Please say no to this budget deal; Call the Speaker & your Assemblymember NOW!

According to today’s NY Post, the legislature is about to make the worst possible deal imaginable: considerably more per pupil funding for charters, including more than $1100 per student over three years, and free space or rent paid for by NYC  for any new or expanding  NYC charter going forward – just in NYC, by the way, where we have the most overcrowded schools in the state, with more than half our students sitting in extremely overcrowded schools by the DOE’s own metrics, which we know are an underestimate.

Thousands of kids on waiting lists for Kindergarten each spring, thousands more sitting in trailers, and the capital plan provides less than one third of the seats needed to eliminate current overcrowding and address future enrollment growth.  But charters will be guaranteed the space to expand – paid for by city taxpayers, while our public school students  are crushed into larger and larger classes with less space to learn.

Call the Speaker’s office now:  tell him to say NO to the deal forcing the city to pay for facilities forever for new or expanded charters, while public school students will sit in increasingly overcrowded buildings.

Speaker Silver: (518) 455-3791

Then call your Assemblymember and urge them to say NO to this deal as well; find their contact info here:

If this deal goes forward, this will truly create a two tier system in which the charter schools will  be the only ones in uncrowded facilities, with the rent paid for by NYC taxpayers, and all parents will be forced to apply to charter schools whether they want to or not,  just to guarantee a seat for their child in a school that is not hugely overcrowded.

Please call the Speaker's office and your Assemblymember now.

During the last days of session, the Assembly passes two bills to protect student privacy; Senate and Governor Cuomo fail to act

In the last few days of the legislative session, two bills to protect student privacy were approved by the NY Assembly: A.7872, introduced by Education Chair Cathy Nolan, which would allow parents to opt out of their children’s personal identifiable information from being shared with third parties, and A.6059A, introduced earlier by Assemblymember O'Donnell, that would block re-disclosures (as inBloom plans to do) to third parties without parental consent.  Unfortunately, the Senate did not act on either of these bills, or a similar bill to protect student privacy, introduced by Senator Grisanti, S.4284, that had strong bipartisan support. Despite the fact that nearly 3,000 parents also signed a petition to the Governor, asking him to intercede on their behalf, and  we met with Cuomo's top Education aide, De' Shawn Wright, about this, he did nothing on this issue either.

At this juncture,the NY State Education Department continues to ignore the protests of parents and the concerns elected officials, and is going ahead with a risky and unethical plan to share the most confidential, sensitive information of New York state’s public school students with inBloom Inc., to be uploaded onto  a vulnerable data cloud and provided to for-profit vendors without parental consent.  We will have to continue our struggle to protect student privacy and parental rights.

The press release put out by Speaker Silver about the passage of the Nolan bill follows.    

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

June 20, 2013

Assembly Passes Bill Giving Parents Control of Student Information 

When Requested by Third Parties

Measure Authorizes Parents to Determine Who Can Access their Children's Pre-K through 12th Grade Personally Identifiable Student Information

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Education Committee Chair Catherine Nolan and Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell today announced the passage of legislation that would authorize the parents of students to determine who can have access to certain private information that is used to identify their children. 

“In this day and age of high speed computers, data mining and identity theft, we have to ensure that our son’s or daughter’s student information does not fall into the wrong hands,” said Silver.  “This bill will require that the information kept by schools about students remains private and will be disclosed only with the consent and knowledge of a student’s parents.” 

“The good old days when student information was stored in wooden filing cabinets and primarily shared by mail with college admission offices, scholarship boards and potential employers are long gone,” said Nolan. “This measure addresses the risks of the computerized world with safeguards that will keep the names, social security numbers, fingerprints and other personal information used to identify students confidential, and prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of this highly personal information.” 

“As a member of the house with a long-standing commitment to education and the future of children, I believe we need to enact measures that protect the personally identifiable information of students,” said O’Donnell. “This bill provides a simple solution to a complicated problem that will shield young people from the consequences of an unauthorized disclosure of their student information just as they are beginning the journey of life.” 

According to Silver, Nolan and O’Donnell, the legislation addresses concerns that have emerged following the decision by the State Education Department (SED) to share the personally identifiable information of students in grades K through 12 with commercial vendors who will store the data for use by SED. 

The bill (A.7872, Nolan) would empower the parents of students in pre-K through 12th grade to determine whether third party requests to access their children's student information will be granted. It also provides exceptions that permit access to certain student information in cases that require compliance with the law, a court order, subpoena, state and federal audits or health and safety emergencies. 

In addition, the measure requires SED to develop forms to authorize parents to prohibit the disclosure of their children's personally identifiable student information.

The Banana Republic of NYC Public Schools

Check out my new posting on the Huffington Post.

More evidence in the NY Times today of how this Banana Republic that we call NYC operates.

The article further speculates about what political insiders have been surmising for weeks: that Silver caved in on the issue of mayoral control because of a deal he made with one billionaire (Bloomberg) to benefit another billionaire (Larry Silverstein.)

What (or who) I am grateful for

This has been a rocky year in many ways for the causes I care most about; with class sizes increasing in all grades for the first time in ten years, a disappointing capital plan, and big budget cuts on the horizon.

Though I usually criticize on this list serv, I’d like to take a moment today to tell you about some of the people I am grateful for.

I am grateful for the fact that we have some excellent public servants in this city.

These include (but are not limited to): Speaker Shelly Silver, Assembly member Cathy Nolan, CM Robert Jackson, Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer, and Betsy Gotbaum, the Public Advocate. All of them believe that parents should have a voice in how the system is run, and that class sizes should be small enough to ensure that NYC children are able to receive personal attention they need from their teachers.

I am grateful for their hardworking staff as well – you know who you are!

I am grateful for my own two State legislators, Sen. Tom Duane and AM Deborah Glick, who always are welcoming when I make the long trip to Albany.

I am grateful for the members of the City Council from both parties who led the battle over term limits, even if it was a losing cause, especially Bill de Blasio, Leticia James, John Liu, and James Oddo.

I am grateful for a very robust corps of education reporters in this city – most other cities do not have so many smart and aggressive reporters. I am especially grateful that despite the demise of the NY Sun, Elizabeth Green found a new home at Gotham Schools; (though I do still miss Mike Meenan of NY 1.)

I am grateful for the members of our Parent Commission on school governance; and the Manhattan Task force of School Overcrowding, for their tremendous support, insight, and hard work on issues that are not easy to solve but that are critical to the future of education in this city.

I am grateful for Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan appointee to the Panel of Educational Policy and the co-chair of the Overcrowding Task force, for his analytic abilities, and his courage in questioning the priorities and policies of this administration.

I am grateful for Norman Siegel and his boundless energy and enthusiasm in challenging City Hall when the administration violates the law.

I am grateful for Diane Ravitch’s commitment, eloquence and engagement as a writer, blogger, and true public intellectual.

I am grateful for her fellow bloggers, Debbie Meier, Jennifer Jennings, and Aaron Pallas – like Diane, it would be far easier for all of them to stay safe and cloistered in the groves of academe, but they continue to speak truth to power every day.

I am grateful to each of the wonderful contributors to our NYC public school parent blog, especially Gary Babad, who always can make me laugh no matter how dark the day, and David Bellel, whose illustrations are ceaselessly inventive and who has videotaped all our School governance forums.

I am grateful for all those who have volunteered their time for Class Size Matters, including Ann Kjellberg, Irene Kaufman, Eric Zerof, and Emily Horowitz.

I am extremely grateful for all those who have made financial contributions to the organization.

I am grateful for my family and friends.

Finally, I am grateful to all of those who continue to be actively involved in the crucial effort to improve our public schools and without whose support I could not continue this work.

Happy New Year to all!