Carmen Farina Should Be Honored To Be Criticized By A Criminal Like Jack Welch

The NY Post reports that former General Electric CEO Jack Welch criticized Chancellor Farina for hiring superintendents from "failing schools":

Former GE chief Jack Welch lit into Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s management skills on Monday, questioning why she hired superintendents who had run struggling schools.

“She just appointed 15 superintendents — seven from failing schools, five from disasters, 10 percent passing tests, et cetera — as superintendents,” Welch said on CNBC.

“When you have a philosophy of putting people in place without a meritocracy, without differentiation, you get bad performance.”

Welch argued that major corporations would never promote “flunkies” and “hacks” the way the Department of Education did.

“You couldn’t run CNBC, you couldn’t run GE, you couldn’t run Apple, you couldn’t run Google, you couldn’t run any company if you took of your 15 appointments of division managers and made them flunkies, hacks, and stuck them in the schools,” Welch said.

“[In] that system of no meritocracy, of no differentiation, we’re all equal, you don’t get performance. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it.”

We're going to get to a personal critique of Welch in a minute, so hang on tight.

Before we do, let's deal with Welch's assertion that there's a meritocracy in business.

Because there isn't.

What there often is in business is an old boy's network that rewards people - mostly arrogant white men like Welch - over everybody else.

Take a look at the guys at the top of nearly every major company, look at their boards - see many women there?

See many people of color?

Can't be a true meritocracy when all you see are white men everywhere, with a very few brown and black men thrown in to keep the whole thing from looking like a Klan meeting.

The gender disparity in business is quite striking, since women are more than half of the population and have been training for top positions for decades now, as this factsheet by the Center For American Progress shows:

Women make up a majority of the U.S. population

Women are 50.8 percent of the U.S. population.

• They earn almost 60 percent of undergraduate degrees, and 60 percent of all master’s degrees.
• They earn 47 percent of all law degrees, and 48 percent of all medical degrees.
• They earn more than 44 percent of master’s degrees in business and management, including 37 percent of MBAs.
• They are 47 percent of the U.S. labor force, and 59 percent of the college-educated, entry-level workforce.

And yet…

Although they hold almost 52 percent of all professional-level jobs, American women lag substantially behind men when it comes to their representation in leadership positions:

• They are only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners, and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.
• They hold just 16.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats.
• In the financial services industry, they make up 54.2 percent of the labor force, but are only 12.4 percent of executive officers, and 18.3 percent of board directors. None are CEOs.
• They account for 78.4 percent of the labor force in health care and social assistance but only 14.6 percent of executive officers and 12.4 percent of board directors. None, again, are CEOs.
• In the legal field, they are 45.4 percent of associates—but only 25 percent of nonequity partners and 15 percent of equity partners.
• In medicine, they comprise 34.3 percent of all physicians and surgeons but only 15.9 percent of medical school deans.
• In information technology, they hold only 9 percent of management positions and account for only 14 percent of senior management positions at Silicon Valley startups.

Furthermore…

• Although women control 80 percent of consumer spending in the United States, they are only 3 percent of creative directors in advertising.
• Their image onscreen is still created, overwhelmingly, by men.
• Women accounted for just 16 percent of all the directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors who worked on the top-grossing 250 domestic films of 2013, and were just 28 percent of all offscreen talent on broadcast television programs during the 2012-13 primetime season.

Further putting a dent in Welch's "businesses are meritocratic unlike schools under Farina" assertion is the history of how the collapse of '08 came about.

A lot of it was brought about by arrogant white men, with a token man of color or two - and a lot of these guys were known to be not too bright before the whole mess came down.

Like Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch, who brought about the financial collapse of the firm and his replacement, John Thain, who spent $1 million remodeling his office with federal bailout money.

Or Jimmy Cayne at Bear Stearns, who famously played bridge and smoked dope as his firm collapsed. 

Or Chuck Prince at Citibank, who claimed his firm was "still dancing" even as its risky loans and bad bets were taking it to the brink of collapse.

The Peter Principle certainly seemed at work with these guys. 

Lots of inept guys are running or have run companies not associated with the '08 financial collapse of the country.

Let's look at just one - Eddie Lampert, the Ayn Rand fan, who has nearly destroyed Sears by trying to run the company the way Ayn Rand would.

Here's his record:

• Sears has amassed a mountain of debt; its debt to equity ratio was 8.406% in July 2014.
• Sears’ TTM revenue fell by $3.68 billion between July 2013 and July 2014.
• Sears CEO Eddie Lampert is trying to protect the chain’s real estate assets by transferring them to a REIT.
• Sears is closing stores so fast that observers are having a hard time keeping count.
• Sears is actually planning to close dozens of stores during the critical holiday shopping season. 

How's that for meritocratic?

Lampert's still making calls on Sears even though he has brought the once-proud company to near collapse by bad call after bad call.

OK so the "Business Is Meritocratic" argument Welch uses is obviously untrue.

Now let's deal with Jack Welch the man.

Because that matter's too.

This is a guy whose company knowingly polluted the Hudson River for decades.

Welch did the best he could to a) hide his company's actions b) shield his company from having to clean up the mess it made and c) claim PCB's aren't a health hazard or cancer-causing, citing jive studies from 30 years that were rigged to give GE the results it wanted.

The Times-Union published a piece on General Electric, PCB's and Welch back in March - it is unflinching in its depiction of Welch as a apologist for GE:

For years, as it fought against being forced to clean up the Hudson River, General Electric Co. argued that an oil-like insulating fluid that had seeped into the river from its Washington County capacitor plants wasn't harmful to humans.

Besides, GE officials said, the river was cleaning itself.

Yet newly uncovered documents reveal that as early as the 1960s — decades before the government ordered GE to undertake the river dredging that is scheduled to resume this spring — company officials were warned of the potential serious health threats of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which their engineers described in confidential memos as "hazardous waste."

The documents also indicate that GE flushed far more PCBs into the river than government regulators have estimated, and that nearly a million pounds a year of additional PCBs were carted away by scavenger crews, dumped with an attitude characterized by a GE engineer in 1970 as "out of sight, out of mind."

...

Jack Welch also doesn't believe PCBs have harmful health effects, despite scientific evidence that they may. Much of his position on that, he said, comes from studies that GE commissioned as early as 1976, in which the health trends of its factory workers were studied by scientists.

Last spring, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which first warned of PCBs' adverse health effects in 1978, declared that certain PCBs, including the type flushed into the river by GE, "have reproductive, toxic, and carcinogenic consequences." The EPA, based on past practice, is expected to adopt that finding once the World Health Organization adopts it.

"EPA," Welch scoffed, waving his hand dismissively during his deposition last year. "I was completely satisfied as to the safety of PCBs. In my time I studied it. I looked at it. I made my judgment and I was completely satisfied. ... I haven't seen any PCB studies that convince me there was another side to it."

But the studies that Welch cites have drawn scientists' questions. In one study commissioned by GE, scientists examined the health patterns of workers at the Washington County capacitor plants and determined that they had a lower rate of cancer than the general population.

"It followed people for only five years ... (and) included all the secretaries, all the people that weren't anywhere near where the PCBs were," said Dr. David O. Carpenter, who has studied PCBs for decades.

"The point about those studies is they were included in the review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, along with all of the other studies, many of them occupational, and they were found to be unconvincing," said Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany. "The issue is that in addition to cancer, we now have such strong evidence that PCBs alter a large number of other organ systems. PCBs affect the brain and reduce learning ability. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in children exposed to PCBs, often exposed even before birth where they get PCBs from their mother's body and from breast milk."

Learning and memory functions also diminish for adults exposed to PCBs, Carpenter said. He added that some scientists suspect PCBs cause adverse effects to the thyroid glands and health risks that include diabetes, high blood pressure and effects on human reproductive systems.

"PCBs are very dangerous chemicals and anybody that says they are not dangerous simply is not telling the truth, or just does not know what studies have been done," Carpenter said.

Ah, but not to Jack Welch they're not.

And he's studied this issue, so he assures us we should take him at his word, even though the study he cites to back up his claim was rigged by limiting the length of it and by putting people who were nowhere near the PCB's into it.

Jack Welch is quite literally one of the most evil men on the planet.

His company polluted the Hudson for decades with PCB's, but in order to save his company money, he argues PCB's aren't harmful despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, then cites a rigged study to back up his claims.

Who the hell cares about anything a criminal like this says about anything?

How many cancers, how many deaths is the guy responsible for because he refused to take responsibility for the damage his company did to the river?

I'm not here to defend Farina and her choice of superintendents.

I am here to call Welch out for his horseshit.

His "Business Is Meritocratic" argument is horseshit and any rudimentary look at the quality and track records of some of the people running businesses show that.

On top of that, Welch's own track record places him squarely as one of the worst human beings on the planet.

Quite frankly, Farina should consider it an honor to be criticized by someone like Welch.

NYCDOE Continues To Poison Students, Staff With PCB's In City Schools

Once again, it becomes apparent that the Children First. Always people care nothing about children:

Despite vowing to speed up the process of replacing light fixtures containing dangerous chemicals in city schools, the Education Department does not follow its own protocols to alert parents and quickly remove toxic PCBs, according to emails obtained by the Daily News.

The exchanges between staffers from the DOE and Environmental Protection Agency show that defective light fixtures are still leaking in city schools — and replacement of the faulty fixtures at some were not handled properly.

...

  

At Public School 253 in Brighton Beach, several fixtures did not work in the auditorium this year. School staff discovered one of the lights had leaked toxic liquid in the auditorium in August.

“The custodian did not follow procedures for reporting it or cleaning it,” EPA employee John Gorman wrote in March to his colleagues. “They are removing all of the fixtures in the auditorium tonight and will collect a wipe sample from the floor.”

At P.S. 186 in Bensonhurst, there were five smoking ballasts recorded from March to May, Gorman noted to his colleagues in another email.

In a letter sent to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott in February regarding more toxins at P.S. 50 in Staten Island, EPA regional administrator Judith Enck called out the DOE for taking 10 days to alert families of smoke emanating from fixtures.

“The students were not immediately removed from the classroom,” Enck wrote. “I am concerned about the DOE’s response to the situation.”

And what was the DOE's response?

 

Why, a jive-ass p.r. statement from Marge Feinberg, of course!

 

“The DOE continues to work with EPA on improving protocols and developing a citywide PCB management plan,” said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. “As the lighting replacement project progresses, DOE is keeping EPA abreast of ongoing work.”

They don't care about the children in the public school system at all.

Seriously, not at all.

If they did, they would have sped up the removal of the PCB's from the light fixtures in all of the schools instead of fighting the case brought against them and trying to delay the removal as long as possible.

And if money was such a problem, then they could have dumped a few Common Core consultants or testing contracts and put that money to the PCB removal.

But Bloomberg would never do that because he doesn't care about these children (or the staff) at all.

 

Remember, they did this with mold testing and removal after Sandy too.

 

Bloomberg and his Tweedies love spending money on all kinds of testing except for environmental testing of schools to ensure their safety.

Isn't it time that we call him and his Tweedies on their Children First. Always jive once and for all?

NYCDOE's Marge Feinberg: We Can't Afford To Remove PCB's From Schools Because We Spent The Money On Smartboards

Oh, yes - that's what she said:

A South Bronx charter school founded by a former city councilwoman replaced its city-issued toxic lighting fixtures by itself — rather than waiting for a Department of Education retrofit for the public schools in the same building this summer, the Daily News has learned.

The Bronx Success Academy, founded by Eva Moskowitz, spent its own money to replace the lights — which are leaking with cancer-causing chemicals — while two other schools in the same Morris Ave. building have to wait.

“I think it’s terrible,” Dean Gross, a science teacher at M.S. 203, which shares space with the charter school, Bronx Academy of Letters and P.S. 168.

Gross said he’s forced to teach students in a windowless classroom with a poor ventilation system and no air conditioner — and lighting fixtures that leak polychlorinated biphenyls, which are linked to cancer, reproductive and neurological problems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Our kids in the building have so many issues to begin with,” Gross added. “We’re the number one asthma district in the country. This does not help. The teachers are dragging. They’ve got headaches and stomach pains.”

Union health and safety officials are to meet with the city Tuesday to discuss how Success Charter Network removed the tainted lighting fixtures.

The Bronx Academy of Letters, one of four schools in the building, had its lights replaced last summer as part of a classroom redesign, according to the city.

Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the building’s remaining tainted lights would be switched out this summer. Feinberg added the city spent more than $1.7 million upgrading the three public schools.

“The funding was spent on Smartboards, bathroom upgrades, laptop carts, drinking fountains, reconfiguring classroom space for Bronx Academy of Letters, and new classroom doors,” Feinberg said.

I'm going to leave aside the issue of unequal treatment between the Eva charter and the public schools in the same building for now.

Let's just focus on what NYCDOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg said about this PCB mess.

Let me repeat what she said here:

"We couldn't get the cancer-causing PCB's out of these schools, the ones dripping on people's heads and making them sick, because we spent all the money on Smartboards and laptop carts.  But don't worry - we'll get those PCB's removed this summer as soon as the new budget money kicks in!"

Marge Feinberg - quite literally one of the worst people in the world.

Can you imagine the lack of morality, empathy and humanity it takes to say the stupid crap she says?

Bloomberg: Butter Is Bad For Kids, PCB's Are Okay

From a comment by I noticed that...

In Bloomberg's world, Children First to get carcinogenic exposure!

Ironic, he bans sugar-laden sodas from the in-school vending machines, fights about the Big Gulp drinks, and he's on a new war against butter. But, PCB lighting fixtures in schools can wait for removal. I think his billions are keeping him in the dark when it comes to children's safety and welfare.

Bloomberg's been fighting the PCB removal for years and years.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a press corp that could, you know, make this connection between the PCB's and the butter ban and ask Bloomberg to his face just why butter is unhealthy for kids but PCB's aren't?

Juan Gonzalez: Years Of Lies And Delays From Bloomberg Over PCB's In Schools Laid Bare This Week

The Children First mayor has been saying it will take 10 years to get the light fixtures with the PCB's in them out of the schools:

A fluorescent light suddenly exploded Tuesday morning in Room 316 at Intermediate School 123 in Harlem.

Fumes from the failed classroom fixture laden with toxic PCB fluid spread so quickly the entire school had to be temporarily evacuated. Nine pupils and two teachers were treated at a nearby hospital for asthma attacks and severe coughing.

“We had the same thing happen a month ago in Room 216, though it wasn’t as bad as this one,” Hope Scott, president of the school’s Parents Association, said.

Then late Thursday, Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said: “Today a smell was emitted from a fixture on the second floor. It will be removed tonight and the room will be ventilated.”

These three incidents in just one Harlem school have finally laid bare years of lies and delays from the Bloomberg administration over the huge problem of PCB-laden lights in our public schools.

Just six weeks ago, a Brooklyn federal judge blasted the Department of Education for flouting the City Council, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and previous court orders that have urged faster action in removing PCB ballasts from public schools.

Until this week, the city kept insisting it needed 10 years to replace more than half a million lighting fixtures that contain the dangerous substance.

But in response to a lawsuit filed by New York Communities for Change challenging that 10-year plan, U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson labeled the city’s reasoning “spurious.”

Johnson’s decision virtually predicted the harrowing incidents at IS 123 and other schools .

Since the federal government banned the use of PCBs in 1979, any such fixtures in city schools are now more than 32 years old — twice their useful life.

“As they age, the failure rate . . . increases dramatically,” Johnson noted, and he ordered the city to stop “foot-dragging” and mediate a settlement with the plaintiffs.

Other leaders have offered concrete plans. City Controller John Liu has proposed a bond issue that would more than pay for itself through energy savings.

Meanwhile, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) has questioned why in some buildings a charter school’s lighting fixtures have been replaced but not those of the co-located public school.

Until this week, Mayor Bloomberg ignored everyone.

Then some students and teachers in Harlem ended up in the hospital. So Wednesday evening, only hours after Rosenthal called for a news conference outside IS 123, Bloomberg’s people suddenly announced the city is speeding up the removal of PCBs fixtures. But given their outrageous record on this issue, let’s see their plan.

These people in the Bloomberg administration are liars and criminals who do not care at all about the children in their care.

If they did, they would not send children to schools in these conditions.

Daily News: City School Buildings Little Better Than Slums

The Children First mayor runs a hell of a school system:

Broken toilets, faulty elevators and leaky ceilings — some city public schools are practically slums, according to an analysis of building inspections the school cleaners union released Tuesday.

The report by the Service Employees International Union Local 32 tallied scores from the city’s annual inspections of about 1,500 public schools to create a list of the worst offenders. Most had at least one outstanding violation.

Local 32 President Hector Figueroa said he was “surprised at the level of neglect and indifference” in many school buildings, as revealed by the city’s own inspections.

“When you have doors that don’t work, the presence of PCBs, windows that don’t shut and toilets in disrepair, you risk the health of our children,” Figueroa said. “You disrupt the daily routines that are necessary for learning.”

The union’s data on decay in public school buildings came from city inspections conducted in 2011 and 2012.

Inspectors who conducted the ongoing school visits checked school facilities for maintenance issues and cleanliness and spoke with staffers about any problems.

 PS 178 St. Clair Mckelway in Brooklyn has 20 open building violations for serious problems like broken doors that won’t shut, defective windows in the gym, and water leaking through the roof and damaging rooms below.

At Brooklyn Technical High School, Principal Randy Asher told inspectors in January 2012 that the school had “frequent elevator breakdowns” and “the basement floods frequently.” 

Tech ranked No. 11 on the union’s list of troubled buildings.

At Public School 151 in Brooklyn, which ranked No. 9 on the union’s list, Principal Maria Anaya told inspectors in December 2011 that the “toilets are in need of an upgrade” and “water sits in big puddles in the drain in the schoolyard.”

And at Junior High School 72 in Queens, building problems booted Principal Chrystal Brown out of her office, Brown told inspectors in December 2011.

After the removal of the burned-out lighting ballasts in the principal’s office, the room still cannot be used due to a severe odor,” stated the report, which also noted “extensive leaks in several classrooms and the gym.”

Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said the city is spending more than $3 billion on building improvements under its four-year capital plan from 2010-14

“Any serious maintenance-related complaints are addressed immediately,” said Feinberg.

“Non-critical complaints are prioritized with the repair work for the building.”

But Richmond Hill High School teacher Charles DiBenedetto said the Queens school has been waiting for repairs to the electrical system for months.

“We have to shut the lights off in one room in order to operate the microwave — otherwise, we blow a fuse,” said DiBenedetto. “We have outlets that don’t work.”

I have long asked how somebody who says he puts "Children First" could let students attend such broken-down buildings full of toxins and filth?

Why doesn't somebody in the press ask him this the next time he's iving a press conference?

Hey, mayor, the DN reported your school buildings are slums and you're a slum lord.  What do you have to say about that?

Judge Slams DOE For Making "Spurious Arguments" And "Illogical Claims" In Move To Have PCB Lawsuit Dismissed

The Children First people want to delay taking cancer-causing PCB's out of the school system for as long as possible.

You see, spending money to remove PCB's that are present inside classroom light fixtures takes away precious resources that could be used for standardized testing, data systems to track the scores from those tests, and computer and software consultants to run the tests and the data tracking systems.

Parents sued to get Bloomberg and the DOE to move the timeline on the PCB removal up.

The city wanted that lawsuit dismissed, but a judge ruled it will go forward - and slammed the city for making "spurious arguments" and "illogical" claims in his decision:

A judge has rejected the city's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by parents trying to speed up the effort to get polychlorinated biphenyls removed from schools.

As many as 800 city schools have been found to have PCBs in lights or insulation installed before 1979.

The New York City Department of Education gave itself 10 years to remove them from schools, but parents and public interest lawyers sought to expedite the removal, saying the long timeline endangers children.

Parents protested last year about the toxins.

"There have been leaks at our school we have found little droplets under chairs," said Daniella Liebling, whose son attends the Brooklyn New School.

City lawyers tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, but Judge Sterling Johnson said their claims were "illogical" and accused them of dragging their feet.

“With the cognitive development of children at stake, it would have been refreshing to see humanitarian concerns trump the compulsion to delay litigation with quite so many spurious arguments," Johnson wrote in his decision. "But some dreams remain deferred."

"Judge Sterling Johnson actually quotes Langston Hughes," said Christina Giorgio of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. "He makes numerous references to the fact that parents really are entitled to have answers from the city, and that PCBs are toxic. Their impacts are well known, and what the city is doing with regard to insisting on this 10-year plan is simply irresponsible."

In response, New York City Corporate Council said it disagreed with the ruling, stressing that nothing is more important than the health of the city's children.

The Department of Education said that fixtures have been fixed in 92 buildings, with work planned for another 97 buildings this summer.

PCBs were banned in 1979, and exposure can affect the immune and nervous systems.

Liebling says the city told her that her son's school is on the fast track for repairs within five years but is hoping more will be done even sooner.

Indeed, it would be nice if the Children First people actually were true to their word and put the health of the children over the dither and delay, but that would be asking too much.

You see, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott do not care about your children at all.

They care about the politics around the schools, privatizing the system, busting the teachers union, firing unionized teachers and school choice.

But kids having safe schools to attend?

That they don't care about.

Judge Sterling Johnson called the Children First people out on this in his decision.

It's refreshing to see that kind of honesty from the judge, calling Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE on their hypocrisy and their horsehockey.

Parents Accuse DOE Of Lying, Covering Up PCB Problems

From DNAinfo:

UPPER WEST SIDE — PCB leaked in another two Upper West Side schools in the past two months, education officials said — adding to a growing list of affected schools and concern among parents.

P.S. 242, the Young Diplomats Magnet Academy on West 120th Street, had leaks of the carcinogenic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl last month, according to the Department of Education.

P.S. 185, The Early Childhood Discovery and Design Magnet School on West 112th Street, had a leak in early March, the DOE said.

The reaction of parents?

The recent incidents add to a brewing distrust in the district, particularly at P.S. 242. 

Parent Angela Jenkins has taken her second grade daughter out of school for the remainder of the year and is homeschooling her after the PCB leak convinced her the school was unsafe, she said.

"I don’t trust the DOE with my daughter. There’s so much lying and cover-up," said Jenkins, adding the school was evasive about the leak and its remediation plan. "I have to really ask my self, 'Do I want to send my daughter there?'"

And why isn't the DOE doing more air testing, taking additional safety precautions?

Why cost, of course:

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal is working on a bill that would force the DOE to speed up the remediation timeline.

“Once again, lighting ballasts leak PCBs in schools and the Department of Education recklessly dithers...The DOE must stop making parents choose between their children’s health and their education. I renew my demand that the City remove all toxic PCB lighting ballasts from classrooms immediately,” Rosenthal said.

The DOE does not conduct air quality testing after a PCB leak, which is one way to ensure chemicals aren't leaching into the air, said District 3 Superintendent Ilene Altschul. The United Federation of Teachers, however, performed air quality testing at P.S. 242, Altschul said.

Air testing is "incredibly expensive and it requires a space be completely shut down," said Community Education Council member Michelle Ciulla Lipkin of testing. "It’s a very cumbersome process.

"It’s absurd that we’re not doing more air testing," she added, "but it’s a much more expensive proposition." 

It seems Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are only in favor of standardized testing.

 

When it comes to testing the air in a school for safety, whether from PCB's or mold, Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are MIA.

You can bet the DOE has not divulged full information on these leaks even as they claim that they put "Children First".

At least the UFT has helped conducted some air testing to ensure safety.

But the UFT shouldn't have to conduct the testing.

That is Bloomberg's and Walcott's job.

How many children come down with cancer in the future because these two callous men refuse to make the schools safe for children, refuse to test schools when there have been leaks and other safety issues, have delayed as long as they could on fixing the leaking lights?

Parents Protest DOE's Failure To Inform Them About PCB's At PS 87

From NY1:

Parents are planning to protest at a Manhattan elementary school after finding out that hazardous toxins were found there months ago.

A group of parents at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side said that a smoking light fixture emitting PCBs was discovered in early December but wasn't replaced until almost three weeks later.

They also said they didn't know about the leak until P.S. 87 appeared on a PCB remediation list published by NY1 last week.

The group said they received a notice Wednesday, almost three months after the leak was discovered.
City law requires that parents be notified within seven days.

PCB leaks have been discovered in more then 300 schools across the city.

In a statement, the city said it has been open about the whole process.

A rally will be held after school on Friday.

The NYCDOE motto - Children first.  Always.

Just ignore the cancer-causing toxins those children the DOE puts first are breathing in.

Which is easy to do since the DOE never actually informs you that your child is attending a school with cancer-causing toxins in it for months and months and months (and even then, only when caught!)

PCB Leaks In 366 NYCDOE Schools

From Lindsey Crist at NY1:

Last March, NY1 reported that leaks had been found in 245 city schools that share 149 buildings. Eleven months later, 366 schools, in 207 buildings, have reported PCB leaks.

In addition, the leaks are happening much faster than the old fixtures are being replaced. While 20 school buildings have had all their light fixtures replaced since last March, 78 other buildings have reported their first leak.

 One parent, Suzy Constantine, is so worried about the effects of PCBs that she pulled her 7-year-old son out of P.S. 242 and is home schooling him. "I believe parents should be proactive with their children's lives," Constantine said.

 New York Lawyers for Public Interest are representing parents in an ongoing lawsuit against the city, challenging the speed that PCBs are being removed. They said that the 10-year plan is too long.

Across the city, 92 school buildings have had all of their PCB fixtures replaced since July 2011. That leaves 647 buildings still to go.

Children first.  Always.

Casey Blames Bloomberg, Walcott Blames UFT

Each side is pointing fingers over the lack of a teacher evaluation agreement.

Leo Casey wrote up his side at Edwize.

The Daily News gave Chancellor Walcott the space to publish his side of the story.

Just who do we believe?

The words of both of these men are just about worthless.

Leo Casey writes pro-Unity propaganda for a living and looks for different ways to explain how the crap the UFT often agrees to (like the odious '05 contract, the Teacher Data Reports, or APPR) is not actually crap but crap-encrusted gold if one can only scrub off the crap around the wealth beneath.

Let's just say that telling the truth is not high on the list of Casey' s job description.

Walcott, meanwhile, likes to say that teachers only care about themselves, don't really care about the kids, only he and his boss actually care about the kids.  He does this while knowingly sending students to schools laden with cancer-causing toxins, PCB's, and mold - often while hiding these facts from parents and staff.

Walcott is one of the most despicable people on the planet - anyone who knowingly sends children to buildings laden with PCB's, cancer-causing toxins, or black mold and hides that fact from parents can't be anything other than despicable. 

So truth be told, hearing these men tell you the other guy is lying is like hearing OJ Simpson tell you he's found the "real killers" - it's difficult to believe anything they say.

That said, Ernest Logan, the head of the principal's union backed up the UFT on this and said that Bloomberg essentially blew up negotiations with his union in the same way that he did with the UFT, so I guess we have to take Casey's side of the story as closer to the truth.

But make no mistake - it is not truth.

Casey is going to try and spin this so that when the inevitable sell-out comes and we get a horrible evaluation system with unfair scoring metrics that are rigged to "get" teachers, he can blame Bloomberg and Walcott for that rather than have himself and his UFT negotiators blamed for it.

I wish it were otherwise - I wish I could believe the statements made by my union leadership.

But to be frank, my 12 years of experience with these guys tells me I cannot believe them anymore than I can believe Walcott, Bloomberg, or the NY Post or Daily News editorial boards.

In Glengarry Glen Ross, a representative from Mitch and Murray downtown come around to tell the salesmen that they need to be following this formula:

ABC - Always Be Closing.  Always Be Closing.

With the UFT leadership the formula might be adapted to ABS.

Always Be Spinning.  Always Be Spinning.

And that's all we're getting from them now too.

They're looking to spin the inevitable sell-out that comes to their advantage and make the crap they agree to look more like crap-encrusted gold.

But when you scrape the crap off what they're selling us, there's nothing under it but more crap.

More PCB Horror Stories From One NYC School

Last Wednesday NYCDOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott struck out at striking school bus drivers and matrons, saying “The union drivers are striking against our children, plain and simple."

Walcott attacked the labor action as harming children and slammed the striking workers as selfish.

Meanwhile at PS 50 in Staten Island, the following was occurring:

OAKWOOD — Parents of children at P.S. 50, in Oakwood, rallied outside the school Friday to demand the city replace the PCB light fixtures in the school after light fixtures ruptured in two classrooms in January.

Peter Whalen, 6, a third-grader at the school, said that on Monday, the lights went out in his classroom and when he looked at the light fixture above him he saw smoke.

“I looked up [and] it popped and then started sizzling,” he said. “As it was sizzling it was smoking, white smoke.”

Peter said that another light caught on fire too, and the one he was sitting under came down right above his head.

Parents complained that they were never initially notified by the school of the Jan. 14 incident, and only found out about it when their kids came home from school talking about it. Parents said they were upset that the kids were going to go in the same room the next day.

“We don't want out kids going back in that classroom,” said Paul Whalen, Peter’s father.

After getting dismissive answers from the school’s administration, Paul Whalen contacted New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which already has a 2011 lawsuit pending against the Department of Education about speeding up the removal of PCB lights in schools.

Christina Giorgio, staff attorney with the NYLPI working on the case, said that the DOE is required to tell parents immediately about any incidents, and said the DOE should work on replacing all PCB lights in schools before more situations like this happen again.

“It is a very clear example of the Department of Education acting irresponsibly,” Giorgio said.

“The Department of Education knows full well that these lights are leaking and many of them are going to rupture like this," she said. "This is not the end of the situation. This is the start of what's going to be a snowballing of recurring events like this in these schools.”

A similar PCB light fixture rupture occurred on January 7 at PS 50, but parents weren't notified by the school about the incident until a week later - too late to hold their kids out from school over health concerns.

Kids weren't taken from the room after the January 7 rupture.  Instead the windows were opened and kids were told to put their coats on to keep from getting cold.

This is the third school to have leaking PCB's this school year - the problems were previously reported at I.S 204 Long Island City and P.S. 41 in Staten Island in September.

For Walcott to slam striking bus drivers and matrons as selfish people harming children when his administration refuses to be held accountable for the PCB light fixture mess, had to be taken to court to even agree to get the fixtures out of schools, and is dragging their feet on the timetable to do it, is unconscionable.

Quite simply, Dennis Walcott and his boss, Michael Bloomberg, are two of the most horrible and hypocritical people on the planet.

They claim to be for children first...always when they're aiming their reforms at teachers and the UFT.

But when it really comes to really putting children first - like making sure they're attending school in a safe, healthy environment - they don't care AT ALL.

Bloomberg and Walcott First.  Always.

That's the real DOE motto.

Bloomberg and Walcott claim the teachers don't care about kids, the school bus drivers and the matrons don't care about kids - only they care about kids.

If they really cared about kids, the FIRST thing they would do, long before the Common Core implementation, long before the infusion of technology in order to carry out the Common Core/APPR testing procedures, would be to make sure the schools are safe and healthy for children to attend.

Clearly they care nothing for children, nothing for the adults who have to work in these schools.

You can bet if these fixtures were exploding at Bloomberg LP headquarters or over Bloomberg's head at City Hall, they would be fixed ASAP.

Maybe a better motto for the DOE would be:

Bloomberg and Walcott.  Hypocrites Always.

Bloomberg Wants To Ban Soda But Doesn't Care About PCB's In Schools

From Schoolbook:

Parents at a Brooklyn elementary school are calling on the Department of Education to move faster to remove toxic PCBs from lighting fixtures in school buildings around the city.

At a rally on Monday outside P.S. 146 Brooklyn New School in Carroll Gardens, Alexis Quy said she and other parents had sent the Education Department photographs of likely leaks of the chemical compound.

“To know that there’s a toxic substance in this school that is leaking into the air, that is actually leaking onto surfaces where they can ingest and inhale, seems unbelievable,” she said.

Ms. Quy said parents had also sent letters and petitions, and they were not happy with the response from education officials.

“They say that it poses no immediate health risk,” she said. “O.K. So, our children aren’t going to come into the school and start coughing and wheezing. However, what will happen in 10 years?”

Ten years, that's how long it's going to take Bloomberg and Walcott to remove the cancer-causing toxins from the school.

Clearly Bloomberg doesn't care if kids come down with cancer in 10 or 20 years as a result of exposure to PCB's and other toxins in his schools.

He just wants to make sure they can't have a 24 ounce soda at the movies.

The next time Bloomberg talks about how only he cares about looking out for the city's kids, that the teachers and the union doesn't care, somebody in the press who isn't on his payroll needs to to tell him to his face he's full of soda.

Or toxic PCB's.

PCB Removal Curtailed By Asbestos

Mayor Bloomberg has a new excuse for why PCB's cannot be removed quickly from schools:

Asbestos found in city schools is hampering the education department's ability to speed up its 10-year plan to remove PCB-contaminated lighting fixtures, school officials said Wednesday.

The asbestos found in the wiring means workers replacing the lights in 772 schools will take longer because of the slow process of removing the cancer-causing materials, Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm said.

The work would also have to be limited to weekends and holidays when students aren't in the buildings.

"We need to be careful in terms of what kinds of commitments we can make," Grimm said at a City Council hearing on the plan. "If we can go forward and accelerate this, we'll be happy to, but I think it's irresponsible for us to say, 'Okay, we'll do it.'"

But that's not good enough for many, including some Council members, who want the process sped up.

"Ten years is totally unacceptable," Councilman Robert Jackson (D-Harlem) said. "We cannot afford to gamble with the health and well-being of 1.1 million schoolchildren."

Hours before the hearing, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest filed a notice of its intent to sue the Education Department and School Construction Authority over the PCB-removal plan.

The notice, filed on behalf of four parents of public school students and the nonprofit New York Communities for Change, said the plan violated the Toxic Substance Control Act

PCB's, asbestos, bed bugs - as the NYCDOE website says "Children First...Always!"

Bloomberg Plan To Turn Toxic Garbage Dump To Park Not Working So Well

So says the Murdoch Post:

Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious plan to turn a former Staten Island landfill into a massive public park is sinking -- literally.

The city has hit a major snag in the early stages of a three-decade effort to transform the 2,200-acre former Fresh Kills Landfill along the West Shore Expressway into green space nearly triple the size of Central Park.

The project's long-delayed first segment -- bringing four soccer fields and other amenities to 28 acres at the edge of the former garbage dump -- is on hold again because its foundation is sinking.

Parks Department workers and the contractor hired to build Owl Hollow Fields for the Fresh Kills Park project believe tons of sand laid out as foundation fill has dropped between eight inches and a foot, sources close to the project told The Post.

"If problems like this are happening at this stage, just imagine when they try building thousands of acres in the heart of the landfill," said Geoffrey Croft, of watchdog group New York City Park Advocates.

...

Originally estimated to cost $6.8 million in 2006, the project price tag is already up to $14 million. About $4.5 million was spent cleaning the site after the state Department of Environmental Conservation discovered it was contaminated with toxic PCBs.

The city had previously claimed the Owl Hollow site was never used as a dump, only as a staging area for equipment. But workers uncovered refuse during construction, sources said.

OK, so this is the part of the dump where there was supposedly no garbage - but the EPA found cancerous toxins.

Now that those have been cleaned up, the land is sinking.

And they haven't even gotten to the heart of the dump yet - where all the garbage is.

What person in their right mind says "Let's turn a dump with cancer-causing toxins into a park for kids?"

The Mayor of Money, that's who.

Maybe if this park idea doesn't work out, they can build some schools on the site?

EPA To Bloomberg: Ten Years Is Too Long To Rid Schools Of PCBs

Hey, what's a little cancer between friends?

New York City’s 10-year plan to identify and replace school-building light fixtures that are leaking toxic chemicals should be handled in a speedier and more comprehensive fashion, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday.

Federal officials initially praised the city for taking a step in the right direction when it announced its plan last month as part of a wider energy efficiency effort. But the E.P.A. is rejecting the city’s timeline of 10 years and pushing for a shorter time frame, although how much shorter is still a subject of discussions with the city, said Judith Enck, the agency’s regional administrator in New York.

“Ten years is too long,” Ms. Enck said in an interview Friday. “From our inspections, we’ve found that there’s a problem with leaking light ballasts, and I’d be concerned with the problem lingering for a long period of time.”

The issue of replacing old fluorescent light fixtures has become a pressing one for the city since a pilot study that began last year identified leaking lighting ballasts as a major source of high levels of the toxic chemical compounds known as PCBs in air samples taken from schools. Subsequent spot inspections of schools by the E.P.A. this year found that the problem appeared to be pervasive in the school system. The city could face civil penalties if it does not properly address the PCB contamination.

Under pressure from both federal officials and worried parents, city officials announced in February that they would allocate $702 million to replace light fixtures in nearly 800 school buildings as part of a broader effort that would involve other energy efficiency upgrades. But the plan immediately drew criticism from school advocates who said that eliminating the PCB contamination was too urgent to wait a decade to complete.

On Friday, most members of the City Council added their voices to the criticism, calling a news conference and sending a letter to Ms. Enck asking her to insist that the lights be replaced within two years. The letter was signed by 41 of the 51 council members.

“This is something that has brought the Council together,” said Julissa Ferreras, a councilwoman from Corona, Queens. “This is a health hazard.”

Indeed, it is a health hazard.

But Bloomberg and Black don't give a shit about that.

They don't give a shit about children getting cancer.

They don't give a shit about teachers and staff getting cancer.

They don't give a shit if people die as a consequence of their refusal to remove the PCBs in a timely manner.

They just don't give a shit.

They DO care about saving money, and so what if some people get cancer or DIE as a result of their negligence.

After all, as my friend NYC Educator likes to say, the only thing that REALLY matters in this world is making sure that Steve Forbes pays less taxes every year.

Leaving PCBs in the schools for ten years certainly does help keep the Forbes tax bill low.

Bloomberg: Stop Whining About PCB's - The Food's Even MORE Toxic

On his radio show yesterday, the mayor told parents, teachers and students to STFU about PCB's and get back to the test prep:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says PCB chemicals found in more than a dozen city public schools do not pose an imminent danger.

Speaking on his radio show this morning, the mayor said polychlorinated biphenyls can be compared to asbestos, in that there is no threat unless the toxins become exposed.

Bloomberg added the city's former health commissioner, Tom Frieden, says a lunchroom staple is more toxic than the schools' lights.

"Tom says basically that one tuna fish sandwich puts more PCBs in your body than breathing air in a normal school for an entire career as a student,” Bloomberg said.

The mayor's remarks came just days after federal inspectors found abnormally high levels of the chemicals at an elementary school in Brooklyn.

After a standoff with the Environmental Protection Agency, Bloomberg recently approved nearly $750 million to replace light fixtures in hundreds of schools over the next 10 years.

The EPA has found toxic PCB levels in EVERY NYCDOE school they spot checked this year.

That's EVERY school.

But the mayor say, "No worries, Starkist is more toxic than the PCB's in the schools!"

Hey, you know what, mayor?

Why don't you get the toxic food AND the toxic PCB's in the lights OUT OF THE SCHOOLS.

Only Bloomberg would think to defend PCB's in the schools by saying that people shouldn't worry because the food is even MORE toxic.

Bloomberg Agrees To Remove Toxic, Cancer-Causing Light Fixtures - In Ten Years

The Mayor of Money has heard the fears and concerns of citizens regarding the cancer-causing toxic lights in NYCDOE schools that are leaking PCB's.

He says he'll have them all out - in ten years:

Responding to pressure from federal officials and worried parents, the Bloomberg administration said on Wednesday that it would replace light fixtures containing the toxic chemicals known as PCBs in nearly 800 school buildings across the city over the next 10 years.

City education officials said they had allocated $708 million to the effort, which will also involve broad improvements in energy efficiency, and opening bidding for a contract this year. A total of 772 schools have fluorescent fixtures that must either get new ballasts or be replaced completely because they contain PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, the officials said.

For months, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has been pressing the city to assess and replace older fixtures containing PCBs in all of those schools because of the danger of leaks. With so many buildings involved — nearly two-thirds of the city’s 1,200 school buildings — the Bloomberg administration balked at the cost, which it initially calculated at about $1 billion.

But advocates for environmental improvements countered that the city would recoup the investment through savings in electric bills because modern light fixtures are more energy-efficient.

The new plan immediately drew criticism from school advocates who said the problem is too urgent be addressed over a decade.

“The work can be completed in two years if they decided to make it a priority,” said Miranda K. S. Massie, director of litigation and training with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which has represented parents in a lawsuit against the city over PCB contamination from caulk in the schools. “There’s no reason to subject school children to PCBs contamination for an extra eight years.”

Health experts say that the PCB contamination does not pose an imminent health risk, but that the longer the problem persists, the higher the likelihood that the chemicals could prove harmful. PCBs have been linked to cancer, impairment of immune and reproductive function, lower I.Q. and other problems.

Here's a statement from Clueless Cathie Black on the PCB removal plan and the timeline:

“This is a progressive plan to increase energy efficiency at our schools and simultaneously address the issue of PCBs in old light fixtures,” the city schools chancellor, Cathleen P. Black, said in a statement. “Given that both the E.P.A. and the Department of Health have said there is no immediate health threat to students in these buildings, we believe this is the most responsible way to proceed.”

“This plan can be accomplished without any significant interruption to student learning, and it will generate significant energy savings in the long run,” she said.

What does that jive mean - "a progressive plan"? What the f--k is she talking about? A progressive plan would be to eliminate the toxic, cancer-causing material NOW.

Here's the UFT president in response:

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, called the plan “frustrating.”

“It’s pretty clear that the mayor is kicking the can into the next administration,” he said. “The idea that they are prioritizing boilers and energy efficiency — how about prioritizing the hazardous materials first? There’s a health hazard inside the buildings. That’s the priority right now.”

And the lighting fixtures are NOT the only toxic materials in the school buildings.

Turns out that the caulk used around doors and windows is also toxic and potentially cancer-causing.

Maybe they can get all that stuff out in twenty years?

And how many people will come down cancer or die as a DIRECT result of this hazardous material?

Oh, well - if Cathie Black says the Bloombergian Ten Year PCB Removal Plan is a progressive one, then it must be.

Right?

Wrong.

Who knew that the school buildings themselves are actually more toxic than the overall education reform policies of Bloomberg and Black.

You can bet if Black's or Bloomberg's children were in any of these toxic schools, it wouldn't take ten years to get the PCB's out.

Bloomberg Poisons Schoolchildren

And doesn't give a shit about it - that's the only possible way to read this:

Federal inspectors say they have found toxic PCB chemicals leaking from light fixtures at a public school in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

The Environmental Protection Agency says all 19 aging fluorescent light fixtures tested at P.S. 45 showed abnormally high levels of the toxins. Most samples far exceeded government regulations and require removal.

The government and the city Department of Education are in a standoff about how to handle the issue.

DOE officials say the city cannot afford to repair all fixtures in all of its schools and insists the PCB leaks pose no immediate health risk.

The EPA and environmental activists say the contamination is a serious long-term health threat to children and school staff.

A DOE spokesperson said in a statement about P.S. 45, "All leaking ballasts and/or light fixtures that exhibited signs of PCB staining that were inspected by the EPA have already been removed. The remainder of the ballasts or light fixtures in the school will be replaced in the near future."

Six schools, including P.S. 36 on Staten Island, have tested positive this year for the toxin.

PCBs were commonly used in construction materials from the 1950s until the late 1970s, when they were banned. They have been linked to immune and reproductive system disorders.

The Daily News reports that ALL nine city schools spot-checked for dangerous levels of cancer causing PCB's were found to contain elevated levels of toxins.

ALL NINE.

Not some.

Not a few.

ALL NINE.

The Daily News says these nine schools are just the "tip of the iceberg" because the DOE told the EPA in a letter that there are "564,000 of the outdated "T12" lights in 772 school buildings across the city."

772 school buildings with 564,000 lights that are KNOWN to cause cancer when they leak PCB's near children.

But the city says it doesn't have the money to do anything about these.

And we just cannot take money from the accountability and performance sectors and use it to, you know, make the schools safe.

I wonder what Shael thinks about this.

Didn't his second wife die of cancer?

Ah, well, what does he care.

His allegiance is ALWAYS to the test data.

Not to the children who he, along with his bosses Cathie Black and Mayor Bloomberg, are in danger of killing by refusing to deal with this health risk problem.

DOE Hides PCB Contamination From Parents And School Staff

If it's Tuesday, another city school must have tested positive for PCB's:

The Environmental Protection Agency says an East Harlem building that houses three city schools has tested positive for PCBs.

The agency says it took a total of 14 samples of lighting ballasts from the building located at 508 East 120th Street.

It currently houses PS 206, PS 37 and PS 112.

The EPA says 12 of the samples came back above the regulatory limit of 50 parts per million.

Parents and teachers say they are shocked because the school did not tell them the EPA discovered the PCBs, which have been linked to cancer.

"It's their safety and the staff that's in there too. It's not just the children. Everyone that's in the building is at risk so I would think people should voice their opinion to get something done," said Parent Tyra King.

"Was it already tested a second time, to make sure it was at acceptable level? I don't know. I never knew the problem in the first place. This is the first I'm hearing of it so I'm hoping the school did the right thing, did the tests, fixed it, corrected it and now the problem is good to go," said Parent Decarlo Stroud.

The EPA says federal law requires immediate removal of the lighting ballasts.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education says the EPA and city Department of Health indicate there is no immediate health risk for students and staff at the buildings.

The DOE also says it took corrective action during the same weekend as the EPA inspection by replacing ballasts as necessary.

The EPA has been checking one city school per week for traces of PCBs. For the past five weeks, a city school has tested positive.

They're hiding the size and scope of the problem to save money and face for Bloomberg.

So what if people die of cancer?

This is money and Bloomberg's face we're talking about.

Maybe the public advocate of NYC could, you know, get off his ass and do something to point out the problem?

Or maybe the state attorney general could take these murderous bastards to court and force them to clean the toxins out of schools?

Because left to their own devices, Shael, Cathie, Moneybags and the rest of the DOE brain trust are going to ignore the problem and spend all of the DOE money they can on test prep and other no-bid contracts for bullshit.

And as usual, the UFT is useless doing anything about this.

How about a commercial that shows all the schools that have tested positive for PCB's that asks how many people will DIE FROM CANCER as a consequence of Bloomberg's refusal to CLEAN UP THE SCHOOLS!!!!!