Be careful! Her method emphasizes appearances over substance. I still remember when she arrived at Hostos with her “team” They descended like vultures upon a scared and intimidated workforce. You’ll remember that the tabloids had vilified Hostos for months and the newcomers could smell blood. They brought with them the notion that government service was garbage and the private sector was the ideal that public employees should model themselves on. It didn’t matter that most of them were either private sector failures or thoroughly untested in that utopian work environment they so wanted to emulate! They arrived with a lot of talk of results oriented approaches, customer driven environments, excellence models, performance and professionalism. In reality the only thing they excelled at was creating the image of results rather than the real thing. It was really very simple to do. They bullied, intimidated and sometimes fired vulnerable faculty and staff while cajoling or buying up powerful academics and student leaders. This had the effect of keeping complaints down while this piece of garbage Fernandez basked in the light of that facade she had created. She really managed to turn Hostos into a perfectly run whorehouse. And for that she deserves a stifling punishment.

The corrupted environment she created made it possible for employee abuse to become rampant without it being noticed much. In order to create a provost position, new VP slots and other high bucks executive jobs for her buddies without busting the budget, this low life fired dozens of low paid college assistants and other provisional employees. As a result remaining salaried workers were often expected to be on call 24 hours a day. Employees, particularly the lower ranking were often expected to work way above their pay grade. I recall the case of a woman whose name I don’t remember but whose story I remember well. She worked as a college assistant for a guy named Nixon in some office. The guy told her point blank that he didn’t know how to do the job and would be relying on her to do it for him. Like a good employee she said OK and gave it her best shot. For some time she functioned as the de facto manager for about 9 bucks an hour while this guy played billiards. In the end they weren’t entirely happy with the job “HE” was doing so he turned around and fired her. She complained, but as a college assistant she had virtually no rights. This is just one of the atrocities that occurred on Fernandez’ watch.

There was a guy who ran the IT office whose hobby seemed to be, verbally abusing women. He really didn’t like the idea of women having anything to say and it bothered him when they did. One time, he so insulted a lady by the name of Maria that she was absolutely incensed. I believe he had her transferred out of the IT department or maybe she asked for the transfer. I’m not sure what happened but verbally abusing a woman in the workplace would normally have been a serious issue, particularly in a school like Hostos where women are said to be a very powerful group. Unfortunately, in the rubber stamp environment Fernandez created, not only could this sort of thing happen, but the aggressor could get away unscathed and remain in his position. But what really steams me about this is that they fired a perfectly competent IT manager, so they could give his job away to this abusive piece of garbage. He won his grievance, but did so posthumously. After leaving Hostos, he went to work at the Metropolitan Transit Council in the World Trade Center and went down with the building. He would be alive today if it wasn’t for this animal and her friends.

Then there’s what happened to me. It’s a story in itself. It involves the corruption of the faculty, the presence of do nothing coworkers, negative evaluations given to me by a no show supervisor, evaluation on jobs normally assigned only to senior lab techs, threats and retaliation by another lab tech and her idiotic son. There was a supervisor who liked to hire dainty cutesy childlike women whom he treated like his grandchildren. There’s a tenured lab tech who had maneuvered herself into a position where she could not be asked to do any sort of work because she was either not trained for it or because it somehow didn’t fall into her idea of her job description or because she was handicapped.
And there’s lot’s more.

Then there’s the union side of the thing. On that end there’s a union boss by the name of Barbara Bowen who couldn’t think of anything better to do than hire a convicted felon as the union’s lead attorney! The guy had been convicted of giving false information to a court officer in the Ron Carey corruption scandal. He managed to finish wrecking my case by giving it as much attention as you might give to a parking violation. But of course with his criminal past, I can only wonder if there was something more to my loss. Bowen never did answer me when I demanded that she explain why she had hired him. And there’s more.

What really surprises me is how after all this trying I’ve been unable to get anyone in the city government to conduct an investigation of my allegations. At the DOI, a woman by the name of Wright referred the matter back to CUNY! The state investigative office didn’t even respond. Why is it that no one seems to be interested in looking into what happened to me at Hostos? I am more convinced than ever that there is corruption to be found in all this.

But this is far bigger than me. I’d like to see an authoritative probe into employee abuse at Hostos during the time of Dolores Fernandez. If you know where I might be able to get that probe please let me know. I think it’s very important. This Fernandez is an up and coming sort and could go very far and do a lot of damage if she isn’t stopped. Can you imagine this person wound up running our public schools or CUNY or advising Obama on education! Remember, people like Fernandez arrive at their positions through political connections, not competence.

Regards

Javier

So, Dolores Fernandez is going to raise standards in our public schools!
Why don’t you ask this political groupie why she covered up years worth of the harassment and retaliation that I was subjected to while working at the Academic Computing Center at Hostos Community College. What is she going to do to improve things in our public schools? Will she model her actions on her experiments at Hostos? Will she allow her “team” to buy up and pay off the student leadership with jobs they don’t deserve in order to keep them quiet? Is she going to allow no-show supervisors to evaluate the performance of employees they’ve never seen work? Will she allow job secure employees to sit around doing nothing while others are forced to do their work as she did in the open lab of the Academic Computing Center? Will she allow some perk privileged employees to work hours when the facilities are closed like she did with one of one of my coworkers? Will she fire as many low ranking employees as she can so she can put more of her useless buddies on the payroll with executive salaries like she did everywhere at Hostos? Is she going to craft an image of excellence that is supported on a foundation of mediocrity and corruption as she did with Hostos? While you’re asking her all that you can tell this parasite that I will be up her ass for the rest of her life. I am a former labtech at the Academic Computing Center at Hostos Communitry College and a victim of corruption at Hostos. I will not rest while embodiments of corruption like Dolores Fernandez continue to fly high at the expense of the tax payers and the students they claim to serve.

Who do we really want to hold accountable for our schools?

Would the credit recovery issue be any different under any other administration/structure?

*** note – I know all too well the pressures of the Progress Report and making sure students are earning the 10 credits or more a year.

I don’t have time for the really long post I am contemplating on the delicate balance of credit accumulation and not making the educational process a sham.

* need to stop here… but more will come later.

for the record:
To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[2] -wikipedia

I like this one too: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml

Hostos CC has doubled because the enrollment has grown. And the kids not graduating previously would never have graduated. They simply would have dropped out and no one would have been held accountable. You either made it or oh well, you’re another dropout who’s counting anyway. Certainly not the school board on a trip to the Dominican Republic on public funds.

Back to Mr. Jacobs’ comment:

She doesn’t say a higher proportion need remediation. She says the size of Hostos CC’s remedial program has doubled.

What I’m implying, and I’m probably right, is the kids who are barely graduating today would not have graduated previously. But when principals are encouraged to hand out credits, when small schools get squeezed on numbers AND grade their own regents, without fear of audit…

Excessed teachers will still be receiving a pay check and all the benefits come September. I am sure some people are are actually happy they can act like per diem sumbs making 100K a year.

1) Mayoral Control is a structural concept. It’s bigger than Bloomberg the individual.
– Exactly! That’s my point. Forget that it is Bloomberg and picture let’s say Thompson’s face there. Yikes!!!!

Now, I do know the Bronx intimately. Graduated from Bronx schools. What I rather send my kid to the old Evander or one of the new small schools. <- No Brainer.

Would I want to send my kid to the old Stevenson or one of the new small schools. <- No Brainer.

Would I want to send my kid to the old Kennedy. Or one of the new small schools… etc. etc. etc.

Anyone who argues that any of those old schools worked is out of their minds. They simply did not work for students. What has replaced them does.

I don’t know the stats of principals who never taught so I can’t dispute that, but again the number is A LOT smaller than what people think it is I am sure.

Granted I have not backed up anything I am saying with hard data… I am on vacation and don’t really want to commit the time to, however neither did Dr. Fernandez. What she did do is talk without facts for the mere purpose of self promotion. Clearly that was obvious.

Edu_scientist, you’re kidding, right? You must be a Teach-for-America recruit.

4) By the “full cohort” logic, heck, let’s make it FOUR terms. After all, not all students Bloomberg and Klein count as graduates graduate on time.

really edu-scientist?

Thats news to me.. My school is being phased out and while I got excessed because of seniority all the administrators are staying and I’ve detailed before some of the garbage these so called saviors have pulled. i.e observing someone the day he was giving a test for his tenure observation..
So you let me know how a principal shouldn’t be fired immediatly if a school is targeted for phase out.. there’s some accountability for you to stick in your pipe and smoke.

And you claim to know your way around the Bronx? We are saddled with incompetent, inexperienced, arbitrary, autocratic principals in far too many of the schools that Nadelstern created and Bloomberg deserves blame for. How did we get principals who’d never taught? Who have no clue what should be going on in a classroom?

“Although some credit recovery can be dubious, no principal will risk their job by just giving credits away.”

Based on what? Credit recovery is rampant, and it is rewarded through the Progress Reports. No one investigates; no one looks closely. If principals caught changing grades are not even admonished, who will be afraid of handing out credit?

“She said something to the effect that she couldn’t teach under the current system because she would feel stifled. Any principal worth his salt encourages and breeds innovation and creativity in the classroom.”

Says who? Mandated curricula. Mandated classroom models. Mapping standards to lessons. Acuity. It goes on and on. Ask any teacher with a few years what has happened to their job. We’ve never been as CYA as we are now, and we’ve never been as exhausted.

Essentially, you’ve called her a liar time and time again. You did the same to sodeskune. But you’ve provided nothing to back up what you say.

The reason it’s easy to pile on Bloomberg is that the system has gotten worse under his watch. From the inside, we know. And no spin will wipe that away.

Although some credit recovery can be dubious, no principal will risk their job by just giving credits away. However, I know some people feel so guilty for subjecting students to archaic teaching methods of some teachers and their grading policies. So give students the opportunity to legitimately recover seat time for a credit. We can go back & forth with this finger pointing.

No one likes accountability. The Mayor however has stepped up to the plate and said if you like the direction the schools are going in then vote me in. If not… the people will vote him out.

And in my humble opinion, once he had won Mayoral control the term limits should have been moved to 3 terms or 12 years. That is a cohort of kids going through the system from 1st until Graduation.