Minggu, 21 April 2013

Juan Gonzalez: Success Academy and Boss Eva Moskowitz Are Investigated For Money Given BY NYC DOE

Subject: Monday event calling for an investigation into Success Academy
I know that it's last minute, but I just got word that tomorrow, Monday, April 22nd
at 1pm at Tweed (52 Chambers Street)

Bill deBlasio will be hosting a press conference calling for an investigation into Success Academy and Eva Moskowitz.

deBlasio will be talking about the special access the NYCDOE gives Eva Moskowitz and  the disparities between the schools where she co-locates, her host buildings, and neighboring schools.

deBlasio will also ask for an investigation into the lower numbers of children with special
needs and English Language Learners.

If you can't make this event, PLEASE send this email along to colleagues who can.

Gonzalez: Irate parents, teachers say Brooklyn public schools received meager improvements as charter school in same building enjoyed big makeover

The Department of Education counters that it invested more than $2.1 million in upgrades to the public schools and spent $350,000 on charter school Success Academy Cobble Hill on Baltic Street. The law requires the department to spend at least as much on the public schools, the Brooklyn School for Global Studies, the School for International Studies and Public School 368K.

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NY Daily NEWS April 18, 2013

LINK




The school building at 284 Baltic Street is home to a charter school and three regular public schools. “If they spent all that money, why are there still holes in the ceiling of the locker room?” asked Pamela Bynoe, president of the Global parents assocation.

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Construction crews worked feverishly last summer to renovate space for Success Academy Cobble Hill, a new charter school that began sharing space in September with three regular public schools in the same city-owned building on Baltic Street in Brooklyn.
The workers removed decrepit asbestos floor tiles in the hallways and a dozen classrooms assigned to the new charter school. They outfitted new bathrooms. They got rid of old lighting fixtures that had been leaking dangerous PCBs and upgraded electrical lines. They installed new doors, carpeting and furniture, then painted the entire area.
“The Success portion looked like a brand-new school when it was finished,” one teacher said.
But angry parents and teachers say the Department of Education failed to provide similar improvements for three public schools in the same building, as mandated by state law.
That law was passed several years ago when the state lifted caps on the number of charter schools. It requires the DOE to “spend the same amount on each noncharter public school” co-located with a public school “within three months” of the charter school improvements.
Renovations at the public school included $1.3 million for new lockers, a new dance studio and fitness room used by the two secondary schools in the building, along with $770,000 this winter to completely gut and create new classrooms for the special-education program, according to the Department of Education. The first pair of photos shows the public school space at left and the charter at right. The second also shows the public school space at left and the charter at right.

Renovations at the public school included $1.3 million for new lockers, a new dance studio and fitness room used by the two secondary schools in the building, along with $770,000 this winter to completely gut and create new classrooms for the special-education program, according to the Department of Education. The first pair of photos shows the public school space at left and the charter at right. The second also shows the public school space at left and the charter at right.

DOE officials insist they have done more than the law required.
The agency spent only $350,000 to renovate the Success facilities, agency spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said, while the charter school, part of a chain of charters run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, spent another $340,000 of its own.
At the same time, Feinberg said, the DOE invested more than $2.1 million in upgrades to the three public schools — the Brooklyn School for Global Studies, the School for International Studies and Public School 368K, a special-education program.
The improvements included $1.3 million for new lockers, a new dance studio and fitness room used by the two secondary schools in the building, along with $770,000 this winter to completely gut and create new classrooms for the special-education program, Feinberg said.
But parents and teachers can’t see where that money went.

Former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz runs Success Academy Cobble Hill, which spent an additional $340,000 of its own on upgrades.

MARIELA LOMBARD/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz runs Success Academy Cobble Hill, which spent an additional $340,000 of its own on upgrades.

“That just blows my mind,” said Clare Daley, a longtime physical education teacher at Global Studies and chairwoman of the teachers union chapter. “There’s no way they spent $1 million on the gym improvements.”
Yes, the DOE cut the girls’ locker room in half and built a small new dance studio, Daley said. And yes, it put up a wall in the boys’ locker room and created a fitness center with some exercise machines. But nothing was done to repair the shower rooms that haven’t worked for years or the fetid bathrooms that adjoin the locker rooms.
“If they spent all that money, why are there still holes in the ceiling of the locker room?” asked Pamela Bynoe, president of the Global parents assocation.
As for those special-education renovations, Cecila Green, whose child attends that school, says no major repairs have been done, except for a paint job last summer and some new smart boards.
Oh, and those lighting fixtures leaking PCBs? They are still present in all the classrooms of the three public schools.
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Sabtu, 20 April 2013

NYC DOE Admits Error In Scoring Tests For Gifted Programs

From Betsy Combier:

File this story under: "Can the NYC DOE Do Anything Right?"

More in New York City Qualify as Gifted After Error Is Fixed

By 
LINK

Nearly 2,700 New York City students were wrongly told in recent weeks they were not eligible for seats in public school gifted and talented programs because of errors in scoring the tests used for admission, the Education Department said on Friday.
The company that both created and scored the tests, Pearson, has apologized for the mistakes, according to the department, which is now scurrying to notify parents that pupils originally locked out of the coveted programs are instead able to apply for seats.
Updated scores will be distributed within 10 days and the deadline for applying to gifted programs, originally Friday, will be extended to May 10, the department said. Only six students were incorrectly deemed qualified for the gifted programs, but they will not lose their eligibility, the department said.
All told, 4,735 students — or 13 percent of all those in kindergarten through third grade who sat for the tests — were affected by the errors, said Erin Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Of those, 2,698 are newly eligible for seats in districtwide gifted programs, meaning they scored at or above the 90th percentile.
The other 2,037 will be told they are now eligible for one of the city’s five more competitive “citywide” gifted programs, open to those at the 97th percentile or higher. Those students had been erroneously told they were eligible only for the district programs.
In a terse statement, Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, said the errors made by Pearson were “unacceptable.” The company also designed the state standardized tests being administered to students this month, and has developed new curriculums that have been endorsed by the city’s Education Department.
“Pearson has an established record in this field and we depend on its professionalism and deep capacity to deliver for the public,” Mr. Walcott said in his statement. “But in this case, they let our children and families down. I have told the company’s officials in no uncertain terms that I expect this will never happen again.”
In a statement, Scott Smith, the president of learning assessment for Pearson, said “the fact that these errors occurred is simply unacceptable to Pearson as we fully understand the importance of accurate scoring.”
“It is clear that we had a breakdown in our processes and we are conducting a complete, extensive investigation of every step,” the statement continued.
Because of the mistakes, the city will withhold $500,000 from Pearson’s contract, which is worth $5.5 million over three years and is in its second year, Ms. Hughes said. Roughly $80,000 of it will go to pay for “communication and outreach” to families, including placing calls to them over the weekend, she said.
Even before the error, the number of students qualifying for gifted seats — 9,020 — was far higher than the number of seats. The new number is more than 11,700. The competition is most acute for the citywide programs, where only several hundred seats are available.
“It’s unfortunate, but this happens,” said Donna Taylor, the principal of the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a citywide program. “There are a ton of people it has unfortunately affected.”
Besides increased competition for the seats, the higher number suggests that the city has been unable to control the explosive growth in high test scores, which coincided with the growth in test preparation services. Last year, 9,644 students qualified.
The tests this year, which consisted of two parts delivered in one sitting, were revised to make them less susceptible to preparation, which education officials said would also help increase the chances that children from poor backgrounds would gain seats.
Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer for the Education Department, said further study was needed to understand what factors could be causing the increase. He said the goal of the new assessments was not to reduce the number of eligible students, but to do “a better job of identifying kids’ giftedness without respect to whether they had prior academic preparation.”
Critics of the Bloomberg administration seized upon the mistakes. The teachers’ union president, Michael Mulgrew, remarked that the Education Department “blames the testing company and tries to bury the announcement on a Friday afternoon.” Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a mayoral candidate, said it was time for the department to “reassess its relationship with the company.”
The errors were discovered when two parents, one a statistician, complained that their children had been incorrectly scored, the department said.
According to Pearson, three mistakes were made. Students’ ages, which are used to calculate their percentile ranking against students of similar age, were recorded in years and months, but should also have counted days to be precise. Incorrect scoring tables were used. And the formula used to combine the two test parts into one percentile ranking contained an error.
Earlier this week, the department said that score reports for 400 students had been lost, but that those tests had been found and were being scored.
One parent, Rena M. Ismail, 36, who had been told that her 5-year-old son, Hyder, was not eligible for a gifted seat, said the department informed her that her son had scored in the 89th percentile, when, by her math, he was in the 91st.
“I knew he got it,” she said. “I could see it. They told me I was mistaken.
“I am an educated person. I know how to add and multiply, and I knew he got in by his score sheet.”
Kyle Spencer contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 19, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated who said that the goal of the new assessments was to do “a better job of identifying kids’ giftedness without respect to whether they had prior academic preparation.” It was Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer for the Education Department, not Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.

Test-takers see double

‘Sneak peek’ schools furor

LINK

  • By YOAV GONEN Education Reporter, NYPOST
  • Last Updated: 9:11 AM, April 19, 2013
  • Posted: 1:21 AM, April 19, 2013
They were déjà viewed.
Some reading passages on this week’s state exams came straight out of a school curriculum produced by the test-maker — giving schools that bought those materials a leg up, teachers and parents said yesterday.
The rehashing of essays for students in Grades 6 and 8 was discovered on English exams created by Pearson, which in 2010 was awarded a five-year, $32 million state contract.
The firm publishes curriculum material aligned with higher standards recently embraced by New York and 45 other states — known as Common Core — and which has been used by schools in parts of the state.
“If some children were assigned these reading passages in advance of the exam, it gives them an unfair advantage,” said schools advocate Leonie Haimson, director of Class Size Matters.
“The state should be obligated to throw out every item on the exams based on passages in Pearson textbooks assigned elsewhere in the state.”
Educators also complained that the double-dipping would put pressure on districts to purchase Pearson’s curriculum if they want to boost their students’ chances of acing the exams.
Officials at the firm said the inclusion of essays from their curriculum material was an “unintentional” consequence of the state’s emphasis on using nonfiction texts in the exams.
“The process for selecting test material is separate from creating textbooks,” said Pearson director of communications Stacy Skelly.
“The Pearson content developers who work on the [state] assessment contract do not work to develop curriculum for other divisions of Pearson.”
Skelly added that the questions following the essays were newly created for the exams.
State Education Department officials similarly attributed the repetition to a heavier reliance on real-world texts in both curriculum and state assessments.
They also cautioned that passages from controversial texts — such as Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” — were likely to make their way into the exams at some point.
“The alternative would be to exclude many authors and texts that are capable of supporting the rigorous analysis called for by the Common Core,” said department spokesman Tom Dunn.
Students have completed all three days of testing in English, with three days of math exams set for next week.
yoav.gonen@nypost.com
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Kamis, 18 April 2013

Los Angeles Reviews The Investigations of Teachers

L.A. school board to consider faster investigation of teachers

LINK

Under a proposal by board member Tamar Galatzan, district employees would be told why they've been removed from their job and advised quickly about the length of the inquiry.

 
After allegations of sexual misconduct at Miramonte Elementary School, there has been a surge in investigations into Los Angeles teachers. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / August 14, 2012)

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2013, 11:39 p.m.

Sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations of Los Angeles teachers, pushing the ranks of those in "teacher jail" to more than 300 — and prompting officials this week to consider the rights of accused employees.
On Tuesday, the Board of Education will weigh a proposal designed to speed up and improve investigations, in hopes of quickly ousting the guilty and exonerating the innocent.
"You don't need 300 days to figure out who's a monster," said Carpenter Elementary parent Julia Bricklin.
Under a resolution by board member Tamar Galatzan, district employees would be told why they have been pulled from their job, unless doing so would compromise a law-enforcement investigation. They would also be advised quickly about the expected length of the inquiry and whether they would be paid in the meantime.
Galatzan said that thoroughly protecting children should not create new, unnecessary problems for educators.
"Everyone agreed the process wasn't working," Galatzan said. Some inquiries simply got unnecessarily sidetracked within the bureaucracy, said Galatzan, a prosecutor with the L.A. city attorney's office.
Her resolution sets strict and faster timelines for investigations and would put them in the hands of trained professionals, while also providing more training for principals called on to participate in probes.
The teachers union supports the effort but expressed concern that revised procedures could actually limit due-process rights if misapplied. Galatzan's resolution does not require union approval, but future district rules on handling teacher investigation and discipline could require negotiations with United Teachers Los Angeles.
Critics accuse L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy of a zero-tolerance approach on misconduct that presumes guilt and moves inexorably toward dismissal for minor or unproven infractions.
District officials continue to seek revisions to state law that would allow for speedier dismissals in general. They also want lawmakers totransfer authority for teacher firings from a state panel to local school district control.
Deasy has insisted his only imperative is to prioritize the safety of students above all else.
Galatzan was sought out by parents from her west San Fernando Valley district who felt some highly regarded teachers had been poorly treated as a result of allegations with little credibility. Deserved reputations were tarnished and the education of students was needlessly disrupted, they said.
The parents said they talked to teachers who were kept in the dark about investigations, who were summoned to meetings with virtually no time to prepare, who were exonerated by witnesses but forced to wait months for reinstatement, or who received punishment that appeared out of proportion to the alleged offense.
"I probably would not have gone on this crusade except for a lower-level administrator who said, 'You parents, you're all a bunch of gossips,'" Bricklin said.
The January 2012 arrest of a former Miramonte elementary teacher proved a watershed. Mark Berndt is accused of spoon-feeding his semen to blindfolded students in his classroom, among other allegations. He has pleaded not guilty.
The week before his arrest, there were six allegations of inappropriate conduct between an employee and a student, none sexual, according to documents provided in response to public-records requests.
The week after his arrest, there were 39, and 16 involved sexual misconduct. Reports stayed at comparable levels for weeks. The number of employees pulled from job sites ballooned.
Before Miramonte, about 160 teachers were out of classrooms and schools, either ordered to stay home or to report to district offices to wait out the work day doing nothing in so-called "teacher jails." Last week, the number was 322, even as teacher dismissals also have spiked upward. The number is a minuscule percentage of the workforce, but the cost of substitute employees nonetheless runs into millions of dollars.
When a teacher is accused, any district employee must report the allegation, and officials are now uniformly quick to remove an employee from a school, officials said.
Deasy said many delays in resolving a case result from waiting for police to do their work. Detectives also may limit the information released to the public and to the accused employee, he said.
"Children's safety comes first," he said. "We were not always that explicit in the past."
The superintendent acknowledged, however, that the district was unprepared for the post-Miramonte surge in allegations. Procedures have improved steadily over the last year, he added, including better coordination with law enforcement.
Moving faster won't lead to a better result, unless the investigations are independent and high-caliber, said Warren Fletcher, president of UTLA. He also wants the union to be included in developing better procedures.
"I can think of about 30 things in [Galatzan's proposal] that I might take issue with, but it's important that one of the school board members is coming forward and talking about this issue," Fletcher said.
howard.blume@latimes.com

 

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Francesco Portelos Introduces NYC DOE "Legal"

You are here: Home > NYC Educators Meet DOE Legal

NYC Educators Meet DOE Legal

by  on April 18, 2013 in Uncategorized
LINK
“I have to call DOE Legal.”
“I’ll let you know after I speak to Legal.”
“Well… Legal is investigating it.”
“They said contact Legal if the teacher continues to resist”
“Legal will know what to do”
“Legal will send the form and we just have to put our letterhead on and sign.”

Have you ever heard a principal say something like the phrases above? The more I talk to teachers and hear their horror stories, the more the word “LEGAL” is mentioned. The more teachers copy and send me their surprise letters, the more I see “Senior Field Counsel” copied on the bottom of the letter. NYC Schools are filled with amazing administrators. However this post as well as many of the posts pertaining to administration is about the ineffective admin. The ones who target instead of supportneedy or outspoken teachers.
If your administrator is targeting or abusing you, chances are they have DOE Legal on speed dial. Even UFT Presidents stated “The DOE is not run by Dennis Walcott. It is run by over 300 lawyers and accountability experts.”
But who are they? Time to pull back the curtain and expose the wizard.
Let us start with Senior Field Counsel.
Each school has a CFN or Children First Network that is paid, by school budget (tax dollars), to support them. This includes facilities, professional development, payroll, safety etc. You can find your school’s budget here and see how much your school pays for support.
and look for the line that reads:
TL Children First Network Support$16,000
(TL means Tax Levy)
Then you can find your school’s CFN by searching your school name and CEP. It’s listed in there.
Example:
My school, Berta Dreyfus IS 49 (R049) is in CFN 211.
Now I can use the link below or this list below to see that the person Principal Linda Hill called the most was Marisol Vazquez. Or at least it appears she did. I think she used to use Robin Merrill. I’ve met Marisol at smalls claims court when a decision was made not to allow me in the building and obtain my personal belongings. I may be wrong, but my hunch is that my principal and CFN have been in touch with Marisol Vazquez and Robin Singer the most as their names are popping up quite often. Now if you know my story well and you see the great blunders that have been made, you may think “Well whoever is counseling Hill isn’t doing so well.” I would have to agree with you as there was no reason over 300+ students lost out on a quality education for over a year. People listed below are responsible. When the documents come in via FOIL requests or Federal court discovery, I hope everything is on the up and up. Any unethical items by ANY attorney will have to be reported to the NY Bar Association. Lawyers…lawyer up!

Onto OLR or the Office of Labor Relations:
OLR also comes in to play with labor related items like contract grievances.
Of course they are run by Deputy Chancellor David Weiner.
Below him we have:
DID YOU KNOW THAT GRIEVANCES ARE DENIED AT A RATE OF 99.4%. Great work David! You are a modern day King Solomon. Wait until my grievances come up in Federal Court.
David Brodsky also helped create a great “Principal: A How to a Guide” listed below. Check it out.
I have called and emailed both David Weiner and David Brodsky several times, but they do not wish to respond. That will be shared in my upcoming post called “Goliath Hiding”.
Would you believe David Brodsky is a fan of mine? I know…pretty crazy. On my site you can enter your email address to get updates on my posts as soon as they are published. I found that list and saw davebr@ameritech.net. Perhaps it is not him, but who else could it be.

Onto the top dogs – Office of General Counsel
So if the DOE is run by Legal, who runs Legal? It used to by Michael Best, but now it is Courtenaye Jackson-Chase

Courtenaye Jackson-Chase usually sits next to Chancellor Walcott at PEP meetings
Courtenaye Jackson-Chase usually sits next to Chancellor Walcott at PEP meetings
We have many, many more legal players in the game of “Attack the Educator”.  They sometimes have obvious names like “Administrative Trials Unit” or ATU. Sometimes they work under the guise of names like “Office of Equal Opportunity” when equal is the last thing that they are. More on OEO in another post. You are not going to believe what you are reading.
 Find more about the “Gotcha Squad on Betsy Combier’s site http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
Keep in mind the OSI and SCI attorneys that are also key players like Ann Ryan, Regina Loughran and Daniel Schlatchet of SCI. You can FOIL SCI docs by emailing Ann Ryan.
If you are being harassed by your administration, chances are there are attorneys pulling the puppet strings. Follow those strings and what you decide to do is up to you.
Be well and never, ever give up.

Babies At The Bar
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Update on Los Angeles' Rubber Rooms

Fixing LAUSD’s Rubber Room With Hot Knives


Teachers Locked Down in LAUSD's Notorious "Rubber Room"

LINK
Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy’s take all prisoners approach to teacher discipline in the wake of the Miramonte Elementary School molestation case last year (see here and here) has swelled the number of teachers in LAUSD’s rubber room (teacher jail) to over 300.

Today the school board will consider a proposal to speed up and “improve” investigations, ostensibly to speed up the removal of criminals and exoneration of innocents. The problem is that the only true innocents, in the eyes of Deasy, are the children. Deasy has repeatedly asserted that his primary goal is to protect the children (never mind if that means punishing or firing innocent teachers).

Under the resolution by board member Tamar Galatzan, employees would have to be told why they were being removed from their job (unless it would compromise a law-enforcement investigation). This leaves open the possibility that a teacher could be placed in the rubber room based on spurious accusations by discontent parents or students, and not be told why they were there. According to the Los Angeles Times, the resolution would also require that they be quickly advised about the expected length of the investigation and whether or not they would be paid in the interim.

There are several other problems with the resolution. If the LAUSD bureaucracy did not have time, expertise and willingness to complete its investigations promptly and competently before, why would they have this ability now? Additionally, speeding up the timeframe for an investigation runs the risk of weakening teachers’ due process rights. Though the goal is to protect children, it is important to remember that people get accused of things all the time which are untrue, including teachers. Speeding up the inquiries could limit teachers’ abilities to defend themselves against specious accusations or exaggerated punishments for minor infractions.
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