Next Time Deformers Trot Out The "China's Kicking Our Ass On Test Scores" Meme

The high scores on standardized tests that Chinese students garner have not brought increased wisdom to the geniuses running the country, that's for sure.

Between the poisoned environment, the "casino capitalism" of the economy, the "ghost cities," the increasing cancer rates and other health-related crises,  and the explosions from toxic chemicals that are so large they can be seen from space, perhaps we have enough evidence that we should stop worrying about how well China does on standardized tests?

To be frank, the high test scores don't seem to translate to all that much that is positive.

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?

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?

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.

So Much For Putting Children First

Bloomberg and Walcott like to say they're all about the kids while the teachers union - and more pointedly, the teachers themselves - are just about perpetuating their own interests.

And yet, somehow these self-annointed Carers of Children continued to send students to a school building (PS 51) that they knew was contaminated with cancer-causing toxins.

Cuomo likes to say he is a lobbyist for students, that teachers do not care about them, only he does.

And yet Cuomo is sitting on a report about PS 51 and keeping it from the public.

The Daily News says parents want that report released:

It’s been more than two years since the Department of Education found unsafe levels of a cancer-causing chemical inside a Bronx school.

But parents of children who attended PS 51, the Bronx New School, on Jerome Ave. said they’re still waiting for a report from the state Department of Health detailing the health impacts from exposure to trichloroethene, or TCE, inside the school.

“We’re at a stalemate, we really are,” said Kelly King-Lewis, whose two daughters attended the contaminated school.

“We’re trying to move this consultation report forward and get the state to release it - but it seems like we’re pulling teeth,” she said. “It’s very, very frustrating for us.”
...

 One PS 51 teacher is suing the city Department of Education for birth defects her unborn child suffered while she worked at the school.

Last week, City Councilman Fernando Cabrera submitted a resolution that the state Department of Health release PS 51’s health consultation report.

Cabrera also submitted a legislative amendment that the School Construction Authority notify parents faster once it learns a school site is contaminated. The DOE waited months to tell PS 51 parents about the TCE contamination.

The DOE shuttered PS 51’s site--a former lamp factory--in 2011 after test samples revealed TCE vapors indoors were 10 times the state’s limit Last March, representatives from the DOH met with students’ parents and told them they were investigating the health effects of TCE exposure at the school, and they’d publish a report detailing the health impacts of spending time in the contaminated school.

A DOH spokesman said he had no information to provide on the report’s release.

Even if it’s made public, the report still may not give parents answers because TCE-contamination symptoms may not show up right away, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight.

“The chronic health risks could manifest themselves in the long-term,” Siegel said. “That’s one of the difficulties in studying it.”

Parents picking up their children Monday from the relocated PS 51, in the former St Martin of Tours school building on E. 182nd St., said they were concerned about how the toxins were affecting their kids.

Anna Jimenez, whose nine year old son went to school in the Jerome Ave. building for two years, wondered whether her son’s health would get worse in the future.

“There’s no guarantee that something might come out later on,” she said.

And another mother questioned whether the colds, headaches and behavioral problems her second grade daughter suffered while at the old site was related to exposure to TCE.

“I am very, very outraged,” the woman said. “We don’t know the long-range effects of this.”

Why is the state DOH sitting on the report and keeping it from parents and public?

Why did Bloomberg and Walcott knowingly send children and adult staff to a building contaminated with cancer-causing toxins for at least six months after they knew about the contamination?

Why won't Cuomo force the DOH to release the report?

The fix is in once again, folks.

These self-appointed Carers of Children and Lobbyists for Students are in the business of covering their own asses rather than protecting the children in their care or holding themselves accountable when they fail to do that.

How many children and adults will get sick because of Bloomberg and Walcott's callousness?

How many will die?

Who will hold Bloomberg and Walcott accountable?

Certainly not Cuomo, who doesn't seem to be forcing the DOH to get that report out ASAP.

So much for putting children first.

So much for being a lobbyist for students.

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.

Walcott Assures PS 114 Parents The School Is Safe For Children

NY 1 reports:

Parents want to know: is there mold growing behind the Sandy battered walls of P.S./M.S. 114?

Until tests provide a definitive no, Maggie Murphy isn't going back to her fifth-grade classroom.

"I was scared if I could get sick," she said.

"How could you possibly open up the school and put these children and teachers and so on in jeopardy?" said parent Don Murphy. "I don't understand that."

...

The school's auditorium and gym were submerged by flood water. The New York City Department of Education said the gym and auditorium stage are off limits for now, although the auditorium was used for a welcome back pep rally.

On Thursday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said P.S. 114 was safe for students to attend.

"We have clean air samples for 114," he said. "We do not put students in a school that's not healthy, and so I have the report, the report is fine."

But on Friday, the DOE said the air was tested for humidity, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other materials. It said nothing about mold. So now, the teachers' union is checking.

"Let's just do the right thing," said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. "Let the professionals check it, and then they can assure the parents that the school is a safe place for their kids."

It's not clear when the test results will be available. Parents said they want to be reassured their kids are safe at school so they can focus on rebuilding other parts of their lives.

"I feel helpless, because all I want is for her to be safe and have an education," Moore said.

I'm so sure the report on air quality at PS 114 that Walcott has in his hands is accurate and comprehensive.

I am also sure Walcott would never try and deceive parents about the air quality or safety in a NYC school.

Except for that school in the Bronx with the toxins left over from a lighting factory that were 10,000 times the state safety limit that Walcott said was safe but turned out not be.

Remember that story?

I do:

Parents at a North Bronx elementary school have just been treated to an unpleasant late-summer surprise. At an "emotional" meeting with the parents of Bronx New School students yesterday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced that the school's air and soil were contaminated by the potentially carcinogenic chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), and that the Department of Education had known of the contamination since February.

According to the the Daily News, the Department of Education not only waited for months to drop the bombshell, but had never tested the building and its soil before, despite the fact that it had been a factory building for 70 years. The building's last inhabitant before the old Board of Education leased the building in 1992, Nessen Lamps Inc., generated hundreds of gallons of "spent halogenated solvents used in degreasing" (like TCE) in 1986 and 1987. And the DOE has been spending $28 per square foot in rent for this literal dump each year, on top of paying for the renovations necessary to turn the space into a school.

The school's 300 students will be sent this fall to St. Martin of Tours, a former Catholic School more than 2 miles away. Walcott said the health risks presented by the exposure to the site, where soil contamination was more than 10,000 times the limit determined by state regulations, were "minimal," and that a pediatrician was on-site to test children. However, parents of course came forward with reports of their children's complaints of headaches, dizziness and nausea. One parent, Leona Johnson, told NBC her daughter, now 24 years old, graduated from the school back in 1997 and continues to suffer health problems. The parent of a 7-year-old is being told to have the girl's heart checked out.

Reports NY1, "Parents said they did not think the chancellor admitting the city made a mistake and apologizing was enough." The rage of a horde of parents has probably never been more succinctly understated.

Dennis Walcott's word is worth nothing.

The events around the DOE's handling of PS 52 prove that statement.

Walcott says PS 114 is safe.

Parents should believe that as much as they believe Richard Nixon's "Your President Is Not A Crook!" speech.

We have evidence from the very recent past that the NYCDOE and Chancellor Walcott knew that a school was unsafe for children, indeed Walcott had the test results IN HIS HAND - and they did nothing about it for months.

I said at the time that if even one person at the school comes down with cancer or any other illness attributed to the toxins, Walcott, Bloomberg and the NYCDOE are responsible.

The same is true at PS 114 and other Rockaway schools that have been opened with the DOE's assurance that all is well.

Walcott does not care about the health of children or the safety of the people in the schools.

He cares about the appaearance of those things.

Mostly he cares about making his boss happy by making things seem like they're back to normal.

So what if black mold is growing in the auditorium and behind the first floor walls of the school?

This is about making sure the kids get back to school.

There is no time to make sure this school is safe for kids and staff!

There is only time to get the kids ready for their standardized tests!

Kids Face Dangerous Toxins As They Go Back To School

No, not the Common Core Federal Standards or Mayor Bloomberg's "Close Schools First" reforms, although those are certainly toxic too - I'm talking school supplies:

AN ALARMING number of school supplies contain a toxic chemical that’s already banned in toys, a new report found.

Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Center for Health, Environment & Justice released the report on Sunday. The advocacy group found that 75% of vinyl back-to-school products tested contained higher levels of the chemical phthalates than are allowed in toys.

The chemical has been linked to birth defects, asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, and other health issues.

Researchers tested lunch boxes, backpacks, rain boots and raincoats bought at city stores. A “Dora the Explorer” backpack had 69 times the allowable level of the chemical.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the advocates are pushing for the passage of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would give the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to regulate chemicals used in consumer products.

If it was a slow news Sunday, Senator Schumer must have filled the void with a press conference.

Schumer's self-aggrandizing act aside, the point he tried to raise here is an important one.

Our corporate consumer culture is literally poisoning us - between the toxic food they grow, the toxic technology they hoist on us, the toxic clothing and toxic materials they sell us.

Did you ever stop to wonder just how safe all this wireless is - especially around babies and children?

Or all the iPhone use?

Or the laminated stuff we buy?

Or the non-labeled GMO crap Monsanto, ADM, Cargill and the rest sell us?

We live in a very toxic culture with very toxic materials - and it is a systemic problem.

From the education system to the health care system to the media culture to agriculture to consumer culture to the financial system to the political system - it's all toxic.

Don't have any quick answers for you, don't have any data to back up my "reforms", don't have some talking points I can go on CNN and Education Nation with to promote my latest "Bolder, Faster Change."

But I do know this - our society, our culture and our economy is sick, and it is harming everybody, young and old.

Toxic school supplies are just another emblem of what is wrong.

And then we wonder why autism rates are sky-rocketing.