K. Webster on the undue influence of businessmen on our public schools

Kathleen Webster engages with Jonathan Alter on his attack on Diane Ravitch and his praise of Bill Gates and the other Billionaire Boys Club for their involvement in  public education. For earlier critiques of Alter's attack , see here and here.  Kathleen points out that at the same time Gates and other corporate mavens are seeking to impose their favorite policies on our schools, they are contributing to hugebudget cuts here in NYC and throughout the country, by not paying their fair share of taxes. Thus their irresponsible behavior is causing a double whammy to our public schools. Microsoft, Gates' company, is one of the nation's prime experts in tax evasion; for more on this, see here and here.

To Mr. Alter: I leave it to others to debunk the absurdities of the rest of this article. But, Re: "what’s wrong with business executives ... devoting time and money to public schools? " If businesses executives would shoulder their share of the tax burden instead of milking this country for all its worth we would not need their "largesse" to fund our schools. And public schools could get back to the business of supporting the minds of our children to handle the complexities of this world.

So, "what's wrong with it"?  We don't want business executives in charge of the ethos of our education system by buying their way into positions of influence.  Because, speaking of your ironic comment, "That went well for this country...," I think we all know how that ethos has played out for everyone else.  K Webster

On Jun 5, 2011, at 11:23 AM, alterjonathan@gmail.com wrote: In your view, What's the motive of business in this context?

K's response: Thanks. Fair question.  But whether the motives are sinister or utterly based on good intentions, has no bearing on the prospect of undue influence of an outside interest in a public school. Everyone comes to this issue with a perspective honed by their life and outlook. I do too.

For example, those of us who are white and/or those of you who come from moneyed backgrounds will have an ethos (spoken, acknowledged, known, aware - or not) out of which decisions get made that  impact those who are, for example: not white, not moneyed. And frankly, we are not smart enough to be making those decisions. Business has a vested interest and a belief that their method, their ethos is the way forward. I understand that - of course they would! I fiercely disagree with that ethos for many reasons. 

The number one reason is that it doesn't work. It is not even working in the business world - except for the very very few. I think that no single influence should hold sway in schools, and certainly no influence without a thorough, ongoing and transparent vetting by the communities and teaching staff that a school intends to serve or employ. 

We've seen over and over again the presumption of "rightness" of a dominant and dominating culture/class/race/gender that gets proven so wrong in the light of progress.  But probably more insidious in all of this, is the gutting of public funding for education, which leaves parents and those who would fight for children (especially children who have been targeted by racism or economic depravation) hunting for the "goodies" that corporate sponsorship has in abundance. How do you turn down that offer? Even if you don't understand it or have time to investigate the long-range consequences of it?

Many small businesses in my community have stepped up and do step up to share their wealth because they believe in the principals who work hard to make the local schools excellent. They give her the money and assume she will know how to spend it. Of course businesses large and small should donate funds to schools!  

But not as a substitute for the paying of a fair share of their taxes so that WE the public and those who run our schools get to determine what gets spent where and for what.  The destruction of the infrastructure needed to create schools that are truly open and public is in no one's best interests. Everyone's ethos ends up being too narrow to be allowed to determine a school in any way. That takes a collaborative effort with all minds engaged, but particularly those who are most impacted by the end results.

Thanks for asking. Yours, K Webster

Shino Tanikawa: The deep flaws in the CEC selection process

The below email is from Shino Tanikawa, a member of the Community Education Council in District 2, to Dennis Walcott.  Shino points out the deep flaws in the selection process for Community Education Councils, which ended last week, despite the postponement that resulted from a threatened lawsuit:

From: Shino Tanikawa shinot@verizon.net   

To: Chancellor Walcott DMWalcott@schools.nyc.gov

Cc: Ojeda Hall

Sent: Sun, June 5, 2011 9:39:38 AM

Subject: CEC Election

Dear Chancellor Walcott,

Thank you for the decision to postpone the CEC election.  I appreciate your willingness to work with parents.  Unfortunately, the postponement did not result in any significant improvements.  Many of my concerns before the postponement remained unresolved.  So that you can run a better election next time, I would like to share some of the remaining problems that require resolution and carefully planning.

·      Many parents did not seem to know the advisory voting was repeated and that they had to vote again even if they voted during the first round.

·      The same confusion over how to cast advisory votes remained after the postponement.  Many parents never received the flier with the login information or they did not hold onto it after they cast their first votes, not realizing the advisory voting was being repeated (please note many elementary schools do not use OSIS numbers for communicating with parents).

·      At least two selectors questioned how they were to cast their votes since the advisory vote results did not show how their school's parents voted.  In other words, the advisory vote results were not organized by school.

·      Parent Coordinators and District Family Advocates were not utilized effectively in disseminating important information.

·      Selectors from many schools did not seem to know when the selector voting started or how they were to cast their votes (some selectors mistakenly thought they could cast their vote using the OSIS # and the zip code).

·      I personally know of at least one selector who did NOT have his login information as of Thursday June 2 (he had to call Ms. Hall to get the information), and as of Tuesday May 31, there were a handful of selectors who had not received their login information.

·      Candidates who have multiple school affiliations only had one school listed with their information (please note this is critical information since only one candidate can be elected from any given school).

·      Candidates’ status regarding IEP/ELL was not publicly posted, making advisory vote results impossible to interpret for the selectors (please note that each Council is to have one ELL and one IEP representatives).

·      It is not clear how multiple parents from one school will be treated if one of them has a child in another school.  It makes sense that if two parents from one school are both elected, and if one of the parents has a child at another school, both parents should be allowed to serve.  However the policy on this issue is unclear. 

·      Now the law allows parents who have had a child in a school under the jurisdiction of the District in the past two years to run, how will this affect the single representative per school policy? 

·      The above policy also needs clarity for candidates whose children are in fifth grade at the time of the election.  By the time the term begins on July 1, these candidates will no longer be parents of elementary students.  How is the single representative per school policy applied in this case?

These problems can be solved by improving just three operational areas: better outreach to parents through schools (not CBOs and faith-based organizations); clear and transparent presentation of information and data; and policies that are well thought out and fair. 

As for the current election, I have two simple requests.  Please post the number of parents who voted in the advisory voting, both the first time and the second time, broken down by school.  This should also be useful information to the DOE for planning outreach for the next election.  I would also like to see the number of selectors voting from each school.  After the election of 2009, candidates were given a detailed tally of the selectors' votes, showing which school's selectors voted.  Needless to say, I do not want to see for whom the selectors voted, but I would like to know whether they voted.

I was heartened to hear that you regarded the CEC/Citywide  Councils as an important element of parent engagement.  I hope we can work together to improve not just the election process but how we engage and empower parents to be meaningful partners. 

Sincerely, Shino Tanikawa, member and candidate, CECD2

From Twittergate to Altergate

June 5, 2011 (GBN News): In the second such incident within a week, a compromising picture was sent out today to the Twitter followers of a public figure. This time, it involved Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alter; but unlike the Anthony Weiner photo, this picture was said to be of Mr. Alter’s nose.

When reached for comment, Mr.Alter insisted that his Twitter account must have been hacked. The nose, he said, could not possibly be his, because it looked to be at least three inches too long.

However, noted forensic otolaryngologist J. Fredrick Runson said that the nose, as pictured on Twitter, has to be that of the columnist. “The altered nose,” he told GBN News, “is definitely Alter’s."

“This could be a case of what we call the ‘Pinnochio Syndrome’,” Dr. Runson went on to say. “One’s words can have consequences for the size of one’s probiscus. I can’t be sure there’s a definite connection, but I’m just saying his nose looked perfectly normal before he wrote that piece last Friday savaging Diane Ravitch.”

If indeed this incident turns out to be a result of questionable journalistic practices, it is unclear what effect, if any, this would have on Mr. Alter’s career. But given that he works for a Bloomberg publication which is "intended to channel [Bloomberg’s] personal philosophy and worldview", a raise and promotion would not be surprising.

Douglas Massey on Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Alter's attack

The observations below are  from Douglas Massey, professor at Princeton and president of the American Academy of Political & Social Sciences (photo at left).  On Thursday night, the Academy presented the Daniel Moynihan Prize to Diane Ravitch, given annually to outstanding civic leaders and social scientists who "champion the use of evidence and informed judgment in the policy process. "   

Yet on Friday Jonathan Alter let loose a vicious attack on Diane, and enlisted Arne Duncan in an attempt to undermine her credibility, claiming that she uses "phony empiricism." Yesterday I posted some responses from parents, educators and advocates.  Alter, (photo to the right) a former Newsweek columnist, now works for a new branch of Bloomberg LP, run out of the Mayor's personal offices next to his home, and "intended to channel his personal philosophy and worldview," according to the NY Times.

For the potential conflicts of interest involved in Alter's attack on Diane, a prominent Bloomberg critic, see Salon.  Another good takedown showing how Alter has consistently spread anti-teacher propaganda in the service of Bill Gates and the rest of the Billionaire Boy's Club, and how the US Dept. of Education has been promoting his attack on Diane is at School Matters.  As Jim Horn writes, for the "Billionaire Boys Club... an inability to buy the truth has reached a crisis point that demands that the truth tellers, now, be burned at the stake."

Massey points out that the corporate reformers now dominating education policy in this nation, whose deceptive rhetoric, use of distorted data, and irresponsible and damaging policies Diane has critiqued, have been peddling "snake oil," and the fact that Alter and Duncan have launched this coordinated attack is a sign of her effectiveness.

Dear Diane:

      Getting pilloried in public and attacked by people in power means you are living up to the Moynihan legacy!   When it comes to education, Americans seem to be in the market for snake oil.  Inequalities of wealth and income have risen steadily for three decades, racial segregation continues, class segregation has deepened, and middle and working class families are fracturing in the face of this economic onslaught, but rather than face these fundamental realities politicians keep pandering to the public and putting forth an endless stream of quick fixes that don’t cost any money and don’t require real change---as if cosmetic changes in schools are somehow going to offset decades of disinvestment in the public sphere and rising concentrations of poverty.  We are also living through the most anti-intellectual, anti-scientific times in American history---and it’s not just social science that’s under attack.  

It’s also climate science, biological science, physical science---really any body of reasoning and evidence that challenges people’s ideologies, prejudices, and selfish interests.  The main theme to emerge from all the speeches the other night was how hard it is to make evidence a part of public debates and to influence public policies with logic and data.  Anyway, I’m glad you got the Moynihan Award and hope in some small way it gives you greater legitimacy and visibility in your struggles in the public realm.

Best wishes,

Doug

In defense of Diane Ravitch (not that she needs it!)

UPDATE and Correction: Alter is no longer working for Newsweek; also check out Salon's withering critique of his column, pointing out the conflict of interest involved in his attack on Diane, a prominent Bloomberg critic, while working for Bloomberg's personal media company.

Today, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek let loose an attack on Diane Ravitch for her recent oped in the NY Times, in which she pointed out how the claims made many of the charter advocates of   "miracle schools " are often based on inflated or distorted data.  

Last night, Diane won the Daniel Patrick Moynihan prize, given annually by the American Academy of Political and Social Science to outstanding civic leaders and social scientists who  "champion the use of evidence and informed judgment in the policy process. "  She richly deserves this award for standing up to the corporate reformers and venture philanthropists who consistently distort data to suit their own ideological biases. 

Below  is my response to the Alter column; I also reprint comments sent him directly or submitted online by NYC parent Jennifer Freeman, celebrated education reformer Debbie Meier, education advocate Robert Skeels, and Nancy Flanagan, a former teacher who writes a column in EdWeek.

If you'd like to send your own comment, you can email Jonathan at alterjonathan@gmail.com and/or submit them online.

 ______

Jonathan:   What you call "beefing up accountability and standards" is what others call high-stakes testing.  In case you were not aware, the National Academy of Sciences has just come out with a new report, showing how damaging and unfair to both kids and teachers these sort of high stakes accountability schemes are.  Perhaps you should read this report rather than attacking Diane Ravitch.  Last night, she won the Moynihan award from the American Academy of Political and Social Science, which recognizes outstanding civic leaders who champion the use of evidence and informed judgment in the policy process.

Your column is the opposite; using rhetoric and invective instead of evidence and careful reasoning to attack one of the leaders in the efforts to preserve our public schools from the corporate reformers who want to impose a free-market, competitive business model.  Many of them are being funded by Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton family, who argue that resources and large classes don't matter for poor kids, while sending their own children to private schools where the tuition is $30,000 per year and class sizes are 20 or less.

The move towards privatization (and yes, charters are schools that are privately run, with public money) is leading to even more inequitable conditions, as charters enroll far fewer of our most at risk students (ELL, homeless, free lunch and special education), students who instead are increasingly concentrated in our public schools.   Charter schools also have very high attrition rates, for both students and teachers. The silliest comment above is from Duncan, who claims that Diane is "insulting all of the hardworking teachers, principals and students all across the country" whereas it is she who has been defending them against Duncan, who has called for mass firings of teachers and wants to impose unfair evaluation and merit pay schemes, policies that don't work and will further undermine the teaching profession.

Moreover, Diane  supports real education reforms that work:  like equitable funding, experienced teachers, smaller classes, and a well-rounded curriculum.  I guess your attack,  as well as Duncan's, is a sign of how threatened the corporate reformers are whenever someone who opposes their policies has a chance to air their views in the mainstream media, because they fear that an open debate will lead to more people understanding their systematic distortion of  data.

Let the debate begin and let all sides have a chance to air their views in the mainstream media, and not be frightened off by this sort of  underhanded attack.  I'm sure Diane won't be.  - Leonie Haimson

 ____

Hi Jonathan-

I think it's so weird the way you attacked Diane Ravitch today. You sounded like Glenn Beck attacking climate scientists, all hyperbole. Ravitch is a serious person, and her view has nothing to do with "we should throw up our hands and admit that nothing will change". How do you get from her view that we should put more resources into holistic programs to fight poverty in conjunction with improving education to "we should throw up our hands and admit that nothing will change"?  I have had a ringside seat with 2 kids in NYC public schools for the past 10 years (we live just a couple of blocks from your and Emily's old apartment) and my experience at ground zero of the reform movement more closely reflects Diane Ravitch than Joel Klein or Arne Duncan. I hope in the future as a thoughtful columnist you will try to be more nuanced than Glenn Beck when you disagree with someone's perspective. One last thought--as an employee of Bloomberg you should be careful to remain objective about education. This piece did not sound very objective.  Regards, Jennifer [Freeman]

--------------------------

I didn't get beyond the first paragraph.  Diane is a Whittaker Chambers?  Are you out of your mind?  I couldn't get past that absurd slander--wherever did that come from???  It was impossible to take your other criticisms seriously once you went down that path.

Of course, her allies (like me) have spent, you seem to forget,  their adult lives working daily, year after year, to reinvent the way we "do" schooling for the sake of our faltering democracy.   Odd as it seems to call folks like me defenders of the status quo to call someone like Ravitch akin to a "reformed" Communist  and a "reformed" traitor is...I can't find a word for it.  It's also utterly puzzling as a metaphor.  I'm not clear in this usage of history whether you see Chambers or Hiss as the hero or villain?  The only similarity is that Chambers changed his mind.  Is that the sin?

We all make mistakes--but you owe Ravitch and many others an apology. -- Deborah Meier

_______
 Mr. Alter:  Yours is perhaps the most mendacious essay I've ever seen. The outright dismissal of Dr. Ravitch's use of the very same statistics that privatizers use to tout their lucrative education schemes is humorous. The fact that she can derive the correct conclusion from them is what scares those bent on profiting from education.

"[C]harter schools are in fact public schools?" Is it their unelected boards that make them public? Is it their negligible accountability to the community what makes them public? Is their nearly complete financial opaqueness (like a Form 990 really tells us anything) that makes them public? Is it their ability to avoid teaching children with special needs or disciplinary issues what makes them public? Oh, yes, Mr. Alter et al will remind us that since they take public funds, that that must make them public. How quaintly Randian. 

Blackwater/Xe takes public funds, are we to understand that they are a public institution as well?

Indeed the most absurd part of your unmerited attack on Dr. Ravitch is the quote from Arne Duncan, who is a pariah amongst not only teachers, but  most community activists. Duncan's disdain for public school teachers is legendary, his talk of "insulting all of the hardworking teachers" rings both duplicitous and insincere. His very occupying of his post is the ultimate insult to anyone that supports public education. ---  Robert D. Skeels

------

Speaking of straw men, Jonathan Alter, you have just provided a textbook case in media manipulation:

#1) Begin with a sports analogy, Arne's go-to technique when the data isn't really on his side.

#2) Choose a person, rather than policies or solutions, as your target, because it doesn't require as much intellectual horsepower in analysis. For good measure, compare her to a Communist, "in denial."

#3) Trot out resonant cliches--"favor the status quo," "phenomenal results," "hardworking teachers," "sophisticated evaluations," "take down...an inner-city school"--and, my personal favorite, "working with unions." As if.

#4) Use lots of little deceptive captions, like "Classroom Malpractice" and "Misuse of Statistics" so that your average column skimmer will come away with an impression, rather than a more complex analysis of what's really going on in this your-research vs. my-research policy skirmish.

#5) Frost it all with incendiary language: "slimed," "pernicious," "malpractice."

Educators across the board respect Diane Ravitch's scholarship and conclusions. She made your buddy Arne look bad by uncovering the real data on his miracle schools. Assassinating her character makes you look bad in turn. For shame. -- Nancy Flanagan

Update! Rally and hearings about the mayor's devastating cuts to our kids

There was a rousing rally at City Hall yesterday morning, with parents and elected officials standing up for our kids and against the mayor’s ruthless and devastating cuts.  

The actress Kristin Johnston made a great speech, saying that she has had a long love affair with NYC ever since she moved here more than ten years ago, but that these budget cuts threatened to kill that love, and would seriously damage Bloomberg's legacy.  “Is this really the message you want to give to the kids? Your education doesn’t matter?"   She said that the citizens of NYC would fight back, and win: “I only have two words for you: Cathie Black!”  (Photo at right from DNA info of Johnston, in back of the banner made by the activist parents of District 6.)

The city council budget hearings that followed were eye-opening as usual.  Chair of the Education committee Robert Jackson led off with a strong opening statement, saying that while the mayor wants to cut 6,000 teachers for a savings of $350 million, DOE was projecting increased spending on contract schools (private schools) by $157 million, and special ed preK by $165 million, with no explanation as to why. Overall, the DOE plans to increase its contract budget by over $700 million, rising to $4.5 billion.

Walcott was steadfast that all these spending increases on private contracts and IT consultants were necessary; though he did announce that the DOE had (finally!) cancelled its contract with Future Technology Associates, the huge, wasteful and probably corrupt IT contract that the DOE has spent over $100 million on, with  63 consultants getting more than $250K per year, and much of the actual work done by cheap labor in India and Turkey while DOE  was being charged over $100 per hour for their work.  

This company, that Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has been reporting on for almost two years, was supervised by Judith Krohe,  DOE’s executive director of financial operations,  who, it turns out, was personally involved with one of the principals. She has now resigned in disgrace, and the company is under investigation by the Special Investigators office, based on Juan’s revelations (though when RJ  held up a copy of one of Juan’s Daily News columns , Walcott said you can’t believe everything you read in the papers.  Unfortunately for the taxpayer,  you can.)  Here is Juan’s update on the FTA issue.

Repeatedly, the DOE has said that FTA’s work was so expert that it could not be brought in- house; now they admit that by hiring 20-25 employees, they will save taxpayers $2.7 million in one year alone. Why can’t this be done with more contracts, RJ asked.  Why can’t they renegotiate all their contracts and ask for a 5-10% cut?  Impossible, said Walcott.

Jackson said that contractors are “ripping us off by millions of dollars, ripping us blind” because they figure the “mayor is a millionaire so no one cares.”  Walcott: we report every infraction to the SCI and we have strict internal protocols. Veronica Comforme, the DOE”s chief financial officer said that they had put these new systems in during last year and a half.  (What about the eight years before that?  How many hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars have been ripped off? )

Chief Academic Officer Shael Suransky said that they would soon start billing Medicaid $100 million a year, which they stopped in 2005 because the feds said that the DOE didn’t document properly the services given (they have already lost $600 M through their incompetence in this area alone. Let’s hope SESIS, the DOE sped reporting program is working; there have been complaints that it is even more dysfunctional than ARIS.)

Finance Chair Dominic Recchia asked how many children were in the contract schools. Victoria Conforme, head of finance, said she didn’t know, Recchia complained that  there was a terrible lack of transparency as to the education budget, and the DOE was not responsive to follow-up information requests. 

CM Fidler said there was a “holy trinity” of school success: small class size, teacher quality and parent involvement, and that the mayor should go to Albany and make a deal with the Governor to extend the millionaire’s tax, with its revenue dedicated to education aid.  He asked Walcott if he would ask the mayor to do that, and Walcott said no, this wasn’t his job.  Besides which,  an “effective teacher” can do his job well, no matter what the class size.  Fidler said he was very “disappointed” and that he wished he would show “leadership” and that “someone has to advocate for the kids.”

The most persistent questioners on class size were Council members Daniel Dromm, a former teacher, and Brad Lander.  Both pointed out that the DOE estimate of only a two student per class increase was unlikely to occur in many schools.  Dromm pointed out that when a school  eliminates a classroom teacher, this immediately raises the size of classes on the grade by five or six, depending on how many classes per grade there are, in a non-linear fashion. Lander pointed out that already classes had increased  in size to excessive levels, and asked what the actual contractual class size caps were by grade. 

Again, none of the top-level DOE officials appeared to know the answer to this very basic question, neither Walcott, Suransky, or Conforme, though they had been asked this same question by Lander in the previous month’s hearings.   (The actual caps are to the left, compared to the CFE or Contract for Excellence goals.  In every grade but Kindergarten, they are 30 or more.)  Lander asked what would be the effect on classes that were already near thirty;  Walcott shrugged his shoulders and said they hadn’t done that analysis. Lander said that their apparent unconcern about this issue and their failure to do any analysis was unfair to parents. 

The reality is that the union contractual class size caps in grades 1-5 are 32, and many classes could indeed rise to that level if these cuts go through; these are huge class sizes not seen in the early grades in  many years.  The confusion on this point is a result of how  previously, the DOE had honored a side agreement with the UFT that limited class sizes in grades 1-3 to 28 students per class, which is still far too large but far better than 32. Class sizes could rise even above these limits, since there is an obscure rule called "breakage" meaning if the surplus number of students does not amount to more than half the limit of a new class, the violation can remain unaddressed.

Tweed no longer honors the side agreement that limited class size to 28 in 1-3 grades, and the UFT does not grieve these violations.  This is yet another of the myriad ways that the Bloomberg administration has systematically undermined class size and the quality of education received by NYC children in recent years

Walcott's testimony revealed multiple levels of shifting rationales. Why not let the principals choose what to cut, according to the DOE theory of principal autonomy, asked RJ, instead of unilaterally deciding that six thousand teaching positions must be eliminated?  Walcott said he is looking for input from principals, but that the decision to lay off teachers has to be made centrally.

Several council members drew attention to the big increase in charters and their spending and staffing that comes directly out of the DOE budget.  There will be 18 new charter schools next year, and charter growth  will cost the DOE an additional $120 million; amounting to more $666 million, not counting the space and services which DOE gives them for free.  Why the big increase in charters, asked CM Steven Levin, doesn’t that divert even more resources from our district public schools?  Walcott said that the growth in charters was in response to parental demand.  But then Levin pointed out that there is also strong parental demand not to lay off any teachers.

Jackson, Fidler, and Recchia all repeatedly criticized the DOE for putting out non-transparent budgets, and not responding adequately to follow up questions from staff.  One way in which the DOE purposely obscures its spending is by repeatedly claiming that they’ve made cuts in the bureaucracy when with more careful analysis, it turns out they’ve just pushed costs to the school level.  For example, a couple of years ago, DOE claimed cost savings in the central administration in test scoring, but then it turned out these “savings” were achieved by making schools send their teachers to score state exams during school time, requiring principals to hire substitutes instead;  earlier Tweed had paid teachers overtime to do this same job.

Recchia alluded to the fact that the educrats at Tweed are playing new tricks with the budget, by obscuring the continued expansion of the mid-level bureaucracy at the expense of the classroom by  submerging almost 2,000 positions  of the ever-expanding Children First networks into the budget line of school-level spending called “ General education and Special education Instruction and School Leadership.” 

Through all the shifting reorganizations, from the districts, to the regions, to the school support organizations and now to the CFNs and clusters, the  midlevel bureaucracy had a budget line that was kept separate from schools,  so that their headcount and spending could be separately tracked.  That’s how we knew that the savings DOE claimed they’d achieved by eliminating the districts was illusory.  No longer; now they claim a reduction of the bureaucracy of $17 million; while hiding its growing headcount at the school level.  In this way, they are doubling cheating our kids – as the actual cuts to the classroom are even larger than apparent.

Speaker Quinn and Recchia put out a statement calling for $75 million in alternative cuts; including $4 million from Teach For America and the New Teacher Project recruitment and training, a smaller DOE press office,  and $13.2 million from the DOE’s IT contracts (projected to be $50.6 million, up 76% from this year alone.)   More on their proposals here, and more accounts of the hearings from  GothamSchools, Post, Daily News,  Times, NY1  and DNA info, which has additional photos of the rally and the hearings. See also D6 parent Tory Frye’s FB page with some short videos.

This was my statement at the press conference, which sums up my views:

One of the ways in which a city reveals its future and its soul is by the way it treats its children.  By any measure, the mayor fails in this category.  He has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and continues to waste millions more on no-bid contracts, consultants, computers, and testing; and instead wants to slash the budget by eroding the most important thing of all: the personal relationship between a student and his or her teacher. 

Already, class sizes have steadily increased in recent years and school level spending has been cut by 12%. Eliminating six thousand teaching positions at a time of enrollment growth would be absolutely devastating and would return us to the dark ages as far as class size goes.  The mayor’s cuts reveal that rather than putting children first, he is putting them last. 

Before adopting these devastating cuts, the mayor and the council should consider whether they would subject their own children to class sizes of thirty or more.  If the answer is no, they should do everything they can to restore all 6,000 teaching positions.

The injustice in cancelling the January Regents: a teacher's lament

From a teacher who prefers to remain anonymous: 

I'm sitting in my classroom working and five of my African girls are sitting at the table next to me, debating in English, about the injustice presented to them by the NY Regents. They were just informed by a member of our staff that the the January 2012 exams have been cancelled as an effort to improve the state budget.  

The conversation started with one of them, a married, teenage mother of two from Guinea, a student who has been studying English for two and a half years, and who was classified by our amazing assessment specialists as a student with interrupted formal education in 9th grade. Since then she's been working toward academic and social English proficiency, an incredible feat considering when she isn't in school, she is caring for her two children as well as her husband.  

She came in to my room at lunch, upset, telling me that she feels like she is already working too hard and how will she ever be able to graduate on time next year if she is only able to take her exams in June. She feels the pressure will be too great next year. She said she feels like giving up.  

This feeling was echoed by the four other girls, one of whom is also a teen mother who fled her husband and his family to come to the Bronx to be with her aunt. When she isn't in school, she also cares for her child as well as works at McDonald's so she can pay for things like diapers and food.  

All of these girls have near perfect attendance. Sometimes in class they fall asleep because they've been up most of the night with their children. They are determined to graduate with their Regents diplomas and they feel incredibly stressed and unsupported by this new plan; a plan that has been largely underpublicized by the DOE, school leadership, and of course also by mainstream media.  

When I googled the situation, I read about it on Gothamschools. Nothing about it in the Times...a shame. 

I'm writing because I'm furious about the way ELs [English Language Learners] are marginalized every single day, such that when something like this happens, when their opportunities for a high quality, predictable, stable education are further diminished, it doesn't make the news. If the spring SAT were suddenly cancelled, parents across New York would be livid with the injustice, the change, the damage to their childrens' plan for their future.  

When this happens to ELs, many of whom live alone or with a distant guardian, it's acceptable, even helpful to the greater good of the state.  

Thanks for listening.