NYSED and Merryl Tisch FOILed for their communications re inBloom Inc.

See the Freedom of Information request, just submitted by attorney Norman Siegel on behalf of PS 75 in Manhattan and Community Education Council District 14 in Brooklyn, asking for all the communications between NYSED officials and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and the Gates Foundation, inBloom Inc., Wireless Generation and News Corp, about their risky student data sharing scheme.

FOIL Request From STE LLP_6.17.13 by Molly

Last night's parent-led Mayoral forum: how did the candidates do on the hot-button issues?

UPDATED:  Here are scanned copies of the signed pledges of each of the candidates, responding whether they would support each one of our demands.  If the next mayor is one of these individuals, you can be sure we will hold them to their promises! Sal Albanese (D), Adolpho Carrion Jr  (I), Bill de Blasio  (D), Anthony Gronowicz (G),  John Liu (D), Erick Salgado (D),  Bill Thompson (D)

The parent-led mayoral forum last night at Murry Bergtraum High School was terrific, with parents asking incisive yes/no questions, investigative reporter Juan Gonzalez doing inspired follow-up as only he knows how, and all the candidates giving thoughtful responses.  Below is the livestream video; we will have sharper video uploaded next week, but the audio is quite clear.

The coalition of individuals and groups that put this together, which included Class Size Matters and NYC Kids PAC (the full list is on the flyer)   asked some very challenging questions, and developed a scorecard by which the responses of the candidates could be marked off yes or no.  Here is a pdf copy of the scorecard, with all the questions listed and how each of the candidates responded.
Or you can click on the images to the right and below. 

Carrion, Thompson and Liu came late and so didn't have a chance to answer all the questions, so they are marked "L" for those questions.  However, at the end of the forum, Juan Gonzalez requested that all the candidates to indicate their answers on their individual scorecards and sign them, so that we will have a record of what they promised to do should they be elected mayor.

An informal calculation made at the forum shows these results: Liu and Gronowicz got perfect scores  of 100%, Salgado 87%, Albanese 73%, de Blasio 60%, Carrion 50%, and Thompson 33%.  (I will update these scores when I receive copies of the signed responses from the candidates, hopefully with all the questions checked off one way or another. I will also post these documents here.)

The candidates whose names are crossed off did not attend.  Democrats Chris Quinn instead visited two Orthodox synagogues, Anthony Weiner did not show up though he had no competing campaign events on his schedule. Republicans Catsimitidis, Lhota, and McDonald also chose not to attend.

The highlight (for me): All the candidates promised to commit to specific class size reduction goals by the end of their first term, and if necessary, to raise revenue to meet them.  All the candidates also promised to stop sharing personal student information with inBloom and other corporations, without full parental notification and consent.

The most contentious issues -- predictably -- related to Mayoral control, governance and parent empowerment.  Only Liu, Gronowicz and Salgado agreed to give up three of their appointments on the Panel for Education Policy to representatives who would be elected by parents, though Thompson said he would give up two of his seats.  DeBlasio and Thompson also opposed giving Community Education Councils the authority to approve co-locations and school closings, though they said they would listen to CECs for advisory input.  (DeBlasio explains his position at about 31 min. in on the video.)

Another contentious issue related to require charter schools that are housed in DOE facilities to pay rent; Albanese, Carrion and Thompson said they would not require this. 
As to whether they would take away the school safety officers away from the jurisdiction of the police, Carrion, de Blasio, Salgado and Thompson were opposed. At about one hour into the video are explanations from de Blasio and Thompson about why they answered this way; Thompson said that police should still do the training though the principal should decide whether a student should be arrested.

But please watch the entire forum, and add your comments below.  There are many interesting issues covered, including additional questions asked by Juan not included on the scorecards.  For example, at 1:10 in, there is a discussion about the lack of diversity in the Bloomberg administration, as well as a critique of the decline of Black and Latino teachers in the public schools.




Video streaming by Ustream

Action Alert: call your Legislators now to protect your child's privacy!

A bill introduced by AM Cathy Nolan, A. 7872, was approved by the NYS Assembly Education Committee yesterday which would allow parents to opt out their children’s personal data from being shared with inBloom Inc. and for-profit vendors.  As such, it represents a big step forward in protecting the privacy rights of children. Here is a pdf of an updated fact sheet to post or distribute in your schools.

 

Contact your State Senators today; and ask them to co-sponsor the same bill in the Senate.  We only have one more week of the Legislative session, so you need to call them today; you can find their contact information at www.nysenate.gov  
 

Please also contact the Chair of Senate Education Committee Flanagan at (631) 361-2154.  But do it today!    If you can, email us at info@classsizematters.org to let us know what they said.

Also forward this message to your friends and colleagues, and share on Facebook as well.

AFT’s Randi Weingarten letter about inBloom to Gates & Carnegie Foundations and their reply

Stacey Childress of Gates Foundation

On May 30, 2013, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers and member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Shared Learning Collaborative, the precursor to inBloom Inc., wrote a letter to Michele Cahill and Stacey Childress, expressing her concern about inBloom’s privacy and security provisions.  Cahill is Vice President at the Carnegie Corporation, and Childress is the Deputy Director of the Gates Foundation, and they are both founding members of inBloom’s Board of Directors.  In

Michele Cahill of Carnegie Corporation

particular, inBloom is a creation of the Gates Foundation, and was launched via $100 million of Gates funds.

In her letter, Weingarten asks many questions, such as:

• How is inBloom assuring that there is no unauthorized access to personally identifiable student and teacher data? 
• What are inBloom’s plans to charge vendors for access to student data?
• How secure is its cloud-based storage compared with other methods?

Check out Weingarten’s letter, and the June 5th response from Cahill and Childress below.

InBloom Letter from Randi Weingarten 05/30/13 by Molly

Or download the pdf here: inBloom Letter 

June 5th response:

Letter to Randi Weingarten_06 05 13 by Molly

 Or download the pdf here: Letter to Randi Weingarten

Two leaked memos showing how desperate corporate reformers are to retain failed status quo policies after the election

Two leaked memos show how desperately the corporate reformers in the administration and in the private sector want the mayor's failed policies to be

retained after the mayoral election – despite the huge public disgust with the status quo.

The first is a  memo from the Parthenon group, available at the GothamSchools website; showing how the DOE is avidly trying to strategize as to how to keep the network structure in place, and prevent geographically-based district structure to be restored.  Nearly all the Democratic candidates have said the networks make no sense, and parents unanimously agree.  

To this end, DOE has hired Parthenon as consultants for $375,000, paid for by private funds.  FYI, Parthenon is also one of Gates Foundation’s favorite consulting companies, and it is quite possible they are footing the bill for initial phase of project.  

However, as GS notes: “A longer-term phase of the project that Parthenon pitched involves managing the implementation of its vision during the 2013-2014 school year. That phase would cost more than $400,000, but Polakow-Suransky said he anticipated that part of the project being completed in house.”  

This means that the DOE is prepared so spend half a million dollars to make sure this incoherent and pointless management structure remains in place past the elections – one that NO ONE likes, outside of Tweed and the PSO’s , which of course benefit from the steady revenue stream of taxpayer money. The fact that even the principals, who according to DOE are supposed to benefit from the system, detest the networks was evident when Quinn responded at the CSA forum that she was still considering keeping them in place, and was met with boos. 

I have spoken to network staff, who themselves say that they don’t think the system makes any sense and that the districts should be restored – especially as they have to spend most of their time driving from one part of the city to another, wasting time and contributing to global warming.

One of the projects envisioned in the Parthenon strategy to protect the network structure : “Internal communications: Increasing Principal support of the networks to bolster their defense of the aspects of the structure that are most valuable.” 

Expect statements of support to be released with principals pressured to sign on, especially those principals at New Visions schools. New Visions would dearly like to be kept on the gravy train and  was "caught" in 2007 (from another leaked memo) pressuring schools that they had started with Gates money to select them as their PSO. (h/t Lisa Donlan) 

Note also how in the Parthenon memo that conversations with "key stakeholders" exclude parents, teachers, and students. A better example of Bloomberg's oppressive reign of “Educrats first” is hard to imagine.  Why does DOE so intent on keeping the networks?  Going back to districts would allow the connection between neighborhoods, local electeds and schools to be strengthened, diminish their autocracy and their ability to close and privatize schools.  Some of the same thinking is at play in their last inning attempt to dezone elementary and middle schools in many districts throughout the city.

The other leaked memo, reported in Crain’s, from Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform, reveals that he doesn't think any of the GOP mayoral candidates  can win, and among the Democratic candidates, he believes that Thompson, Quinn, and Weiner could be expected to be charter-friendly and continue to co-locate charters in DOE buildings.  He asks his hedge fund supporters to “hedge” their bets, and “continue to quietly work with these candidates” behind the scenes.  Here is an excerpt; the full memo is below.

“What is worth noting… is how careful several of the candidates -- including Quinn and Thompson -- have attempted to play nicely with the UFT while not closing the door to being able to work with the education reform coalition later on down the road [what DFER calls the privatizers/hedge funders.]  There has been some serious parsing of words with regard to “moratoriums” on co-locations, for example, or allowing “community input” with regard to the same.  Without specifics, those comments and positions mean little.  The door has been left open to continued relationship-building here….

In the current field, both Quinn and Weiner appear to support co-locations and Thompson and deBlasio have offered adequately confusing responses on the issue….The key objective is …making sure that the run-off election is between Quinn and Someone Good, or at least Someone Not Bad…This hedge … is entirely do-able if we galvanize enough support behind this strategic deployment of effort….”

DFER memo by ahawkins8223

NYS Supreme Court rules against NYC DOE and for parents

I have given many presentations to parent groups and CECs, pointing out how DOE has been violating the accountability and public input requirements in the Contracts for Excellence law, by refusing to hold borough hearings and only presenting sketchy power points to Community Education Councils long after the $600 million in annual C4E funds have already been spent.  

Guess what?  The Court agreed.  See press release below.  Thanks to Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center and plaintiffs Lisa Shaw, Isaac Carmignani,  Shino Tanikawa, and Karen Sprowal; the court decision is here.

Earlier this month, the ELC filed a lawsuit in state courtagainst Commissioner King, pointing out how he is equally culpable, and that his overdue scheduling and lax oversight  itself constitutes a violation of the C4E law.  The lawsuit asks that borough hearings be held in NYC earlier in the year, and the city’s plan for these funds be submitted to the state after the hearings but before these funds are spent. King has been circumventing the public input required by asking the DOE to submit the plan for "pre-approval" before the public hearings had even taken place. Clearly, neither the state nor the city is interesting in listening to parents or complying with the law.  More on this  lawsuit is posted here. 

COURT RULING VINDICATES PARENTS' RIGHT TO HAVE INPUT ON NYC DOE SCHOOL SPENDING PLAN

June 10, 2013

New York public school parents scored a victory today in a State Supreme Court decision ordering the City Department of Education (DOE) to hold timely borough-wide Contract for Excellence (C4E) public hearings for the 2013-14 school year and future years.

Several New York City public school parents filed suit against Chancellor Dennis Walcott and the DOE in March for depriving them of their statutory rights under New York’s Contract for Excellence law to provide timely input into the City’s annual school spending plan. Education Law Center’s Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) project represented the parents in the lawsuit.

The C4E law was designed to ensure that the public has input on how DOE spends state school aid by requiring one public hearing in every borough of New York. However, for the past two years the DOE has flagrantly violated the law by failing not only to hold hearings in a timely manner , but to hold any borough-wide public hearings at all. The DOE’s action completely eliminated the public process required by the C4E law, thus preventing parents from participating in the development of the City's annual C4E school spending plan.

“Public participation and transparency are critical components of the C4E law, enabling parents to have a say in how vital education dollars will be spent in their children’s schools,” said Wendy Lecker, Senior Attorney for CFE. “This ruling by the court vindicates the legal right of parents to hold the DOE accountable for the effective and efficient use of school funding.”

Judge Peter Moulton ruled that the DOE directly violated the C4E law, which “mandates that DOE hold [C4E] public hearings in each of the five boroughs,” and that the DOE must hold these hearings in all future school years.

“Thank you to Judge Moulton for counteracting the disdain the DOE has for public school parents, who choose 'reducing class sizes' as their top priority every year on the learning environment survey,” said Lisa Shaw, a parent  of four and a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “Students are tested to the extreme for so-called accountability purposes, but rarely is anyone able to hold Chancellor Wolcott accountable. The Judge did so in this decision.”

“Finally, the city is going to have to follow the C4E law, and hold borough hearings and listen to parents, BEFORE the $600 million in annual funds have been spent,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters. “The law was written specifically to require public input in the planning and spending of these dollars. Partly as a result of the broken process and lack of enforcement, class sizes have ballooned out of control, audits are rendered meaningless, and NYC children are now worse off than before the CFE case was decided.”

Related Stories:
NY STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT COMPLICIT IN CITY’S VIOLATION OF PARENT INPUT LAW
NYC EDUCATION OFFICIALS SUED FOR SHUTTING OUT PUBLIC FROM SCHOOL SPENDING PLAN

Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24

Video of Saturday's One Voice United Rally for Public Education

Video below of the Saturday's huge rally, One Voice  United in Albany.  Highlights: Randi Weingarten at 56 minutes in; Michael Mulgrew at 1:08; student leader Nikhil Goyal at 1: 29.

At 1:35, Tom Chapin and Michael Mark perform their great song, "It's Not on the Test," and then, with Mary Mark, reading teacher in Nyack, a new song they wrote for the occasion, "One Voice."  (Tom Chapin went to PS 41 in Greenwich Village and Brooklyn Tech; Mark is on his 6th term of the Nyack school board.).

John Nichols of The Nation's gave the keynote address at 2:10; my speech is at 2:30.  Please add your favorites below.

Video of massive rally in Albany today and my speech

The rally in Albany was massive today; with estimates of 25,000.  You can get a sense of the size from the video below.  I was honored and
excited to be a part of it.  Let's hope it is just the beginning of a real movement to rescue public education, led by teachers, parents, administrators and students, to take back our schools.  Here is my speech:

We are here today to call upon the Governor and the Legislature to do what is right for the children of New York. 

Children need good schools. Children need small class sizes.  Children need experienced and caring teachers…But instead of giving New York's children what they need, the Governor, the Legislature and the Regents are intent on giving our kids more tests.

Parents are outraged as to how our public schools are being undermined by policymakers who do not seem to realize how their decisions are hurting New York State’s children. 

From the testing obsession, to budget cuts, class size increases, and rampant sharing of private data, the needs of our students and the priorities of parents are ignored, and our trust in government is eroding every day. 

Rather than give our children the smaller classes they need, the corporate reformers claim that personalized instruction will be provided through software and data analysis.

So the state is providing all our children’s most sensitive personal information to a corporation called inBloom Inc. funded by Bill Gates – which in turn plans to give this information to for-profit vendors w/o parental consent. 

Because of protests from parents, four states have announced they are pulling out of inBloom –– but the arrogant and reckless bureaucrats in the NYS Ed Department are still intent on going ahead no matter what. 

NYS is now the only inBloom client willing to risk the privacy and the future of more than 3 million public schoolchildren of the entire state by putting their names, test scores, disability status, health records & disciplinary records on a vulnerable cloud -- managed by Amazon.com with an operating system by Wireless, run by Joel Klein and owned by Rupert Murdoch.

And not only parents should be worried – inBloom is also collecting personal teacher information, including your social security number and the longitude & latitude of your home address, as though they wanted to send a drone missile to your home.  They are putting this data together with your students’ test scores, and the reason you were let go from your last job – so that there can be a national black list of teachers based upon unreliable value-added formulas.

Collecting data and providing it to for-profit companies run by people like Rupert Murdoch can never substitute for the personal interaction a child has with his or her teacher.  You cannot be replaced by a machine.  

Today we come together to say, enough of this arrogant dismissal of the voices of parents, children and teachers; enough of the damage being wreaked on our schools.  We will not stand for it any longer.  It must end today.

Nikhil Goyal on fire at One Voice rally in Albany today

Here was one of the best speeches in Albany today, by teenage rock star/pundit Nikhil Goyal, announcing he will lead a statewide boycott of testing next year.

Good afternoon. My name is Nikhil Goyal. In January 2013, I graduated from Syosset High School on Long Island. I am a member of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top generation. My generation has been tested to an extent that is unprecedented in the history of this country, many experts have said. My entire school career has dominated by endless testing and a culture of "drill, kill, bubble fill."

My friend and educator Marion Brady once said, "Even if standardized tests didn’t cost billions, even if they hadn’t narrowed the curriculum down to joke level, even if they weren’t driving the best teachers out of the profession, they should be abandoned because they measure the wrong thing."

My fellow peers, from Portland to Seattle to Providence to Chicago to Newark to Philadelphia, have been walking out of school, protesting, and rallying against high-stakes testing, budget cuts, and the assault on public education. Whether it is gay rights, voting rights, civil rights, women's rights, in every successful social movement, it is always young people taking charge, leading the way, lighting the fire out of outrage within us all.

Wael Ghonim, one of the organizers of the Egyptian revolution, once said, "The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power." We may not be in the White House. We may not be in the halls of Congress. We may not be in our state legislatures. We may not be in the boardrooms of corporations. But we are in our classrooms and in our schools every day. And we have in power in numbers.

Next year, we are launching a student-led campaign in New York to boycott the ridiculous state teacher evaluation tests. Last year, I opted out of the tests. I left the Scantron blank and left the room.

Thousands of students will do the same.

It's time for our stakeholders to rise up and revolt. We will walk-out. We will opt-out of testing. We will boycott. We will protest. And we won't stop until our demands are met.

Nine-year-old Asean Johnson said at a rally to stop school closings in Chicago, "We are not toys. We are not going down, not without a fight."

To Governor Cuomo, Commissioner King, Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Tisch: We're coming for you. We're taking back our children. We're taking back our schools. We're taking back public education from your hands, from the hands of corporations, billionaires, Wall Street, and testing companies.

Wake the hell up. I'm not a stupid little kid. Do you hear me?

Tory Frye at CEC 6 hearings on the real motive behind the DOE's push to dezone

UPDATED: video with the comments of new CEC member Fé Florimón below, who explains her skepticism about the dezoning proposal by pointing out that the NYC DOE has repeatedly betrayed the trust of the community many times.  See also today's article in the Daily News, which mistakenly calls District 6 as in Harlem, when it is really Washington Heights/Inwood.

After the CEC 5 hearing in Harlem on Thursday, there were dezoning hearings last night and this morning in District 6 in Washington Heights. See the video of Tory Frye of CEC 6 below, explain what the real intent of DOE may be in pushing dezoning throughout the city in the last days of the Bloomberg reign.  This is the second time DOE has proposed dezoning to District 6 this year.  See our memo on this issue here; and an article about the hearing in  DNA info.