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Office Space
November 17, 2009
You may not think ravioli is worth discussing, but the Panel for Educational Policy debated it in some detail last Thursday at its November meeting, held at PS 128 in Queens. Apparently there’s a need for higher-quality ravioli. In fact, the PEP voted to increase spending on ravioli by 40 percent, earmarking over a million bucks to make sure city kids are no longer burdened with the inferior ravioli that’s been dragging our system down all these years.
I was sitting with James Eterno, UFT chapter leader of Jamaica High School. He told me that now, in mid-November, his school has ten classes without teachers. There is no money to hire them. Yet, somehow, the school was able to open a line for a new English assistant principal, who would not only cost more, but also teach fewer classes than a teacher. Eterno calculated that the additional money spent on ravioli could buy over 20 teachers for a year. How badly do our kids need that ravioli upgrade?
If you were at the meeting, you heard chapter and verse about the virtues of ravioli. It’s canned, and can sit on shelves for a long, long time. Teachers can’t do that. Also, if one of the fine DOE vendors fails to make a delivery, the lunchroom staff can slop ravioli on Styrofoam trays at a moment’s notice. The ravioli contain not only starch, but also protein.
Food was an important issue at the meeting. Several students bemoaned the ban on selling baked goods. Chancellor Klein seriously addressed the obesity epidemic, and the problems of poor diet, points not easily refuted. So perhaps there’s an upside to that million bucks we’re devoting to high-class ravioli.
Another big issue was social promotion. The Chancellor is going to require kids in grades four and six to score twos on standardized tests in order to make grades five and seven. The fact that the standard is so low kids can pass by pure guesswork did not dissuade the panel at all, and they voted it up without hesitation.
There were a few other issues discussed, including the $3 million-dollar proposal to continue the school surveys. Manhattan Borough President Stringer’s appointee, Patrick Sullivan, pointed out that each year parents ask for smaller class sizes and each year the city fails to deliver them. In fact, the city has received hundreds of millions of dollars for that precise purpose. Nonetheless, the panel approved. There go another sixty teachers.
I got up and said that kids in my school regularly run around our track in their shorts in the cold, and in the dark. I spoke of 54 full classes in half rooms, and over 70 that violate UFT-negotiated class sizes. I told of how kids eat lunch before nine in the morning, of how they sit in decrepit, expired trailers, and of how the city plans a small fraction of the 33,000 high school seats that Queens will need. The crowd applauded.
The Chancellor, on the other hand, did not seem to think these issues merited a response. James Eterno told the story of the missing teachers at his school, the crowd applauded again, but that too failed to evoke a response from the Chancellor.
So city kids can’t have regular teachers. They can’t have reasonable class sizes, or even legal ones. They can’t have decent classrooms, or adequate gymnasium space. They can’t have lunch at a reasonable hour. Still, as a result of this meeting, whenever they do get lunch, city kids will finally get the million-dollar ravioli they deserve.
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November 17th, 2009 7:33 pm
Arthur,I just died a little inside after reading your piece
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November 17th, 2009 7:53 pm
Why? Don’t you like ravioli?
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November 17th, 2009 8:07 pm
If I saw this on televisin, I would think it was too funny. Knowing it is real is just too sad. Teaching in the same school as Arthur, I can attest to the truth of every word he has written.
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November 17th, 2009 8:08 pm
WOW! Great article. I wonder if the Chancellor will ever eat those Raviolis.
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November 17th, 2009 8:18 pm
And I thought we had it bad at Bergtraum. You guys get the award for most austerity.
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November 17th, 2009 8:23 pm
Incredible piece. It says it all.
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November 17th, 2009 8:51 pm
Instead of ravioli, we should can Klein.
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November 17th, 2009 8:57 pm
Come on, Mr. Talk, you know they bought that election fair and square. It’s the American way.
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November 17th, 2009 9:35 pm
Alan Alda: “Is Joel Klein as much a connoisseur of ravioli as pizza?”
Queens Parent: “No one cared about stupid ravioli when it was good enough for White Plains.”
Kitchen Sink: “I too am interested in quality ravioli, but those of you arguing about it aren’t putting kids first.”
Ken: “I consider myself a ravioli-lanthropist.”
Alexander Hoffman: “IS there such a thing as a standard for ravioli?”
Aaron Pallas: “What’s singular for ravioli? Raviolum?”
Thomas Carroll: “Taxpayers are best served by charters that serve ravioli.”
Michael McCurdy: “Do kids who eat ravioli do better on the G&T admissions test?”
ceolaf: “I’m working on a longer reply.”
Michael Markowitz: “Will Padma Lakshmi be hosting the next PEP meeting?”
Mayor Mike: “Anyone who doesn’t love Chef Boyardee is a non-parent activist who just wants to see a return to the Soviet Union. Or one of my appointees looking to get replaced.”
David Cantor: “Nothing you read here is true.”
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November 17th, 2009 9:35 pm
Chef Ettore Boiardi: “Oh really? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSFIdYcClrs ”
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November 17th, 2009 9:46 pm
Wow. Great video. Were those the good old days or does that food look even worse than what we see advertised today?
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November 17th, 2009 10:26 pm
Arthur,
It think it is worth noting that when I asked Chancellor Klein and Deputy Chancellor Nadelstern how many more kids they stuffed into Francis Lewis, Stuyvesant and all the Manhattan public schools that have 28 in Kindergarten instead of 25 this year they would not respond except to say that 1) parents want their kids to go to those schools so they have to oblige them and 2) the schools can always add extra shifts.
I suspect that if charter schools were forced to take kids to the point where their class sizes and building utilizations matched those of popular public schools there wouldn’t be any waiting lists. But “accountability” is only for teachers and students. So the Bloomberg administration can overcrowd public schools to point where they fail while carefully sheltering the charters.
Patrick
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November 17th, 2009 11:46 pm
Patrick: Klein said that all the Manhattan public schools that have 28 in Kindergarten instead of 25 this year are because parents want their kids to go to those schools so they have to oblige them and 2) the schools can always add extra shifts?
But there are no shifts in elementary schools, and these kids are attending their zoned schools — it has nothing to do with parental choice. This makes no sense. Which does not differentiate these statements from anything else he says, of course.
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November 18th, 2009 4:59 am
Michael M,
You cracked me up with your reactions from our fellow commentators. If you would have made a mix and match game with the names and the quotes I would have dome pretty well. -
November 18th, 2009 8:18 am
Patrick,
That’s a great point. And the disparity between how charters and neighborhood schools are treated grows larger and more outrageous on a daily basis. This administration seems to display a consistent indifference to the fate of neighborhood schools, be they struggling, improving or excellent.
Personally, I can’t think of anything that adds value to a neighborhood more than a great public school. And despite the PEP’s apparent priorities, you rarely hear about people moving to be closer to the neighborhood pizzeria.
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November 18th, 2009 10:49 am
People who study organizations have a word for things like Panel for Educational Policy. It’s called Theatre of the Absurd because it supposed to make it seem like the organization is listening to the public, when in reality it’s nothing but a sham. When the UFT puts together those “special contract committees” it is meant to instill in it’s members a false security–that we are being listened to and appropriate action will be taken.
The responses to the overcrowding were truly absurd. But no matter what question was asked—problems with servicing special ed kids; children in need of psychological counseling, lateness, poor attendance, unrealistic goals, the answers would have still been a slap in the face and pasta would still be a major issue.
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November 18th, 2009 11:14 am
This is just sad. So much for trusting in the judgment of our non-education education leaders.
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November 18th, 2009 9:15 pm
“Let them eat pasta,” says King Klein. Marie Antoinette lost her head, Klein has just lost his mind.
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November 19th, 2009 3:21 am
Another great piece, Arthur…Only one problem, after reading it I was hungry..lol
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November 20th, 2009 9:16 pm
I remember when my kids use to fight
Over the ravioli . Now, the ravioli just
Sit there. I asked them what their
Problem is …and their response,
It don’t taste the same. Has the recipe
Changed? -
November 20th, 2009 10:01 pm
Maybe your kids’ sense of taste is maturing. I’m ashamed to admit that I ate the school ravioli a few months ago and it tasted just like the Chef Boyardee stuff I used to eat when I was a kid. It wasn’t exactly good or anything, though, so I think your kids are on the right track.
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December 2nd, 2009 1:59 am
We traded in better ravioli for overcrowded classrooms at Lewis? If we reduced overcrowding at Lewis, more learning would get done. It’s not fair to have teachers teach in half-classrooms and shout over the teacher at the other side of the half-classroom to be heard.
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December 12th, 2009 8:23 pm
Actually the taste HAS changed!! wats up with that? it tastes horrible now. Im a parent and been eating Chef Boyardee all my life and just a few weeks ago the ones i bought had the same taste but the ones i bought yesterday from the store taste very different. Smells the same but when you taste it, whole other story.
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