I hope every PEP meeting is shut down from now until it’s thrown on the trash heap of history. 

Take the schools back, take the power back!

Those who want to ascribe blame to teachers should know that the teachers have had no options in what to teach, when to teach it, how long to teach it, or when to reteach it.  Teachers have been made to follow the prescribed schedule as though they are to be automatons for NYCDOE.  There’s no going back if the kids didn’t get it, no project based learning, no individualization, but simply a lock step curriculum which does not account for individual differences.  This approach hurts the brightest kids the most, and some of those kids wind up scoring at the bottom from the cumulative effects of shear boredom. 

Blaming parents is also counter productive.  Parents can do little more than send their children to school in the hope that something meaningful will happen there.  Some apply to a charter in the hope that students will be better behaved there.  Sure parents can work with their kids and supervise their homework, and some don’t, but that is of little consequence when the homework is nothing but drill and practice, isn’t corrected, and doesn’t accomplish much but keep kids from doing things that promote their own growth and development.  Parents aren’t the problem and can’t be the solution in public education besides standing up as they did and saying we’ve had enough of the lies and deception — we want a real educational program for our kids.

The school system is captive to politics, and long has been — forever.  Teachers and principals have never been asked what they need or what they think.  They’ve been told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and have been punished if they don’t follow those directions.  A mindless system directed by those at the top who know very little about child development, besides what they may have read in a book, is what we have in NYC where the only possible escape is a charter school.  Yet charters are subjected to the same mindless testing strategies which constrict their curriculums to such an extent that children can’t fully develop their potentialities.

For the School Board to be led from the room by the Chancellor is abject cowardice.  What harm would have resulted to children if the meeting agenda had been altered to give parents their needed opportunity to speak until they were finished speaking?  What harm would that have done to the Chancellor or the School Board?  This isn’t the first time the Chancellor has left the room before parents and teachers have had their chance to speak.  The problem in the NYCDOE is largely related to an absence of respect — respect for anyone connected with the system in a working capacity, and respect for the needs of each individual student is absent.  We are to respect the Mayor and the Chancellor — that’s the message and that’s it.

The problems related to improving student achievement aren’t simple and won’t be fixed by simplistic solutions like “mayoral control”, school grades, closing low performing schools, and opening a few more charters.  It really doesn’t matter that some folks like these ideas if it isn’t working.  There are solutions available, but they would involve the unthinkable for the current power structure in the City and State — and Nation.  They would involve changing the culture of the schools from the children up.  These solutions would require empowering children and their teachers to make more decisions about how their schools will function, and what they will be responsible for doing in their schools, and yes, parents would need to be a part of this culture change process.  The idea of ramming a schedule down the throats of students and teachers would be one of the first things to go in such a process.  The improvement of student behavior would be one of the first things to improve, and with it achievement.

Involved NYC public school parents are to be applauded! They are GREAT!

Of course blighted communities and overworked or uninvolved parents visit huge problems on the school system. This has always been the case, and this recession has hit the vulnerable communities first and hardest. But this does not explain the fraudulence and damages to the entire system brought on by this harass-deprive-privatize-test-to-death-shutter education administration that ignores and stifles all critical voices from any quarter at all: education experts, parents, community leaders, teachers, supervisors, etc.

I believe the anger was mainly from the lack of voice given to parents throughout and in particular at this moment when some of the deep institutionalized fraud, that Diane Ravitch had warned about again and again, has been exposed.

His comment is revealing: “To which I reply, as a middle school teacher who works at one of the 15 lowest-performing schools in math for the 2009-10 school year (according to GS’s number-crunching): are you kidding me?”

I believe you are kidding us. Let’s see now David. You feel the Chancellor and mayor are not to blame. But they feel you and your colleagues are one of the major reasons for the failure of your school. Clearly as an ed deformer you should get up and be held accountable. Or maybe it is your colleagues and not you? Or your principal? Let us know what you are doing about this awful situation. I won’t hold my breath.

Yes, it might not be productive to use a bull horn to blare at the members of the PEP panel but then, it is not as if these straw men and women really are listening or taking what the communities and all parties involved in NYC Public Schools really care what they have to say.  

Yes, the Supreme Leader and the Dear Leader are responsible for Potemkin School Systems they have built.  In plain English, they are a pack of liars who have been outed and even their Media mouth pieces cannot be write articles denouncing what is so blatantly obvious.  

“The bizarre echo chamber that these comment threads have become, with their “Supreme Leader” and CAPS LOCK hysteria, seem to imply that the fault should be laid wholly at the feet of the chancellor and the mayor. To which I reply, as a middle school teacher who works at one of the 15 lowest-performing schools in math for the 2009-10 school year (according to GS’s number-crunching): are you kidding me?”

No, no one is kidding you. That was the whole premise behind “MAYORAL CONTROL.” It was to hold one man, or woman (for future mayors) accountable for the school system. That was the rational given in 2002, when the mayor won control of the schools. For many years critics asserted that the old Board of Education was “accountable to no one.”

The current law has a sunset provision for 2015. if you are unhappy with holding one person accountable for the school system, you can lobby your state legislators to NOT renew mayoral control for NYC schools in 2015.

Moving on: Did many of the audience members think that their kids’ teachers were responsible for such low levels of proficiency and performance? And did they think they should therefore be held to account for this? If not the teachers, then who do the audience members think is responsible for the low scores — for the “75 percent” of kids who require remediation during their first year at CUNY schools, as the spokeswoman for the disruption announced through her bullhorn at the end of the meeting?

The bizarre echo chamber that these comment threads have become, with their “Supreme Leader” and CAPS LOCK hysteria, seem to imply that the fault should be laid wholly at the feet of the chancellor and the mayor. To which I reply, as a middle school teacher who works at one of the 15 lowest-performing schools in math for the 2009-10 school year (according to GS’s number-crunching): are you kidding me?

Just looking at the ineptitude show by more of the underlings for the Supreme and the Dear leaders for all these years, they will gives us more of the same nonsense from last year, in this upcoming year.  It is after all, extremely difficult to ‘attempt’ to be something entirely different that you were in for the longest.  

So, they should continue doing the same and continuously ignore the voice of the community, see how that works out in court.  

Even the corrupt politicians that have lined the pockets of The Supreme Leader, have all of the sudden realized that their game with feeding a different story to their communities and at the same time work against them and for the greedy Wall Street types that dominate Tweed and City Hall, means political suicide.  

The Supreme Leader (Bloomy) will not waste precious $$$$ buying the muffle that keeps these politicians quite IF, they begin to voice their opinions…as it has happened to Sharpton.  

PEP, is a farce that flies at the face and at the dignity of the regular NYers that expect due process.  

I wonder what the Supreme Leader underlings think when they hear people talking on the mike.  
David Chang and other Supreme Leader appointees have no spine or courage and if they think they will be able to taut their participation in the PEP as a stepping stone for better things, they better think again.  

Yes, charter schools tests scores were still hire than district schools. All school scores were lower, but charters still came out above district schools on the whole, including a few schools that received 100% proficiency. You can see the report on Gotham Schools that came out about two weeks ago.

Should have written before, great comments in general, but in this particular case the majority of the responsibility for this mess does not lie with the parents, communities, teachers, school admin. staff, or students.

Another video is up.

More PEP Video – PEP members walk off the stage to taunts and jeers of parents, followed by parents holding their own meeting

Before I get to the video, I want to comment on Beth Fertig’s coverage on WNYC. Was I at the same meeting? First the estimate of 50-60 parents is half of what is reported in the NY Times and Daily News. It’s like BloomKlein report test scores.

Then comes this:

“Normally, the public waits until the end of the meeting to speak, after all other topics have been discussed. But the 50 or 60 parents who attended the meeting at Murry Bergtraum High School in Lower Manhattan didn’t want to wait that long.”
“Whose schools? Our schools!” they chanted, as the panel’s chairman David Chang stated, “We have to do something. This is disorderly.”Despite his pleas, the parents continued shouting for about half an hour.

Oh, poor David Chang, who is a pathetic creature of BloomKlein.

And oh, those spoiled parents. Can’t wait till the end of the meeting after countless power points drive people into a death sleep?

There is no “normally” at the PEP. The public is often offered a chance to comment after an agenda item. And when requests and demands from the public are made they often give in. Not this time, though. They only wanted their spin to be spun and hopefully the press would leave before parents got to speak.

Notice no mention that the testing agenda item was never advertised, nor were people allowed to sign up for that specific agenda item before the meeting – since it was kept off the public agenda – and were forced to sign up for the general discussion (I know- I had #3). In fact when we walked in we were somewhat shocked to see that testing would be on the agenda.

Nor is there a mention that PEP member Patrick Sullivan made a request that parents be allowed to comment. Such requests have often been honored in the past.

The DOE shills get two paragraphs while Sullivan’s eloquent response is ignored.

So much for the so-called “liberal” press.

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-pep-video-pep-members-walk-off.html