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Seems the only people getting ready to leave are the qualified ones! Very sad.

I hope my former DOE colleagues have the courage to wear RED in protest of Bloomturd’s heavy-handed autocratic appointment of Cathie Black. The last time we were asked to wear red, to protest the budget cuts, very few people in my school building did it. The last school that I was in, most of the boneheads, TFs and veterans alike, didn’t even bother to protest the release of the TDRs. Wake up, teachers!

Am I missing something with this appointment and controversy? Would it have been a lot easier if the mayor who wanted a manager had appointed Cathie Black to the position of Deputy of Finance and Technology after Ms Anagnostopoulos resigned, and then placed Mr Polakow-Suransky as chancellor? This would have fulfilled both of the mayors priorities and avoided the problems. Certainly this would have been a preferred decision and would have avoided the public outcry and involvement of Mr Steiner & Company..

I just wish Teacher of LD Kids would take the opportunity here on this nice Friday night to relax from what I imagine was a tough week (they’re all tough weeks when we teach)—and redirect all his/her energy to planning for his/her classes for the week ahead.

Imagine what we could do to move the dial on student achievement if we bottled all the time and energy and spirit spent on yelling at mayoral choices and instead focused on strengthening classroom instruction.

Come on! Stop organizing people to wear red in protest and take that energy and focus it on differentiating Reading instruction better or demanding 100% from a class or raising classroom expectations…

But, alas, here we are, still yelling. And student achievement suffers. Jeez. No wonder where the NYC schools are where they are. At least Chancellor Klein was focused.

Not attacking you. Show me where I attacked you. Was encouraging every commentator on this website to relax and reconsider our priorities.

Writing thousand-word screeds on a subject that’s settled versus focusing on our classrooms…

Hmmmm…

Yeah! Way to tell it, “Michael M!” That goes to you, too, “Teacher of LD Kids” and “It’s All Camouflage”!

Good to know where all the missing energy and spirit and time from focusing on making classrooms better have gone. It’s all here…on the comments of Gotham Schools.

Sheesh.

Nah, I’ve actually always been here. Been too busy building really good schools to spend time commenting or even reading these comments.

By the looks of this warm reception, seems like I should go back to doing that!

Good luck to all of you. Hope you find your way to the right side of history one day. When you do, look me up. We need people who are willing to work hard and think strategically and never take no for an answer—actually, people just like you, but just focused on things other than wearing red in protest and blaming the failures of classrooms on Tweed.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I appreciate it.

I guess my frustration comes from the fact that your Paragraph #2 doesn’t really jibe with your Paragraph #5. It’s Tweed and Cathie Black, but then it’s not (but it’s no one else).

At my schools, flat NAEP scores are met with the teachers asking what in the world more can they do…dig into the data and let’s figure it out…come together as a grade-level team and rethink the way we differentiate Math or Reading…push into classrooms more to give peer-to-peer feedback and bring up analysis at Inquiry Groups.

Tweed’s got nothing to do with any of that, and we’re not turning to anyone but ourselves to figure it out. In fact, Tweed introducing any measures of accountability (some of which I outlined above) have been met with hostility and outcry. 

Bottom line for me, Michael M.: Commenters on GS (on this page and most others) are all critics. But few, if any, seem to offer any solutions, other than to wear red to protest or to call Mayor Bloomberg names. Sheesh.

Your NAEP scores are too low? So are mine. But that’s not Cathie Black’s fault—or Eric Nadelstern’s fault, or even Joel Klein’s 9-year tenure’s fault. It’s mine and my colleagues’ faults. And we’re going to work very hard until they’re not too low for our kids to be prepped to go to college.

That’s where our energies and minds and time are best spent. Not on the steps of Tweed, not on the comments pages of coverage of some random blog screed on GS…

Thanks for the dialogue. Really appreciate it.

PQ,

I appreciate your reply very much.

Re 2 v 5…. Would your para 3 be helped or hindered by rising class sizes? Perhaps that’s not even Tweed-centric, but Gracie Mansion and City Hall. And disgraceful SECRET SED complicitness in diverting funding based in a decade of court battles to bring down class sizes.

Personally, despite having spent a year as a grad school TA (applied microeconomics), I have zero expertise at how to BEST TEACH KIDS — other than I certainly can recognize inspirational teachers that I and my kids have had. (All were relatively to highly experienced, btw.) — and still re 2 v 5, NEITHER DOES TWEED. It’s school-centric, with a big variation, even under Klein’s umbrella. But that’s not to say the alternative is a centrally dictated curriculum or teaching method. (Related, Klein utterly gutted the power of the Disctrict Superintendents, replacing them with School Support Orgs — and transferring the financial load to principals as an “unfunded mandate” so he could brag about lowering overhead.)

Note Klein’s policies focused on averaging down salaries through turnover (while legitimately raising the overall salary table), lauding rookies (some of whom MAY be great), and yet SPARING them the value-added scrutiny (how many years’ lag is in the Value-Added method? THREE?) I’ve called it the Peace Corps model, and only the vets get grilled — and derided by Klein on HuffPo as obstacles to civil rights (really).

I would be glad to have thoughtful and reflective teachers – such as yourself – teaching my own kids. Question is: How to make the teaching corps similarly motivated and motivational? And again, doesn’t class size matter?

Last, I’m just taking it for granted that IF that translates to inspired KIDS, tests won’t necessarily capture it, given the well-documented test prep mania, score inflation, and number of “grads” needing remedial help even at the JC level.

I wish I had the answers, but again, I’m not an expert. As a parent activist (and CEC member), I simply challenge those who say they do have the answers – many with clear ulterior motives (i.e. union busting and privatization for profit, or authoritarian political bent).

Question: Would YOU rather have Black (black box, but odds on to continue Bloomberg’s policies), or Klein (known commodity), or name your own?

Long-winded and “screed” are different. I’d like to think. Cheers.

Way to move the conversation forward, Edwina and Maria. Really helps us move student achievement forward.

Cheers to you both.

Teacher’s comments, above, go for Not Lanie Haimsen, too. The prevailing attitude that public school teachers cannot be effective teachers in the classroom during school hours and post thoughtful if, yes, Michael M, somewhat lengthy, theses on an open dialogue page, tells us that that there others who believe that public school teachers are lower than the dirt beneath their shoes. Getting back to the original topic – I think that one possible pitfall, and actually one that has already emerged, of the Blacklash is that, is that much of the public is already reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” under Klein. Nadelstern is a cog in that machinery, and we should be cautious about speculating what his departure will mean for the system itself. It is doubtful that any of the senior deputy chancellors will have any influence on Black whatsoever – she has already students “little people,” and the way it was quoted, it sounds as if she thinks of ALL OF US as “little people.” Bloomberg has already asserted that there will be only ONE chancellor – unfortunately, I think that means HIM.

Good luck, Clark Kent. I worked for a time in one of those large high schools that was closed and then reopened as four smaller schools. Last I heard the City was arranging tours for potential charter school tenants within the same building. Only about 1/3 of the rooms have air conditioning, and of course, the tours were centered around those rooms. Never mind that each school kept crying about not having enough space for essential services. Of all the parents I’ve met over the years who fought the status quo, I’d say it was half and half – between the ones who did it because their and their children’s rights were being violated, and the ones who did it simply to retain as many expensive services as possible. Since we know that Children First is a lie, whether or not your school closes is, as you say, immaterial. I hope you hear good news.

@ Teach/LD:
Thanks for your remark. I’m sure you can relate. Honestly, nobody really cares at the school because we were set-up and framed by a superintendent who is just doing what she’s told to earn her 160K salary. She was clearly unprofessional and knew absolutely NOTHING. She was an outright FAKE who gave us a poor rating on the QR on purpose. She is a DOE ROBOT.
I hope we get a nice 3 year phase oiut so I can relax and get a free 3 years. Thanks Ms. Superintendent for being a FAKE ROBOT. I would not have expected anything else from you. Actually we were all not surprised as you spoke, as we all noticed you were completely CLUELESS and WRONG about many of the REVIEWS you gave us – LMAO! Imagine a superintendent who does not even know what differentiation is?? What a DOPE! Perfect for a robot superintendent.