Good news! AI contracts did not get approved last night at the PEP

A pretty amazing meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy happened last night.  The three AI contracts did NOT get approved by the Panel, for EPS/Amira (withdrawn or turned down for the third time!), Lumi and Kiddom., despite the push by the Chancellor and the DOE officials to keep rapidly expanding that risky technology in classrooms around the city.   

Thanks so much to the parent leaders, the teacher and student who spoke clearly and eloquently  in opposition – and also to many of you who sent comments to the Panel about this critical issue. It shows that the AI juggernaut can be stopped with enough organized opposition.

The Brooklyn BP rep, Camille Casaretti, thanked the many people who wrote in with comments.  Mine are posted on the blog below.   If you wrote in and would like to have your comments shared, please send them to me at leonie@classsizematters.org and I’ll post them as well. Soon I’ll post a video of those who spoke so well last night.

Also approved was a resolution urging the DOE and SCA to create more space to relieve overcrowding and allow schools to lower class size, and a resolution against renewing contracts for another five years for the same group of bus companies that have provided such unreliable service for the last 45 years. 

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My name is Leonie Haimson, I am co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  I was appointed by the Chancellor as a member of AI working group last June, which was tasked with creating guidelines and guardrails for the use of this technology, which is controversial with many privacy experts because of the way AI tools data mine the personal information of students to improve their products, which is illegal under the NY State student privacy law. 

Many parents and teachers are also concerned because of the growing evidence that the use of AI in the classroom hampers the development of cognitive skills, creativity, and critical thinking, all central to learning, while undermining the human connection essential to a quality education. 

Yet since the AI working group was appointed, it has been sidelined.  We’ve been kept in the dark and essentially stonewalled – denied any  of the information we need to move forward, while the DOE goes full speed ahead, expanding the risky use of AI without any of the necessary precautions. 

One of our first requests to DOE was the list of AI products currently used in schools, along with their privacy policies.  Yet the DOE official briefing us refused to provide this list, saying they could not do so because of non-disclosure agreements with the vendors.  

We also asked for materials that DOE has used to train teachers in the use of AI, which the same official claimed had been provided to more than 84,000 teachers and other staff.  Yet these materials were denied us as well.  

I urge you to vote no on the contract for the EPS chatbot and other AI tools until DOE establishes rigorous privacy protections for their use, including independent security audits and privacy impact assessments, along with peer-reviewed research showing their positive impact on learning.  DOE should also explain how the serious risks of AI use related to algorithmic bias andtheir  negative impact on the environment and the climate will be prevented. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Questionable DOE contracts to be voted on Oct. 21 by the PEP, concerns about DOE lack of compliance with student privacy law & ongoing issues about PEP process & lack of training

 I sent this memo to the members of the Panel for Educational Policy last week; questions about their busing contracts, DOE's lack of compliance with the state student privacy law by failing to post their district data privacy policy and contracts with vendors that have access to personal student data, and problems related to PEP governance.   

Update on busing: After this memo was written, it was also revealed that the DOE is planning purchasing Reliant bus company, for an unknown amount, acquiring one thousand buses and thousands of new employees, with ongoing considerable costs to the DOE budget. As I said to the NY Post, this move raises all sorts of questions, including how can the city afford this in the face of huge budget shortfalls? And why are they adding more city employees while threatening to lay off thousands of others? 

Update on the Covid testing contracts:  As of Friday 10/16/20, DOE has now posted the three vendor Parent Bill of Rights agreements here,  after we and others urged them to do so.  We still have concerns about the provisions regarding deletion of the personal student data portions in their Parent Bill of Rights, which do not clearly state when the data is to be deleted and thus do not appear to comply with the state student privacy law Education Law 2D, or regs, which fully came into force January 2020.  There still are no contracts or PBOR posted on the DOE website for the 75+ ed tech companies that DOE has acquired and encouraged teachers to use, many of which also have access to personal student data.

The meeting of the PEP contract is Monday Oct. 19 at 11 AM today; you can see livestream here.  Meeting of the PEP is Wed. Oct 21 at 6 PM; more info including agenda here.  The agenda has a link to the proposed contracts.  You can listen or sign up to speak starting at 5:30 PM here.

A message update on busing contracts, my birthday request, and interview with Michael Mulgrew next week

1. On Wed., the Panel for Educational Policy was scheduled to meet and vote on several huge contracts, including school busing for $200 million for March and another $200 million for April, though all buses have been idle since mid-March. The DOE had told Panel members they were legally obligated to pay 85% of the costs, though the NYC Comptroller disputed this. Shortly before the Panel meeting was due to begin, I got word that the busing contracts had been kicked off the agenda and postponed till the following month. Then when the meeting began on Adobe Connect, the technical problems were so immense with DOE officials and Panel members unable to hear one other that it was soon ended. I describe the chaos that ensued here.

That meeting has now been rescheduled for Thursday May 6 at 6 PM.   Instructions on how to join will soon be listed under the link for that date, according to the DOE.  I urge all of you to join if you can, and provide comment against the spending on busing, though that contract may now be held during the May 20 meeting, as well as on other excessive, unneeded contracts still on the agenda, whether that means millions of dollars for professional development that's not being used, nurses to be hired on staff this year when schools are closed and hundreds of DOE nurses are sitting at home at this time, and pricey consultants. So far, neither the Panel members nor DOE have answered any of the questions I posed here.

DOE has told others they have not yet decided whether to go ahead with the bus contracts for the rest of the year. What we don't know is if they have already paid for March and April -- even though the spending for these months was never approved by the PEP. The Daily News reported yesterday that the state "has stopped reimbursing the city for the 44% of school transportation costs it usually covers," which is yet another reason for the city to stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars for unused busing in this time of fiscal crisis.

2. Speaking of fiscal crisis, today is my birthday and I'm hoping that you might make a donation to our organization. Though usually I try to refrain as much as possible from making these pitches, I am very worried about Class Size Matters' funding at this time. It is unlikely that we will be able to hold our usual Skinny dinner fundraiser dinner in June; and last year, our proceeds from this dinner were stolen by our online processor, NYCharities, as you may recall.

Aside from individual donations, we are also supported by City Council discretionary grants, though now we've been told that Class Size Matters may not be reimbursed for any expenses past mid-March unless we are deemed an "essential service." Our Council funding next year is also at doubt, given the city's fiscal situation. So please, if you can afford it, consider making a tax-deductible contribution today, to help us continue our work.

3. Finally, I had a great discussion with advocate Matt Gonzales and parent leader Naomi Pena on my WBAI "Talk out of School" show on Wednesday, about the many challenges facing families with remote learning and the city's new grading system. You can download the podcast here.

Next Wednesday at 10 AM, I will be interviewing UFT President Michael Mulgrew on how he would like schools to be reconfigured next year to ensure the health and safety of his members, and maximize the academic and emotional support they provide to students who will need this help more than ever before. I will ask him if smaller classes should be part of the equation, as he suggested in a recent interview with NPR, and as several countries and other states have proposed.

If you have other questions I should ask him, please reply to this message and I will try to ask as many as I can.

--Stay safe, Leonie

Parents, teachers, students, advocates and elected officials urge the Mayor, "Cut the Contracts, Save Our Schools"

Cut the Contracts Save Our Schools Press Conference April 27, 2020 from Community Education Council, D3 on Vimeo.

Here is a recording of the press conference. Newsclips are featured in the NY Post and in Bklyner. 

Please sign up to speak against these wasteful contracts at the Panel for Educational Policy meeting that will begin at 6 PM on Wed. April 29 clicking here ; speakers will be allowed to sign on from 5:30 PM until 6:15 PM. 

For immediate release: April 27, 2020

Contact: Leonie Haimson: leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329

Kim Watkins: kwatkins@cec3.org; (917) 689-3065

Parents, teachers, students, advocates and elected officials urge the Mayor, "Cut the Contracts, Save Our Schools"

They urge the DOE to save millions on unnecessary contracts and bureaucracy

rather than essential school staffing and services 

On Monday afternoon, in an emergency press conference broadcast on Zoom, parent leaders, teachers, students, elected officials and education advocates denounced the Mayor’s proposed education budget cuts of over $800 million, and proposed that cuts be made instead to unnecessary  contracts, consultants, the bureaucracy and a freeze on staffing at the NYC Police Department. Among the speakers emphasizing the need to protect students and schools from these unethical cuts were Tom Sheppard of CEC 11, Maria Abacar, a student member of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol, Council Member Helen Rosenthal, Tanesha Grant of Parents Supporting Parents and CEJ, Tajh Sutton of CEC14, as well as those quoted below. 

“Our students were short-changed before the pandemic, with large class sizes, too few social workers and guidance counselors, and too few permanent school nurses. Our students will never get back the instructional time they have missed during the pandemic. They will never get back the missed milestones, like graduations, field trips, and proms. They will never get back lost family members, friends, principals, educators, paraprofessionals, counselors, cafeteria workers, and other loved ones. We cannot impose more pain and loss on them by cutting direct services, unless we have turned over every stone to find other areas to cut," said Council Member Mark Treyger, Chair of the Committee on Education. 

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, said: “The Mayor wants to make egregious cuts to schools instead of eliminating wasteful contracts of over $700 million for busing we’re not using, professional development that’s not happening, and consultants who are doing who knows what. The proposed DOE budget would spend $300 million on the mid-level bureaucracy, nearly twice as much as in 2014.   Savings on contracts and bureaucrats now could prevent the need for any cuts to school budgets next year.  What the DOE really should be talking about instead is how they will strengthen schools and reconfigure classrooms next fall, as many countries and the state of California are doing, to provide the smaller classes required for social distancing and the academic and emotional support needed to make up for the profound losses students suffered this year.” 

As Council Member Brad Lander pointed out, “New York is facing a huge revenue shortfall and there will be hard choices, but cuts should not fall disproportionately on our children's education. The Department of Education represents 20% of the City's budget, and under the Mayor's proposed cuts for next year, are facing 22% of the cuts. Meanwhile, the NYPD, which represents 7% of the budget, is only absorbing 1%. If we must freeze hires and not replace retiring teachers, counselors, and social workers, then we should do the same at the NYPD. This crisis and its changes to education are going to hit harder on lower-income students, English language learners, those with special needs. As we move forward, we must make the choice to prioritize additional support to help those students make up for what’s being lost, and find savings elsewhere to make up the gap."

Shino Tanikawa, a member of the Fair Student Task Force and co-chair of the Education Council Consortium,  said: “There should be absolutely no cuts to the Fair Student Funding. With the pandemic and the remote learning, our students will need MORE resources, not less.  Many students are currently not receiving adequate instruction through remote learning and will require a lot of additional support next school year.  Furthermore all students will require a great deal of social emotional support in the coming months and well into the next school year.  We must refocus our priority on education and wellbeing of the most vulnerable students.”  

“Allocating funds to schools for teaching and support for families must be our top priority. CEC3's advocacy on budget issues includes the need for greater transparency, higher priority to hire full-time school nurses next school year as opposed to this year, and staff other essential positions, by scrutinizing every dollar expended by DOE for administration and contracts. Our council fully supports the effort to make budget cuts this year  to ensure that our schools are able to serve our students and families when they reopen next year,” said Kim Watkins, President of the Community Education Council in District 3.

Liat Olenick, an elementary school teacher, MORE-UFT member and Indivisible Nation BK co-president said: “Our children should come first. The Governor and the Mayor’s proposed cuts to public schools during a moment of profound collective loss and trauma are both unjust and unnecessary. The Governor should reverse his proposed statewide cuts to public education and instead levy moderate taxes on New York’s ultra-wealthy, and the Mayor should cut extraneous DOE contracts, and freeze funding for the NYPD instead of slashing fair student funding and hiring.” 

“As  a parent of a high school student, I understand first -hand the importance of summer activities for my children.  It’s unconscionable that the Mayor wants to cut $49 million to the summer youth employment program. Without these programs, kids like mine won’t be able to gain skills, experiences, and real wages. These programs are a much needed lifeline for parents like me.  I'm proud to stand with my fellow parents to urge the Mayor to  cut contracts and save summer programs for children like mine,” said Naila Rosario, President of NYC Kids PAC.

Kaliris Salas Ramirez of CEC 4 and NYC Opt out said, “These budget cuts imposed by Cuomo and DeBlasio are downright abusive to our school communities.  Schools in East Harlem are owed millions of dollars that could finance full arts programming, counselors and social workers that can support our students in their transition back to school; now that will be impossible. We need to divest from these corporations, including testing companies, that just continue to create metrics that marginalize our most vulnerable students to invest in our schools and protect our students.”   

Maria Bautista of the Alliance for Quality Education concluded, "Mayor de Blasio's proposed cuts to education are unconscionable and disastrous. The mayor was quoted saying ‘Next school year will have to be the greatest academic school year the city will ever have because everyone is going to be playing catch up,’  yet we know with this budget students will come back to less resources, academic supports,  larger class sizes and limited social and emotional supports. NYC must avoid making any cuts to our schools. We demand they take a look at wasteful contracts, make equitable changes to the Fair Student Funding formula  and divest from other city agencies, like the NYPD. NYC students will be harmed if this immoral budget passes." 

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Why is DOE planning to spend $321 million on contracts, including $200 million on busing we aren't using, when schools are closed and facing nearly a billion dollars in budget cuts?

Sue Edelman of the NY Post just published a story on the proposed DOE contracts being voted on Wednesday, April 22 by the Panel on Educational Policy.

Many of these contracts are simply breathtaking in their expense, especially at a time of school closures and huge budget cuts planned to public schools for next year.

The spreadsheet I created from these proposed contracts shows they add up to $321 million, including extending busing contracts for $200 million for the month of March with an automatic extension for another $200 million in April -- buses we aren’t currently using and don’t need.

The proposed spending also includes $4.4 million to hire nurses for this school year, when we have an oversupply of nurses already on staff, given school closures; and $3.4 million for professional development this year which is also not being used, at a cost of $17 million over the life of the contracts, despite the fact that the Chancellor has said he plans to cut PD next year.

All this is especially incomprehensible given how the Mayor and Chancellor have proposed to slash public education by $827 million in next year’s budget, including $100 million to be taken directly out of school budgets

Among the other items in the list is $1.2 million for Accenture consultants for unspecified "advice" during the Covid crisis, with no hourly wage mentioned, even though in past administrations hourly wages were including in these documents, as well as $40.5 million for IBM to "stage" and send iPads to students.  The cost of the iPADs themselves aren't mentioned.


See  the letter from Comptroller Stringer, sent yesterday, asking the DOE hard questions about about why they are extending the busing contracts, and pointing out that these contracts, even if they were ongoing, have a Force Majeure provision allowing them to be cancelled in case of an emergency. As Wikipedia explains, Force Majeure means that either party is freed from carrying out its terms when an extraordinary event or circumstance occurs, such as a war, strike, riot or epidemic.

Comptroller Stringer writes:

Nothing in the documents references the current state of school closures due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, nor the fact that the school bus fleet has been effectively idled since the last full day of school in New York City on March 13th. This lack of information and context engenders confusion and begs for an explanation.

Given the extreme budgetary pressures faced by the City amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it would seem contrary to all sense of fiscal prudence that the City would continue to pay for services that can no longer be rendered for the remainder of the school year. Every dollar must be leveraged to respond to our current public health crisis and to offset other proposed cuts to city schools.

If DOE suspended our busing contracts now, the DOE would save $700 million through the end of the year – even after paying for the two weeks in March when they were used. This would prevent the need for most of the cuts planned for next year, including most importantly the entire $100 million planned for school budgets.

In Sue’s article, the DOE is quoted as simply saying, “We are constantly reviewing and adjusting our processes in the interest of our 1.1 million students during this unprecedented public health crisis. We are reviewing Comptroller Stringer’s letter.”

At the PEP contract committee meeting that occurred on Friday, the DOE’s Chief Financial Officer Lindsey Oates admitted that most of these contracts were posted 45 days ago, before the schools were closed, which leads one to question, why are they still going ahead with this egregious spending now?

Stringer’s letter is below.

No Busing for Overflow Kindergarteners in Queens

See email exchange between Marge Kolb, head of the Presidents council in D24 in Queens, and Kathleen Grimm of DOE below.

To this day, DOE has refused to put the placement of G and T classes through any public process for community input, leading to flawed decision-making and the awful outcome described below, with parents having to spend hours transporting their Kindergarten children to schools miles away from their zoned schools – with no busing provided.

As Marge says, "DOE cannot pretend to be 'well-managed' and continue to perpetrate these kind of harms upon parents and children."

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From: MKolbcorr@aol.com [mailto:MKolbcorr@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 10:48 AM
To: Klein Joel I.
Cc: Fighetti Gabriela; Sternberg Marc; dmytrocec24@yahoo.com ; Roseann Darche; nickcec24@aol.com ; Chan Madelene
Subject: No Busing for Overflow Kindergarteners?

Dear Chancellor Klein:

I recently called the District 24 office to inquire about the schools in our district with capped kindergartens (which I believe, currently number 6 or 7 schools). I was shocked to learn that busing has still NOT been arranged for 10-12 Kindergarten students from PS 12 in northern Woodside who were offered seats LAST MAY at PS 128 in Middle Village. I was told that one parent may be walking the 4.5 mile round trip to get her child to school each day (twice! in the morning and afternoon) and another parent may be close to losing her job because of the time involved in delivering and picking up her child from school . Parents were initially (and kindly) given metrocards by the PS 128 principal so they could make their way by public bus with their children, but he has since had to stop providing these due to the expense, so now parents are expected to pay their own way (and take two buses) to get their children to school each day. Please note that PS 12 has a free lunch rate of 74% and Limited English Proficiency of 34% - this is primarily an immigrant population being served.

At the September 28 D24 CEC meeting, Gabby Fighetti from the Portfolio division stated that she had just learned of this situation and would immediately take action. Now, weeks later I am told by the D24 office that these students will not be able to be offered busing. This is unacceptable!

I find it absolutely appalling that instead of offering PS 12 students seats at PS 229, which is the next school zone to the south, the DOE instead placed a brand-new 1^st grade G&T class at PS 229 which could have instead been placed at the new PS 330 (at IS 73) which opened this year with a Kindergarten G&T. The class at PS 229 draws most of its students from outside the school zone, and thus, had it not been opened, PS 229 might very well have been able to take the overflow from PS 12 (as it took overflow from PS 143 last year).

This is just another example of why the centralization of decisions such as this is detrimental to districts. The right hand at Central does not know what the left hand is doing. You have CEC and Presidents’ Council leadership who have years of experience in the district and a perfectly competent District Superintendent on the ground, yet were any of us consulted in advance about these issues? No!

I would like an immediate report as to what is being done to get transportation for the affected students. In the meantime I will alert the local elected officials to this situation.

Marge Kolb

President, D24 Presidents’ Council

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From: Grimm Kathleen [mailto:KGrimm@schools.nyc.gov]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 4:11 PM
To: MKolbcorr@aol.com
Cc: Fighetti Gabriela; Sternberg Marc; Chan Madelene; Shear Jeffrey; Goldstein Eric
Subject: FW: No Busing for Overflow Kindergarteners?

Marge,

I am sorry for any frustration here, but PS 12 is a school that does not have busing. Children who are eligible can continue to receive MetroCards, but we cannot provide them to parents. I wish that I could be more help here.

Kathleen

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From: MKolbcorr@aol.com [mailto:MKolbcorr@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 5:01 PM
To: KGrimm@schools.nyc.gov
Cc: GFighetti@schools.nyc.gov; MSternberg@schools.nyc.gov; MChan2@schools.nyc.gov; JShear@schools.nyc.gov; EGoldstein@schools.nyc.gov; dmytrocec24@yahoo.com; rdarche@queensbp.org
Subject: Re: FW: No Busing for Overflow Kindergarteners?

Dear Ms. Grimm:

Your information is incorrect. PS 12 HAS busing, it is PS 128 that does not, and inasmuch as DOE has offered seats to overflow students from PS 12 to attend PS 128 (AS LONG AGO AS LAST MAY!!!) it is incumbent upon the DOE to provide transportation to those students.

How come your reply to me does not address the fact that PS 12 parents were led to believe that they would receive busing or that seats at PS 229 (much closer to PS 12 than PS 128 is) were not offered but were instead slotted for a NEW G&T 1st grade class which could just as easily have been located at the new PS 330 which was already getting a NEW G&T kindergarten class?

DOE cannot pretend to be "well-managed" and continue to perpetrate these kinds of harms upon parents and children.

I already have The Daily News interested in this story and the local City Councilmember, Jimmy Van Bramer has been apprised, so I expect a better answer from you.

Marge Kolb

President, D24 Presidents' Council