Bloomberg Calls NAACP/UFT Lawsuit Over School Closures "Irresponsible"

From Daily Politics:

As our Rachel Monahan reported this week, "The teachers union and the NAACP filed suit Wednesday to block the city from closing a record number of struggling schools this year. The suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court challenges the closing of 22 public schools and accuses the city of not living up to a deal to provide support to 15 of those schools saved by a similar, successful lawsuit last year."

Said Bloomberg when asked about the suit today, according to our Erin Einhorn:

“I don’t know why they’re doing it now. They’re just trying to create the maximum havoc and disruption and create fear among parents...

"If you’re gonna have that lawsuit, they could have had it a long time ago and I’m not even sure what it is … but the bottom line is I’m confident the courts will let us go ahead. If you think about it, we are trying to close schools that are leaving our kids without an education and they’re fighting to keep those schools open. I don’t know how irresponsible you can possibly be. You go to the parts of the city where the pedagogical problems are the worst, where the results are the worst in some of these schools, and people want to keep ‘em open when there’s a chance that we could improve?"

Fighting to save schools that Bloomberg has systematically starved of resources, money and space is "irresponsible"?

Uh, no.

What is irresponsible is an autocratic mayor who pits traditional public schools and charter schools against each other in the yearly "Space Wars" battle to the death, has cut individual school budgets half a dozen times while leaving the central office Tweed budget intact, is getting ready to lay off 4,278 teachers while spending $550 million on technology upgrades to schools, and never saw a no-bid contract to an outside consultant he didn't want to defend while he shuts 20 firehouses and 100 senior citizen centers to save money.

That's what is irresponsible.

New Yorkers are seeing through this jive.

The mayor is at 36% approval.

People don't like him and they don't like his policies.

NYC public school parents REALLY don't like him or his school policies.

So the mayor can try and deflect blame onto the UFT and the NAACP all he wants.

Given his refusal to use available money to stave layoffs, given the chaos that is going to result in the system when 8%-10% of the teaching force disappears to layoffs and attrition, given the further chaos that will be caused by the moving around of other teachers in the system to schools that see a disproportionate amount of layoffs, if anybody is being "disruptive," and creating "maximum havoc," it's Bloomberg.

But people know that.

The poll numbers bear that out.

Making A Case For Experience And Expertise

Sully Sullenberger, the "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot who crash landed his plane into the Hudson River and saved every passenger and crew member on board, was hired by CBS News today as the network's aviation and safety expert:

"Sully is an American treasure and it is a real thrill to have him on our team at CBS News," chairman Jeff Fager said. "I am a huge fan of Sully's. He is a remarkable person who has a great ability to turn his significant experience into useful insights."

Sully became an overnight hero when, on Jan. 15, 2009, shortly after taking off and striking a flock of birds that knocked out the engines, he guided US Airways Flight 1549 into a safe splashdown in the Hudson River.

Not said in the press release was how Sullenberer became an important emblem of how experience and expertise is sorely needed these days:

Sullenberger is the CEO of an aviation safety firm, Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. His online CV says he started his flying career serving seven years in the US air force in Europe, the Pacific and at Nellis air force base in Nevada. While there, he was a mission commander in aerial war games known as red flag exercises.

He no doubt used that experience when, three minutes after taking off from LaGuardia airport, in New York, his Airbus A320 hit a flock of geese and lost power in both engines.

According to controllers, there was an "eerie calm" about the controller and cockpit communications as options dwindled. Return to LaGuardia? Too far. Land at the small Teterboro airport across the river in New Jersey? The plane wouldn't make that either. An audacious river landing was the only option, an official of the controllers' union told Reuters.

"That was pretty much it," said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "It was very clear to our controllers that he was going to make an attempt at the Hudson."

Sullenberger told passengers via intercom: "Brace yourself for a hard impact." Then he calmly put the aircraft down on the Hudson river. He was the last to leave the plane, walking the aisle twice to ensure nobody was left behind, according to the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

Sullenberger is a graduate of the USAF academy, Purdue University and the University of Northern Colorado. He was a speaker on two panels at the High Reliability Organisations (HRO) international conference in Deauville, France, in 2007 and has just been named a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

He served as an instructor and Airline Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member, local media said. He has participated in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations.

His safety work led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration advisory circular. Working with Nasa scientists, he co-authored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He was instrumental in the development and implementation of the crew resource management course used at his airline and has taught the course to hundreds of colleagues.

"He did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river" and evacuating the passengers, Bloomberg said of Sullenberger.

He sure did, Mr. Mayor.

One wonders if the minimum wage pilots with barely any flight experience and shoddy training who crashed their plan in upstate New York that same year, killing everybody on board, could have used a veteran pilot with decades of experience and seasoning in the cockpit.

I bet they could have.

But these days, we just go for cheap and young over a little more expensive but a helluva lot more experienced.

Dollars over lives.

Snooky Young

Rest in peace.

From The Tonight Show:




With The Band at the Academy of Music:

Bloomberg Approval Down To 36%

Survey USA poll, taken May 17, has Bloomberg's approval at 36%, his disapproval at 59%.

This is at the low end of the dismal approval numbers Bloomberg has enjoyed ever since the Bloomberg Blizzard Fiasco of 2010.

A Quinnipiac poll in March had Bloomberg down to 39%.

His approval in the Quinnipiac poll barely moved to 40% in the latest released this month.

Marist had him at 40% in March as well, up from 37% in January.

But 36% approval?

That's low.

It's not Nixon-level low, or god forbid, Cathie Black-level low.

But this is not a popular mayor.

He should be fought on EVERYTHING - school closures, fire house closures, budget cuts, layoffs.

He's got money to use in his battles, but that didn't help him very much even after he spent a bunch of it on a campaign-style ad and media blitz, did it?

People are done with this guy.

He can be beat.

So it's good to see the NAACP and the UFT sue him over the school closures.

I hope they take on the new teacher evaluations next.

You can bet Bloomberg had a hand in that deception.

Charter School Advocates Attack Public School Budgets In Albany

For those of you who say that some charter school proponents and education "reformers" aren't out to destroy the public school system, what do you say to this story?

ALBANY -- A group associated with Albany's charter schools sent out multiple fliers and likely paid for a push poll to kill the Albany school budget.

At least three separate fliers were sent to Albany residents in the last two weeks that encouraged voters to reject the school budget and intentionally exaggerated a tax rate increase to mislead voters. A telephone push poll also asked city residents leading questions including if they were fed up with tax increases and wasteful spending.

A postal record, obtained by a Times Union Freedom of Information request, lists the customer who paid for the mailings as "School Performance." Tom Carroll, who founded the Brighter Choice Foundation -- which supports all of the city's 11 charter schools -- is on the board of School Performance Inc., according to the most recent public records available. Chris Bender, executive director of Brighter Choice, has also served on the School Performance board.

Two mailings sent out by Mail Works, a direct to mail company, went to 32,178 city residents, records show. Postage alone cost $6,766. However, the total cost spent by the charter affiliate to defeat the Albany budget is likely far greater because a third mailing went out and the push poll was conducted over a few weeks. The professionally printed cards could have also cost thousands of dollars.

Albany's charter schools are currently reimbursed about $12,000 per student by the Albany school district. A defeat of the budget would have no effect on the charter schools, which received $30 million in Albany taxpayer money this school year.

Albany Superintendent Ray Colucciello said the mailings show voters that some charter operators would stoop to a clandestine attack just to harm the public schools. He said that it will make it harder to have collaboration with charter schools in the future.

"How can you work together with someone who would try to defeat the resources for 8,500 kids?" he said.

You can't work with someone like that.

Just like you can't work with education leaders and politicians who break their promises and/or renege on deals like the one the UFT made with Joel Klein and the DOE over not publishing the teacher data reports in the media or the deal the UFT and NYSUT made on teacher evaluations with the NYSED that had 20% of teacher evals tied to state test scores, a deal the Regents broke on Monday when they voted they voted to change the percentage of teacher evals tied to tests to 40%.

H/T Norm at Ed Notes

Just Do As You're Told And You'll Be All Right

Via Digby, the latest sign that fascism is here:

People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law.

The court issued its 3-2 ruling on Thursday, contending that allowing residents to resist officers who enter their homes without any right would increase the risk of violent confrontation. If police enter a home illegally, the courts are the proper place to protest it, Justice Steven David said.

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."

Justices Robert Rucker and Brent Dickson strongly dissented, saying the ruling runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, The Times of Munster reported.

Wow - a right to resist unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy.

It would be nice to say that you could be confident this sort of ruling could be overturned on appeal, but these days, not so much.

Fair and Balanced

Chancellor Walcott calls the new teacher evaluation system "fair and balanced."

His former boss, Joel Klein, now works at the Fair and Balanced company News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch.

I guess Walcott is setting himself up for a post-NYCDOE gig in case the Bloomberg philanthropy doesn't kick in.

Don't worry, Dennis - so long as you do the Mayor of Money's work for him, the Mayor of Money will take care of you.

He's nothing but loyal to those who are loyal to him.

But if you're not loyal...

Regents Cuts State Test Program One Day After They Approve New Teacher Evaluation System Tied To That Test Program

After all the hullaboola about using new state standardized tests in every grade in every subject to evaluate teachers, the Regents cried poverty and canceled a whole bunch of them today:

Faced with continued shortfalls for Regents exams, the state Board of Regents voted today to make a total of $8 million in reductions to the program for the 2011-12 fiscal year. The state Education Department asked the state to provide $15 million from the general fund, but it only received $7 million.

The cuts will eliminate the January administration of Regents exams, which will save $1.4 million and eliminate the Italian, French and Spanish exams, which will save $700,000. Postponing the development of English/language arts tests for grades 9 and 10 will save $1.2 million, and continuing the elimination of grades 5 and 8 social studies exams will reduce costs by $800,000. (They were also eliminated this school year.)

In recent years, the state Education Department has been able to use federal funds to fill the funding gap, but they are no longer available, according to the agency. But this is not the first time the Board of Regents has had to slash Regents exams.

Regents voted in June 2010 to cut costs by more than $6 million by eliminating grades 5 and 8 social studies exams; grade 8 second-language proficiency exams; component retesting in math and English/language arts; high school foreign-language exams in German, Hebrew and Latin; and Algebra2/Trigonometry and chemistry exams given in August. They continued cost-savings measures that had been put in place in 2009 to save $4 million.

Okay, so let me get this straight - John King and David Steiner and Merryl Tisch were bragging during yesterday's Regents meeting about the "sophistication" of the new state assessments they are supposed to be using for the new teacher evaluation system and the value-added measurements they will be using to grade teachers on these tests, then today they canceled a whole bunch of them for lack of funds.

Seriously?

Isn't it difficult to use these "sophisticated" value-added measurements from the state test scores for 40% of teacher evaluations when you don't have the money to, you know, administer the tests?

What was this weekend all about, with the Cuomo letter and Tisch and King pushing through the 40% standard in a secretive Regents Teacher Evaluation Putsch, when they knew they didn't actually have the money to carry the plans out - certainly not for the next school year, and perhaps not even after that.

Can't say I'm sad to see the 9th and 10th grade ELA exams canceled for next year, but I have to question the competency of the Regents to administer a fair battery of state tests that will be used to evaluate teachers when they can't even afford to administer component retests or foreign language Regents exams.

I'm sure when they finally get around to creating tests for all the subject areas they have to create them for in order to administer the new teacher evaluation system, they'll be doing it on the cheap, trying to scrape together enough cash to get the whole thing off the ground.

This of course will be so very fair to the teachers who will have their jobs on the line over these tests scores as well as their reputations once the DOE beats the UFT in court and gets the right to publish the teacher evals in the media.

King called the state tests and the value-added system very "sophisticated" yesterday, but it seems tonight that the only thing "sophisticated" about the Regents test plan is the deception they used to get the evaluation system passed.

Bloomberg Sees Few Panhandlers On The Subway

Another instance of Bloomberg seeing only what he wants to see:

Mayor Bloomberg had folks questioning what planet he was on Monday when he declared "there aren't very many panhandlers left" in city subways.

Bloomberg got irritated when the question of panhandlers came up in a press conference.

He cut off the questioner, saying, "There aren't very many panhandlers left, in all fairness to the MTA. Come on."

Advocates quickly suggested our billionaire mayor's sight may be clouded by the security detail around him when he travels from the upper East Side to City Hall on the subway.

Joel Berg, head of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, called the remark "absurd" and said it "bears no relation to reality."

Saying the mayor lives in an entirely different city "from the one that I and 8 million other New Yorkers live in," Berg added, "To quote that great statistician, Chico Marx, 'Who you gonna believe - me or your eyes?'"

Maybe all the panhandlers and homeless in the subway went to a Broadway play and that's why Bloomberg doesn't see them?

Bloomberg's Closing 20 FDNY Houses, But Won't Say Which Ones

When you're the Mayor of Money, you don't have to tell anybody anything - at least that's what this sounds like:

The FDNY refused to identify 20 fire companies slated for closure yesterday, sparking outrage from the City Council - and the threat of legal action.

Mayor Bloomberg plans to shutter 20 companies as part of the city's budget cuts, but the identities of the endangered units have been shrouded in mystery.

Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano admitted he had a tentative list of units on the chopping block but he would not disclose it to lawmakers.

"Negotiations are still ongoing and I'm not going to send it out until I have to," Cassano said at a contentious Council hearing.

His stonewalling sent lawmakers into an uproar.

"There is no lawful means for you to not provide the committee with that information," fumed Queens Councilman Dan Halloran, who ordered Council lawyers to file a subpoena to obtain the list.

Other lawmakers vowed to file a Freedom of Information request or refuse to vote on a budget - which must be submitted by June 30 - unless the Council is provided the list.

"The mayor won't tell us the companies but expects us to vote on the budget - what color is the sky in his world?" asked Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.

What color is the sky in Bloomberg's world?

He doesn't have to tell you.

And if you don't like it, well, too bad.

As Bloomberg likes to say, accountability in this city comes around every four years for the mayor.

And back in 2009, Councilman Vallone, you gave the Mayor of Money a pass on it.

So if you want to know the color of the sky in Bloomberg's world, you'll have to FOIL it, just the way the City Council is FOILing which firehouses he wants to close.

You should hear back in, oh I dunno, six months to a year...

An Exciting New Way To Hold Teachers Accountable

Gary Babad says Governor Cuomo plans on bringing back some of the old ways.

Cuomo's a traditionalist.

Unions Say They Will Sue Over Breach Of Law In Evaluation Changes

From NY1:

The new teacher evaluation system has been the only major reform that union and education officials accomplished together in at least a year. That last thread of collaboration snapped Monday night. The Board of Regents approved a plan that includes some last minute changes suggested by the governor.

Union leaders call them unacceptable.

“If political ideology and rhetoric trumps what's best for the kids, then we're not going to be able to come to a decision,” said Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers.

Originally, 20 percent of each teacher's evaluation grade would have been based on students' state test scores. In the new plan, backed by Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg, that number is up to 40 percent.

"I know this is difficult," said Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch. "I know in many ways it is dramatic for all of us."

Nevertheless, the real drama may be to come. The state teachers union says the changes are against the law. They are suspending any collaboration with the State Education Department and may sue. Locally, each school district now has to work with their teachers union to figure out the details of the evaluations by September. However, the city's union president and chancellor already admit they disagree.

“We think that what's been discussed is something that is fair and strong and we support it,” said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.

“I do not negotiate in the press," said Mulgrew. "I just want to be clear on our position that test prep has harmed the school system of New York City."

Some Regents members also voiced concerns that if test scores are given more weight, teachers will do more test prep.

"Principals know who the good teachers are," said Roger Philips of the State Board of Regents. "They could rank them in order without this incredible structure.”

...

Still, that the city and union will be able to agree on a model at all by September looks less and less likely.

Just as with the TDR's, the unions have found that collaborating with the corporate education reform power structure on teacher evaluations has ended badly.

Do you remember when Weingarten made a deal with the DOE over the TDR's and the DOE agreed to not publish the reports in public or release them to the press?

Now the DOE is fighting in court to do just that.

Weingarten claimed they broke an agreement she made with them.

Meanwhile last year the union leadership did a deal with the devil during the Race to the Top hysteria (it seemed that if the state didn't win the $700 RttT funds, the world would end and thousands of teachers would be laid off - how'd that work out in retrospect?)

By agreeing to any percentage of the evals to be done using test scores, they opened up the door to have the state push for a higher percentage eventually.

The leadership probably never thought it would happen so fast - or so sneakily.

But that's the thing with corporate education reformers - they want their changes now and they don't care about such niceties as agreements or, you know, the law.

I would think the unions have a pretty good case if they fight this in court - after all, the law as passed last year stipulated something other than what the Regents approved last night.

But we'll see if they really do fight this or if the leadership are just talking tough to make the membership happy.

Standardized Tests

So NY State is now going to have standardized tests in almost every grade in math, ELA, social studies, science, and art.

In high school, you can add at least one test a year for foreign language as well.

The city will have tests in these subjects also.

A high school student may take as many as 12 high stakes tests a year in NYC.

How about music? Are they going to test music too?

I hope not - the one music teacher at my school retired last year and they never replaced her.

They couldn't afford to.

Budget cuts and all.

What about recess? Shouldn't they test for that?

I mean, if they're going to test everything else, shouldn't they test recess too?

Oh, wait - recess has been eliminated in most places so that more test prep can be added to the school day.

So how about lunch? Will they test that?

I am so sure that incoming NYSED commissioner John King is right when he says that the state has made sure that the value-added measurements that will be used to evaluate teachers via these tests will be fair, as I heard him say at today's Regents meeting.

And so what if all these distinguished folks and education experts say the system is unfair and unworkable.

After all, we have to think about the kids.

And all those teachers we can fire after they get declared "ineffective" using a value-added measurement that has somewhere between a 12% and a 35% margin of error.

Do you think Cuomo's proposing a Tier VI with a 401(k) instead of a pension for all incoming state employees on the same day the state gave school districts a swell mechanism to get rid of thousands of teachers in Tier III and Tier IV long before they hit max was a coincidence?

I don't think it was.

They know they can unload tens of thousands of teachers around the state in the next few years with this new evaluation system.

Which as Norm notes, is the point.

Ranking Roger and The Clash

New to me:



Mick Jones supposedly played on the first General Public album.

So why not Roger with The Clash?

That Kind Of Night

NYSUT Looks To Lawyer Up

Too little, too late:

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York's Board of Regents has adopted a tougher teacher evaluation system that includes greater reliance on student performance in standardized tests.

The proposal amended with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's recommendations on Friday prompted the powerful New York State United Teachers union to break off its cooperative relationship with the state Education Department.

The evaluations that could be in place this year would replace seniority in determining which teachers face layoffs.

Richard Iannuzzi (eye-an-OO'-zee) of the New York State United Teachers union says the Cuomo proposals backed by state schools Chancellor Merryl Tisch on Friday will hurt education as well as teachers.

NYSUT had agreed to the Regents' proposal before Cuomo's additions.

Now NYSUT says Monday it is considering a legal fight to block the plan.

I definitely agree with the court move.

But really, the point to fight this was when the RttT hysteria was going on.

The battle was lost then.

By agreeing to amend the evaluation system and allowing tests to be tied to evals, the NYSUT and the UFT lost the war.

Ironically, $700 million was dangled as the "prize" for changing the system but the new evaluation system is going to cost at least twice that, and maybe a lot more.

Bet we don't hear about that from all those editorial writers at the newspapers who wrote about the RttT competition as if it were Sputnik all over again.

Now teachers will be subjected to an evaluation system with a MOE between 12% and 36%.

And the results might be published in the papers too.

Gee, that seems fair.

And I'm sure it will improve education too.

Plus it will cost a lot more to implement then the state actually won in RttT at a time when teachers are being laid off due to budget cuts.

Heckuva job, unions.

Teacher Evaluation Changes

Watching the Regents meeting for the teacher evaluation changes.

This is going to be a nightmare.

Winning the Race to the Top money was the rationale for making all these changes.

The award was $700 million dollars.

It is going to cost at least double that to create and administer these new "assessments" (i.e., tests.)

How many tests are going to be given in order to grade teachers?

Dunno, but it's going to be a lot of them.

Observations are going to skyrocket - ap's and principals are going to do nothing but observations.

One member of the Regents (didn't get his name) just said this is a nightmare evaluation system, he intends to vote no because it is too costly a system, it is too cumbersome and it's not particularly effective.

Tisch, Steiner and King are stepping up after each criticism to push back and shill for the changes.

I will go out on a limb here - I think within five years of the evaluation changes, the system will have to be changed again because this one - with so much emphasis on high stakes tests, so much additional work for administrators - just isn't going to be workable.

Especially because education levels of children aren't going to improve through these changes.

And when parents figure out that their children are going to be taking high stakes tests in every subject at every grade multiple times a year, well, I just think there will be a rebellion.

We'll see.

I hope if this happens, the people who put this into place - Obama, Duncan, Steiner, Tisch, King, Cuomo - will be suitably blamed for the results.

The education system, starting in math and English next year, every subject after that, will be all test prep all the time.

UPDATE: So the new evaluation system either will have students taking BOTH local "assessments" and state "assessments" in order to grade teachers (20% for each, then in a few years, 25% for the state, 15% for the local) or just the state assessments (for 40% of the teacher's evaluation.)

Children could be taking two high stakes tests a year in every subject - math, ELA, social studies, science, foreign language - for a total of 10 high stakes tests a year.

Oh, yeah - this will improve education.

We have a difficult time now trying to get students motivated for five Regents exam over a four year high school career.

Wait'll they have to take 10 tests a year.

Thousands of teachers are going to be declared "ineffective" in this system.

These will be excellent teachers who will be publicly humiliated and fired for no other reason than that the system devised is a bad one and either politicians want to be seen to be doing something about the "education crisis" so they're doing this without much forethought about the "unintended consequences" or their deliberately trying to fire thousands of teachers, bust the unions, break up school systems and sell them off to Merryl Tisch's brother for online schooling.

Cuomo To Propose Tier VI With 401(k) To Replace Pension

Andrew Cuomo continues to do the work of the billionaire class:

In a sign that the back-and-forth over the Cuomo administration’s desire to seek a Tier VI pension package is growing heated, CSEA President Danny Donohue just issued the following rather blunt statement — an echo of what CSEA spokesman Steve Madarasz offered to Jimmy a few hours ago:

“It is very clear from the Cuomo administration’s leaks about plans to seek Tier VI pension changes for public employees that the governor does not care about the impact of his policies on working people. The governor is engaging in political grandstanding to impress his millionaire friends at the expense of working people and the services they provide to the people of New York.”

Cuomo's a Democrat the way the Democrats for Education Reform are Democrats.

He's a wholly-owned corporate tool.

Hey, Andy - why not go all the way and just propose eliminating pensions and retirement totally.

Work until you die.

Or eat cat food from the 99 cents store.

The future looks bleak for all but the hedge fundies, the Wall Street crooks and their tools in politics and the media.

John King Replaces Steiner As NYSED Commissioner

Corporate education reformer John King replaces Steiner at NYSED.

Meet the new corporate ed deform boss, same as the old corporate ed deform boss.

Get ready for all standardized testing all the time, more value-added evaluation jive (you know, the kind of "metrics" with a 12%-36% margin of error), more merit pay schemes, more charter school stuff.

In other words, nothing changes.

UPDATE: Here's how you know King will pursue a corporate-friendly, pro-privatization, pro-testing, pro-corporate reform agenda - Arne Duncan likes him.

How Not To Be A Socialist

Sign it immediately, and free yourself from the tyranny of socialism and breathe in the freedom and liberty.

I love going Galt early in the morning.

Smells like - liberty!

Or pollution from the non-regulated privatized coal plants, I can't tell which.