A Pretext for Removing as Many High Priced Teachers as Possible

Written by Leonard Isenberg
(one of my civil rights heroes)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post) 

Since the regrettable Miramonte child molestation scandal, the numbers of teachers that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is targeting, harassing, and summarily removing on bogus charges has exploded as Superintendent John Deasy and others in charge at LAUSD try to use this administratively allowed scandal as a pretext for removing as many high priced teachers as possible. This has created a culture of fear at LAUSD where those attacked tend to allow LAUSD to frame the conversation while trying to defend themselves against trumped up charges. This is a big mistake.

 Yesterday, when I appeared at the LAUSD Board meeting to speak against the proposed settlement of the Scot Graham - Ramon Cortines sexual harassment allegation, I bumped into LAUSD Head of Human Resources Vivian Ekchian, who asked me who I was. When I told her that I was a teacher who she had illegally terminated as an LAUSD teacher almost two years ago, she told me to send her any other information I might have to prove my innocence. 

 This is a perfect example of allowing LAUSD to frame the conversation. Under American law, I am presumed innocent until proven guilty, something that has not been the case for close to three years, since I was removed from my classroom. It is not for me to prove my innocence, but rather for LAUSD to prove that I did anything wrong that justifies my removal as a teacher without due process of law, which should take place in a timely manner to avoid the de facto punishment it continues to allow against myself and teachers who should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

 As I was not given a legal Skelly Hearing, where charges, evidence, and witnesses were presented by the District nor subsequently dismissed with a "verified" letter under penalty of perjury by Ms. Ekchian, who actually has no knowledge of the facts in my or any other teachers' cases she signed to dismiss, minimal due process of law had not been met.

 It is LAUSD that must fulfill its legal burden to show that I was guilt of a firing offense by a preponderance of the evidence. As I pointed out to Ms. Ekchian, the vast majority of teachers are not in the financial position to fight back against the coordinated assault that LAUSD levels against them, with the active and/or passive collusion of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and their attorneys at Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad. So why am I different, I asked her? Because, as I explained to her, "I have "f..k you" money sufficient to pay my overhead for the years LAUSD gets its expensive outside attorneys to unjustifiably protract the legal process. Most teachers who have been put on unpaid administrative leave pending termination do not have this luxury. All that Ms. Ekchian could say was that she found my use of the "f" word regrettable as did I. So I tried to put it into a context where she might better understand what I believe to be my justifiable use of this regrettable term under the circumstances. "Ms. Ekchian, if you were dealing with a Turkish official today in 2012 that continued to deny the murdering of one and a half million Armenians in the Armenian genocide in 1915, clearly perpetrated by the Turkish government, might you not use the "f" word too? Ms. Ekchian did not answer.

 To my way of thinking, vulgar is firing hundreds of teachers without cause or recourse to law. In my case or yours, if Ms. Ekchian or Mr. Ira Berman of Staff Relations, who was also sitting with her for hours in the LAUSD Board room, waiting for the Board to return from closed session, actually wanted to know more about my case or yours, all they would have to do is ask LAUSD legal counsel or the outside counsel they have hired at great expense to harass me and protract the process to let them see for the first time what evidence LAUSD has - or doesn't have - in any of the hundreds of cases against good teachers they are presently moving to fire. Ms. Ekchian chooses to sit and do nothing, which is probably what got her the job in the first place. Ms. Ekchian, Mr. Berman, and all the other employees of LAUSD are for the most part decent people, they just live and try to survive without making waves in the longstanding purposefully dysfunctional environment of LAUSD, where blindly following orders is the longstanding essence of LAUSD's change nothing philosophy, where no good act goes unpunished. If consequences, both good and bad, as well as external checks and balances against LAUSD's present unbridled power are put in place, Ms. Ekchian, Mr. Berman, and the vast majority of LAUSD administrators might actually do a good job.
 At the very least, they might even enjoy their work for a change.

If you or someone you know has been targeted and are in the process of being dismissed and need legal defense, get in touch: Lenny@perdaily.com

 NATIONAL EDUCATION REFORMERS LA Progressive Dick Price and Sharon Kyle http://www.laprogressive.com/ Dick and Sharon dick_and_sharon@yahoo.com Dick and Sharon are a pair of citizen journalists and information activists who were fed up with mainstream media. Rather than just kvetch about the media, they decided to try to become the media. So, together they founded the LA Progressive. Dick is the editor and Sharon is the publisher and webmaster, handling all technical aspects of the site. This site was launched in March 2008, with Dick and Sharon doing most of the writing. Today, a host of gifted writers contribute to the LA Progressive's daily offering which typically amounts to about 45 articles a week. Dick and Sharon continue to write for as well as edit and publish the LA Progressive and distribute its daily e-news each morning. 

 Jo Scott Coe Riverside, California Jo.Scott-Coe@rcc.edu www.joscottcoe.com Excellent Video Interview about Professor Coe http://vodpod.com/watch/4959969-jo-scott-coe-teacher-at-point-blank Assistant Professor of English at Riverside Community College and former high school English teacher. She is the author of Teacher at Point Blank and has been a teacher of English and literature in California since 1991. Her writing on intersections of gender, violence, and education has appeared in the Los Angeles Times as well as literary venues including Hotel Amerika, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Ninth Letter, Memoir(and), Bitter Oleander, and Green Mountains Review. Her essay, "Recovering Teacher," won the NCTE 2009 Donald Murray Prize, and other selections of her work have received a Pushcart Special Mention as well as Notable listings in Best American Essays 2009 and 2010. As an independent researcher, Jo authored and published the most extensive study to-date of Adams v. LAUSD, a nearly 10-year legal case of student-on-teacher sexual harassment, in (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience (Cambridge Scholars Press). Jo values the aesthetic, political, and socially transformative powers of literary narrative--especially to dispel unhealthy silences and witness cultural blindspots. She works currently as an assistant professor of English at Riverside Community College in SoCal, and her book, Teacher at Point Blank (Aunt Lute 2010), has been selected as a Great Read for Fall 2010 by Ms. Magazine. Punk rock? Yes. Hockey games? Yes. Coffee? Always black. Find Jo on the web at joscottcoe.com and on Twitter @joscottcoe. 

 Betsy Combier New York, New York betsy.combier@gmail.com Betsy Combier's blog - http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=488; This article is a jewel that chronicles the corruption in NYC's Dept of Education. She has accomplished a wonderful piece of journalism, and created one of the rare places where corrupt educational governance is chronicled and revealed. Professor Samuel Culbert Los Angeles, California is a professor at the UCLA Andersen School of Business who also teaches in the Education Department's Principals' Leadership Institute. Check out the following 3 minutes on ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/conversation-performance-review-11126992 

 Stuart Goldurs Los Angeles, Califonia StuartComputers@gmail.com Don't send LAUSD Librarians to the Inquisition, send the downtown bureaucrats Tests, What Are They Good For? Absolutely Nothing! LAUSD students to attend school on contaminated land, again! Some schools teach only to the tests, so how are the students being prepared for the next grade and for life? New LAUSD superintendent adds six-figure positions to management team

 http://www.examiner.com/public-education-in-los-angeles/lausd-test-scores-up-to-failure-levels-what-are-the-students-learning Has been a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 30 years. He is greatly aware of the district waste, large bureaucracy, and other major issues of the time. He started his blog with the sole purpose of informing the world about the truths of education in LAUSD. E-mail him at: StuartComputers@gmail.com. 

 LAUSD has selected a new Superintendent of Schools Karen Horwitz Chicago, Illinois wccbook@gmail.com Former award winning teacher who co-founded NAPTA, National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse, and wrote the book White Chalk Crime: The REAL Reason Schools Fail to expose how teacher harassment and terrorization maintains a system of deeply hidden corruption. Disposing of dedicated teachers forms the core of the "White Chalk Criminal's" agenda since dedication and white collar crime do not mix. Given that all agree that good teachers are essential to good teaching, a system that cannot tolerate good teachers is worthless. This is what we have in place. With Bernie Madoff-like leaders - he was as much about investing as our school leaders are about educating - anointed with unlimited power, including the ability to fill the airwaves with propaganda, education is no longer about education. It is about money and power for those who play a very corrupt game and with an agenda of privatizing schools so their power, profit, and personal beliefs will increase and take hold. (Privatization may have merits. NAPTA does not take a position on that. But privatizing a system that is rotten to its core - where quality teaching cannot survive, where a cover up of pretense that they do not know this despite so many of us reporting these truths prevails - documents that those advocating privatization cannot be trusted! It shows they want our schools for their own interests, not the children, nor the community.)

 NAPTA welcomes parents, teachers, students, citizens or anyone who understands that without a real system of education, we no longer have a democracy! Membership is free.  (Truth is we no longer have a democracy, if ever. What we have is a corrupt mutation of capitalism in its stead. Not born of freedom but of corporate and personal greed. A "Cult of Wealthy Personalities" as our chosen leaders. With one national religion, the worship of the dollar above all lesser gods) 


Go to: EndTeacherAbuse.org or WhiteChalkCrime.com. Become educated about what is going on. Jerry Mintz Director Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) 417 Roslyn Rd., Roslyn Hts., NY 11577 For those of you who cannot wait for corrupt public education to be turned around, AERO offers an excellent source to get connected with viable alternatives right now. www.EducationRevolution.org info@EducationRevolution.org 800-769-4171 (domestic) 516-621-2195 (international) 

 Susan Ohanian Charlotte, Vermont susano@gmavt.net http://www.susanohanian.org She is a longtime public school teacher who, after 20 years, became staff writer for a teacher magazine and then went freelance. I've maintained a website of activism for nearly 9 years--ever since the passage of NCLB. People can subscribe to the website and then they get updates about new content. I answer all the mail I get through the website and with the answer, people have my e-mail. I also try to stir things up on Twitter, though I find this medium frustrating. I have a Facebook page--just so people can find me. I don't initiate anything on it, The website keeps me busy. http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9593

 Susan Lee Schwartz Suffern,
New York,  Susan studied literacy education, English literature, and fine arts and holds a BA ('63) and MS ('65) from Brooklyn College, and has the equivalent of two master's degrees, earned in graduate studies of literacy, arts and education. She taught literacy skills and art, for four decades in NYC in elementary and secondary school. In 1998 she won the New York State English Council (NYSEC) Educator of Excellence Award for her successful teacher practice, studied by Harvard and the LRDC at the University of Pittsburgh for the New Standards research. At the end of her research, her unique curriculum was selected by the LRDC to be used in their national staff development seminars for school superintendents. She was among six teachers -- from among the thousands across the nation-- observed during the research project, and her teaching practice met all the principles of learning. In the nineties, she rose to prominence in national educational circles, while teaching at a new magnet school, East Side Middle School. The reading scores of her seventh grade students were at the top of the city, and on the first ELA, which two thirds of city students failed, her former students (then in the eight grade) were TENTH IN THE STATE. She writes often about what she learned about the genuine standards for learning, in an attempt to begin a national conversation about the authentic standards, so that there can be genuine reform. Her experience that ended her fine career in the NYC Public Schools has led her to write about the process that removed the top educators, silencing the voices of the classroom practitioners who would not accept anti-learning policies. Her essay here on Perdaily, is one that describes this process.

Read more as she talks about education, literacy and learning on her site, from the perspective of the experienced teacher-practitioner of pedagogy. She is the voice of dedicated and talented classroom teachers who know why the schools are failing. 

Her website is: http://www.speakingasateacher.com/Susan_Lee_Schwartz_(Steiner)_/index.html Joel Shatzky: Brooklyn, New York Joel.Shatzky@cortland.edu Professor of English Emeritus--SUNY, College at Cortland (1968-2005) Adjunct instructor-Kingsborough CC (CUNY) 2006-- ) Regular contributor to the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchS/?q=Joel+Shatzky Author of "The Thinking Crisis" with Ellen Hill (Authors Choice Press: New York, 2001) Numerous articles on education in Jewish Currents. Script-writer for three YouTube satires on educational "reform." "The Lessons": www.youtube.com/watch?v=D712J1V2Jsg&feature=player_embedded

"Numbers Lie": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57BRNLviVTQ "The Charter Starters": www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnrrw5CV3Gw Here's Joel's latest post about the low percentage of "college ready" high school graduates. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-shatzky/educating-for-democracy-t_2_b_821410.html

 Lorna Stremcha Havre, Montana http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Stremcha.html http://twitter.com/lornapstremcha lornastremcha.com callmescarlet.blogspot.com facebook HER STORY: "I know first hand the financial, personal, emotional and physical damage that can result when school administrators, the Montana Education Association and the National Education Association put their own interests above the students, teachers and the taxpayers of the State of Montana My files contain mountains of paperwork including depositions, declarations of truth, notarized documents and exhibits resulting from an arduous legal process that finally ended when the Havre (Montana) School District settled two lawsuits - a Federal suit and one filed in State District Court. These documents also include a letter from a union representative stating, " This is nothing more than a witch hunt." Yet the union continued to allow the school administration to harass, bully and bring harm to me. These two lawsuits resulted from a single incident that, had it been handled differently and under the light of public scrutiny, would not have snowballed into awards of more than $200,000 worth of damages. Funds that eventually came from the taxpayers' pockets. Ironically, as a taxpayer in Hill County, my family and I are helping to pay for the damages awarded to me. This covered the attorneys' fees. The settlement did not include my attorney fees, however the district, insurance and taxpayers paid the defendants attorney bills, which exceeded mine. The settlement was made on March 2, 2006.

"http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Jim-Taylor/125893225652 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Jim-Taylor/125893225652 http://twitter.com/search?q=DrJimTaylor Lois Weiner Jersey City, New Jersey Professor, Elementary and Secondary Education New Jersey City University 2039 Kennedy Blvd. Jersey City, New Jersey 07305 drweinerlo@gmail.com Blog http://newpolitics.mayfirst.org/blog/5 

Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_business RESEARCH INTERESTS Impact of urban school characteristics on teachers' classroom practice How race, class, and gender mediate academic achievement Teachers' work and the school as a workplace. Effects of changes in global political economy on teaching, teachers, and schools.

 (Para una visión nacional de la reforma de la educación pública ver el final de esta entrada del blog) Desde el escándalo de abuso sexual infantil Miramonte lamentable, el número de profesores que el Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) está apuntando, de acoso, y de la remoción de los cargos falsos se ha disparado como Superintendente John Deasy y otros a cargo en el LAUSD intentar usar esta vía administrativa permitido el escándalo como pretexto para eliminar a muchos profesores de alto precio como sea posible. Esto ha creado una cultura del miedo en el LAUSD donde t manguera \ atacado tienden a permitir que el LAUSD para enmarcar la conversación mientras intentaba defenderse de acusaciones falsas. Este es un gran error. Ayer, cuando me presenté en la reunión de la Junta del LAUSD para hablar en contra de la propuesta de acuerdo del escocés Graham - Ramón Cortines alegación de acoso sexual , me encontré con la cabeza de los Derechos Humanos del LAUSD Ekchian Recursos Vivian, quien me preguntó quién era yo. Cuando le dije que yo era un profesor que había terminado ilegalmente como profesor de LAUSD hace casi dos años, ella me dijo que le envíe cualquier otra información que podría tener que demostrar mi inocencia. Este es un ejemplo perfecto de lo que permite el LAUSD para enmarcar la conversación. Bajo la ley estadounidense, estoy presunción de inocencia hasta que algo pruebe lo contrario, que no ha sido el caso durante casi tres años, desde que fue retirado de mi salón de clases. No es para mí para demostrar mi inocencia, sino más bien por el LAUSD para demostrar que yo haya hecho nada malo que justifique mi remoción como un maestro sin el debido proceso de ley, que debe llevarse a cabo de manera oportuna para evitar el castigo de facto que sigue para permitir que contra mí mismo y los profesores que deben ser considerado inocente hasta que se demuestre su culpabilidad. Como no se le dio una audiencia judicial Skelly, donde los cargos, las pruebas y los testigos fueron presentados por el Distrito, ni posteriormente despidió con un "verificado" carta bajo pena de perjurio por la Sra. Ekchian, que en realidad no tiene conocimiento de los hechos en mi o cualquier otro de los casos de otros profesores que firmaron para despedir, el proceso de un mínimo de vencimiento de la ley no se habían cumplido. Es el LAUSD que debe cumplir su obligación legal para demostrar que yo era culpable de un delito de disparo por una preponderancia de la evidencia. Como he señalado a la Sra. Ekchian, la gran mayoría de los maestros no están en la posición financiera para luchar contra el asalto coordinado que los niveles del LAUSD en contra de ellos, con la complicidad activa y / o pasiva de Maestros Unidos de Los Ángeles (UTLA) y sus abogados en Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad. ¿Por qué soy diferente, yo le pregunté? Porque, como le expliqué, "Tengo" f .. k que "el dinero suficiente para pagar mis gastos para los años del LAUSD recibe sus abogados externos costosos para prolongar injustificadamente el proceso legal. La mayoría de los profesores que se han puesto en licencia administrativa sin pagar hasta que se ponga no tienen ese lujo. Todo lo que la Sra. Ekchian podía decir era que se encontró con mi uso de la palabra "F" lamentable al igual que I. Así que traté de ponerlo en un contexto en el que podríamos entender mejor lo que creo que ser mi uso justificado de este término lamentable que, dadas las circunstancias. "La Sra. Ekchian, si se trataba de un funcionario turco de hoy en 2012, que siguió negando el asesinato de un año y medio de armenios millones en el genocidio armenio en 1915, claramente perpetrado por el gobierno turco, no podría utilizar la palabra "F" también ? La Sra. Ekchian no respondió.A mi modo de pensar, vulgar está despidiendo a cientos de maestros sin causa o el recurso a la ley. En mi caso, o la tuya, si la Sra. o el Sr. Ira Ekchian Berman de Relaciones con el personal, que también estaba sentado con ella durante horas en la sala de Junta del LAUSD, esperando a que la Junta volviera a sesión a puerta cerrada, en realidad quería saber más acerca de mi caso, o la tuya, todo lo que tendría que hacer es pedirle a un abogado del LAUSD legal o el asesor legal externo que han contratado a un gran costo para acosarme y prolongar el proceso para que vean por primera vez, lo que evidencia el LAUSD tiene - o no tiene - en cualquiera de los cientos de casos en contra de los buenos maestros que actualmente están en movimiento para disparar. La Sra. Ekchian elige para sentarse y no hacer nada, que es probablemente lo que le consiguió el trabajo en el primer lugar. La Sra. Ekchian, el Sr. Berman, y todos los demás empleados de LAUSD son para las personas decentes su mayor parte, que acaba de vivir y tratar de sobrevivir sin hacer olas en el ambiente desde hace mucho tiempo a propósito disfuncional, donde las órdenes ciegamente siguientes es la esencia de muchos años de LAUSD cambiar la filosofía de la nada. Si las consecuencias, tanto buenas como malas, así como los controles externos y contrapesos contra el poder desenfrenado de la actualidad del LAUSD se ponen en marcha, la Sra. Ekchian, el Sr. Berman, y la gran mayoría de los administradores del LAUSD en realidad podría hacer un buen trabajo. Por lo menos, que incluso podría disfrutar de su trabajo para un cambio. Si usted o alguien que usted conoce ha sido blanco de ataques y se encuentran en proceso de ser despedidos y la necesidad de defensa legal, póngase en contacto: Lenny@perdaily.com Los reformadores nacionales EDUCACIÓN LA Progresista Dick Price y Kyle Sharon http://www.laprogressive.com/ Dick y Sharon dick_and_sharon@yahoo.com~~V Dick y Sharon son un par de periodistas ciudadanos y activistas de información que fueron alimentados con medios de comunicación. En lugar de simplemente kvetch acerca de los medios de comunicación, decidieron tratar de convertirse en los medios de comunicación. Por lo tanto, juntos fundaron la progresiva Ángeles.Dick es el editor y Sharon es el editor y webmaster, el manejo de todos los aspectos técnicos del sitio. Este sitio fue lanzado en marzo de 2008, con Dick y Sharon haciendo la mayor parte de la escritura. Hoy en día, una gran cantidad de escritores de talento contribuir a la realización progresiva del ofrecimiento diario de Los Angeles que por lo general equivale a cerca de 45 artículos por semana. Dick y Sharon seguir escribiendo para, así como editar y publicar la progresiva Ángeles y distribuir su día por e-noticias todas las mañanas. Jo Scott, Coe Riverside, California Jo.Scott-Coe @ rcc.edu www.joscottcoe.com Video Entrevista con el Profesor Excelente Coe http://vodpod.com/watch/4959969-jo-scott-coe-teacher-at-point-blank Asistente de Profesor de Inglés en el Riverside Community College y ex profesor de escuela de Inglés. Ella es el autor de Profesor en Point Blank y ha sido profesora de Inglés y la literatura en California desde 1991. Su escritura en las intersecciones de género, la violencia y la educación ha aparecido en Los Angeles Times, así como lugares literarios, entre ellos Amerika Hotel, de Género En cuarto lugar, los dientes del Río, la Carta Novena, Memoria (y), Bitter Oleander, y Revisión de Las Montañas Verdes. Su ensayo, "Recuperación de Maestro", ganó el NCTE 2009 Premio Donald Murray, y otras selecciones de su obra ha recibido una Mención Especial la carretilla de mano, así como listados de notables en mejores trabajos de América de 2009 y 2010. Como un investigador independiente, Jo escribió y publicó el estudio más extenso hasta la fecha de Adams v LAUSD, un caso de casi 10 años de acoso judicial por estudiantes y maestros en el sexual, en la (re) interpretaciones: Las formas de la justicia en las mujeres La experiencia (Cambridge Scholars Press). Jo valores de las facultades estéticas, políticas, y la transformación social de la narrativa literaria - especialmente para disipar los silencios no saludables y ser testigo de ciegos culturales. Ella trabaja actualmente como profesor adjunto de Inglés en el Riverside Community College en SoCal, y su libro, Profesor de Point Blank (laúd tía 2010), ha sido seleccionada como una gran lectura para el otoño de 2010 por la revista La Sra.. El punk rock? Sí. Hockey sobre los juegos? Sí. Café? Siempre de color negro. Buscar Jo en la web en joscottcoe.com y en Twitter @ joscottcoe. Betsy Combier Nueva York, Nueva York betsy.combier @ gmail.com Blog de Betsy Combier de http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=488 es una joya que narra la corrupción en la Ciudad de Nueva York Departamento de Educación nacional (DOE). Ella ha logrado una maravillosa pieza de periodismo, y ha creado uno de los pocos lugares donde se narra la gobernabilidad educativo corrupto y reveló Profesor Samuel Culbert Los Ángeles, California es un profesor de la UCLA School of Business Andersen quien también enseña en el Instituto de Liderazgo de los directores del Departamento de Educación ". Echa un vistazo a los siguientes 3 minutos en ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/conversation-performance-review-11126992 Stuart Goldurs Los Ángeles, Califonia StuartComputers@gmail.com No envíe a los bibliotecarios del LAUSD a la Inquisición, enviar a los burócratas del centro Las pruebas, lo que son buenos para? Absolutamente Nada! LAUSD estudiantes asistan a la escuela en tierras contaminadas, otra vez! Algunas escuelas sólo enseñan a las pruebas, así que ¿cómo son los estudiantes se están preparando para el siguiente grado y para la vida? Nuevo superintendente de LAUSD se suma de seis cifras posiciones al equipo directivo Ha sido un maestro en el Distrito de Los Angeles Unified School durante 30 años.Él es en gran medida al tanto de los residuos del distrito, gran burocracia, y otros aspectos importantes de la época. Él comenzó su blog con el único propósito de informar al mundo sobre las verdades de la educación en el LAUSD. Su e-mail a: StuartComputers@gmail.com. El LAUSD ha seleccionado un nuevo Superintendente de Escuelas Karen Horwitz Chicago, Illinois wccbook@gmail.com Profesor galardonado ex cofundador NAPTA, Asociación Nacional para la Prevención del Abuso de Maestros, y escribió el libro de la delincuencia White Chalk: Las Escuelas VERDADERA razón por la falla para exponer cómo el acoso y el terror profesor mantiene un sistema de corrupción profundamente escondido.Eliminación de los maestros dedicados constituye el núcleo de la agenda del Penal White Chalk desde que la dedicación y la delincuencia de cuello blanco no se mezclan. Teniendo en cuenta que todos coinciden en que los buenos maestros son esenciales para una buena enseñanza, un sistema que no puede tolerar a los buenos maestros no sirve para nada. Esto es lo que tenemos en su lugar. Con Bernie Madoff como líderes - que era tanto de inversión como los líderes de la escuela tienen que ver con la educación - ungido con poder ilimitado, incluyendo la capacidad para llenar las ondas con la propaganda, la educación ya no es acerca de la educación. Se trata de dinero y el poder para aquellos que juegan un juego muy corrupto y con una agenda de privatización de las escuelas por lo que su poder se incrementará. (La privatización puede tener méritos NAPTA no toma una posición al respecto, pero la privatización de un sistema que está podrido hasta la médula -.. En la enseñanza de calidad no puede sobrevivir, en un encubrimiento de la pretensión de que ellos no saben esto a pesar de que muchos de nosotros la presentación de informes estas verdades prevalece - documentos que las privatizaciones defender no se puede confiar Esto demuestra que queremos que nuestras escuelas para sus propios intereses, no los niños, ni la comunidad) NAPTA da la bienvenida a los padres, maestros, estudiantes, ciudadanos o cualquier persona que entiende que sin un real!. sistema de educación, ya no tenemos una democracia. La membresía es gratuita. Ir a: EndTeacherAbuse.org o WhiteChalkCrime.com. Infórmese acerca de lo que está pasando. Jerry Mintz, director De Educación Alternativa Resource Organization (AERO) 417 Roslyn Road., Roslyn Hts., NY 11577 Para aquellos de ustedes que no pueden esperar a que la educación pública corrupta que se dio la vuelta, Aero ofrece una excelente fuente para conectarse con alternativas viables en estos momentos. www.EducationRevolution.org info@EducationRevolution.org~~V 800-769-4171 (nacional) 516-621-2195 (internacional) Susan Ohanian Charlotte, Vermont susano@gmavt.net http://www.susanohanian.org Ella es una maestra de escuela pública que desde hace mucho tiempo, después de 20 años, se convirtió en redactor de una revista de maestro y luego se fue por cuenta propia. He mantenido un sitio web de activismo desde hace casi 9 años - desde la aprobación de la ley NCLB. La gente puede suscribirse a la página web y luego obtener las actualizaciones de nuevo contenido. Contesto todos los correos que recibe a través de la página web y con la respuesta, la gente tiene mi dirección de e-mail. También trato de agitar las cosas en Twitter, aunque encuentran en este medio frustrante. Tengo una página en Facebook - sólo para que la gente me puede encontrar. Yo no inician nada en ella, el sitio web me mantiene ocupada. http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9593 Susan Lee Schwartz Suffern, Nueva York Susan estudió la alfabetización, la literatura Inglés, y las bellas artes y tiene una licenciatura (63) y MS (65 ') en el Brooklyn College, y tiene el equivalente de dos grados de maestría, obtuvo en los estudios de posgrado de la alfabetización, las artes y la educación. Ella le enseñó las habilidades de alfabetización y el arte, desde hace cuatro décadas en Nueva York en la escuela primaria y secundaria.En 1998 ganó el estado de Nueva York Inglés Consejo (NYSEC) Educador del Premio a la Excelencia por su exitosa práctica de los docentes, estudiada por la Universidad de Harvard y el LRDC en la Universidad de Pittsburgh para la investigación de nuevas normas. Al final de su investigación, su plan de estudios único fue seleccionado por el LRDC para ser utilizado en sus seminarios nacionales de desarrollo del personal de los superintendentes escolares. Ella estuvo entre los seis profesores-de entre los miles en todo el país - observados durante el proyecto de investigación y la práctica docente, se reunieron todos los principios del aprendizaje. En la década de los noventa, se levantó a la prominencia en los círculos educativos nacionales, mientras enseñaba en una escuela magnet nuevo East Side Middle School. Las puntuaciones de lectura de sus estudiantes de séptimo grado se encontraban en la parte superior de la ciudad, y en el primer ELA, que dos tercios de los estudiantes de la ciudad no, sus antiguos alumnos (en ese entonces en el octavo grado) fueron DÉCIMO EN EL ESTADO. Ella escribe a menudo sobre lo que había aprendido acerca de los estándares reales de aprendizaje, en un intento de iniciar una conversación nacional acerca de los estándares auténticos, por lo que no puede haber una verdadera reforma.Su experiencia que puso fin a su carrera muy bien en las escuelas públicas de Nueva York la ha llevado a escribir sobre el proceso que elimina los mejores educadores, silenciando las voces de los practicantes del aula que no aceptaban las políticas anti-aprendizaje. Su ensayo aquí en Perdaily, es la que describe este proceso. Leer más como ella habla de la educación, la alfabetización y el aprendizaje en su sitio, desde la perspectiva de la experiencia docente-profesional de la pedagogía. Ella es la voz de los maestros dedicados y talentosos que saben por qué las escuelas están fallando. Su sitio web es: http://www.speakingasateacher.com/Susan_Lee_Schwartz_ (Steiner) _ / index.html Joel Shatzky: Brooklyn, Nueva York Joel.Shatzky @ cortland.edu Profesor Emérito de Inglés - SUNY College at Cortland (1968-2005) Adjunto un instructor Kingsborough CC (CUNY) 2006 -) Colaborador habitual de The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchS/?q=Joel+Shatzky Autor de "La Crisis del Pensamiento" con Ellen Hill (Prensa Autores Elección: Nueva York, 2001) Numerosos artículos sobre la educación en Corrientes judías. Guionista de tres sátiras de YouTube en la educación "reforma". "Las lecciones": www.youtube.com/watch?v=D712J1V2Jsg&feature=player_embedded~~V "Los números mienten": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57BRNLviVTQ "Los arrancadores de la Carta": www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnrrw5CV3Gw Aquí está el último mensaje de Joel sobre el bajo porcentaje de universitarios "listos" los graduados de secundaria. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-shatzky/educating-for-democracy-t_2_b_821410.html Lorna Stremcha Havre, Montana http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Stremcha.html http://twitter.com/lornapstremcha lornastremcha.com callmescarlet.blogspot.com Facebook Su historia: "Sé de primera mano el daño financiero, personal, emocional y físico que puede resultar cuando los administradores escolares, el Montana Asociación para la Educación y la Asociación Nacional de Educación anteponer sus propios intereses por encima de los estudiantes, profesores y de los contribuyentes del Estado de Montana Mis archivos contienen montañas de papeles, incluyendo declaraciones, declaraciones de la verdad, los documentos notariales y exposiciones resultantes de un arduo proceso legal que finalmente terminó cuando el Havre (Montana) del Distrito Escolar se establecieron dos pleitos-. una demanda federal y una presentada en la Corte de Distrito del Estado Estos documentos también incluyen una carta de un representante del sindicato diciendo: "Esto no es más que una caza de brujas". Sin embargo, el sindicato continuó permitiendo la administración de la escuela para acosar, intimidar y hacer daño a mí. Estas dos demandas el resultado de un incidente aislado que, de haber sido manejado de manera diferente y bajo la luz del escrutinio público, no habría una bola de nieve en los premios de más de $ 200,000 en daños y perjuicios. Los fondos que eventualmente llegaron a los bolsillos de los contribuyentes.Irónicamente, como contribuyente en el Condado de Hill, mi familia y yo estamos ayudando a pagar las indemnizaciones concedidas a mí. Esto cubre los honorarios de los abogados. El acuerdo no incluye honorarios de mi abogado, sin embargo el distrito, los seguros y los contribuyentes pagan las facturas de abogado del acusado, que superaron la mina. El acuerdo se hizo el 2 de marzo de 2006. "Http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Jim-Taylor/125893225652 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Jim-Taylor/125893225652 http://twitter.com/search?q=DrJimTaylor Lois Weiner Jersey City, Nueva Jersey Profesor de la Educación Primaria y Secundaria New Jersey City University 2039 Kennedy Blvd.. Jersey City, New Jersey 07305 drweinerlo@gmail.com Blog http://newpolitics.mayfirst.org/blog/5 Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/educators_push_back_against_obamas_business INTERESES DE INVESTIGACIÓN Impacto de las características de las escuelas urbanas en la práctica docente de los profesores ¿Cómo la raza, clase y género mediar en el rendimiento académico Trabajo de los docentes y la escuela como un lugar de trabajo. Efectos de los cambios en la economía política mundial sobre la enseñanza, los maestros y lasescuelas.

Is a Prison Camp Comparable to Living Through a Hostile Work Environment?

First published June 4, 2012 By UndercoverLawyer 
1 Comment

I’ve been wanting to write more, and post more regularly to this blog. Like lots of people, instead of working directly on my goal I’ve procrastinated by doing any number of different things that feel like they are related to my goal, but really aren’t. I’ve compiled lists of writing ideas, written out writing schedules, got a new writing program to use on my laptop, and the mother-of-all-time-wasters: “research.”

In an effort to not waste so much time clicking from article to article on the web, I decided I would shut the laptop and go back to reading some full length books. But you got to start slow, right? Not just jump into reading dense legal reference books. So I thought it would be good to read a book about overcoming adversity, since so many of the people who visit this site are trying, desperately, to overcome severe adversity at work.

The book I picked up was “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”. It is the story of Army Air Forces bomber Louis Zamperini overcoming adversity, then worse adversity, then even worse adversity, then repeatedly facing death.

Not to give anything away, but even if you just read the cover flap of this book you’ll learn that Louis crashes into the pacific and is presumed lost. He and another from his plane survive for weeks in a life raft, face down sharks, dehydration, starvation, and then right when it appears they are going to be saved they get shot at and taken prisoner by the Japanese military.

The first portion of this book, where Louis fights nature to stay alive, is inspiring in a traditional way. It’s not too different than any “lost at sea” or “shipwrecked” story that you’ve heard before except that Unbroken is so exceptionally well written. Where the book becomes not just inspiring, but also deeply troubling and cautionary in tone is after the Japanese military captures Louis and he is sent to a prison camp.

What I got out of the book also changed. Instead of merely learning some lessons about “overcoming adversity” — of surviving a plane wreck and living in a life raft — when Louis and his friend Phil are sent to a prison camp the meaning of the book suddenly began to parallel the lives of so many people who are bullied and harassed at work.

No, really. I know some who read this article will think I’m going way over the top when I say that a WWII prison camp is an appropriate comparison for what it feels like to live in a hostile work environment. And, I do realize most employees don’t face death and beatings in the modern workplace.

But hear me out on why I think the prison camp actually is a good analogy for a truly hostile work environment; there are many parallels to how it FEELS.

• The inability to make sense of what is happening to you
• The confusion over why this being allowed to happen
• Why are good people standing by and not doing something to stop this?
• The mental anguish that continues even after the tormentor is gone for the day — the way the few minutes of actual interaction with the tormentor occupy the employee/prisoner’s mind for hour after anguishing hour, taking away sleep, the ability to interact with others, or even think about anything other than worry and fear over the NEXT interaction with the tormentor.

Here is the passage, describing how Louis and Phil maintained feelings of hope when they were trying to survive in their life raft after their plane (the Green Hornet) crashed. But, how difficult it became to maintain hope when instead of fighting nature, they became prisoners of war and had to fight off the humiliation their captors subjected them to.

This is the text that caused me to believe that prison camps are an instructive analogy for what it feels like to live through a hostile work environment:

The crash of Green Hornet had left Louie and Phil in the most desperate physical extremity, without food, water, or shelter. But on Kwajalein, the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain. Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live. One American airman, shot down and relentlessly debased by his Japanese captors, described the state of mind that his captivity created: “I was literally becoming a lesser human being.”

In both situations the total organization is not completely evil. Even in the prison camps that Louis lived through there were guards who were humane, who showed compassion, and who tried to make life a little better for the prisoners.

There were also laws, from the Geneva convention, that were supposed to protect prisoners of war so that prisoners were treated humanely. In addition to the Geneva convention, the Japanese military had its own rules about the ethical treatment of prisoners, and set limits on what guards and prison officials could and could not do.

Just like business organizations, where most people are basically good, a few dark souls worked their way into positions of authority at the prison camps where Louis was held. While a prisoner of war Louis was abused by a prison official who oversaw a single camp who was known as “the Bird.” Bird wasn’t the head of all the prison camps, he was only in charge of one location at a time. There were good people in the Japanese Military above Bird, and there were good people below him. Despite the presence of ethical people around him, Bird was allowed to single out, abuse, beat and psychologically torment Louis.

Bird physically and mentally tortured Louis for no apparent reason. And for no apparent reason the ethical people around Bird did not step up and stop him from trying to destroy Louis. The international laws of the Geneva convention did not stop Bird from beating Louis. The Japanese Military’s own rules about ethical treatment of prisoners did not stop Bird from threatening Louis with death one day, then acting like he never made the threat the next day.

• Why did the laws fail Louis?
• Why did the internal rules of the Japanese military fail Louis?
• Why did the humane people above Bird and below Bird in the prison camp system fail to stop Bird from beating and mentally torturing Louis?
• And what was it about Bird himself that lead him to behave so cruelly?

All of these questions parallel the questions that abused employees ask themselves.

• Why are employment laws ignored?
• How come company policies are not followed?
• Why do executives turn a blind eye to abusive managers, and how come co-workers won’t stand up against a bully (is it for fear that they will become the bully’s next target)?

The similarities continue.  Prison camp survivors continue suffering mental anguish even after the confinement ends.  Louis struggled with nightmares about Bird. Even when safely back in the U.S., Louis either could not sleep, or his sleep was stolen by dreams of Bird torturing him both physically and psychologically. To help him avoid these painful memories and dreams, Louis began drinking every night. His marriage suffered. His body suffered. After surviving years of living in a military prison camp, the mere memories of abuse (rather than the abuse itself) nearly destroyed him.

Since the title of the book is “Unbroken”, you’ve probably figured out that the prison camps and memories of abuse by his tormentor do not ultimately destroy Louis. The book is inspiring, as I had hoped, but it is also more than that.

Unbroken provides keen insights into how it feels to be singled out for cruel and meaningless abuse by another human being. The book struggles to make sense out of how a few dark souls can bring themselves to intentionally cause another human being to suffer.  Though there really is no good explanation as to why one human acts so cruelly toward another, the message of the book is one of hope.

Somewhere deep inside every victim there is the capacity to cling to your essential human dignity, and not allow your tormentor to reach your soul. In each of us, deep inside, there is the strength to remain unbroken

FROM PRESIDENT DEAN VOGEL'S FIRST ATTEMPT AT... and OTHER PLATITUDES

Anyone who's been around for a while knows the CTA and parent NEA CAN"T STAND DISSENT! THEY ATTACK IT FROM THE BACK DOOR TO MAKE IT GO AWAY. COULD THIS EDITORIAL BELOW BE THE REAL REASON (AS NONE WAS GIVEN TO ME.) WHY CTA'S LEGAL ADVISORY BOARD REFUSED MY REQUEST OF "COMPETENT" LEGAL REPRESENTATION? IN SPITE OF THE FACT I FILED A GRIEVANCE WITH THE STATE BAR ON MY FORMER CTA APPOINTED ATTORNEY RONALD SKIPPER. WHILE THEY REFUSED TO ADDRESSED ANY OF MY NUMEROUS STATED REASONS IN THEIR REFUSAL LETTER. Perhaps they didn't like the fact that I asked for his billable hours billed on my behalf? Perhaps they disliked my outing their questionable CTA Attorney bonus system.  Can we spell "Collusion?"

THE LAST PARAGRAPH FROM "THE EDUCATOR MAGAZINE." Excerpt from president of CTA Dean Vogel" ...In the coming weeks, I know many of us will be preoccupied with year-end activities (and the grim future with no Job, and) little time to do much else than help our students and each other tie things up and move forward. But as we head into summer, I hope you take some time for yourselves to recuperate and recharge. I also hope you take some time to become involved with this campaign season. Read through this issue of the Educator, go to our website, learn about the election issues we face, and step up. For the sake of our students, and for the sake of our profession, we all need to be involved in the election ahead. If not us, who? If not now, when?" EXACTLY DEAN WHEN?

WHEN WILL CTA DEVELOP A STRIKE AND DEFENSE FUND? WHEN WILL CTA SHOW SOME TRANSPARENCY WITH ITS INTERNAL OPERATIONS? WHEN WILL CTA STOP TAKING 70% OF OUR LOCAL DUES AND RETURN ALMOST NOTHING? WHEN WILL CTA LAWYERS START REPRESENTING EVERY MEMBER WITHOUT CONSIDERATION FOR THE "COMPROMISE BONUS" THEIR PAID? WHEN WILL CTA START TO EMBRACE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPALS SO EACH MEMBER HAS A SAY, AT LEAST IN THE ELECTION OF STATE "MANAGERS?" WHEN DEAN, WILL CTA STOP HIDING FROM DISSENT AND START TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND WHERE IT COMES FROM AND IT'S INTRINSIC VALUE? WHEN WILL CTA START A POLICY OF HONESTY WITH THEIR MEMBERSHIP? WHEN WILL CTA STEP UP AND LEAD US IN THE GOOD FIGHT INSTEAD OF SOFT SELLING EXCUSES AFTER THE FACT? AS THE TIDE OF GREED AND DESPERATE POLITICS IS ALREADY CRESTING, CARRYING OUR BEST AND BRIGHTEST HOPES IN ITS FILTHY WATERS; 

WHEN DEAN DOES CTA BECOME A REAL UNION?
I, PRAETORIAN (EDUCATOR)

Any Public School with Such a Record of Abuse, Corruption, and Anti-Social Malfeasance Would have been Shut Years Ago

Any Public School with such a record of abuse, corruption, and anti-social malfeasance would have been Shut Down Years Ago.  Why Did Authorities Look The Other Way For "Oakland Charter?"

 From the Oakland Tribune:

Published in Schools Matter, 6/17/2012

The head of an Oakland charter school organization that has made national headlines for its low-income students' outstanding test scores is now faced with mounting evidence that he used his position to enrich himself and his family. 

A state investigation into allegations of operational fraud and other unscrupulous activity by Ben Chavis -- a businessman who has also served, off and on, as director of three publicly funded but independently run charter schools named American Indian -- and his wife, who provided financial services to the school, cited numerous examples of financial conflicts of interest and fraudulent expenditures.

The American Indian Model's middle schools have the best test scores in Oakland and among the highest in the state; its high school also has near-perfect scores. In his book, "Crazy like a Fox," Director Ben Chavis touts the model's success and ridicules the public school system for wasting tax dollars, arguing that schools don't need more money.

But in recent months, Chavis' own stewardship of public funds has come under scrutiny. The state Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, which produced the scathing report, was asked by Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan to investigate allegations made by a former employee of financial abuses -- including a $100,000 salary he took during at least one year of his retirement.

Now that auditors have found significant evidence to back those claims, 

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Chavis could soon find himself the subject of a criminal investigation. Jordan announced Wednesday she would forward the case to the District Attorney's office, as recommended by the audit team. Jordan said she also wrote a letter to Oakland Superintendent Tony Smith, asking the district to consider revoking the schools' charters.

"The lack of oversight by the AIMS board and the unethical practices by its founder are unacceptable and an abuse of the public trust," Jordan said.

Between mid-2007 and the end of 2011, the school paid Chavis, his wife, Marsha Amador, and their various real estate and consulting businesses about $3.8 million, the auditors found. Many of those payments were made with state and federal facilities grants in the form of construction contracts to Chavis' companies -- business deals for school construction work that never went out to bid.

Meanwhile, the school's weak governing board did little to stand in the way, auditors found. For a short period of time last year, Chavis served on the board while he was employed as the organization's director and his wife was handling the books.

"The lack of due diligence and internal controls by the governing board has effectively granted the founder and his spouse unrestricted access to the assets of the organization and implied authority to enter into a variety of business arrangements for personal gain," the report stated.

Other findings included the opening and closing of bank accounts without approval and $25,700 in credit card purchases billed to the school with no authorization or apparent benefit to the school. They included airfare, restaurant, hotel and retail bills from out-of-state, including the North Carolina town where Chavis owns a farm; DirecTV; Giants tickets; and costs related to another venture, which foundered after the investigation became public -- the opening of a charter school in Arizona.

Chavis announced his retirement before the start of 2007-08 school year and returned to the school as director in 2011. He said at a recent hearing that he was a paid adviser during some of the time in between.

Chavis could not be immediately reached for comment.

Although Chavis did not found the original school, his name and reputation are most closely associated with the organization. A Lumbee Indian from North Carolina, he overhauled the academic program when he took over as director of the original school in East Oakland's Laurel District in 2000.

The new curriculum emphasized reading, writing and math and eliminated much of the school's Native American cultural teachings. Chavis instilled a strict and unorthodox discipline system that would bring notoriety to the school, sometimes using humiliation to motivate students to behave.

The most famous example of Chavis' brand of discipline is a student head-shaving that took place at a school assembly, with parent permission, after the boy was caught stealing. Today, few if any of the school's students are Native American.

Chavis announced his retirement shortly after the Oakland school district's charter schools office began raising concerns about his conduct. That spring, the East Bay Express published a story about an explosive incident involving a Mills College professor and graduate students who had come to tour the school. An African-American graduate student said Chavis cursed at him and aggressively kicked him out of the school -- claims that Chavis later acknowledged to be true, saying it was because the student came late.

The Oakland school district's charter school office, under new leadership, again expressed concerns this year when one of the three schools, American Indian Public Charter School II, applied for a renewed charter. The charter office recommended that the Oakland school board deny the charter renewal, potentially closing the school.

But at a packed hearing in which Chavis entered to rousing applause, the Oakland school board went against the charter school office's recommendation and, in a 4-3 vote, allowed the high-performing school to stay open.

Chris Dobbins, an Oakland school board member who supported the school at that meeting, said Wednesday afternoon that he couldn't "tear the school apart" because of the alleged improprieties of its leader. Even now, he said, he didn't have an easy answer.
"At the end of the day, it's hard to argue those test scores," he said. "It's a really hard question."

Read Katy Murphy's Oakland schools blog at www.IBAbuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/katymurphy.

evidence against chavis

The Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance team published the below findings about apparent conflicts of interest and misappropriation of funds at American Indian Model schools -- mostly by its founder and current director, Ben Chavis:

Publicly funded construction contracts for school improvements with Chavis' personal businesses were "not supported by formal contracts, competitive bidding or authorization by the governing board." That is a violation of federal regulations and could result in the loss of all federal funding to AIMS schools. 

In addition to wages and construction income, Chavis collected $2.8 million from the schools through rent and storage fees he charged as the school landlord, additional construction projects and a mandatory summer program run by his private business. Some checks from a school bank account were written to Chavis' companies and signed by Chavis.

In all, the schools made $3.8 million in payments to Chavis, his wife and their businesses from 2007-08 through the end of 2011.

Chavis' wife, Marsha Amador, provided financial administrative services to the schools. Her duties included general accounting; processing accounts payable; compliance reporting to local, state and federal agencies; and assisting with an annual audit. 

Chavis' personal and unrelated business expenses were commingled with purchases for the AIMS schools.About 35 percent of the credit card purchases paid for from the schools' accounts $25,700," ...were inappropriate or lack proper authorization." Many of the purchases originated out of state.

Memphis Consolidation Plan Trojan Horse for Urban Privatization Via Charter Schools

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Memphis Consolidation Plan Trojan Horse for Urban Privatization Via Charter Schools

When Memphis City Schools announced it would accept $90 million from Gates to "improve teacher quality," Supt. Kriner Cash blubbered, “This is huge, this is huge, this puts Memphis City Schools in very elite territory, on the front page of the nation.”  Now almost three years later, Gates's fingerprints are on every aspect of school operations in Memphis, including a scheme to shut down 21 public schools in Memphis and turn the buildings over to corporate charter schools.  Now Cash and the Memphis City Schools are faced with a whole list of disturbing recommendations, including one that would totally disrupt the feeder school system in Memphis, which will lead to privatized high schools in the next phase of corporate takeover--if the Gates lemmings have their way.  From the Commercial Appeal:

 ...For MCS, among the most disturbing is the recommendation to cut 21 city schools and lease the space to charter schools. TPC estimates annual savings at $21 million, already plugged into the finance section to reduce an estimated $57 million deficit between the plan and revenue.

Cash insists the cuts won't save $21 million. He takes further exception that the majority of schools on the close list are in an "already underpopulated" southwest corner of the city.

"This would escalate that hemorrhaging," he said, adding that no one filed a plan with the city for refurbishing what would be gutted neighborhoods.

The list of to-close includes an inordinate number of middle schools, Cash says, which would "decimate the feeder pattern" in the southwest... .

Hispanic Girls Face Special Barriers on Road to College

Hispanic women are more likely than Hispanic men to complete high school and college, but they still trail white and African-American women

Originally Published in Ed Week 6/19/2012

By Katherine Leal Unmuth

Dallas: After 15-year-old Valerie Sanchez spent a day of her spring break in Fort Worth touring the well-manicured grounds of Texas Christian University and listening to an inspirational talk from members of a Latina sorority, she felt sure of her future.

"I'm going to college," says the teenager after the visit organized by the Dallas center of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit group. "I want to be the first in my family."

But like many young Latinas, she faces a host of challenges in the coming years, as she works to graduate from high school, go on to community college, and then enroll in a four-year institution.

Sanchez moved from Mexico when she was 9 years old and enrolled in the 156,000-student Dallas Independent School District. After taking bilingual classes taught in Spanish and English, she found the transition to all-English classes in middle school difficult.

Consequently, Sanchez was held back in the 8th grade last year at Edison Middle Learning Center here in Dallas. She now attends tutoring sessions after school in addition to programs provided by Girls Inc. that focus on career planning and pregnancy prevention.

The plight of Latino young men often dominates the discussion of graduation rates. But young Latinas also face cultural, economic, and educational barriers to finishing high school and entering and completing college.

"There's the assumption that girls are doing fine," says Lara Kaufmann, a senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, in Washington. "It's true that within ethnic groups girls are doing better than boys. But they're not doing well."

Falling Behind

While Hispanic women are more likely to graduate from high school and college when compared with Hispanic men, some statistics suggest they trail behind African-American and white women on some such measures.

Postsecondary Engagement Lags for Latinas

Latinas ages 18 to 24 have lower postsecondary-engagement rates than Asian, white, and black women of the same age bracket. Asian women are twice as likely as Latinas to be either enrolled in higher education or to have a postsecondary credential.

SOURCE: EPE Research Center, 2012. Analysis of data from the American Community Survey (2008-2010), U.S. Census Bureau.

According to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of 2011 Census survey data, about 17 percent of Hispanic females ages 25 to 29 have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 10 percent of Hispanic males, 43 percent of white females, and 23 percent of black females in that age span.

To delve into why such gaps persist, the National Women's Law Center collaborated with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on a 2009 study on educational outcomes for Latinas.

While the middle and high school girls interviewed in the report said they wanted to graduate from college, they also said they didn't expect to achieve that goal. The report also cited challenges for them in reaching educational goals, including such difficulties as immigration status, poverty, discrimination, low self-esteem, higher rates of depression and attempted suicide, gender stereotypes, and limited English proficiency.

A cultural emphasis on loyalty to family also can play a role. Latinas may be expected to take on additional duties as caregivers, such as helping to watch younger children or aid elderly family members. They may be expected to live with their parents until they are married, making it difficult to leave home to go away to college.

Ties That Bind

Celina Cardenas mentors Hispanic girls in the 37,000-student Richardson Independent School District in the Dallas suburbs. Cardenas, a district community-relations coordinator, is Mexican-American and feels she can relate to their experiences.

Valerie Sanchez, 15, works on a writing assignment during reading class at the Thomas A. Edison Middle Learning Center in Dallas. The eighth grader is working to become the first in her family to attend college.

—Allison V. Smith for Education Week

"It's kind of like you're born with responsibility—especially the girls," she says. "Doing something on your own may not sit very comfortably with them because they may not want to let anyone down. I talk to them a lot about not feeling selfish that they're disappointing their family by going away, and understanding there's nothing wrong with having those goals."

Family loyalty can cause Hispanic girls to choose less-competitive colleges than they are qualified to attend so they can keep living with their parents. They may also not be well informed about financial-aid opportunities to attend more expensive schools.

University of Texas at San Antonio education professor Anne-Marie Nuñez says that when girls live at home while in college, they may have a hard time focusing on their studies because of family obligations.

"They may be juggling multiple responsibilities that pull them away from being able to focus on their studies," Nuñez says. "Other family members may not understand the energy they need to focus on their studies."

In Texas, a nonprofit online magazine written by girls, called Latinitas, aims to empower young women. The organization also provides workshops, mentoring, and college tours. On the website, Saray Argumedo, 23, shares her own experiences about the tension with her family when she studied at the University of Texas at El Paso.

"All I can do is ask for forgiveness when my mom questions why I spend all my time outside of the house studying, working, and getting involved in my community," she writes. "I thought that they would be proud of me, but why are they so angry?"

Teenage Motherhood

Young Latinas also are more likely than most young women in the United States to have their own children as teenagers. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, in Washington, about 52 percent of Latinas become pregnant before age 20, nearly twice the national average. In Dallas, the nonprofit group Alley's House helps mothers complete their General Educational Development, or GED, studies and build their confidence.

Yesenya Consuelo, 19, dropped out of Spruce High School in Dallas her freshman year when she became pregnant with her now-4-year-old daughter. Consuelo wants to study at a community college to be a surgical technologist, but she needs to pass the math portion of the GED, which she has failed twice. She comes to Alley's House for math tutoring four days a week.

Consuelo says her daughter is her motivation to finish school. "I'm trying to be the best I can for her," she says.

Despite the challenges, says Nuñez, the education professor, "the truth is Latino families have as high aspirations as other groups. Sometimes, they just don't know how to translate those aspirations to reality."

Katherine Leal Unmuth is a Dallas-based freelance-writer.

Latino education issues at latinoedbeat.org.

Request for Waiver of Provisions of Sections 1116(b) and (c) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
TOM TORLAKSON, State Superintendent of Public Instruction
916-319-0800

CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
MICHAEL W. KIRST, President
916-319-0827

1430 N Street Sacramento, CA 95814-5901

June 15, 2012

Deborah Delisle, Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Assistant Secretary Delisle:

Subject: Request for Waiver of Provisions of Sections 1116(b) and (c) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Pursuant to Section 9401 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

As President of the State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and on behalf of all California districts, we are requesting a waiver of certain provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, we recognize that the No Child Left Behind Act, with its escalating proficiency targets and associated sanctions, is no longer useful for identifying which schools need improvement or for intervening appropriately in those schools. The appropriate solution is to reauthorize the Act, replace its inflexible requirements with provisions that accommodate the differences in state policy approaches, and give districts adequate flexibility to improve student achievement. In the meantime, we seek more immediate relief through this waiver request.

The members of the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given careful consideration to the waiver package offered by Secretary Duncan and appreciate that Acting Assistant Secretary Michael Yudin visited our state and discussed its provisions with us.

 As we conveyed to Acting Assistant Secretary Yudin at the January State Board of Education meeting, California state law requires that the state reimburse local educational agencies for the cost of any state-mandated activities. Given California’s severe, ongoing fiscal challenges, it is impossible for the state or its districts to implement the requirements of the Secretary’s waiver package effectively and within the required timeline, and we are not willing to make promises that we are unable to carry out. We ask that you consider instead our waiver request contained in this letter, which has three main objectives:

1.    Ending the ineffective practice of over-identifying schools and districts for program improvement. Unrealistic and ever-increasing performance targets have forced us to label 63 percent of Title I schools and 47 percent of districts receiving Title I funds as “needing improvement,” and to apply sanctions that do not necessarily lead to improved learning for the students in those schools. This practice has confused the public, demoralized teachers, and tied up funds that could have been more precisely targeted on the schools and districts that are most in need of improvement.

2.    Giving districts greater spending flexibility to increase student achievement. We request a waiver of the requirements that schools in improvement set aside funds for Title I professional development, supplemental educational services, and choice-related transportation activities. Instead, these funds should be available for the activities that will be most effective for improving teaching and learning in the local context, which could include, for example, targeted tutoring provided by the districts and schools, teacher coaching to improve instruction, or systems for identifying specific student achievement problems and developing targeted instructional interventions.

3.    Transitioning to a single, transparent accountability system. After more than a decade of living under two conflicting accountability systems, California’s districts, schools, and public want to return to a single system that works. Before President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, California had implemented a robust accountability system that encouraged school improvement and sent a single, consistent message to the public about how well schools were doing to improve the achievement of students. The state statutes that established that system are still in place and represent a more effective approach. Now that the shortcomings of the federal system are more widely understood, we want to return our focus to our state system that has a proven track record of measuring growth.

To achieve these ends, the State Board of Education as the State Educational Agency is specifically seeking a waiver to exempt local educational agencies in California from Title I, Part A sections 1116(b) and (c) with the exception of subsections 1116(b)(13) and 1116(c)(4). We are requesting this waiver for the 2012–13 and 2013–14 academic years.

In accordance with the waiver authority established in federal law (Section 9401 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), we outline in this letter California’s specific, measurable educational goals, describe how the state will measure progress toward these goals, and explain the state’s plan for assisting schools and districts in meeting those goals. Please note that in this request, we only describe current and planned initiatives to the extent that they address these requirements and fit within the policy parameters established by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We can provide additional information about other aspects of our education system that are of interest to the Secretary, but do not consider such information pertinent to this specific request.

California’s Current Accountability System

California’s Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 established the state’s school accountability program. Specifically, it:

·         Created the Academic Performance Index, a composite, test-based score ranging from 200 to 1,000 that reflects overall school performance and measures improvement in school performance from one year to the next;

·         Established a statewide performance target of 800 on the Academic Performance Index and a system for setting annual school-level targets that encourage steady improvement toward that statewide goal;

·         Required schools to demonstrate improvement for all numerically significant student groups including racial and ethnic student groups, socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils, English learners, and students with disabilities;

·         Defined a system of intervention in under performing schools, including standards, criteria, and qualifications for external evaluators to assist low-performing schools; and

·         Established eligibility criteria for an awards program for schools meeting or exceeding state growth targets.

Investments in Intervention

Since establishing the state accountability system, California has invested heavily in interventions for schools that failed to make significant growth as measured by the Academic Performance Index. Between 2000–01 and 2007–08, the state provided funding and technical assistance to 1,288 schools under the Immediate Intervention Under-performing Schools Program at a cost of $668.6 million. Of these, 1,140 schools ultimately met their growth targets and exited the program.

Also during that time, 802 schools participated in the High Priority Schools Grant Program at a cost of $749.3 million. Of those schools, 309 that failed to make significant growth were assigned to work with an intervention team. While this program was helpful to many participating schools, program evaluations suggested that longer term district-level approaches could be more effective, leading the state to shift its focus accordingly. From 2008–12, California allocated $177 million to districts in program improvement, for district-level assistance and intervention teams, and other activities. The first three years of evaluation data suggest that the district assistance and intervention model is effective for increasing student achievement.

In addition, the state established the Quality Education Investment Act in 2006. This $3 billion state initiative assists schools that were performing in the lowest two deciles of the Academic Performance Index at the program’s inception. This infusion of resources has helped these schools reduce class size, increase student access to school counselors, provide professional development, increase the number of highly qualified teachers, and improve facilities, among other activities. (Note that in 2008, California’s severe budget crisis led the state to collapse several categorical programs, including the Immediate Intervention Under-performing Schools Program and the High Priority Schools Grant Program described above. Funding for the Quality Education Investment Act remains intact.)

Outcomes to Date

In the past 13 years, California’s accountability system has led to increased student achievement overall and strong progress on closing the achievement gap. Since the full implementation of the California Standards Tests in 2003, academic achievement for all students in both English-language arts and mathematics has been steadily increasing. In English-language arts, the percent of students scoring proficient or advanced increased from 35 percent in 2003 to 54 percent in 2011, marking a substantial increase in the number of students who are prepared to succeed in college or career. California’s most vulnerable students also showed major improvement: the percent of students scoring at the lower level of achievement decreased by 13 percentage points over that same period, from 32 percent in 2003 to 19 percent in 2011.

California students have also made impressive gains in mathematics: the percent of students scoring proficient or advanced increased from 35 percent in 2003 to 50 percent in 2011. Across that same time period, the percent of students scoring at the lower level of achievement decreased by 11 percentage points from 38 percent in 2003 to 27 percent in 2011.

These substantial gains in test scores are reflected in the state accountability system. In 2003, for example, an elementary school in the lowest 10 percent had an Academic Performance Index score between 564 and 609 points. In 2011, an elementary school in the lowest 10 percent had an Academic Performance Index score between 700 and 714 points.

To summarize, while the federal system has subsumed increasing numbers of schools and districts under the banner of failure for the last decade, California’s system has consistently differentiated between schools that are improving and those that are not.

Looking Ahead: Plans for Change

With this state-defined request, we are seeking to return to a single system of school accountability that is both understandable and rigorous. We intend to keep the Academic Performance Index at the core of our state accountability system, while making improvements. This waiver request will provide much-needed flexibility and relief from the adverse effects of the No Child Left Behind Act, while increasing our focus on the schools most in need of improved student learning.

We plan to strengthen California’s system of accountability and interventions as follows:

         California will transition to a single system of performance goals that uses the annual Academic Performance Index schoolwide and student group targets as the state’s Annual Measureable Objectives. The state will continue to identify schools and districts needing improvement, but will use its own accountability system to identify them. The State Board of Education will initiate conforming changes as needed to California’s Accountability Workbook and submit these to the U.S. Department of Education for review. (California’s current Annual Measureable Objectives, as required by Section 9401 (b)(1)(C), are documented in the state’s approved Accountability Workbook, available on the California Department of Education Accountability Workbook Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ay/wb.asp.)

·         The State Board of Education will consider by January 2013 revisions to the statewide Academic Performance Index target or revisions to the method for calculating annual schoolwide and student group targets. While the Academic Performance Index was designed to encourage growth at all performance levels, we believe we need to carefully examine the effects of the target structure, particularly for schools that have long met the statewide target, to encourage continued focus on students who are not proficient. We will seek input from the Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee and California’s education community at large to help make this determination. If the State Board of Education adopts new targets, those will become California’s Annual Measureable Objectives in the following school year.

·         By March 2013, the State Board of Education, with input from the Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee, will determine how it will use the Academic Performance Index to identify a targeted number of schools and districts that have not shown improvement over time or have low absolute performance. This process will replace the process of identifying schools and districts for Program Improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act.

o    The State Board of Education will identify a more targeted set of schools and districts for intervention, specifically those low-performing schools and districts that have not improved.

o    The State Board of Education will develop clear criteria to identify the targeted set of schools and districts that have not improved and require intervention, but will not require that a specific percentage be identified each year, or set other requirements that lead to schools and districts bouncing in and out of this status. The State Board of Education will also develop clear criteria to identify when schools and districts have improved sufficiently to regain full flexibility and autonomy from state interventions.

o    The State Board of Education will consider moving to a multi-year (“rolling”) accountability measure or other techniques to smooth out fluctuations in scores, prevent schools from bouncing in and out of improvement status from year to year, and focus attention on the schools with the most intractable problems.

·         By July 2013, the State Board of Education, with input from the Title I Committee of Practitioners, will identify what sanctions will be imposed on schools and districts that have been identified as not improving, based on the severity and persistence of underachievement problems. Those sanctions, currently authorized under state law, include: (a) replacing district personnel; (b) removing schools from the jurisdiction of the district and establishing alternative governance and supervision arrangements; (c) appointing a state receiver or trustee to administer the affairs of the district in place of the local governing board; (d) abolishing or restructuring the district; (e) authorizing students to transfer to higher performing schools in other districts and providing transportation; (f) instituting a new curriculum based on state content standards; and (g) deferring programmatic funds or reducing administrative funds. In recent years California has exercised its takeover option, appointing state trustees in three persistently low-performing districts. (Two of these districts have improved and regained autonomy from the state; the trustee is still in place in the third.)

o    The state will focus its monitoring efforts at the district level, both because of capacity constraints, and to ensure district support for school improvement.

o    Specific improvement activities will be selected based on the needs of the school and district, as determined by local data analysis and the qualitative judgments of individuals who are familiar with the school and district.

o    Required improvement activities will largely focus on instruction, including activities that promote teacher collaboration and instructional coaching. Instructional improvement activities will emphasize a broad curriculum. Numerous California schools districts have been implementing research-based interventions which are improving student achievement and will be considered for incorporation in a statewide intervention model.

o    The State Board of Education will bring more qualitative judgment to the process of identifying appropriate interventions and sanctions, using as guidance existing state standards and criteria for assessing district performance in seven key areas: governance; alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessments to state standards; fiscal operations; parent and community involvement; human resources; data systems and achievement monitoring; and professional development. The State Board of Education may use local review panels to identify problems and assign required activities.

o    If our waiver is granted, these activities can be paid for, in part, with federal funds that are currently set aside for SES, Title I professional development, and choice-related transportation. Under the current system, local educational agencies and schools are obligated to direct Title I improvement resources to activities that frequently do not align with their local needs.

o    Another possible source of funds is the approximately $35 million annual  allocation for local educational agencies that are newly identified as needing improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act ($50,000, $100,000, or $150,000 per local educational agency, depending on the severity of the performance problem). Because of escalating performance targets, these funds are going currently to districts with moderate performance problems and could be better targeted. This may require a change in state statute to re-purpose the funds.

·         To support improved teaching and learning, districts will revise annual district and school plans to document how schools and local educational agencies are using their formerly reserved Title I, Part A funds to meet the needs of Title I eligible students. These plans will be uploaded to the state’s web-based system, allowing the California Department of Education to monitor the plans and provide timely technical assistance to districts as they redirect funds and human resources to better support student learning.

In Conclusion

California is moving forward with a plan to increase student learning, building on the strong foundation we already have. We understand the obvious and important link between quality teaching and learning. The State has adopted the Common Core State Standards and is on course to implement them on the timeline established in state statute, in line with what the state budget allows. As you know, California is also a governing state in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and anticipates a transition to new online assessments in 2015. In anticipation of this, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education will recommend action by the State to reauthorize and streamline the State’s assessment system and ensure a smooth transition to the new tests. At the direction of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr., the State Board of Education will concurrently review our state accountability system and consider how to keep the Academic Performance Index intact as a strong quantitative measure of school performance, while giving additional emphasis to local judgments of quality and other, more qualitative accountability mechanisms, such as the School Accountability Report Cards that all schools must produce annually.

Our goals now are the same as they were when we first established the state accountability system in 1999—to maintain challenging yet achievable goals, and to assist underperforming schools in ways that improve student learning. California has been a leader and innovator in numerous fields, and we plan to return to that role in education accountability. Just as California led the way in developing auto emission standards that were ultimately adopted across the nation, we now want to lead the nation in education accountability and student learning as well. As we approach reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we believe that our state system of accountability provides a strong model for national consideration.

In the absence of reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we request this waiver to provide districts with the flexibility they need to use Title I resources effectively and improve the academic achievement of their students. As we have described in this letter, we are committed to upholding school accountability in our state and excellence in our schools. Using our established state system of accountability and the tough sanctions authorized in existing state law, we will redouble our efforts to hold districts and schools accountable for improving student learning.

We have developed this waiver request by working collaboratively with local educational agencies and stakeholders, and we will implement the plan with continued collaboration.

Prior to submitting this waiver request, California provided all local educational agencies and educational stakeholders in the state with notice and a reasonable opportunity to comment on this request. The specific notice posting is available on the California Department of Education Public Notices Web page athttp://www.cde.ca.gov/be/pn/pn/. Copies of all comments that California received from local educational agencies in response to this notice are attached. California has provided notice and information regarding this waiver request to the public in the manner in which California customarily provides such notice and information to the public.

If you have questions regarding this request, please contact Deborah V.H. Sigman, Deputy Superintendent, District, School, and Innovation Branch, by phone at 916-319-0812 or by e-mail at dsigman@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

TOM TORLAKSON
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
California Department of Education

MICHAEL W. KIRST
President
California State Board of Education

TT/MK:

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Last Reviewed: Tuesday, June 19, 2012