and cost an average of $313,000.

“Our statutes create a Rube Goldberg-esque system” where it’s nearly impossible to fire a teacher, he said.

Mr. Casagrande said that data was obsolete because the state revised its laws for evaluating teachers in 2012, and created an expedited process for hearing incompetency cases.

With the changes made to the teacher evaluation law and the expedited process for hearings put into place in 2012, it's difficult to see how the anti-tenure forces win a court case on tenure here.

If Cuomo and Tisch get some of the "reforms" they want on teacher evaluations and (including automatically pulling teachers with two consecutive "ineffective" ratings out of the classroom and an expedited incompetency firing process as a result of two consecutive "ineffective" ratings), it further undermines the anti-tenure court case.

And then there's this:

Lawyers for the city and state asked the justice to dismiss the case, saying it was up to the Legislature to revise tenure laws, the plaintiffs had shown no direct injuries caused by bad teachers, and plaintiffs hadn’t described any remedies.

Further, Janice Birnbaum, a lawyer for New York City, said the plaintiffs hadn’t been joined by representatives of all of the nearly 700 districts statewide that would be affected by a change in tenure laws.

I'm not a lawyer, but from the perspective of a layman looking at the case, it seems a little messy on the anti-tenure side.

Scapegoating Teachers Will Keep Good People Out Of Teaching

In the middle of a New York Magazine profile on Campbell Brown and her attack on teacher tenure in New York State is this:

Head-spinning data sets are the fluttering fans of both sides in the school-reform debate, concealing ideological motivation of the game’s players and the overwhelming complexity of measuring student performance, but plenty of experts disagree about how important teacher tenure really is. “Most people agree that Campbell Brown has identified an important problem: Poor kids are stuck with the worst teachers. But her approach of attacking tenure is barking up the wrong tree,” says Richard Kahlenberg, an author and senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation, adding that polling shows tenure is so important to teachers you’d have to increase their salaries by half to make up for taking it away. (Weingarten, sworn enemy of Brown, points out that the states that have the best protections for teachers also have the best academic performance.) Low-income minority students have the weakest teachers because of economic segregation, Kahlenberg says, which suggests the solution is mixing and matching low- and ­middle-income kids in individual schools (something, one imagines, that would cause an uproar in nice neighborhoods already endowed with good schools). “On the tactics, I have to give Campbell enormous credit,” Kahlenberg continues. “She’s taken what most educators believe is a peripheral issue and elevated it to the cover of Time magazine. So even if she loses her lawsuits, she’s changed the public conversation—in my view, in a negative way. But I think she’s highly effective.”

Take away tenure or make it "renewable" based on student test scores and other quantifiable measures as Campbell Brown and a host of other reformers want to do (which is just a roundabout way of getting rid of tenure) and you'll end up keeping good people out of teaching.

That's the part of the argument in teacher quality that never gets publicly stated much in the mainstream media.

The more the teaching profession gets beaten up in the media and by politicians, the more insane compliance they throw on teachers in the form of ever-more "rigorous" evaluations, the more they strip teachers of protections like due process, the less likely it is quality people are going to want to teach.

Why spend money and effort to get trained and licensed as a teacher if you're going to spend your workday doing insane compliance that takes away from your ability to do your job well, get beaten up in the media seven days a week and hear the politicians in your state denigrate you as garbage as they annually impose more mandates on you?

I am in my fourteenth year teaching, but if I were doing this all over again, there is NO WAY I would go into teaching.

Seriously, who needs to be told what a piece of shit you are, how you're responsible for poverty and the achievement gap and income inequality and a danger to national security to boot (which Joel Klein and Condi Rice actually said)?

I teach seniors and when we talk about college majors and career options and some tell me they are thinking about teaching, I tell them to think long and hard about that before they embark on the journey.

Teachers and the teaching profession are under constant assault, a barrage that never seems to end but just gets heavier and heavier as the years go by.

I tell students they must be aware of the political battles going on around schools and teachers before they decide to teach, because these battles will effect them greatly, make their jobs much harder than they have to be, and perhaps even make it such that their career choice will be turned into nothing more than an at-will position that they can be fired from for any reason.

I'm not trying to dissuade students from going into teaching, but I do want them going in with their eyes open and their minds aware.

Teachers are scapegoats for so many of the problems this country faces and no one should go into the profession without knowing that there's going to be a lot of excessive blame they'll carry along with their other job duties and responsibilities.

When Did Campbell Brown Get Elected Governor Of New York State?

Cuomo yesterday, doubling down on his threats against teachers the past few weeks:

"The teachers’ union represents the teachers. I understand that. … I represent the students and I want to do the best we can for the students and for their education," he said. "One of the issues we have to work through where the teachers’ union doesn’t agree with me is, I want to evaluate teachers, and I want to be able to get bad teachers out of the classroom.

“I understand the union’s issue; they don’t want anyone fired,” Cuomo said. “But we have teachers that have been found guilty of sexually abusing students who we can’t get out of the classroom. We have a process where literally it takes years and years to get a bad teacher out of the classroom. And I understand the teachers’ rights, but I also understand the students’ rights. And the Albany government, the Albany media, is very responsive to the teachers’ union and their groups. I get it. But the students have rights, too. And this whole education system is about the students.”

Sounds just like Campbell Brown, doesn't it?

Interestingly, he talks about understanding students' rights, but fails to mention how so many parents and students hate the Common Core and Endless Testing regime the education establishment continues to pursue in this state.

See, opposing CCSS or the Endless Testing regime doesn't make his campaign donors happy, so he's not going to push that kind of "reform" ever.

He's instead going to play the manipulation card and make like there are thousands of "bad teachers" in classrooms raping and pillaging on their lunch breaks and prep periods and try and rile the public up to support his so-called reform agenda.

Don't be surprised if we don't see some Daily News or Post pieces detailing a couple of incidents to set the stage for the govenor's anti-teacher/anti-union agenda next week.

Hell, they may even show up in the Post or Daily News courtesy of the real Campbell Brown and not her doppelganger, the guy in the governor's office.

Awaiting The Campbell Brown Denouncement Of Bill Cosby

Here's where education reformer Campbell Brown denounced the teachers unions for defending 97 teachers or school employees accused of sexual misconduct over a five year period in NYC.

97 teachers and staff accused (not convicted, btw - just accused) is slightly more than 0.001% of the teaching and school staff overall.

Still, Brown says this is a major problem and the system needs major reforms.

She has gone on TV and written about this repeatedly to educate the public about the need for reform.

Meanwhile fellow education reformer Bill Cosby has been accused of raping 16 women over the course of his career.

Every day now a new allegation against Cosby surfaces - there were two just yesterday (including a TMZ story in which an actress alleges Cosby assaulted her in the dressing room of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.)

One commenter at Perdido Street School writes:

Where is Campbell Brown when you need her? Oh, she is only interested in alleged teacher predators.

Indeed, here's the silence we have from Brown on Cosby.

Another teacher-basher, Whoopi Goldberg, actually defended Cosby earlier this week, saying that she has many questions for one of Cosby's accusers.

I wonder what teacher bashers like Brown or Goldberg would be saying were there a teacher out there who had 16 allegations of sexual assault lodged against him, with a new one surfacing every day?

I bet silence (in Brown's case) and defense (in Goldberg's case) would not be the response.

Funny how that goes.

Brown's been silent on her another education reformer's alleged sexual misconduct.

Her husband, neo-con Dan Senor, sits on the board of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst even though Rhee is alleged to have helped cover up her husband, Kevin Johnson's, sexual misconduct with employees of his charter school.

The hypocrisy of education reformers like Campbell Brown and teacher bashers like Whoopi Goldberg knows no bounds.

It seems any teacher accused of anything is guilty automatically and ought to be fired.

But fellow education reformers and celebrities like Cosby and KJ - they're entitled to a stonewall defense.

Why Won't The Criminals At Families For Excellent Schools Reveal Their Donor List?

The criminals behind the pro-charter group Families For Excellent Schools give millions in political donations in Albany without ever revealing where those millions are coming from:

When the state Legislature revamped New York's lobbying laws in 2011, the reforms were meant to shine a brighter light on mega-donors seeking to influence the government. Yet this year's biggest lobbying spender—a pro-charter-school group that reported almost $6 million in New York state lobbying expenditures through August—hasn't had to reveal a single benefactor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, the leading adversary of Manhattan-based nonprofit Families for Excellent Schools, recently called for the group to release its donor list so "the public can judge what interests are at play." The group's spending this spring helped foil the mayor's plans in a high-profile fight over charter schools' funding and sharing space with traditional public schools.

Lobbying records, however, show how Families for Excellent Schools was able to shield its donors' names. Even its critics acknowledge the group has found a way around the 2011 law.

"These guys have invented the 'hedge-fund loophole' in the dark-money world of [Gov.] Andrew Cuomo's Albany," charged Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, a nonprofit backed by the statewide teachers' union, which has been warring with charter-school proponents and the governor.

Mr. Easton's comment referred to hedge-fund executives who have donated to the governor's campaign and to charter-school causes. A Cuomo official once griped that Mr. Easton's group does not disclose its donors, either, but it does now, per the 2011 law.

Read the rest of the Crain's piece to see how the charter school criminals get away with their dark arts.

Just as Campbell Brown refuses to reveal who the donors for her anti-tenure group are even as she spends the money she gets from them on her anti-tenure campaign, Families For Excellent Schools spends millions lobbying politicians and millions more on pro-charter ads without revealing where that money is coming from.

This is life in Andrew Cuomo's New York, where he raised millions through his Committee To Save New York PAC, then had that PAC spend that money on ads touting his political agenda, all without having to reveal who was donating to the Committee To Save New York PAC.

When the law changed and he would have been forced to reveal that donor base, he shut down the Committee To Save New York instead.

The criminals are running the state, folks - they own it, they're throwing their dirty money around and buying whatever they want and whomever they want whenever they want and there's NOTHING you can do it about it.

Andrew Cuomo's New York - a cesspool of corruption.

UFT Launches Ads To Defend Itself Against Attacks Over Tenure And Charter Schools

It's behind a paywall at Capital NY, but here's the details so far:

The United Federation of Teachers is launching a $1.4 million ad campaign today, as the union attempts to defend itself from attacks over teacher tenure and charter schools.

$1.4 million sounds like a lot, but if you consider that pro-charter proponents and supporters threw more than $5 million into the "De Blasio hates children/Eva loves them" ad blitz last budget season and threw millions more into pro-charter ads right before last week's rally in Foley Square, you see that the $1.4 million UFT ad buy is way too late and too many dollars short.

Non-Union Teacher Joins Campbell Brown's Anti-Tenure Lawsuit, Provides Highly Ineffective Argument Against Tenure

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY:

Campbell Brown's lawsuit challenging teacher tenure and other union-backed protections is gaining a new plaintiff: a non-union public school teacher from Albany.

DeLaine Wilson, a 15-year veteran pre-school teacher at the North Albany Academy YMCA, said in an interview with Capital on Thursday that New York's slate of teacher protections academically harmed students in upper grades at her school.

"We had honor roll students [at my school] and when it came to the Regents tests they weren't able to pass them," said Wilson, who has four children who attend public schools in Albany and was a member of the New York State United Teachers when previously she taught at a private school.

...

Wilson, who is joining the lawsuit along with her husband, Roderick Wilson, said she believes eliminating the current teacher tenure laws will "hold more teachers accountable."

"Tenure makes them comfortable," she said, adding she would try to convince unionized teachers that potentially eliminating tenure and other protections would help all teachers perform better.

If the argument is that tenure makes teachers comfortable so they don't actually care whether children do well on Regents tests or not, whether they learn or not, it's not a "highly effective" argument.

The state's new teacher evaluation law holds teachers accountable for their students' test scores, including Regents scores.

40% of a teacher's evaluation is based on so-called student performance - 20% from local measures of performance (which may include tests or performance assessments) and 20% from state measures (like Regents exams.)

DeLaine Wilson can join Campbell Brown's anti-tenure bandwagon (if there's room on it, since Mona Davids and Sam Pirozzolo are already there and fighting with Brown over the direction of the lawsuit), but I am skeptical that argument she's bringing onto the bandwagon will help much since it's easily refuted by the parameters of the APPR teacher evaluation law.

And while some deformers may counter that most teachers were deemed "effective" or "highly effective" in the state so that the APPR system has no teeth, I would note that teachers in Rochester, Buffalo and other urban districts with high poverty found out just how much teeth the system has when overwhelming numbers of them were rated "developing" or "ineffective" on the evaluation system.

No Wonder The Corporatists Want To Get Rid Of Teacher Tenure/Due Process Protections

From Bloomberg Businessweek:

A political candidate’s firing in Florida offers a reminder of a little-understood fact of American life: Companies have sweeping discretion to effectively regulate what their workers do outside of work, including running for elected office.

That startling reality resurfaced after Marriott Vacations Worldwide came under fire for terminating Viviana Janer, a senior manager who is also the Democratic nominee for a seat on the Osceola County Commission. “I think it’s a stinking maneuver to rob her of her job and rob the voters of their votes,” Democratic Representative Alan Grayson charged this week. Janer says her candidacy is consistent with the company’s support for civic participation; her employer, a time-share company spun off from Marriott International in 2011, says her candidacy threatened a conflict of interest.

In a Sept. 19 termination letter, Marriott Vacations wrote that Janer had been given the choice to either resign from her campaign or resign from her job. “She was given those two options,” confirms Edward Kinney, a vice president for the company, “and she chose not to do either one.”

The company’s move may be controversial, but there’s nothing obviously illegal about it. In fact, as I’ve noted before, U.S. workers can be fired for all kinds of activities outside of work: volunteering for the AIDS Foundation, using medical marijuana, even just driving around with a John Kerry bumper sticker. There are some clear exceptions. Firing someone for practicing a religion or organizing a union during his or her time off is illegal. But aside from Montana, neither state nor federal laws require that private sector companies have a good reason for firing people.

Few states require that terminations have anything to do with work performance. According to a 2010 review (PDF) by the National Conference of State Legislatures, only four states have statutes broadly protecting workers from being fired for (noncriminal) things they do outside for work. Seventeen states offer specific protections for after-hours tobacco users, and another eight protect using lawful products.

The First Amendment protects free speech and the right to petition the government, but it only restricts the government from trampling those rights—it doesn’t ban your boss from punishing you for exercising them.

As you can see, most Americans can be fired from their jobs for any reason at any time.

When the corporatists and ed deformers talk about the need to reform teacher tenure and due process protections, what they really mean is that they want to make teaching as "at-will" a job as most others - then districts can fire teachers whenever they want for any reason they want.

You know, like you're running for office.

Or driving around with a John Kerry bumper sticker.

Or volunteered for the AIDS Foundation.

Or because you make too much money.

Or Campbell Brown doesn't like you.

Or whatever.

Anti-Teacher Tenure Lawsuit In New York Starts Off Like A Circus (UPDATED - 8:08)

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:

Justice Philip Minardo in Richmond County Supreme Court agreed Thursday to merge two lawsuits seeking to challenge state tenure laws.

The state attorney general's office had filed a motion to consolidate the two cases on grounds the issues were so similar, and the United Federation of Teachers had asked to intervene as a defendant.

The court granted both requests. The cases were filed by the New York City Parents Union and Partnership for Educational Justice. Both groups charge that current tenure laws keep ineffective teachers in classrooms.

The union argues that tenure guarantees due process to keep teachers from unjust terminations, and plans to file a motion to dismiss the case by Oct. 14, a spokeswoman said.

The WSJ ignored the circus at yesterday's festivities - the Daily News did not:

A judge consolidated a pair of lawsuits challenging teacher tenure in New York on Thursday — but the two people behind the cases couldn’t be farther apart.

Mona Davids, president of the New York City Parents Union, who filed the first legal action, made wild accusations Thursday against Campbell Brown, who filed the second.

“This is our lawsuit. We will not be bullied by Campbell Brown,” said Davids, who passed out fake dollars bearing Brown’s likeness at a bizarre press conference outside Staten Island Supreme Court.

Davids insisted that Brown, a former CNN anchor turned education advocate, had orchestrated a behind-the-scenes effort to undermine her suit. But Davids, despite the fire with which she made her accusation, did not produce evidence to back it up.

Capital NY nailed the circus-like atmosphere as well:

A would-be alliance in the battle over New York's teacher-tenure laws fell apart Thursday, as parent-activist Mona Davids held a press conference to attack CNN anchor-turned-education reformer Campbell Brown.

The drama between Davids and Brown, who are each suing to invalidate the state's tenure laws, threatens to delegitimize their shared legal argument which has, at least on its face, a chance of succeeding considering the positive result for anti-tenure reformers in the Vergara vs. California case earlier this summer.

State Supreme Court Justice Philip Minardo on Thursday ordered Davids and Brown to consolidate their lawsuits, meaning the two will be represented by the same firm and will have to work together.

The number of legal players involved in the case and Davids' dramatic pre-hearing press conference outside Richmond County Court on Staten Island turned what was supposed to be a mundane legal proceeding Thursday into an unexpectedly dramatic bit of political theater.

Davids, head of a group called the New York City Parents Union, accuses Brown of trying to steal the spotlight and divert resources away from her case.

"Campbell Brown is is trying to reform her image and make herself relevant on the backs of black and Hispanic children, our children. This is our lawsuit," Davids said at a press conference where members of her group held up fake $100 bills with Brown's screaming face in the middle and signs that read "Campbell Brown does not speak for NYC parents."

Davids claims Brown discouraged Gibson Dunn, the prestigious law firm that helped secure victory for the plaintiffs in Vergara vs. California, from helping Davids' case. Gibson Dunn said in early August it would be providing legal support to Davids' case, then abruptly dropped out several weeks ago, citing conflicts of interest.

Davids claims Brown, whose own group is called the Partnership for Educational Justice, asked lawyers at Gibson Dunn to drop their support for Davids' group and cited unpublished emails between Brown and lawyers at the firm.

Davids also claims Brown began "a bullying campaign" against her.
...

Charles Moerdler, a partner at the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who is representing the U.F.T., said the union will seek to have the case dismissed.

Davids and Brown will be able to submit two separate complaints, Minardo said, but will have to act as a single plaintiff.

Minardo also told Gibson Dunn to file a formal motion asking to leave the case; Davids said she will most likely oppose the motion to show that she wants to retain legal help from the firm.

Moerdler indicated that formal legal proceedings are unlikely to begin until December, at the earliest.

What are the chances this lawsuit, a mess from the beginning, is going to be successful?

UPDATED - 8:08:

Also, it's interesting that the WSJ ignored the circus clowns and other distractions at yesterday's event.

Think the WSJ would have ignored them if the clowns had "UFT" on their shirts instead of "NYCPU"?

Anti-Tenure Lawsuit Groups Battle Each Other

The NY Post reports of dysfunction among the anti-tenure groups fighting to end teacher protections in New York State:

The powerhouse law firm that was supposed to represent parent advocates suing to overturn the state’s teacher tenure laws has withdrawn from the case, The Post has learned.

One of the parent advocates, Mona Davids, charged that the firm Gibson Dunn pulled out after “bullying” by rival parent advocate Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who has her own set of lawyers.

“We are moving forward with our lawsuit,” said ­Davids. “Campbell Brown does not speak for Davids vs. New York.”

Brown declined to comment.

Gibson Dunn spokeswoman Pearl Piatt said the proposed consolidation of lawsuits filed separately by Davids and Brown “advances the same issues.”

But multiple sources said the firm pulled out because several of its longstanding education clients complained about previous run-ins with Davids.

Also withdrawing was the California group Students Matter, which funded the landmark case overturning that state’s tenure laws.

Love it - "Multiple sources said the firm pulled out because several of its longstanding education clients complained about previous run-ins with Davids."

Norm Scott's early July post on the Davids lawsuit was prescient:

The news that self-serving Moaning Mona Davids, hoping  to get a piece of the hedge fund ed deform anti-tenure action, has filed a Vergara copycat suit over teacher tenure, has spurred me to dredge up this blog post that's been lurking in draft mode for many months. I hadn't bothered  because the idea that anyone actually takes Moaning Mona Davids seriously causes me constant amusement as to just how naive so many people are. Her press release regarding the suit is laugh out loud reading.

I'd like to see if this law suit has any real financial backing. Mona may just be trolling, knowing full well there will be a well-financed suit coming. Her hope is to get her pitiful attempt combined with others. If you had a choice between Moaning Mona Davids and Crappy Campbell Brown, both desperate to use the teacher bashing issue in an attempt to remain relevant, who would you choose? Hmmmmm.  Let's see if there are any ed deform funders out there will to take a chance on venturing forth into a Moaning Mona minefield loaded with IEDs. Today's NY Times piece indicates that this is a trolling law suit looking for publicity.

Education reform groups, some of them supported by Wall Street philanthropists, are expected to support a wave of Vergara-inspired suits. Ms. Davids contended that her suit was different because it was not being bankrolled by outside interests.

However, Ms. Davids said she expected that if multiple cases were to be filed, they would eventually be lumped together by the courts.

Sure, not bankrolled by outside interests because they are too smart to get involved in Moaning Mona's shenanigans. Her main hope is to have hers combined with the heavy hitters and pick up a few crumbs on the way.

Looks like the heavy hitters decided Mona will get no crumbs.

Remember When Frank Bruni Thought "Won't Back Down" Was A Great Movie?

Food writer Frank Bruni has written another teacher-bashing column, a habit of his ever since they gave him op-ed real estate at the NY Times, though to be fair, there are quite a few other teacher-bashers on the Times op-ed page as well, so maybe Frank's just trying to fit in with his more famous compatriots in neo-liberalism.

In any case, NYC Educator dispensed with Frank's argument here and I don't think I can improve on it, so I'm going to let that stand for dealing with Frank's current nonsensical teacher-bashing and remind everyone of a few years back when Bruni, a food writer by trade, got into movie reviews and told us how great the teacher-bashing picture "Won't Back Down" was.

Remember that travesty?

I do - and I like to remind people of it every time Frank Bruni writes some more nonsense about public education, public schools, teachers or Common Core.

I think it's important to remind people just how poor Frank's judgment is when it comes to what he writes about education, schools and teachers (as well as movies):

"Won't Back Down" Getting Savaged By Film Critics (UPDATED)

Frank Bruni loved the parent trigger propaganda piece "Won't Back Down, but movie critics for Salon, NPR and the Associated Press did not.

First, NPR's review:

 All cynicism aside, the movie taps a rich vein of accumulated public frustration at the continued failure of government to provide decent access to public schools for all American children. Aside from religion itself, no subject lends itself more to arm-waving entrenched positions than education. And perhaps a movie aimed at a mainstream audience can't help but distill the discussion into culture-war sound bites.

 For all its strenuous feints at fair play, though, Won't Back Down is something less honorable — a propaganda piece with blame on its mind. Directed with reasonable competence by Daniel Barnz from a speechifying screenplay he co-wrote with Brin Hill, the movie is funded by Walden Media, a company owned by conservative mogul Philip Anschutz, who advocates creationist curricula in schools. Walden also co-produced the controversial pro-charter school documentary Waiting for Superman, so the outfit is not without axes to grind.

...


In fact, it's nuance and reason that fall by the wayside amid the sloganeering rhetoric of Won't Back Down. Like most large institutions with interests to protect, the unions could use some reforms, especially when it comes to shielding bad teachers from scrutiny and discipline.
But if you were to wave a magic wand that replaced unions and bureaucrats with a rainbow coalition of local parents and educators coming together to create the kind of school they want, the result would be chaos, not to mention an end to the tattered remains of our common culture.
"We need to start somewhere," comes a stern, God-like voice in Won't Back Down, waving off all talk about the role of poverty and inequality in under-resourced schools and underachieving pupils. We do indeed. Just not here.

 Next, David Germain of the Associated Press pans the movie:

 Despite earnest performances from Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as a pair of moms leading the fight, "Won't Back Down" lives down to its bland, us-against-them title with a simple-minded assault on the ills of public schools that lumbers along like a math class droning multiplication tables.

Director and co-writer Daniel Barnz ("Beastly") made his feature debut with 2009's "Phoebe in Wonderland," an intimate story of a troubled girl aided by an unconventional teacher. Here, Barnz gets lost in red tape as "Won't Back Down" gives us the inside dope on the teacher's lounge, the union headquarters, the principal-teacher showdown, the hushed halls of the board of education.

Theaters should install glow-in-the-dark versions of those old clunking classroom clocks so viewers can count the agonizing minutes ticking by as they watch the movie.

 ...

 And it's the children who suffer in "Won't Back Down." Other than some token scenes involving Jamie and Nona's kids, the students are mere extras in a drama that spends most of its time prattling on about how the children are what matter most.

 And finally, saving the best for last, Andrew O'Hehir

So teachers’ unions don’t care about kids. Oh, and luck is a foxy lady. This is what I took away from the inept and bizarre “Won’t Back Down,” a set of right-wing anti-union talking points disguised (with very limited success) as a mainstream motion-picture-type product. Someone needs to launch an investigation into what combination of crimes, dares, alcoholic binges and lapses in judgment got Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal into this movie. Neither of them seems likely to sympathize with its thinly veiled labor-bashing agenda and, way more to the point, I thought they had better taste. Maybe it was that actor-y thing where they saw potential in their characters – a feisty, working-class single mom for Gyllenhaal, a sober middle-class schoolteacher for Davis – liked the idea of working together and didn’t think too much about the big picture.

Perhaps that was a mistake, because the big picture is that the movie is unbelievable crap and the whole project was financed by conservative Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz, also the moneybags behind the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” which handled a similar agenda in subtler fashion.

...

 “Won’t Back Down” was reportedly inspired by a California law that allows parent-teacher takeovers of failing schools under certain circumstances. Again, that sounds like a fascinating premise, albeit one that’s highly likely to go in unforeseen “Animal Farm” directions. But all we get here is the most blithe and moronic kind of “let’s put on a show” magical thinking, in which ripping up the union contract and wresting control of the school from the bureaucrats becomes an end in itself, and what happens later is shrouded in the mists of an imaginary libertarian paradise. There are attempts at Fox News-style balance here and there, as when someone observes that most charter schools fail to improve outcomes and when a bombastic union exec played by Ned Eisenberg delivers a monologue about the current assault on labor (right before announcing that he couldn’t care less about children).

...

 Most people still understand, I believe, that teachers work extremely hard for little pay and low social status in a thankless, no-win situation. But this is one of those areas where conservatives have been extremely successful in dividing the working class, which is precisely the agenda in “Won’t Back Down.” Breeding hostility to unions in themselves, and occasionally insinuating that unionized teachers are a protected caste of incompetents who get three damn months off every single year, has been an effective tactic in what we might call postmodern Republican populism, especially in recent battles over public employee contracts in Wisconsin and elsewhere. It works something like this: 1) Turn the resentment and frustration of people like Jamie – people with crappy service-sector jobs and few benefits, whose kids are stuck in failing schools – against the declining group of public employees who still have a decent deal. 2) Strip away job security and collective bargaining; hand out beer and ukuleles instead. 3) La la la la, tax cuts, tax cuts, I can’t hear you!

On the plus side for "Won't Back Down", NY Times food critic Frank Bruni loved the movie so much that he decided to devote an entire column to how much teachers unions and unionized teachers suck and how much better we would all be if teachers would just mindlessly accept whatever "reforms" the education reform movement wants to impose on schools.

That Bruni thought enough of "Won't Back Down" that he used it as a springboard for his teacher attack column makes you wonder what he was watching.

Maybe Bruni wasn't watching the same "Won't Back Down" as the critics for NPR, Salon, and the AP?

Maybe he was watching the video to Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down."

Or, more likely, Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More."

Hey, Frank, stay away from the magic mushrooms when you're writing about education, okay?

UPDATE - 3:01 PM: Critics from Variety, the Arizona Republic, the Hollywood Reporter and the Village Voice also think "Won't Back Down" sucks.

Maggie Anderson in the Voice writes:

The fat, lazy public school teacher who can’t be bothered to stop diddling with her phone or shopping for shoes online while her second-grade class erupts into mayhem in the opening scene of Won’t Back Down isn’t the most despicable entity in this tearjerker. That would be the union that protects her, the same malevolent force in Davis Guggenheim’s horribly argued pro-charter-school documentary from 2010, Waiting for Superman (both films were funded by Walden Media, led by a conservative billionaire).

...

 Viewed solely as maternal melodrama, Won’t Back Down succeeds; its actresses, as they spearhead the takeover and work through “personal demons,” rouse, rage, and rue admirably (though in Davis’s case, marveling at yet another fine performance doesn’t stop you from wishing that her first leading role was in a worthier vehicle). But there’s no prettying up the movie’s vilifying of teachers’ unions, which here resort to dirty tricks and smear campaigns—an easy enough scapegoat for the larger, more intractable economic problems also ignored in Guggenheim’s film and by most politicians of any stripe.

And David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter writes:

The jury is still out on a solution to the national education system crisis, but the verdict is delivered with a heavy hand and a stacked deck in the formulaic Won’t Back Down. Simplifying complex school-reform hurdles into tidy inspirational clichés while demonizing both teachers’ unions and bureaucracy-entrenched education boards, the movie addresses timely issues but eschews shading in favor of blunt black and white. It’s old-school Lifetime fodder dressed up in Hollywood trappings.

Peter Debruge of Variety writes that the film takes its audience "for dummies" by "grossly oversimplifying the issue at hand" while Barbara VanDenburgh of the Arizona Republic writes that

Oversimplified politics undermine the film at every turn. The shrill preachiness reaches a fever pitch by the film's climax, a schoolboard hearing that takes place under the watchful gazes of a muralized Abraham Lincoln and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and in which the deciding vote is cast by a man named -- what else? -- Mr. King, who monologues against a backdrop of the civil-rights leader to thunderous applause.

The movie doesn't just shriek its point to you through a megaphone -- it beats you over the head with it.

And it doesn't matter which side of the debate you land on; two hours of schmaltz mired in bloodless policy debate just doesn't make for good movie watching. Even if you stripped the film bare of political pretensions, you'd still be left with unabashed, hokey sentimentality where such feel-good adages as "Change the school, you change the neighborhood" are sprinkled on complex problems like so much fairy dust.

There's a real conversation to be had about the sorry state of the public-school system, but all this movie is going to trigger is a lot of screaming.

Looks like there will be no Oscar for the ed reform movement again this year.

They were dying to get an Oscar win for Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman," but not only did "Superman" not win an Oscar, it wasn't even nominated.

Judging by the reviews of the heavy-handed, badly written "Won't Back Down," the reform movement is going to have to hope the third time is a charm when it comes to winning an Oscar and promoting their message via pop culture.

Wonder what they'll try next?

An animated Disney education reform picture (Donald Duck can be the lazy, nasty, unionized teacher.)

Maybe an updated Boston Public mini-series that promotes privatization, charterization and high stakes testing?

Or maybe they can stop trying to fool people with propaganda and engage on the issues for real.

Improving the education system is not as easy as firing all the teachers, closing all the schools, and turning the entire public school system to charters.

The economic conditions that kids face at home matter when they come to school.

The movie critics get this.

Why can't the education reform community and the politicians?

Why can't President Obama?

That Bruni loved the teacher-bashing movie that all these critics savaged gives you some insight into how poor this dude's judgment is.

Given how bad his judgment is on public education, schools, teachers and movies, I wouldn't take his restaurant reviews at face value either.

That Bruni also was a guest at teacher-baser Campbell Brown's wedding to Dan Senor gives you some insight into why he wrote this teacher-bashing column just after Brown launched her anti-tenure lawsuit in New York State.

Bruni's got an anti-teacher ax to grind, facts (or taste) be damned.

Campbell Brown Uses A Paid Organizer Of StudentsFirstNY As The Face Of Her Tenure/Seniority Lawsuit

From the Daily News:

Seven families will file suit Monday to end teacher tenure in the fiercest attack yet on job protections enjoyed by New York State educators.

The families, including five from some of the most impoverished communities in the city, claim their children were underserved in school due to incompetent teachers who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate kids’ constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The lawsuit will be filed in Albany and is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate, Campbell Brown.

“There’s no reason why my kids should not be reading on grade level. The law should be changed,” said Nina Doster, 33, of South Ozone Park, Queens. The mother of five is a plaintiff in the suit and also a paid organizer for the StudentsFirstNY advocacy group.

“Every child should be subject to the best education and teaching in every classroom,” she said.

One of the plaintiffs is on the StudentsFirstNY payroll as an organizer?

Doesn't that set up at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in the case?

I mean, this parent is part of a lawsuit that is financially backed by the same financial interests that back StudentsFirstNY.

In any case, Brown's lawsuit here in New York is going to have a rougher road than the Vergara lawsuit in California.

But observers say it will take much more than just education horror stories to win the case.

Brown “has to prove inequity, inadequacy and causation — that the different legal constellation in New York causes the learning issues that we see throughout the state,” said David Bloomfield an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Are teacher tenure and seniority rules the reasons why Ms. Doster's kids are not reading on grade level?

And do teacher tenure and seniority rules lead to systemic problems around the state that cause learning issues like this?

That's what Brown and her cohort have to prove.

To my mind, that they're using a paid organizer for StudentsFirstNY as one of the faces of that lawsuit to prove that says a lot about the legitimacy of the lawsuit.

Ironically, the former head of StudentsFirstNY was Micah Lasher, Mayor Bloomberg's former liason in Albany.

So now what we have here is a woman who works for an organization that was led by Michah Lasher, a Bloomberg crony, suing over teacher tenure and seniority rules in the NYC school system that supposedly caused her children learning problems while Michael Bloomberg was running the system and Michah Lasher was pushing his agenda in Albany.

To make matters worse, we don't know who Campbell Brown's donors are and she refuses to reveal the list, but it is thought that the education reform-friendly Bloomberg may have donated to her cause, as he has donated to StudentsFirst, the parent group of StudentsFirstNY in the past.

I dunno, I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me there are all kinds of conflict of interest problems with that part of the suit.

Michael Rebell On The Irony Of Campbell Brown

From State of Politics:

Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.

...

Rebell was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, which successfully maintained that New York was shortchanging New York City public school kids when it came to providing enough funding to assure their constitutional right to a sound, basic education.
Now, Rebell is suing the state yet again over inequity in education funding – this time as executive director of a new organization called the Campaign for Educational Equity.

Former CNN anchor-turned-education reform activist Campbell Brown recently announced that her organization is providing support to six families in New York who plan to challenge teacher tenure laws in court.

Rebell said he finds it ironic that Brown and others – many of whom have accused judges of “activism” when they rule in favor of fiscal equity cases – are now involved in lawsuits that ask the court to be “much more involved in educational policy than I have ever asked for.”

Brown and her ilk care nothing for the children in public schools.

They care only about busting the teachers union and making teaching into a right to work profession.

Why Won't Campbell Brown Reveal The Donor List To Her Education Reform Advocacy Group?

From David Callahan at Inside Philanthropy:

When queried by a reporter for Politico, Brown declined to name the donors to the advocacy group she's started, the Partnership for Educational Justice, except to say that they come from both political parties.

Carl Korn, a spokesperson for New York State United Teachers, told Politico that PEJ was an "astroturf" group funded by right-wing “extremists," and added that "Campbell Brown ought to disclose her donors who are funding this attack on working people and the rights of teachers... We will vigorously defend due process and seniority rights against these attacks by billionaire hedge fund managers.”

It could literally be years before we know where PEJ's money is coming from. Or perhaps never, given that nonprofits don't have to disclose their funders and there's also no requirement for individuals to publicly disclose where they donate funds, assuming they don't channel those gifts through a foundation.

In all likelihood, though, the donors behind PEJ—which, by the way, has only four staff, including Brown, and has recruited a pro bono legal team—are the usual suspects. It will be the same donors who give money to pro-charter and ed reform groups, particularly those with a big presence in New York: Teach for America, Achievement First, the New Teacher Project, and so on. (Reshma Singh, the executive director of PEJ, previously worked for both Teach for America and Achievement First.) 

What's Brown hiding that she refuses to reveal the donor list?

Fox 5 Reporter Sentenced To 26 Years In Prison For Child Molestation

But Charles Leaf, the former Fox 5 reporter sentenced to 26 years in prison for child molestation and child porn, continues to deny the charges:

The former television reporter convicted of molesting a 4-year-old girl defiantly maintained his innocence for nearly half an hour in a packed courtroom before a judge sentenced him to 26 years in prison on Friday.

“I can’t stand before you and say I’m sorry for something I didn’t do,” the journalist, Charles Leaf, handcuffed and wearing an orange inmate’s jump suit, told Superior Court Judge James J. Guida in Hackensack. “Those who prey upon children are the worst kind of criminals. I am not one of them,” he declared “I am innocent, 100 percent innocent.”

Leaf, the son of a police officer, steadfastly maintained that he never abused the girl — who recanted the story of abuse that she told her baby sitter and then authorities in 2010. He accused state child-protection workers of conducting a witch hunt against him and destroying his family because his wife stood by him. Leaf, who lived in Wyckoff until his conviction, has two children.

Anyone can be falsely accused and then encounter so much “prejudice and scorn” that it will ruin his life and the lives of those around him, he said.

Glancing at handwritten notes and sometimes tearing up as he spoke, Leaf said he had passed a polygraph exam and a psychosexual evaluation administered by a leader in the field.

“I have led a life of honor, integrity, courage and commitment,” he declared, referring to his military service in the U.S. Marines. And as an investigative reporter at Fox News 5, he said, his job was to hold the powerful accountable.

A jury found Leaf guilty in February of eight charges, including aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, child endangerment, hindering apprehension by intimidating the victim, possession of child pornography on a computer and evidence tampering for destroying a hard drive. He was convicted of touching the girl’s private parts and instructing her to touch him in a sexual manner. He also warned her not to tell anyone, but the girl told her baby sitter in October 2010, leading to Leaf’s arrest, the prosecution said.

 The prosecution also called an expert who testified about the pressure some children undergo that leads them to recant testimony about crimes in some circumstances. The victim’s identity is being withheld by The Record because she is a minor.

Testifying in his own defense, Leaf vigorously denied the charges. The girl, now 8, recanted her story and testified that Leaf never touched her in a sexual manner. Leaf’s father-in-law also testified, saying he had downloaded and watched child pornography on a family computer in Leaf’s home.

Leaf can maintain his innocence and claim he has led a "life of honor and integrity," but the record shows otherwise.

First, a family member in the past had accused him of sexual misconduct:

A sister of troubled Fox 5 reporter Charles Leaf says the Emmy-award winning newsman has molested young girls before.

Susan Gaudet told the Daily News her younger brother, busted Thursday on sex assault charges, abused two of his relatives in the 1980s.

"I'd like to see them put him away for the rest of his life," fumed Gaudet, one of Leaf's three sisters, from Jacksonville, N.C. "I am so full of rage. If I had the opportunity to spit in his face and hurt him, I would do it."

Leaf, 40, was charged this week with molesting a 4-year-old girl inside his Wyckoff, N.J., home. The married father of two is being held at Bergen County Jail on $250,000 bail.

It was 25 years ago when Gaudet found out Leaf abused two young female relatives multiple times at their grandparents' home in Trucksville, Pa.

The abuse started when Leaf was just 9years old and his first victim was 3, Gaudet said.
Over the next six years, Leaf repeatedly molested the girl and her sister, who is two years younger, said Gaudet, 53.

Leaf was eventually confronted, and he immediately confessed to the sordid acts, Gaudet said.

"He said, 'Mom, I did it,'" Gaudet recalled. "Just like that. And he's never denied it. He probably wanted help, but he never got it."

Leaf was never prosecuted, Gaudet said. The incident divided the family, but Leaf's sister started talking to him again in recent years.

She remained concerned that he might molest another young girl.

"He continually reassured me we had nothing to worry about," said Gaudet, a mother of two. "I kind of resolved myself to the fact that this was something in the past, but now we know it wasn't."

Gaudet said she revealed her brother's dark past to his wife, Monika, for the first time on Friday. The couple has a 7-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter.

"She said, 'I don't know what to believe. I don't know what to do,'" Gaudet recounted.

In recent years, Leaf, an ex-Marine who has won two Emmy Awards, battled depression and often threatened suicide, his sister said.

"He's tormented," Gaudet said. "Little did we know how tormented he really was."

Leaf had a reputation as a bully and a liar when he worked for FOX News - this is a piece describing Leaf's reporting style that was written one month before he was arrested on molestation charges in October 2010:

Fox News has launched the careers of some of the most ignorant, unethical, anti-journalists, ever to fondle a microphone. Some have had great success like Glenn Beck. Others have disappeared into media black holes likes Jesse Watters.

Following in the footsteps of Watters is a reporter for the Fox affiliate in New York (WNYW), Charles Leaf. With an obnoxious bearing and a devotion to dishonesty, Leaf has been falling all over himself to fabricate a story where none exists. It’s no wonder that he has found himself promoted to numerous segments on the Fox News Channel. He has been featured with Fox & Friends and Greta Van Susteren. And Megyn Kelly has virtually adopted him and moved him into her den.

The story Leaf has been investigating is related to the controversial non-mosque that is not at ground zero. His premise is that persons associated with the project are either corrupt or connected to terrorists. However, his reports haven’t even provided enough evidence to start a rumor.

First Leaf conducted an ambush interview on real estate developer, Sharif El-Gamal, that yielded nothing to support his contention that El-Gamal was corrupt. Leaf merely insinuated that something must be wrong because El-Gamal was a waiter eight years prior to investing in the Park51 project. The implication being that anyone who starts a small business, works hard for nearly a decade, and achieves success, is deserving of suspicion.

Then Leaf turned his focus to investor Hisham Elzanaty. Again, Leaf ambushed Elzanaty without acquiring any usable information. The only purpose for Leaf’s ambushes is to suggest something sinister when the target declines to talk to him. To that end Leaf made wild accusations about Elzanaty’s contribution to a Muslim charity. As it turns out, the charity, the Holy Land Foundation, was later investigated for ties to Hamas. But that wasn’t until two years after Elzanaty’s donation, and the feds acknowledged that contributors would not have known about the organization’s relationship with Hamas as it was deliberately concealed.

Both of these reports failed completely to produce evidence of any wrongdoing. They were exercises in insipidness and their only purpose was to insinuate and intimidate. They were utterly unprofessional and potentially libelous. Yet Leaf exalted himself as if he had exposed Watergate. And Fox News (particularly Megyn Kelly) went along by broadcasting Leaf’s empty innuendos and affirming the unsupported conclusions.

The most recent edition of this phony story shows Leaf continuing to ambush unsuspecting figures with highly-charged questions that have no basis in fact. In a new segment broadcast on Fox News by Megyn Kelly, Leaf approached both New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand at separate events and asked a loaded question to the effect of: Do you still support the right to build the mosque now that you know it’s developer contributed to a terrorist organization?

What a dishonest piece of tabloid excrement Leaf is. First of all, neither Bloomberg nor Gillibrand “knew” of the allegations prior to Leaf making them. And there was certainly no reason to take his word for it based on his shoddy reputation. Secondly, Leaf outright lied by asserting that Elzanaty contributed to a terrorist organization. The HLF was a credentialed charity at the time of the donation and there is no evidence that he had any knowledge of any untoward activities. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary.

Charles Leaf is on the fast track to Fox News stardom. He is demonstrating the skill set so admired by Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, its executive masters: dishonesty, partisanship, sensationalism, and aggression. He has a gift for innuendo and for advancing false premises. He expertly exploits the ignorance of his audience who are not likely to research the subject matter themselves. And he will barge into any affair and assert his bogus inquisitions without embarrassment.

Yes, Charles Leaf will go far in that environment. And we need to be aware of him as he climbs the Fox ladder of propaganda. We need to watch as this slimeball advances to the mothership and spreads his brand of sophistry and deceit. He is the embodiment of the Fox ethic and the quintessential Fox blowhard. Remember his name.

Update: Megyn Kelly hosted Charles Leaf again today, even though he had nothing new to add. He just repeated his slanderous accusation that Elzanaty had contributed to a terrorist organization. Leaf is an irredeemable liar, and Kelly is his enabler.

Before Leaf got to Fox 5, when he was working at a smaller affiliate in the south, he was accused of assaulting a councilwoman in Alabama and getting into a fight with his cameraman:

Earlier in his career, Leaf was a reporter in Mobile, Ala., for WPMI, where he became known for his “in-your-face” style, according to the Mobile Register.

In 1999, he left the station abruptly following a well publicized incident with a local councilwoman, who sued him for allegedly assaulting her while attempting to interview her for a story, according to the newspaper.

The suit claimed he slammed a car door on her arms and legs as she tried to get into a car and leave. No criminal charges were filed, and Leaf called the suit “baseless,” the paper reported.

A year earlier, police responded to the television station to investigate a reported fight between Leaf and a cameraman. Again, no criminal charges were filed, and Leaf said the incident was blown out of proportion, according to the paper.

There's your "life of honor and integrity," Mr. Leaf.

The only question I have about all of this is, why isn't Campbell Brown screaming about the Leaf case and wondering aloud how many other Fox News employees are pedophiles?