Video: Daily Show Interview with "Brooklyn Castle" filmmaker and student

See the video clip below last night from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, with Katie Dellamaggiore, the maker of the inspirational film "Brooklyn Castle," about IS 318 in Brooklyn and its champion chess team, and Pobo Efekoro, a former member of the team.  This film, which has now opened around the country is an absolute must-see.  The villains are not the same (teachers and their unions) as in the usual Hollywood propaganda films like "Won't Back Down" and "Waiting for Superman" ,  but instead reflect reality on the ground: the repeated mid-year budget cuts carried out by the Bloomberg/Klein administration that threaten the ability of the chess team to defend their championship.

Also briefly discussed during the interview with Jon Stewart below is the wrongheaded obsession with testing, how unfair it is to target and demonize teachers, the unreliable teacher evaluation system based on test scores, and school overcrowding at Forest Hills HS, the school that Pobo currently attends, which enrolls nearly twice as many students than it was built for.  For more on the ridiculously low ratings of IS 318 in DOE's progress reports and the teacher data reports, see Gary Rubinstein's blog here.  As Gary writes:

As a chess enthusiast, myself, this reminds me of the contrast between the games that NYC plays with their statistics vs. the honest game of Chess.  In Chess, there is no deception.  You can see all the pieces, yours and your opponents.  There is no way to lie and claim that you are winning when you are not.  This is in stark contrast to the games that the NYC DOE plays with the schools and teachers who they seem to view as worthless pawns.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The NY Regents approve fourth Gulen charter school

Fethullah Gulen

The below post was written by Sharon Higgins, who is one of the nation’s top experts on the Gulen chain of charters,which has more than 120 schools in 25 states.  Be sure to follow her excellent blog, Charter School Scandals.  Though the Gulen movement runs private schools in many countries, ours is the only country that subsidizes Gulen schools with federal, state and city taxpayer dollars.  Meanwhile, Gulen schools are being investigated for money laundering and other violations of law in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Hawaii, Arizona, Utah, Texas, and elsewhere.  See this 60 Minutes report.

This week the application for the Utica Academy of Science Charter School (UASCS) was approved by the New York State Board of Regents. Founders of this school have described it as a “sister school” to the Syracuse Academy of Science Charter School (SASCS). When it opens next fall, UASCS will be the fourth Gulen Movement (GM)-affiliated charter school in New York state.

The Gulen Movement is a secretive and controversial religious group from Turkey that follows the teachings of Fethullah Gulen. Referred to as the cemaat (“The Community”) in Turkey, the GM is well-known for its schools. It operates a large number of private schools in Turkey and in many other countries around the world. In addition, the GM operates the largest network of charter schools in the United States.

The Syracuse Academy of Science Charter School (link), the Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School (link), and the Rochester Academy Charter School (link) have been identified as GM-affiliated. The Syracuse and Buffalo schools have exhibited high suspension rates, and the lease for the Buffalo school is a related-party deal. Further investigation into these and other aspects should be conducted.

All GM-associated schools provide Turkish cultural and language instruction, although that is rarely mentioned in their charter school applications. The Syracuse school has even gone so far as to teach students how to perform the religious ritual dance practiced by the Sufi Dervishes of the Mevlevi order (the GM is Sufi-inspired). It is unlikely that SASCS parents were aware of this aspect when they enrolled their children at the school, or even fully understand the reason behind it at this point.

A case study of a local politician

 This past Tuesday, New York State Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (HD-45) celebrated his re-election with a small group of supporters at the Turkish Cultural Center of Brooklyn. Cymbrowitz has been embraced by the Gulen Movement and he has fully embraced them back. An observer once noted that the Gulen Movement employs a “strategy of seduction” towards parents and local governments (see this 1.33 MB pdf).

 In May 2011, the NY Legislature adopted a Cymbrowitz, et al. sponsored resolution (K541-2011) “Commending the Turkish Cultural Centers upon the occasion of celebrating their 6th Annual Turkish Cultural Day.” The resolution states: “The Turkish Cultural Centers were first created by Fethullah Gulen...” and “There are 11 Turkish Cultural Centers in New York State, located in Albany, Binghamton, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island, Manhattan, Rochester, Queens, Staten Island, Syracuse and Westchester...”

 In November 2011, Cymbrowitz and others gathered for the inauguration of a new building for Brooklyn Amity School, a private Gulen school. A report by Ebru TV (one of many media outlets controlled by the GM) stated: “... New York State Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz said that founders of school had stayed true to teachings of Turkish Scholar Fethullah Gulen.”

 A number of individuals from Brooklyn Amity School have also been involved with operating the GM’s charter schools.

 And in February 2012, at one of the many dinners hosted by the GM, Cymbrowitz presented an official assembly proclamation of appreciation to Fethullah Gulen and mentioned his recent trip to Turkey (video). GM-affiliated organizations regularly provide influential Americans with free, guided, pro-GM propaganda trips to Turkey.

Political contributions

 Like other special interest groups, the GM strategically invests its energy and money in politicians. In 2010 a Wall Street Journal article about Fethullah Gulen stated: “An English-language Turkish newspaper reported that Mr. Gulen has told his followers they couldn't visit him on his Poconos estate if they didn't first donate to their local congressman. Mr. Gulen denies making the remark.”

 In 2011, Cymbrowitz received at least $7500 in political contributions from nine individuals involved with either the Turkish Cultural Center of NY or Brooklyn Amity School.

May 2011

·    $350 from Hayrullah Erdogan (Brooklyn Amity School building manager)

·    $350 from Ayse Sevinc (Brooklyn Amity School science teacher)

June 2011

·    $900 from Taner Kanbir (Brooklyn Amity School website domain owner and teacher)

·    $500 from Mehmet Ozbilgen (Brooklyn Amity School employment contact; petitioner of City Academy of Science charter school, a 2009 attempt)

·    $500 from Ayse Sevinc (2nd contribution in 2011; see above)

·    $350 from Zafer A. Akin (Brooklyn Amity School board member; President of Turkish Cultural Center of NY; lead petitioner of Staten Island Fusion Charter School, a 2011 attempt)

November 2011

·    $1500 from Cengiz Karabekmez (Brooklyn Amity School director)

·    $1000 from Ismail Topkaya (Brooklyn Amity School assistant principal)

·    $650 from Hayrullah Erdogan (2nd contribution in 2011; see above)

·    $500 from Erdem Duran (Brooklyn Amity School teacher)

·    $350 from Zafer A. Akin (2nd contribution in 2011; see above)

·    $300 from Mehmet Ozbilgen (2nd contribution in 2011; see above)

·    $250 from Mehmet Kilic (Vice President of Turkish Cultural Center of NY)

These political contributions, had they been made in one lump sum, would have ranked as Cymbrowitz’ third top contributor.

The Gulen Movement is highly controversial

 Last May, during the CBS 60 Minutes report about the Gulen Movement, Lesley Stahl made this observation: “You know we have confronted real fear about this movement, particularly when we've tried to get critics to give us an interview.”

Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University and his wife Pinar Dogan recently posted this commentary on their blog:

The Gülen movement’s rhetoric and activities have won Gülen plaudits as an exemplary Islamic scholar who tries to build bridges between different faiths. Over the last decade, he has assiduously cultivated ties with Jewish and Christian leaders, and his efforts have yielded praise for his inter-faith activities and tolerance...

It is a massive understatement to say that these activities are at odds with Gülen’s sermons and writings prior to his move to the United States, which contain vitriolic passages against Jews, Christians, the West, and the U.S... Moreover, these anti-Semitic rants can still be found in their Turkish original on web sites maintained by the movement. At the same time, the managers of Gülen’s official site have taken care to ensure that there are no direct links to the content with the most offensive language...

Maybe Gülen has really changed his mind, and shed some of the offensive views he held shortly before he moved to the U.S... clearly his devotees are still propagating these odious views, while taking precautions to insulate Gülen’s official persona, especially the one presented to non-Turkish audiences, from them.

When confronted with Fethullah Gülen’s own distasteful writings, Gülen’s defenders shoot back with accusations of propaganda and disinformation... This is part of a pattern of deception and hypocrisy we have encountered repeatedly. In Turkey, Gülenist rhetoric is replete with democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Yet, as we have documented elsewhere, the movement is entangled in an astonishing range of misdeeds that run the full gamut from slander to the framing of perceived opponents...

New Yorkers should inform themselves about the Gulen Movement, the controversies which surround it, and closely monitor their state’s expanding network of taxpayer-supported, privately-managed Gulen charter schools. 

Bloomberg -- and corporate reform -- lose big in last night's elections

There was plenty of good news in last night’s election in terms of education initiatives, despite huge spending by the SuperPacs, billionaires and astroturf groups to push pro-privatization, free market corporate reform.
 Though pro-charter school initiatives  in Georgia and Washington won, while outspending the opposition by millions of dollars, the Gates-supported proposition in Washington prevailed by only a razor thin margin.  

In California, Proposition 30 was victorious, which will prevent huge budget cuts to the state’s already underfunded schools.  Also Proposition 32 lost, which would have prohibit unions from making political contributions, leaving the field for the plutocrats to further wreck our economy and privatize our public schools.  

While Michael Bloomberg is apparently claiming great victories through his own recently formed SuperPAC, he actually lost big last night, especially in terms of the education policies he is promoting.  

Let us count the ways:

• Indiana State Superintendent Tony Bennett, an aggressively pro-voucher, anti-teacher education chief, and according to Diane Ravitch, “the face of  right wing reform in America” was defeated by teacher Glenda Ritz, despite outspending her by more than $1 million. As the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported, “His campaign chest of about $1.5 million included contributions from billionaires and hedge-fund managers far from Indiana” including, according to the Huffington Post, an undetermined amount of Bloomberg SuperPAC cash . 
  

• In Idaho, all three Propositions 1, 2, and 3, also known as the “Luna laws” after their right-wing State Superintendent Tom Luna, lost big.  These laws would have weakened teacher tenure and collective bargaining rights, would have imposed merit pay, and would have radically expanded online learning, authorizing the state to spend $180M to lease laptops for students. Bloomberg contributed $200,000 to a secret fund to the campaign to defend these laws. 

• Also going to down in flames was the charter amendment in Bridgeport Connecticut, that would have imposed mayoral control and eliminated their elected school board, to which Bloomberg contributed $20,000.

• Closer to home, the GOP seems to have lost its majority in the NY State Senate -- despite receiving a cool $1 million from Bloomberg  in September, thought to be the largest single donation ever given to a state party.  If a Democratic majority holds, this bodes well for parents, teachers and education advocates who would like the state Legislation to approve more progressive education policies  -- including the possibility of providing checks and balances to our own extremely unpopular and coercive system of mayoral control, which unlike the citizens of Bridgeport, we never got to vote on.

Parents throughout the nation: use your vote wisely on Tuesday to protect and support your public schools; do not let the privatizers buy your elections!

There are critical elections taking place on Tuesday throughout the country that parents, education advocates, and others who care about preserving and strengthening our public schools need to take notice of and cast their ballot appropriately.  Out-of-state money from billionaires and astroturf groups like Students First are flowing into state races, like this one in Tennessee  and local school board elections, like these  in New Orleans and  New Jersey, to push damaging policies to privatize and digitize our public schools. 

There are also referendums and initiatives on the ballot in many states and cities that will affect the future of our public schools for years to come.  In each case, there is tremendous private money being used to facilitate the expansion of charters and vouchers, promote budget cuts, and impose mayoral control, and against allowing elected school boards to protect and support their local public schools.  The hedge funders, billionaires, for-profit charter operators, and right-wingers are using their vast resources to impose their political will, and in most cases are dramatically outspending the good government organizations, education advocates, teachers, and other concerned citizens, who would rather save and strengthen our public schools rather than dismantle them.

For example, there are two statewide referendums on charter schools that people need to vote AGAINST.  The individuals and groups who are pushing them are outspending the opposition in Georgia  twenty to one   and in the state of Washington, more than twelve to one.  If the privateers win out, it will show how the influence of big money can buy elections in the face of local sentiment and good public policy.    

•  In Washington State, parents should vote NO on Initiative 1240, which would authorize charter schools to be established in the state for the first time.  Charter schools have already been voted down by the State Legislature six times, including as recently as 2012, and three times by Washington voters.  Yet Bill Gates and his cronies remain determined to overturn the popular will, and have contributed nearly $11 MILLION to achieve this end.  Gates himself has given more than $3 million to the campaign, Alice Walton of Walmart fame has kicked in another $1.7 million, and Gates’ buddies Paul Allen of Microsoft and the Bezos family at Amazon.com have donated millions more.  91 percent of the funding for the massive campaign of this initiative has come from just ten people, all of them billionaires.   

Meanwhile, those opposing the initiative include the Washington State PTA, the State Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the state Association of School Administrators, the state’s principals, the state teachers union, the Seattle NAACP, El Centro do la Raza, the Seattle Public Schools superintendent and countless school boards. They point out how this initiative would further drain resources from the public schools, which have already been found to be constitutionally underfunded by the courts, and would take accountability out of public hands.  The measure would also allow the privatization of any public school as long as 51 percent of parents voted for it, in an even more radical permutation of the so-called Parent Trigger. In the latest poll, the pro-charter supporters are ahead by nearly 20 points because of the “very lopsided advertising campaign” financed by these ten billionaires; don’t let this Initiative pass!  For more on 1240, visit the No on 1240 website.

• In Georgia, parents should vote NO on Amendment 1, which would create an appointed commission with the power to authorize charter schools over the opposition of democratically-elected local school boards and the state Board of Education.  This constitutional amendment is opposed by the state PTA, the state School Superintendent, the Georgia School Boards Association, and many civil rights groups,  who explain how this measure would divert hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the public schools, and into the hands of for-profit corporations, many of them with a lousy record of the schools they currently run, like K12 Inc. According to one report, these new charter schools would also be eligible to receive more state money per pupil than regular public schools.  The vast majority of the contributions  financing the amendment are coming from outside the state, mainly from charter operators, Michelle Rhee’s Students First, Alice Walton, the Koch brothers, and other individuals intent on weakening and privatizing public schools.   Don’t be fooled: here is an explanation of how the amendment has been misleadingly phrased to trick voters, which has already triggered a lawsuit.  For more on why you should vote no on this damaging amendment, see Vote Smart Georgia.

• In Idaho, parents should vote NO on Propositions 1, 2, and 3:  Proposition One would limit the rights of teachers to collectively bargain over working conditions like class size, would effectively eliminate their job security and base their evaluation largely on test scores.  Proposition Two would implement damaging and wasteful merit pay. Proposition Three would spend yet more funding on requiring online learning for students, which was passed into law after substantial contributions from for-profit virtual learning companies to the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna. Many of the same companies, including K12 Inc., have given funds to push this proposition, along with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed $200,000.  Their involvement was only disclosed after a court order demanding that the shadowy group pushing these propositions reveal its donors. 

•  In California, parents should vote YES on both Propositions 30 and 38, to enable the state to raise revenue to prevent hugely damaging budget cuts to public schools, which are already critically underfunded.  More on this from the group Educate the State.  Parents and other concerned citizens should also vote NO on Proposition 32, which would prohibit unions from spending money for political purposes, while exempting Super PACs, hedge-funders, billionaires and thousands of big businesses. The League of Women Voters, among many other good government groups, urges a No vote, as do we.

•   In Arizona, parents should vote YES on Proposition 204, which would make permanent a temporary one percent sales tax, with most of the proceeds going to public schools.  Arizona already has seen the most drastic budget cuts to schools in the nation in recent years, resulting in some of the highest class sizes, and its children cannot afford any more cuts to school funding.  Supporters of Proposition 204 include the Arizona State PTA, Voices for Education and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council; opponents include the state Chamber of Commerce. For more on this Proposition, see the Quality Education and Jobs website. 

•  Finally, voters in Bridgeport CT should Vote NO on changing the city charter to eliminate their elected school board, which would allow their mayor to wield unilateral control through an appointed school board.  Earlier last year, the hedge-fund backed, pro-charter lobby group ConnCAN conspired with Teach for America and the mayor of Bridgeport, along with the state’s Governor, to oust Bridgeport’s elected school board in what was essentially an illegal coup.  Their actions were later overturned by the courts.  So now, the pro-privatization lobby is spending a record amount to impose mayoral control through a referendum, with Michelle Rhee’s Student First contributing $97,000 and Mayor Bloomberg another $20,000. 

As Diane Ravitch has pointed out, mayoral control has a lousy record; our analysis shows that two cities under mayoral control, Cleveland and NYC, have made the  least progress in raising student achievement since 2003 of any the large urban districts on the national assessments called the NAEPs. Here in NYC, after ten years, mayoral control is hugely unpopular, for we have seen how Bloomberg has ignored the priorities of parents in cutting school budgets, increasing class size, closing neighborhood schools, expanding charters and putting them in existing school buildings where they have squeezed out our public school children. In a poll conducted earlier this year, only 13 percent of New Yorkers said the mayor should retain sole control of the public schools. In Chicago, where mayoral control has existed for 17 years, polls show that the system is equally unpopular: 77 percent of Chicago voters oppose continued mayoral control. In fact, on Tuesday in Chicago, there is an advisory referendum on the ballot, urging the state legislature to allow the city to return to an elected school board.    

Kevin Johnson, a former NBA basketball player, who used to run charter schools and who is now mayor of Sacramento and is married to Michelle Rhee, came to Connecticut to campaign for the mayoral control referendum.  John Bagley, also a former professional basketball player who is now an elected member of Bridgeport’s school board wrote a great letter to Johnson a week ago, which concluded this way:   

“Maybe "KJ" and his `reformers' can explain why the city of New Haven, which has an appointed board, has more failing schools than Bridgeport. This is true, despite the presence on their appointed Board of Education of the former director of CONNCAN, the Connecticut leader of takeover policies. I have only one final piece of advice for `KJ', don't come into my house and mess with my right to vote!” 

This is a message we should all take to heart.  

Use your vote, Bridgeport residents and all others throughout the nation who care about public education, while you still have it!  Do not give up your democratic rights and allow the billionaires who send their own children to private schools to buy these elections so they can dismantle, plunder and privatize your public schools.