Study Finds New York City High School Discharge Rate Increasing: Part 2

Study Finds New York City High School Discharge Rate Increasing: Part 1

Yo Ho Ho

True Colors

from the nydailynews
Mayor Bloomberg blew a gasket on live TV Thursday as he prepared to voice support for gay marriage - berating a reporter in a wheelchair whose tape recorder accidentally started playing."Turn it off. It's a little too important for playing music," the mayor said, as a roomful of city and state politicians waited behind him.
"This is just too important to get disruptive, and maybe we'll just take everything outside."
For one minute and 36 seconds, Bloomberg stared at reporter Michael Harris of the Examiner blog until he could reach the recorder from his wheelchair and turn it off.
At one point, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn covered the microphone and appeared to whisper in Bloomberg's ear, "He's disabled."
"Okay, I understand that," the mayor replied. "He can still turn it off."
Harris said later that a photographer had jostled the recorder in his jacket pocket, making it play tape from a political rally the night before.
"It was in my coat which was a few seats over, so I couldn't reach it," said Harris, who was holding a camera and penned in by other photographers.
"I always turn my cell phone off. I couldn't figure out what it was."

He said he would offer an apology to Bloomberg if one was requested, but believed the mayor made too much of the distraction - and thought the mayor should apologize to him.
"I felt embarrassed that he singled me out like that," Harris said. "I think an apology would be the right thing to do. The mayor clearly was obnoxious in the way he reacted. Do I think I'm going to get one? No."
The episode was an odd distraction from the news conference to celebrate Gov. Paterson introducing a bill to allow gay marriage in New York.
Bloomberg arrived late to the event, stepping up to the podium after Paterson began speaking, and his body language was noticeably different from the smiling politicians and advocates around him.
He stood with his arms folded across his chest, gazing repeatedly at the ceiling while Paterson and other leaders spoke in support of the bill.
Paterson tried to make a joke when the tape began, telling Bloomberg, "Mayor, that's like your theme music."
"Okay, I appreciate that," the mayor replied. "Can we - something's playing? Can we just stop this and maybe we'll start again?"
Questioned a few minutes later about what transpired, Bloomberg said he would have done the same to any reporter whose electronics disrupted an event.
"I didn't reprimand him," the mayor said. "You have a responsibility to make sure you don't disrupt other people, and so does every other reporter that's there."
Harris was not there to hear Bloomberg's explanation. He skipped the mayor's question-and-answer session, saying, "I didn't want to further inflame the mayor in any way."

Randi Advises Vichy

Randi knows a different version of this tune as she uses it to school the Vichy French on the glory of collaborating
see ednotes online for a story on the "help" she provides for D.C. teachers

Weingarten Agreement to Schmoke as Mediator Means DC Teachers About to be Screwed
Rhee, Parker and Weingarten Agree to a Mediator
D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, and Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker just announced that a mediator will help settle differences over the shape of their contract.
Kurt Schmoke, Dean of Howard University School of Law and former Baltimore mayor, will work to resolve "outstanding issues" on the table, according to an AFT statement.- Stephen Sawchuck at Ed Week.
Agreeing to Schmoke, part of the anti-union ed deformer crowd ( I received an email with his background yesterday but can't lay my hands on it,) would be like having Joel Klein mediate the UFT contract. But we told the DC teachers to expect nothing less from Weingarten. Watch them be handed a contract and given 10 minutes to read and approve it before the contracts are collected. Count your teeth before leaving the room.

Bloomberg Performs Ball Suspension Trick At Met Home Opener

Working Man Mike

nyceducator notes that Mayor Mike is now seeking the endorsement of the Working Families Party. Somehow the imagery doesn't quite work

Mike's Crib sheet

An excerpt from a nytimes editorial of 4/10/09

Op-Ed Contributor, Mayor Bloomberg’s Crib Sheet
By DIANE RAVITCH
ARNE DUNCAN, the secretary of education, has urged the nation’s mayors to take control of their public schools so that they can impose radical reforms. He points to New York City as a prime example of a school system that made sharp improvements under mayoral control.
Actually, the record on mayoral control of schools is unimpressive. Eleven big-city school districts take part in the federal test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Two of the lowest-performing cities — Chicago and Cleveland — have mayoral control. The two highest-performing cities — Austin, Tex., and Charlotte, N.C. — do not. Mr. Duncan came to New York City last week to urge the New York State Legislature to renew the law that grants control of the New York City public schools to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That law, passed in 2002, will expire at the end of June.
Mayoral control of the schools is not a new phenomenon in the city’s history. From 1873 to 1969, the mayor appointed every single member of the Board of Education. The era of decentralization from 1969 to 2002 was an aberration, because the mayor had only two appointees on a seven-member board.
Yet no mayor has exercised such unlimited power over the public schools as Mr. Bloomberg. Previous mayors respected the independence of the board members they appointed. The present version of the board, the Panel on Education Policy, serves at the pleasure of the mayor and rubber-stamps the policies and spending practices of the Department of Education, which is run by Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
Mr. Bloomberg’s allies say that the results of the current system are so spectacular that the law should be renewed without change. Secretary Duncan agrees: “I’m looking at the data here in front of me,” he said while in New York. “Graduation rates are up. Test scores are up ... By every measure, that’s real progress.”
It sounds good, but in fact no independent source has verified such claims.
On the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress — widely acknowledged as the gold standard of the testing industry — New York City showed almost no academic improvement between 2003, when the mayor’s reforms were introduced, and 2007. There were no significant gains for New York City’s students — black, Hispanic, white, Asian or lower-income — in fourth-grade reading, eighth-grade reading or eighth-grade mathematics. In fourth-grade math, pupils showed significant gains (although the validity of this is suspect because an unusually large proportion — 25 percent — of students were given extra time and help). The federal test reported no narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and minority students.
The city’s Department of Education belittles the federal test scores and focuses on the assessments given by New York State. And, indeed, the state scores have soared in recent years, not only in the city but also across New York state However, the statewide scores on the N.A.E.P. are as flat as New York City’s. Our state tests are, unfortunately, exemplars of grade inflation.
The graduation rate is another area in which progress has been overstated. The city says the rate climbed to 62 percent from 53 percent between 2003 and 2007; the state’s Department of Education, which uses a different formula, says the city’s rose to 52 percent, from 44 percent. Either way, the city’s graduation rate is no better than that of Mississippi, which spends about a third of what New York City spends per pupil.
Moreover, the city’s graduation rates have been pumped up with a variety of dubious means, like “credit recovery,” in which students who fail a course can get full credit if they agree to take a three-day makeup program or turn in an independent project. In addition, the city counts as graduates the students who dropped out and obtained a graduate-equivalency degree.

Seder Sidekicks Revealed

He'll Do Anything

He'll Do Anything...To Get Elected

from the nycpublicschoolparents blog

Talk about politicizing our schools….
Tweed won’t let people hand out leaflets for CEC candidates in school buildings because it is too “political”, but somehow Bloomberg is allowed to use school newsletters to recruit high school students for his re-election campaign. Reportedly, some schools have been persuaded to even offer course credits to students who work for his re-election!
Talk about killing two birds with one stone: Bloomberg is able to artificially raise graduation rates and obtain cheap child labor for his campaign with one fell swoop.
Reminiscent of the tactics he used to coerce organizations that received city money to testify on behalf of the extending term limits....it is increasingly clear that there are no limits to how far he will go to get his way.
Had this sort of corruption occurred in the days of the old Board of Education or Community school boards you would never have heard the end of it --- especially from the tabloids and mainstream media. But again the billionaire bully is able to break all the rules and get away with it.

Seder Sidekicks 2

Continuing with the thread of the previous post I managed to track down a still image of all the sidekicks attending the special Department of Education Passover Seder
ednotesonline shares his correspondence with a high placed nyc school supervisor re the troubling relationship that the newly appointed board regents, Merryl Tisch, has with Joel Klein

I am fascinated by the detail of your research and reporting! I feel fortunate to have you "in the trenches" reporting on everything- as I find many of your opinions right on target. I am only sorry that I am not retired so I could enjoy my freedom of speech – and perhaps write more and share opinions.
I was deeply troubled by the NY Times' very flattering piece on Meryl Tisch.
Though she seems like a nice lady and I have only seen her speak once, she is in the Mayor's pocket- she once was quoted as saying "I absolutely will support Mayoral Control as long as MICHAEL is going to be in charge". Then article talks of how she has shared several Seder suppers with Joel Klein and how she and her husband go on dinner dates with JOEL and his wife".
That would be like me as an accountant sharing Christmas dinner with my auditor every year.
The entire article is full of her connections to the wealth of a very limited number of people mostly very folks from the upper east side.. Seymour Fliegel is mentioned praising her-didn't he get a contract from JOEL to run the CIE PSO??? There is too much here that does not pass the smell test.

Seder Sidekicks

ednotesonline shares his correspondence with a high placed nyc school supervisor re the troubling relationship that the newly appointed board regents, Merryl Tisch, has with Joel Klein

I am fascinated by the detail of your research and reporting! I feel fortunate to have you "in the trenches" reporting on everything- as I find many of your opinions right on target. I am only sorry that I am not retired so I could enjoy my freedom of speech – and perhaps write more and share opinions.
I was deeply troubled by the NY Times' very flattering piece on Meryl Tisch.
Though she seems like a nice lady and I have only seen her speak once, she is in the Mayor's pocket- she once was quoted as saying "I absolutely will support Mayoral Control as long as MICHAEL is going to be in charge". Then article talks of how she has shared several Seder suppers with Joel Klein and how she and her husband go on dinner dates with JOEL and his wife".
That would be like me as an accountant sharing Christmas dinner with my auditor every year.
The entire article is full of her connections to the wealth of a very limited number of people mostly very folks from the upper east side.. Seymour Fliegel is mentioned praising her-didn't he get a contract from JOEL to run the CIE PSO??? There is too much here that does not pass the smell test.

UFT: Union Of Foto-Op Takers

Contrary to what Ed Vargas of Unite-Here announced there were no school children present and the only UFT presence was the three ladies below, another retiree, a UFT photographer, a UFT publicist, Robert Astrowsky and me. Why? I was told there is union leadership turmoil at UNITE, but why should that negate kids learning about this event. The truth is that the teaching of history is being greatly ignored in the all test prep, all day world of the BloomKlein administration.
As soon as the announcement was made by Vargas that UFT was in the house the ladies were scooped up for a foto-op.

The Annual Triangle Shirtwaist Memorial

from Unite Here except I made some updates as my Windsor Terrace neighbor Joel Shufro and others were there and Nicholas Scarpata was not. The original press release said there were to be school kids-there weren't
Labor Union Honors Workers’ Lives Lost and Recognizes Continued Dangers Faced on the Job NEW YORK, NY– Unite Here, the New York City Fire Department, workers and school children commemorated the Triangle Fire on March 25, 1911. Ed Vargas of Unite Here led the event and among those who came to mark the anniversary of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and advocate for improved workers’ safety were New York City Deputy Fire Commissioner Frank Cruthers, New York City Comptroller William Thompson, New York Metropolitan Area Joint Board Local 23-25 Secretary- Treasurer May Chen, Assistant Secretary of the UFT Robert Astrowsky , New York City Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott, Coalition of Injured Cintas Workers' member Donatila Alvarez and Joel Shufro, Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety

The fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, located in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was one of the worst industrial tragedies in our nation’s history, and, until September 11, 2001, it was the city’s deadliest workplace disaster. Fire broke out and within minutes spread to consume the building’s upper three stories. Firefighters who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue workers trapped inside because the doors were locked and their ladders could not reach the factory floor. During today’s ceremony, a bell tolled for the lives lost as students and workers read the name of, and placed a flower for, each victim of the Triangle Fire.
The tragedy marked a turning point in the city’s fire safety efforts and the struggle by workers to organize for safer, more just working conditions. The Triangle Fire commemoration highlighted the dangerous and inhumane conditions that workers continue to face and emphasized the need for rapid passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act will give workers a greater voice in workplace safety by requiring companies to recognize a union when a majority of workers sign cards stating that they want a union. Once passed, the Employee Free Choice Act will enact meaningful penalties against employers who break the law.
“The Triangle Shirtwaist factory was infamous because the employers refused to recognize the union even though many workers were union members of Local 25, the predecessor of today’s Local 23-25,” said May Chen, New York Metropolitan Area Joint Board Secretary- Treasurer. “It took a disaster, where 146 young immigrant workers lost their lives, for the city and employers to change some of their most abusive practices. Today, despite the union’s efforts, low wage and immigrant workers often face similar horrors as well as major barriers to unionization. With the Employee Free Choice Act, we have the opportunity to give all workers a real voice in workplace safety, benefits and rights that can be won through union organizing.”
“We know that union jobs are safer jobs,” said Ed Vargas of Unite Here. “We know that union workers, regardless of their country of origin, have the power to demand a safe workplace of their employers, we cannot wait for another tragedy - we must pass the Employee Free Choice Act now.”
UNITE HERE represents approximately 450,000 workers in the hospitality, gaming, food service, laundry, textiles and manufacturing distribution industries in the United States and Canada.

DEMYSTIFYING MAYORAL CONTROL: Part 3

An educational evening for the lower Manhattan School Community. IN 2002 STATE LAW ESTABLISHED MAYORAL CONTROL OF THE NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THIS LAW EXPIRES IN JUNE 2009. WHAT IS MAYORAL CONTROL? DO WE END MAYORAL CONTROL MODIFY IT OR KEEP IFS CURRENT FORM? A downtown forum on “Demystifying Mayoral control”
sponsored by South of the Bridge Parent & Youth Assoc." Special Invited Guest The Honorable Sheldon Silver
Panelists Include: Diane Ravitch, Education Historian. Diane Ravitch Ph.D., is an eminent historian, author, Research Professor of Education at NYU, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She frequently writes op-eds, has her own blog on the Education Week website with Deborah Meier, and also contributes regularly to the Huffington Post and the NYC Public School Parent blog.She is author of the seminal work on the history of NYC schools, called The Great School Wars. She has written countless other works on the history of education.
Paul Hovitz, Community Advocate. Paul Hovitz: is the former Chair of the Youth Committee for CB1 1995-2D08 and continues to serve on the committee. He is also Chair of the resident advisory committee for Councilmember Alan Gerson for the past 4 years. Paul is a former teacher of special education with 30 years in the NY Public Schools and a long time Lower Manhattan resident and parent. Paul brings keen insight to all matters affecting our community.
Leonie Haimson, Exec Director, Class Size Matters and public school parent.Sponsored/Supported by: CB Councilmember Alan Gerson, MYS Assemblymember Deborah Glick NYS Senator Daniel Squadron, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. Childcare provided for school age children

DEMYSTIFYING MAYORAL CONTROL: Part 2

An educational evening for the lower Manhattan School Community. IN 2002 STATE LAW ESTABLISHED MAYORAL CONTROL OF THE NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THIS LAW EXPIRES IN JUNE 2009. WHAT IS MAYORAL CONTROL? DO WE END MAYORAL CONTROL MODIFY IT OR KEEP IFS CURRENT FORM? A downtown forum on “Demystifying Mayoral control”
sponsored by South of the Bridge Parent & Youth Assoc." Special Invited Guest The Honorable Sheldon Silver
Panelists Include: Diane Ravitch, Education Historian. Diane Ravitch Ph.D., is an eminent historian, author, Research Professor of Education at NYU, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She frequently writes op-eds, has her own blog on the Education Week website with Deborah Meier, and also contributes regularly to the Huffington Post and the NYC Public School Parent blog.She is author of the seminal work on the history of NYC schools, called The Great School Wars. She has written countless other works on the history of education.
Paul Hovitz, Community Advocate. Paul Hovitz: is the former Chair of the Youth Committee for CB1 1995-2D08 and continues to serve on the committee. He is also Chair of the resident advisory committee for Councilmember Alan Gerson for the past 4 years. Paul is a former teacher of special education with 30 years in the NY Public Schools and a long time Lower Manhattan resident and parent. Paul brings keen insight to all matters affecting our community.
Leonie Haimson, Exec Director, Class Size Matters and public school parent.Sponsored/Supported by: CB Councilmember Alan Gerson, MYS Assemblymember Deborah Glick NYS Senator Daniel Squadron, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. Childcare provided for school age children

DEMYSTIFYING MAYORAL CONTROL: Part 1

An educational evening for the lower Manhattan School Community. IN 2002 STATE LAW ESTABLISHED MAYORAL CONTROL OF THE NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THIS LAW EXPIRES IN JUNE 2009. WHAT IS MAYORAL CONTROL? DO WE END MAYORAL CONTROL MODIFY IT OR KEEP IFS CURRENT FORM? A downtown forum on “Demystifying Mayoral control”
sponsored by South of the Bridge Parent & Youth Assoc.". Special Invited Guest The Honorable Sheldon Silver
Panelists Include: Diane Ravitch, Education Historian. Diane Ravitch Ph.D., is an eminent historian, author, Research Professor of Education at NYU, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She frequently writes op-eds, has her own blog on the Education Week website with Deborah Meier, and also contributes regularly to the Huffington Post and the NYC Public School Parent blog.She is author of the seminal work on the history of NYC schools, called The Great School Wars. She has written countless other works on the history of education.
Paul Hovitz, Community Advocate. Paul Hovitz: is the former Chair of the Youth Committee for CB1 1995-2D08 and continues to serve on the committee. He is also Chair of the resident advisory committee for Councilmember Alan Gerson for the past 4 years. Paul is a former teacher of special education with 30 years in the NY Public Schools and a long time Lower Manhattan resident and parent. Paul brings keen insight to all matters affecting our community.
Leonie Haimson, Exec Director, Class Size Matters and public school parent.Sponsored/Supported by: CB Councilmember Alan Gerson, MYS Assemblymember Deborah Glick NYS Senator Daniel Squadron, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer. Childcare provided for school age children

Hi-Bid And A-Fraud

from the Gotham Gazette

Earlier this week the Post’s Yoav Gonen reported the department awarded a $1.6 million contract to Accenture to help the department lower costs for books and equipment. Accenture got the job even though, according to Gonen, its bid was four times higher than that of the lowest bidder — and called for paying up to $315 an hour for services of an entry-level project manager. “That’s the highest rate I’ve ever heard in my life,” a losing bidder told the Post. “There appears to be no integrity there and obviously there’s no oversight.” (There is, though, apparently money paid to Tiger Woods.)
At least that contract went out for bid. Last summer, the Post found a sharp uptick in no-bid contracts for education under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Citing statistics from the city comptroller’s office, the Post said that in fiscal year 2000, when Rudolph Giuliani was mayor, the school system, signed seven no-bid contracts worth a total of $693,000. In fiscal year 2007, it signed 76 no-bid contracts totaling of $72 million. The number did, however, drop to $12 million in fiscal year 2008. Overall the department has reportedly awarded $340 million in no–bid contracts in the Bloomberg-Klein era.

Joel Klein Is Awarded Special Yankee Uniform

Joel got a well earned Yankee uniform as a gift, but he had to hurry off to see his pal Eli Broad at the 92d Street Y on Monday

Personal Success Academy

ednotes has a feature on this "success story" waiting in the wings to be our next train wreck of a mayor
an excerpt from Juan Gonzalez in the nydailynews

Ex-Council member Eva Moskowitz made $371,000 for running four charter academies, more than Chancellor Joel Klein got for running 1,400 city schools.
Eva Moskowitz, the former City Council member who founded a small chain of nonprofit charter schools, is a passionate and abrasive champion of the charter school movement.
She's also making a bundle.
Moskowitz, who makes no secret of her desire to create 40 charter schools across the city and run for mayor some day, raked in $371,000 in salaries in the 2006-2007 school year from organizations connected to her four schools, tax records show.
Those schools, Harlem Success Academy 1, 2, 3 and 4, have an enrollment of about 1,000 pupils, from kindergarten to third grade.
The nonprofit organizations connected to the schools have yet to file more recent tax returns, but Moskowitz said in an interview late Thursday she received $310,000 last year - the 2007-2008 year - $250,000 in salary and $60,000 in a bonus.
That means Moskowitz, who is responsible for four schools, makes more than Chancellor Joel Klein, who gets $250,000 to run 1,400 schools

from gotham schools on Eva's methods

The New York Times story, by Elissa Gootman, is fascinating as a portrait of the day-to-day of Moskowitz’s second coming. We learn that, although she has recently been a strong public ally of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein, privately she is still the tough, demanding woman who will challenge anyone she doesn’t think is doing their job correctly: Gootman excerpts some cross e-mail messages she has sent to school officials. We also learn that her son, Culver, is one of a tiny number of white students at one of Moskowitz’s charter schools, Harlem Success 3.
But it also paints a picture of how Moskowitz’s schools are actually run. Moskowitz says her curriculum is a mix of, on one hand, the liberal Bank Street ethic — there are dress-up corners in the kindergarten rooms — and, on the other, the drill-and-kill of programs like Success for All, which she uses for literacy. And she has not been afraid to fire staff; in the first year, an assistant principal and two teachers were let go.
Finally, she appears to ask as much of parents as she has of elected officials, making requirements that a traditional public school would have a hard time pulling off:
She demands a lot from Harlem Success parents: They must read their children six books a week, year round, and attend multiple school events, from soccer tournaments to Family Reading Nights. If children are repeatedly late, the parents must join them to do penance at Saturday Academy.
Nefertiti Washington, 28, whose son is a kindergartner, said some parents walked out of a springtime information session when Ms. Moskowitz made her expectations clear by saying, “If you know you cannot commit to all that we ask of you this year, this is not the place for you.”

The So-Called Education Revolution

A public affairs program on Australian TV drank a good deal of nycdoe kool-aid, but the caped crusader, Eduwonkette put to rest many of the hyped claims of Klein & Co. From ednotesonline via Trevor Cobbold at Save Our Schools

Two Ways To Cross The Delaware

The Wrong Way

The Right Way

Lessons for Michael Bloomberg on President's Day, from David Bloomfield on the nycpublicschoolparents site

In December 12, 1776, with the new nation on the brink of defeat, the 2nd Continental Congress granted George Washington “full power to order and direct all things relative to the department, and the operation of the war.”
On June 14, 2002, with the New York City Public Schools foundering, the Governor signed legislation granting Mayor Bloomberg the right to appoint a majority of the Board of Education, with power of removal. The Chancellor was designated Board Chair as well as the superintendent and chief executive officer, to “serve at the pleasure of and be employed by the Mayor of the City of New York.”
How Washington and Bloomberg used their broad powers is a study in contrasting leadership styles.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning history, “Washington’s Crossing,” David Hackett Fischer describes how General of the Continental Army George Washington “found a way to combine energy and decision with the principles of a republican polity” by working closely with congressional officials and other civilian authorities.
In a contrary manner, Mayor Bloomberg now argues that the schools are exempt from the structures of local government and that he may act unilaterally, outside city purchasing, audit, and legislative mandates.
In their use of data, supposedly a signal accomplishment of the Mayor’s, the two men also differ. Rather than monopolizing data collection and dissemination, Washington encouraged “a free and open system of information gathering, engaged the efforts of many people, produced multiple sources, and got better results than closed systems.”
But these differences in acceptance of democratic principles are not merely structural or operational. They go to the character of the two gentlemen. As described by Fischer, Washington functioned “more as a leader than a commander; always listening, inspiring, guiding; rarely demanding, commanding, coercing.”
In two pivotal decisions, Washington demonstrated this trait of collaborative leadership, a characteristic the Mayor would do well to emulate. After the First Battle of Trenton, back on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, with the British on the opposite shore still poised to take Philadelphia to end the War, Fischer writes that, “as at every difficult moment, Washington decided to convene a council of war.”
Rather than rendering a unilateral command decision, Washington led the council in an open discussion in which the General took pains to hide his own opinions, letting the purposely pluralistic membership freely argue their various proposals. “It was his way of encouraging open discussion and constructive debate,” Fischer concludes.
After deciding again to attack and successfully fending off the British and Hessians in the Second Battle of Trenton, Washington faced another critical decision: whether to withdraw or continue to engage the enemy, led by General Cornwallis. Fischer compares the councils formed by each:
“Cornwallis imposed his plan from the top down, against the judgment of able inferiors...Washington in his council of war welcomed the judgments of others and presided over an open process of discovery and decision that yielded yet another opportunity.”
Suppressing the desire to re-engage, the collective decision was made to withdraw the exhausted army from the Trenton battlefield, resulting in later victory at the Battle of Princeton. The rest, as they say, is history.
Leadership in the 21st century may have different demands than in 18th, but it is hard to believe that Bloomberg’s challenges are any more daunting than Washington’s quest for national survival. Yet even in the urgency of war and knowing the high stakes of broken confidences, Washington pursued a politics of openness and consensus.
I don’t know what debates may take place within the Mayor’s and Chancellor’s inner circle but as a long-time member and former President of a citywide parent organization created by the Chancellor ostensibly for the purpose of advising him, I know that we are not consulted and that our proffers of help are routinely rejected. The Mayor’s top-down approach is also well known, even to the point that his appointees to the city school board are removed if they oppose him and forbidden to speak publicly about their work.
As the Mayor contemplates his third term and educational legacy, perhaps it is time to learn the lessons of our greatest leader. Be open. Listen. Reject coercion. Pay attention to democratic principles, guide, and inspire.
---David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Educational Leadership at Brooklyn College and the author of American Public Education Law (Peter Lang, 2007)
Let us also remember: Washington famously refused to run for a third term, even though he was encouraged to do so, believing "that no president should serve more than two terms lest he be looked upon as a king." In contrast, Bloomberg showed no such reluctance -- collaborating with the Council to revoke term limits unilaterally, even though NYers had voted twice against this.

Paterson Duped Again

great article in this weeks village voice by Wayne Barrett
an excerpt:

Jonathan Lippman and Shelly Silver grew up together on the Lower East Side in the 1950s, living next door in the insular Grand Street projects and sitting near each other's family in the neighborhood's Orthodox shul. After both graduated from law school in 1968 and drifted into low-level courthouse gigs in Manhattan in their early careers, one went on to become the longest-serving Democratic legislative leader in modern New York history, master of an unprecedented 107 to 43 majority in the State Assembly. The other remained largely unknown, except inside the state's vast court system.
Last month, the two old friends reunited in the Red Room in the State Capitol to celebrate their emergence as the most powerful duo in state government.
Below the political radar, the black-hatted, still religious, and gravel-toned Silver, who is celebrating his 65th birthday and 15th year as speaker this month, has been quietly boosting the more secular Lippman for years. Last month, he finally pushed Lippman from the series of back-office management posts where he had labored for years to the job of top gavel in the State Judiciary.
Appointed Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in mid-January by the accidental governor, David Paterson, whose troubled tenure continues to erode his own ranking among the state's power elite, Lippman is awaiting virtually certain confirmation in the next few days from the new and narrow Senate Democratic majority. He will take over a court system that spends $2.3 billion a year, employs 21,000, and is likely to deal with issues like gay marriage, the housing foreclosure crisis, Wall Street criminality, and the still anti–city school aid formula during the six years he will reign until his mandatory retirement at 70.
A year younger than his boyhood friend, Lippman awaits State Senate confirmation before becoming the first chief judge since 1898 to lead the state's highest court without ever serving as one of the court's nine members

A Belated Valentine Post

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from gotham schools, reporting on Michelle Rhee's visit to

New York to bring another gift to Joel's anti union arsenal
Michelle Rhee touted her red-track/green-track teacher pay proposal last night at Pace University, saying it’s made such a splash that Mayor Bloomberg asked Chancellor Joel Klein if they could bring a similar model to New York. The proposal, which is being negotiated with the D.C. teachers union right now, would award some first-year teachers nearly $40,000 raises in exchange for giving up their tenure rights — while others could choose a “red” path where they retain tenure but are paid less.

Hearings On Governance of the New York City School District: 2/12/09

Devastating testimony by Staten Island parent Anne-Marie Caminiti about failures of special education under mayoral control

Hearings On Governance of the New York City School District: 2/12/09

To review the impact of governance changes which granted mayoral control of the New York City school system Friday, February 12, 2009, 10:30 a.m., College of Staten Island Center for the Arts, Williamson Theater, 2800 Victory Boulevard, Building 1P, Staten Island, NY Catherine T. Nolan, Member of Assembly,Chair, Committee on Education, Other Members Present: James F. Brennan, Daniel J. O'Donnell, Michael Benedetto, Matthew Titone, Michael Cusick, Lou Tobacco
In this segment Loretta and Gene Prisco offer testimony. Lynda Bernstein is also questioned.

Another Phony Company Fink: Schmo Torre

(L-R) Rudolph W. Giuliani, Donald Trump, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Bill Clinton, Joe Torre, and Billy Crystal attend the 2008 Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation Golf Classic at Trump National Golf Club on July 14, 2008 in Briarcliff Manor, New York
from Cindy Adams

ANOTHER little baseball-related item. Instead of being wild about Schmo Torre's hit-and-run book, many Yankees, except for maybe general manager Brian Cashman, seem even pleased. They say now everyone will know the guy they know. They say he's an egotist. Money-hungry. They actually labeled him "Dough" Torre. They say he's not a nurturing team player but someone only in it for himself. They say he'll show up and make appearances for charity, but never give an actual buck to any cause. They say they say they say. They say plenty. They also say this is the end of the line for him career wise.

Sad to say he fooled me. Maybe he's the one who ratted out A-Rod.

Company Finks 2009

learn-ny is a 2009 version of the company fink
They packed the hearings with their folks last Friday at the Governance Hearings You can even spot some of their handlers in the slide show above. Their funding no doubt comes from the same source that puts up all the posters in the subways and buses. If you go to their web site there's a comment from a parent

"I love my school. We are a family oriented school and everyone is moving from good to great. Teachers and staff are on point and students are learning as well." Audrey Mitchell, PS/MS 149

I know this school very well. It's a school that is "in need of improvement" run by a leadership academy principal. It will eventually close despite the political connections and the tuchis leching. Enough said. People can be easily manipulated. The UFT has a political agenda as well but in the battle between the "company" and the union I'll be on the side of the union
In the Lingan Strike the Company Finks saw the error of their ways
from a great Canadian singer I recently discovered, Maria Dunn

"In 1882, coal miners in the town of Lingan, Cape Breton, went on strike for the right to unionize. Within a few months, mine owners imported Scottish miners in an effort to break the strike. However, when the Scots arrived and realized the role they were meant to play, they refused to go to work. I first read about this incident in a book called Working People: An Illustrated History of Canadian Labour by D. Morton & T. Copp (1980). Thank you to Kate Currie, Archival Researcher at the Beaton Institute in Cape Breton for further assistance with research materials."
We're all the way from Lanarkshire, we’re thirty hardy men
And we've crossed the bold Atlantic to the shores of Cape Breton
They told us there'd be honest work, there's scarce of that at home
But today we lay our tools down as if that coal was stone
As if that coal was stone
For Lingan we were headed, boys, and thought we had it made
A rich seam lay in waiting for our skilled and eager trade
But just before we landed, well the story it came 'round
That a hundred solid local men would not go underground
Would not go underground
And here we are but poor men, three thousand miles we've gone
But we can see, as clear as day, the right man from the wrong
The right man from the wrong
The tale was too familiar-we'd been through the same at home
Where a man could labour years and still be cast out on his own
If ever he should fall sick or be injured in the mine
It's as if he'd never given of his breath or of his time
His breath or of his time

The BlackLeg Miner

the background, from wikipedia

Blackleg Miner is a 19th-century English folk song, originally from Northumberland (as can be deduced from the dialect in the song and the references in it to the villages of Seghill and Seaton Delaval).
It is not entirely clear how old the song is, although it is thought to have been written either in the late 19th or early 20th century. Richard Thompson, who released a version of it in 2006, dates it as early as the first half of the 19th century. However, if this was true, it must have been translated into more modern English, as the lyrics would not have been part of the language of 19th-century Northumberland.
The lyrics, which are traditional depict the aggressive stance against strikebreakers adopted by collectivised strikers - the term blackleg being an older word for scab. (Britain's mining sector was always heavily unionised and strikes could cause bitterness both within and between pit communities).
For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, the song's aggressive lyrics were ignored and it became a common feature of many folk music societies. However, the UK miners' strike (1984-1985) saw striking miners using the song to intimidate those who continued to work

In England they have a better understanding on the value of unions and class struggle
comments from the youtube post of the above song by Steeleye Span

I'm an American, and the proud daughter of a member of the United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO Local 1179. Those in other countries may find it hard to understand that so many Americans believe that Labor Unions are merely greedy and corrupt. I want to scream Who the hell do you think is responsible for your 40 hour work week, fool. Or the fact that laborer's children got to University. I love Steeleye Span with all my heart, and this is one of my favorite tracks.SOLIDARITY FOREVER! Bless the miners hated Thatcher.
scabs-the lowest form of life. my dad was a miner at rossington pit.now shut and they're thinking of reopening harworth...scab pit just across the border in notts.talk about rubbing salt in the wound. how they can look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me. i know in their hearts they have nothing to be proud of. scum...

the lyrics

It's in the evening after dark
when the blackleg miner creeps to work,
With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt,
There goes the blackleg miner.
Well, he grabs his duds and down he goes,
To hew the coal that lies below,
There's not a woman in this town row
will look at the blackleg miner.
Oh, Delaval is a terrible place,
They rub wet clay in the blackleg's face,
And around the heaps they run a footrace
to catch the blackleg miner.
And even down near the Seghill mine,
Across the way they stretch a line
To catch the throat, to break the spine
of the dirty blackleg miner.
They grabbed his duds, his picks as well,
And they hoy them down the pit of hell,
Down you go, we pay you well,
You dirty blackleg miner.
It's in the evening after dark
that the blackleg miner creeps to work,
With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt,
There goes the blackleg miner.
So join the union while you may,
Don't wait 'til your dying day
For that may not be far away,
You dirty blackleg miner.