Video: Carmen Farina at CEC 2 Town Hall

I was asked to tape this event at the brand new building housing PS 59 and HS of Music and Art - by CEC 2 head, the always amazing Shino Tawikawa - see the wonderful well-deserved tribute to Shino at the end. [Something went wrong with my camera and I didn't get Carmen's opening speech - but the entire 45 minute Q&A is here.]

It was certainly insightful to see an adoring public gush over Carmen, who was part of the fabric of District 2 for so many years.

Leonie Haimson -- the 2nd speaker - didn't gush but instead asked some hard questions about class size. 

What was clear was a genuine delight in the new tone at Tweed - throughout the meeting people talked about how open and cooperative the new DOE was with parents.

So how ironic to see Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm, the Grim Reaper of Closing Schools under Bloomberg, sitting there grinning like a Cheshire Cat as her years of work were in essence being trashed. Some symbol of change. I have so much video of her staring - grimly - as students, parents and teachers pleaded to keep their schools open while she justified every single despicable act of the BloomKleinCott administrations.

But other than that note, there is no question that for some parents the change from Bloomberg is astounding -- and this is a caveat -- District 2 is wealthy and engaged - as is District 15 in Brooklyn.

It was a shlep for me to leave lovely Rockaway and take the subway to get up to 56th Street - on the night of the Rangers game - but I got back in time to see the 3rd period - and I've been such bad luck over the years - it is best if I don't watch it all. (My pals banned me from watching the 7th game Stanley Cup victory game with them 20 years ago.) But if Shino asked me to climb Mt. Everest I would - well, maybe not that one.

Upon leaving the meeting I caught the elevator and there was Carmen with her crew going up. It was a slow elevator so I had time to negotiate a new version of the contract with Carmen on the way up -- class sizes of 20, ATRs permanently assigned to schools, mechanisms for teachers to deal with abusive principals, and a few more bucks.

https://vimeo.com/95847737



Here is an excerpt of Leonie on class size and Carmen's response.

http://youtu.be/kGuRBrtgqYI

Read More

Class Size Sellout as UFT Contract/Farina Endorse Continued High Class Sizes

Mulgrew claims to be against ed deform are smoke as the contract clearly supports the ed deform emphasis on PD while disparaging class size reform.

Video of Farina comments on class size below.
 
I'm home today and have many posts to go so take your time and read them all. With Ravitch having her knee replaced today  - did ed deformers CAP her?, I have to make up the difference. And good luck Diane. Use that new knee to good use. 


A YES vote for the contract is a vote for continued high class size. NYC teachers are working under class size limits - with loads of loopholes - that was codified almost 45 years ago. Under the last 20 years of BloomIani there was no chance of improving those numbers. And now with a more friendly mayor - supposedly -- the UFT had its chance to make a dent in these numbers. But instead it codified these class sizes basically in perpetuity. Shame on them. And on Farina, who has never been a big supporter of class size reductions, feeling more PD is the answer. Sure let's do PD with 80 in a class.

What a tandem -  it is not only the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership that feels class size is not an important enough issue to address in the contract but Farina too. Both entered into negotiations with no thought to class size but more PD instead.

When Unity people challenged me on my NO Vote stance I threw the class size issue back in their faces and they just shut up. Please use this point when they come a callin' to your school.

Fred Smith asks:

Folks,

Remember Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?  According to Wikipedia this is the title of several edutainment computer games... that teach geography and reference skills.

Based on Leonie's question about the Chancellor's acceptance of large class sizes--and our vigorous string of emails trying to nail down exactly what she said, I propose we keep chronicling remarks she makes at public forums (i.e., generalities and statements like: "We're looking into it."; "Give us some time."; and "We can't do that because we must follow state and federal mandates.") 

Let's put them together and follow up on them under the heading Where in the World is Carmen Farina?! 

I get the feeling we're all becoming exasperated by too much slipping and sliding on her part. Maybe this is a way we can pin her down.

Fred

Follow this thread from parents on the CTS listserve on Farina views on class size:

I read a tweet that in response to a parent’s concern about large classes at the d15 townhall, Carmen said that a 3rd grade class of 30 which includes special ed students is not too large. Janine, or anyone else who was there, can you confirm this?

I am so disheartened – the Council hearings yesterday about charters featured the same BS from DOE w/ no change in terms of increased transparency or honesty as far as I could see. Elizabeth Rose even said that it would be impossible to estimate the increased cost of busing charter students even though the IBO has already done this.

Please let me know what Carmen said.

===
I was there and heard this but it sounded so unbelievable that I assumed I heard wrong. I would triple confirm!
===
I was there too & she did say it. I think she made some casual remark that it's on the large side, but as though it was no big deal. In general, I thought she was minimizing things &/or saying Well we just don't have the money. One of her pro-test lines was one I particularly hate: kids are going to have to take tests sometime in their lives.... (So let's start assaulting them early?) How did the rest of us, especially us older farts, manage to survive & even thrive without being given standardized top-down tests when we were little?
====
unfortunately, what ch farinia says here is true. it is hard to find a school where class size is under 30. in fact, i find this is the norm. we now see 31, 32. this is because every student brings a little pot of $$ to the school. what is an admin to do when the budget cuts so deeply that this little pot of $$ is now how we fund things. this sucks, and this is what needs to be addressed. you cannot shrink class size w/o properly funding schools. period.
=====

Video by Michael Elliott re: Farina on class size question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPqN0-ytq0&feature=youtu.be

Read More

NYC Parent Urges Farina and King to Cancel Upcoming Math Exam

There was no rigor applied to the development of these tests, nor does the practice of high-stakes testing in general stand up to critical analysis....I was offended by your remarks earlier this week to the effect that while parents' opinions should be respected, children should come to school prepared to meet challenges like the state tests...

I honestly believe it is time for insurrection at the local level... I want de Blasio and Farina to unequivocally condemn these tests and call those who inflicted them us to account.

......Jeff Nichols, NYC parent opt-outer

Read Jeff's comments regarding the motivation of this letter below. Jeff and his wife Anne Stone are Change the Stakes stalwarts..

Dear Commissioner King and Chancellor Fariña,

Events are moving very fast. You are no doubt aware that today the principal, staff and parents of one of the most highly regarded schools In New York City, PS 321 in Brooklyn, will be holding a protest outside their schools to decry the abysmal quality of this year's ELA tests. You have probably read the astonishing comments from teachers and principals that continue to pour into the the New York City Public School Parents blog and other sites (http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2014/04/liz-phillips-brooklyn-principal-i-have.html).

I have not yet heard your view of this situation, Chancellor Fariña. But as an opt out parent, I have to tell you frankly I was offended by your remarks earlier this week to the effect that while parents' opinions should be respected, children should come to school prepared to meet challenges like the state tests.

Have you not realized that parents are protesting the tests precisely because we want our kids challenged deeply by real learning in our schools and these tests are obstructing that goal? Have you not realized that NYSED's and Pearson's claims that these tests represent new levels of "rigor" and "critical thinking" are demonstrably false?
There was no rigor applied to the development of these tests, nor does the practice of high-stakes testing in general stand up to critical analysis, so I fail to see how taking the state tests represents a worthwhile challenge for any child.

Moreover, Commissioner King, I cannot accept the state's intention to keep the tests secret from parents. My wife and I are responsible for all aspects of our children's upbringing. We would not permit a doctor to administer a vaccine to our children and forbid us from knowing what is in the shot. We will not let you subject our children to any exercise in school while forbidding us to know its contents, much less tests that are being used to determine their promotion and whether or not their teachers will be fired.
The forced, secret high-stakes testing of minor children is going to go the way of cane switches, dunce caps and forcing left-handed children to write with their right hands -- practices that were once commonplace that we now regard as child abuse. It's only a matter of time.

The question is, will our local and state education leaders join together and stop this travesty? Given the fact that the NYSED and the Pearson corporation have again utterly failed the test of earning parents' and educators' confidence in the quality of these exams, why should our schools proceed with administering the math tests later this month? Can you give me any reason other than obedience for obedience's sake? All I hear from you, Commissioner King, is slogans about higher standards and career readiness. I have yet to witness direct engagement by you with the arguments made by the thousands of educators and parents in our state who are advocate abandoning high-stakes testing of young children once and for all.

I call on you, Commissioner King, to suspend the administration of this year's state tests, and if you fail to do that (as I expect you will) I call on you, Chancellor Fariña to refuse to administer them.

We have lemon laws protecting consumers from egregiously faulty consumer products, but we no one is protecting our children from these worthless exams. Chancellor Fariña, they are state tests, so you can blame Commissioner King and the legislature for them, but you are ultimately responsible for our city's schools. You must ensure that no one forces educational malpractice upon them. If NYSED continues to ignore the protests against the state tests that are exploding across the state, and you allow the math exams exams to go forward, the public will hold the DOE accountable as well as NYSED and the U.S. Department of Education.

We now have teachers in this city and beyond refusing to administer the state tests and parents refusing to allow their children to take them. Chancellor Fariña, will you stand with these disobedient citizens, or will you stand with Arne Duncan and John King and insist that the tests must go forward regardless of their quality, because an unjust law says they must?

I hope both of you will acknowledge that finally, enough is enough. Suspend the state tests and bring daylight onto the whole process that led to this debacle.

Sincerely,

Jeff Nichols

One parent thought Jeff should address King and not Farina since she has no control. Jeff begged to differ:

I know, of course you're right, these matters are outside Farina's and de Blasio's control. I know at one level my demand make no sense.
But for the sake of argument, the tests are also outside the control of teachers who are now starting to refuse to administer the exams and are risking their jobs to do so. And they are outside the control of parents boycotting them. At the grass-roots level, test refusal is exploding. Is it truly impossible for our city officials to join us?
As a negative example, we have the history of leaders in the south defying federal orders of integration in the 1960s. As a positive one, we have Obama's administration refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, in a sense defying Congress, which has the authority to make laws the president must obey.
Officials can and do at times take a position contrary to the directives of authorities higher than themselves when they believe an inviolable principle is at stake.

By the way, can Tisch and King suspend the exams, or does the order to give them technically rest with the legislature? Who could legally suspend the tests?
I regard NYSED as utterly hopeless, which is why I am not bothering to talk to them. I honestly believe it is time for insurrection at the local level, and NYC is a pretty darned sizable locality. And moreover what I really want is something less than what I demand -- I want de Blasio and Farina to unequivocally condemn these tests and call those who inflicted them us to account.

Jeff

Read More

A PEP Lovefest; I Compare Eva Moskowitz to Global Warming

Last night I attended my first PEP meeting under the new administration and it was quite a lovefest directed at Carmen Farina, even from critics. Even my usually sour presentation was tempered. The meeting was sparsely attended and there were critics there, but even they thanked Farina for at the very least, the stand to defend the autistic and other special ed kids at the Mickey Mantle school from Eva's outrageous demands they be kicked out for her 194 "scholars." That the De Blasio administration couldn't make this point clearer - even with their own ads, is sad. At the very least the UFT should have done some ads, but then they would be subject to attacks over their own co-located charter that was resisted by parents and teachers they displaced.

Throughout the evening Carmen brought such charm and humor to the table for the first time in 13 years people felt good about the administration even when they disagreed on all the other co-locos Farina allowed. People from Mickey Mantle school made some wonderful speeches that should be put in an ad attacking the shit out of Eva.

I have a batch of videos, including one from Francesco Portelos. However, the event was for the first time livestreamed and will be available for viewing in a day or 2. I will try to save you the trouble of parsing through it by highlighting.

Naturally, I'll start with my speech where I compare Eva to global warming. When I ask what might have happened if Carmen closed the schools like Eva did, she said, laughing, "I did close them. For a snow day."I stayed within my 2 minutes - though they were very liberal in allowing more time - and had a lot more to say. Like if the millions spend on Eva ads were used to buy them a building. Or their phony stats. Maybe I'll do a follow-up in April. My belief is even though we are a spec, getting the info on the web serves as some minor counter to the Moskowitz machine. And one of my Wave columns this week also deals with the issue.




Busy day today with the DA and the District 14 forum. I'll add more videos to this post as I get to them and then repost this with the updates.

Read More

Norm in The Wave: A New Educational Landscape

A New Educational Landscape
By Norm Scott

My major problem in writing about education in this space recently? EIO – Education Information Overload. So many education issues, so little time – and space in this column to cover them. The most obvious change in the educational landscape has been a new mayor and chancellor, the Bill de Blasio/Carmen Farina team. Farina held just about every type job in her 40 plus years in the system. The most impressive? Spending a major chunk of her career actually teaching before starting her rise, thus giving heart to experienced teachers who have been denigrated by corporate education reformers (actually education deformers) who have declared the teaching profession dead over the past 12 years. Deformers have pushed the line you can substitute for experience with people with 6 weeks training. You know, get a little training, spend a few years so you can declare yourself an “expert” in education and go into educational leadership or policy. One of Farina’s first acts? Declaring that to become a principal one must be in the system for seven years. That alone issues a signal to educators that the Mickey Mouse games of the BloomKleinCott years may be over.

But let’s not leap onto the Farina bandwagon until we see some signs that she is about action not just words. Take our local Rockaway PS 106 scandal revealed in the – I have to gag before I write it – NY Post a few weeks ago. Farina sent in people to check it out and since then, nothing. Local educators who have been in touch are waiting to see what happens to Principal Marcella Sills and her protector, District 27 Superintendent Michelle Lloyd-Bey, who has been a constant presence in District 27 supporting every initiative of the Bloomberg years with gusto, from the closing of Far Rockaway HS on. If Lloyd-Bey and Sills are standing in September that will send a strong “same-old, same-old” message.

There are so many stories out there of incompetent and even cruel administrators, many of them graduates of the principal training Leadership Academy set up by former Chancellor Joel Klein. (Sills is a graduate.) It will take a lot of housecleaning to bring in people who know how to run a school and treat parents, teachers and students with respect. I’m in “wait and see” mode.

A couple of issues have risen to the surface. The common core, national standards imposed by the Obama administration tied to using test results to rate teachers, an end run around tenure. Open warfare has broken out about these standards. Many parents and teachers around NY State are in open revolt. The useless Board of Regents and the equally decrepit State Education Department have made so many errors around this issue they were forced to hold off on implementation. Early in the year there were celebratory articles in The Wave over the reappointment of our own Geraldine Chapey as a Regent. Talk about useless. Maybe it’s time to actually hold an election to replace a process that puts control of education into the hands of corrupt Albany politicians who choose the Regents.

People on the left opposed the common core/national curriculum for numerous reasons: increased testing, taking away local rights, the lack of real educator input, the knife to the throat implementation, are just a few. One of my reasons to oppose is based on who is pushing it and why – I’ll get into the weeds in a future column.

The corporate deformers, who are making billions on this initiative were never worried about the left. But suddenly the right wing woke up as to what was going on. If you look back over the first 4 years of the Obama administration you never heard Republicans, who savage Obama on just about everything, say one negative word on his education initiatives, especially the anti-teacher focused Race To The Top. Democrats like our slug of a Governor, Cuomo, have also been cheerleaders. But suddenly, the tea party wing and people like Glenn Beck have woken up to exactly what a national curriculum means. Southern states may no longer teach that the South won the Civil War or that dinosaurs used to hang out at the home sapiens camp sites looking for scraps. Now there is a national right wing movement to oppose the federal interference in state rights’ control of education. This has put liberals and the left - or “progressives” in a quandary. Some feel they must support the common core just because of the right wing assault. People in my wing are battling over whether to build alliances with the tea party on this issue. I tend toward the “alliance” wing. I just can’t wait to rally together with Glenn Beckians, which by the way may be happening on May 17 at a planned rally at the headquarters of Pearson, the billion dollar company cleaning up on the common core initiatives.

Norm blogs all too often at ednotesonline.org

Published in print and online Feb. 14, 2014: www.rockawave.com

Read More

The Daily Howler On NY Times Confusing Farina Story

Do you understand that story? We don’t! If the school [PS 6] was so good when Farina was assigned there, why did it need a “renaissance” or an “upward swing?” If Farina was tasked with bringing the school “to an even higher level of performance,” why did it need to “blossom?”
... Daily Howler

While I generally liked the Javier Hernandez story on Farina, I to was puzzled by this contradiction the Howler points to. Here it is in full. I love it when he takes down the Times -- which is about every 5 minutes.




The attempt to report skool newz: In a report from today’s front page, Javier Hernandez profiles Carmen Farina, Mayor de Blasio’s choice to head the New York City schools.
In the following passage, Hernandez describes a promotion Farina received after she was identified as an outstanding teacher:

HERNANDEZ (1/15/14): Ms. Fariña’s results had caught the attention of top New York education officials, who in 1991 offered her one of the most difficult jobs in the school system: principal of P.S. 6, a 900-student school in the heart of one of the country’s wealthiest ZIP codes.
The elementary school had long been synonymous with prestige and academic excellence; it counted former Mayor Robert F. Wagner, the rock star Lenny Kravitz and the actor Chevy Chase among its graduates. The challenge was bringing P.S. 6 to an even higher level of performance without alienating a demanding group of parents: doctors, lawyers and building superintendents among them.

Already, we’re puzzled. As described, it’s hard to imagine how P.S. 6 could have been “one of the most difficult jobs in the [New York City] school system.”

That said, the report only becomes more puzzling as Hernandez labors on. Eventually, he writes this:

HERNANDEZ: P.S. 6 blossomed under Ms. Fariña, surging to become one of the city’s top 10 schools in reading and math scores, which Mr. de Blasio trumpeted in announcing her appointment as chancellor. But it is difficult to say how much she contributed to its renaissance.
The school’s upward swing began before Ms. Fariña arrived, city testing data shows. During her tenure, there was also an influx of wealthier families and a simultaneous decline in the number of poor children.
In 2001, the year Ms. Fariña left the school, 7 percent of students came from impoverished backgrounds, compared with 12 percent a decade earlier. And the proportion of white students had grown to 80 percent, from 72 percent.

Do you understand that story? We don’t! If the school was so good when Farina was assigned there, why did it need a “renaissance” or an “upward swing?” If Farina was tasked with bringing the school “to an even higher level of performance,” why did it need to “blossom?”
Presumably, no deadline pressure afflicted this piece. Hernandez’s writing just doesn’t make sense. Editors at the New York Times routinely miss such problems. 

Read More

Video: Diane Ravitch at PS 15 in Red Hook, December 11, 2013

Here is the release of the video shot by Darren Marelli of this wonderful event.

A Conversation with Dr. Diane Ravitch at Red Hook's PS 15, December 11, 2013 with an introduction by Carmen Farina.

The PS 15 community was so thankful for Diane Ravitch having taken the time to speak and it highlights her deep commitment to neighborhood schools. While she has recently come under criticism for not offering solutions, she not only offers a plethora of solutions in her book, but also visits communities across the country, and like she did at PS 15, praises what we all know are the solutions for our schools: collaboration, parent empowerment, rich programming and curriculum, and educators who work, despite obstacles, to create schools that are centers of community. And also with much appreciation to Carmen Farina for her participation and chairing "Friends of PS 15 Committee for the last three years and for her participation in this event.

https://vimeo.com/m/81959289

Read More

Alan Singer, Mixed Feelings on Fariña, de Blasio

.... as far as I can see, Carmen Fariña has closer ties to the top 2% income bracket than the other 98% of the population and has always been willing to play political games... It remains unclear to me what Fariña has to offer the working class and poor Black and Latino students who have been left behind in the Bloomberg years....Alan Springer, HufPo

I've been presenting a variety of views on Farina, both pro and con. This Alan Singer piece at HufPo is pretty much con. Here he raises an interesting issue. Was Farina's success at PS 6 due to her attracting wealthier white parents or improving the lot of the struggling students?

She was principal at PS 6 on Manhattan's Upper East Side where the zip code is 10028, the median household income in 2011 was $107,895, and the population is 83% White. Fariña worked at PS 6 when Anthony Alvarado was Superintendent of Community School District 2 and achieved supposedly miraculous school improvement by offering special programs that attracted Manhattan's wealthy and professional families to the district's schools. PS 6 became a very popular school with New York's economic elite and benefited from being a Columbia Teachers College Mentor School, having close ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and receiving Annenberg grants. 

Wasn't that the mantra of the Bloomberg years? Make it look like education was improving by changing the kids -- the essence of what they did by chopping large schools into smaller ones, screening out the most difficult kids from the smaller ones and sending them down the line to the next large school in the daisy chain, or domino effect.

Fariña started as a teacher at PS 29 in tree-lined Brownstone Brooklyn located in the 11201 zip code where the population is 60% White and the median household income was over $91,000 in 2011. 

I'm not sure of this is a fair point given that Farina taught at PS 29 at a very different time. Singer should have given is the 11201 zpi code stats when she taught at PS 29, not 2011. (I'm too lazy to check them myself but I remember Cobble Hill as not being a gentrified area at that time.

Carmen Fariña first worked with Bill de Blasio when she was District 15 Superintendent in Brownstone Brooklyn and he was on the school board. It remains unclear to me what Fariña has to offer the working class and poor Black and Latino students who have been left behind in the Bloomberg years.

By the time she came back to District 15, many areas were in full gentrification mode. Thus the charge that the Lucy Calkins model would only work with gentrified kids in large classes and a level of arrogance that teachers who could not manage the feat of making it work were below par.

Fariña was also a Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning during the Bloomberg/Klein regime where her reputation as an advocate for children gave legitimacy to their programs. I only met Carmen Fariña once, at a social studies teachers' conference in 2006. We exchanged a few words and I expressed disappointment that Fariña did not speak out more forcefully for good education. At the time Bloomberg and Klein were trying to force secondary school teachers to use an inappropriate elementary school lesson format called the Workshop Model. Fariña's office maintained that New York City had no standardized lesson plan format, but that did not stop the DOE from enforcing one. Soon after our encounter Fariña quietly retired as deputy chancellor, suspected of using her influence to help a colleague who lived in New Jersey illegally place his child at PS 29.

The latter point was the Leo McCaskill, principal of Brooklyn Tech, story and that would require an entire blog post of its own. Sort of unfair of Singer to make the automatic assumption that this is why she left, but certainly might have been a factor.

Read the full post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/goodbye-mayor-mike-hello-_b_4524599.html
and below. Singer's being miffed that DeB hasn't gotten back to him to discuss the situation in the schools is, well, you fill in the blank.
=========




Goodbye Mayor Mike, Hello Bill and Carmen

Alan J. Singer
Monday, January 06, 2014 11:03 AM


Goodbye Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As you can probably guess from my very critical Huffington Posts during the past four years, I am not sorry to see you go.

Hello Bill de Blasio and Carmen Fariña. A lot of my friends in public education have high hopes for your tenure as mayor and school chancellor, but based on your previous performance I really do not expect much to change. I hope you surprise me.

The New York Times estimated that it cost Michael Bloomberg $650 million to be Mayor of New York City for the last twelve years. They praised his generosity to aides and non-profit organizations and his ability to remake the city. What they left out is that the $650 million was actually a great business investment helping to vastly increase Bloomberg's fortune by promoting Bloomberg's global brand.

In September 2013 Forbes estimated Bloomberg's net worth at $31 billion, up $6 billion in one year and up $26 billion from $5 billion when he was first elected mayor in 2001. Bloomberg is now the seventh richest person in the United States and 13th richest in the world.

The Times also minimized the high cost citizens pay for the “philanthropy” of Bloomberg and the other billionaires. During the last decade their money has undermined democracy in the United States, promoted programs that escalate social inequality, and remade cities to provide for their comforts and needs. How much will social inequality expand and the Bloomberg brand be worth as Bloomberg Associates spreads his influence around the planet?

But Mayor Mike is gone. Billy Dee and Carmen will now being running the city and the schools.

Bill de Blasio talked up progressive rhetoric and the tale of two cities during his campaign but the reality is that he is a longtime main stream Democratic Party operative. De Blasio worked in the Dinkins administration in New York City, the Bill Clinton Administration in Washington DC, and Hillary Clinton's campaigns. His early appointments are mostly traditional Democrats. Laura Santucci, de Blasio's chief of staff, was an Obama aide and former acting executive director of the Democratic National Committee. Lis Smith, his communications director, is the current girlfriend of disgraced former Governor Elliot Spitzer. Alicia Glen from Goldman Sachs is Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development. Gladys Carrion, his Commissioner for Children's Services was originally appointed to public office during the Koch administration. She was commissioner of the Community Development Agency in the Dinkins administration and headed the state Office of Children and Family Services under Governors Spitzer, Patterson, and Cuomo. She has a long resume, but not one marked by great accomplishment and improvement for children or the poor. Corporation Counselor Zachary Carter was a Bill Clinton appointee as a federal district attorney and has ties to Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign and Cablevision.

Two of de Blasio's most important appointments are Bill Bratton as police commissioner and Carmen Fariña as School Chancellor. Bratton was formerly New York City police commissioner under Rudy Giuliani where he targeted squeegee men. He promises to pursue aggressive police tactics but claims to be reborn as an opponent of the controversial stop and frisk. We will see.

Public school advocates have especially high hopes for Carmen Fariña because she is one of our own, but I feel we will be disappointed. In announcing the appointment, de Blasio said "We cannot continue to be a city where educational opportunity is predetermined by ZIP code." He added that Fariña would help all children realize their potential.

But as far as I can see, Carmen Fariña has closer ties to the top 2% income bracket than the other 98% of the population and has always been willing to play political games. Fariña started as a teacher at PS 29 in tree-lined Brownstone Brooklyn located in the 11201 zip code where the population is 60% White and the median household income was over $91,000 in 2011. She was principal at PS 6 on Manhattan's Upper East Side where the zip code is 10028, the median household income in 2011 was $107,895, and the population is 83% White. Fariña worked at PS 6 when Anthony Alvarado was Superintendent of Community School District 2 and achieved supposedly miraculous school improvement by offering special programs that attracted Manhattan's wealthy and professional families to the district's schools. PS 6 became a very popular school with New York's economic elite and benefited from being a Columbia Teachers College Mentor School, having close ties to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and receiving Annenberg grants.

Carmen Fariña first worked with Bill de Blasio when she was District 15 Superintendent in Brownstone Brooklyn and he was on the school board. It remains unclear to me what Fariña has to offer the working class and poor Black and Latino students who have been left behind in the Bloomberg years. Fariña was also a Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning during the Bloomberg/Klein regime where her reputation as an advocate for children gave legitimacy to their programs.

I only met Carmen Fariña once, at a social studies teachers' conference in 2006. We exchanged a few words and I expressed disappointment that Fariña did not speak out more forcefully for good education. At the time Bloomberg and Klein were trying to force secondary school teachers to use an inappropriate elementary school lesson format called the Workshop Model. Fariña's office maintained that New York City had no standardized lesson plan format, but that did not stop the DOE from enforcing one. Soon after our encounter Fariña quietly retired as deputy chancellor, suspected of using her influence to help a colleague who lived in New Jersey illegally place his child at PS 29.

Will de Blasio/Fariña schools be substantially different from Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott schools? As Randy Newman sings in the opening to every show in the Monk detective series, "I may be wrong now, but I don't think so!"

Post-It Note: In my last Huffington Post of 2013 I offered to meet with Bill de Blasio and his school chancellor to discuss the future of New York City schools. I know he has been busy, but I am disappointed I did not from him. Anyway the offer still holds. Bill, please email me at catajs@hofstra.edu and we can set a time and place.

Alan Singer, Director, Secondary Education Social Studies
Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership
128 Hagedorn Hall / 119 Hofstra University / Hempstead, NY 11549
(P) 516-463-5853 (F) 516-463-6196

Read More

The Carmen Farina Files

Her management took the form of a Machiavellian benevolence — the kind of approach you imagine is taught to aspiring executives in certain classes at Wharton, whereby the party about to be demoted or fired is encouraged to believe that what is happening is the best possible result for him or her. At P.S. 6, Ms. Farina got rid of only three teachers outright, she told me. The rest she counseled out, helping them to see — presumably in some instances where they couldn’t obviously see it for themselves — that they were really better suited for other things...
..When she rose to higher levels and oversaw principals, she worked in much the same way, assisting one principal, who wasn’t doing a particularly good job, for instance, in finding a new, more bureaucratically oriented position within the system. “It turned out she liked paperwork,” Ms. Farina said. “You think no one likes paperwork.”
 ....Metropolitan edition of the NY Times, Big City Column 

Information keeps flowing in on Farina's history. There were some interesting comments on my post Message to Farina and de Blasio: Undo the Damage where I talked about going after abusive principals and supporting teachers.

There are some serious hints in this piece from Ginia Bellafonte in the Jan. 4th Metropolitan edition of the NY Times. She counseled out teachers but kicked a principal upstairs. Interesting.

Before parsing it in more detail here's some insightful comments posted on the NYCEdNews listserve which points to: class size doesn't matter and lots of PD, not the greatest signs from my perspective.

Carmen comes out of the District 2 school of thinking (most of southern half of Manhattan) that practically the only things that count are PD and standards. It is this thinking that pervaded D2 under Alvarado and his successors and also characterized the first stage of Children's first under Klein-- when she was deputy chancellor. Other factors like class size were thought to be irrelevant and a waste of money. Elaine Fink former D2 Supe used to say she wd spend 80% of her budget on PD if she could.

But here is some hope Carmen has evolved

How much Carmen has evolved since those days we will have to see, but it is no surprise that she likes the Common Core and teachers shd expect a heavy dose of PD in the months to come,

What I find most disturbing is her condescension: that parents just don't understand the Common Core and if they did they would support it.

As to her "protocol" on charter schools - we still have an open lawsuit on this issue and I would hope that she would realize this before making a deal.

[EdNote: Fink ran off to San Diego with Alvarado and ran the Leadership Academy there and when Joel Klein was given the Chancellor job he went out there to meet with them to get advice.]

Now on to the NY  Times piece, Schools Chancellor Brings Joyful and Fierce Style By GINIA BELLAFANTE

In our conversation, rather than trying to get into the granular details of how she would deal with unions or charter schools, ideas and tactics clearly evolving, Ms. Fariña and I talked about her philosophical approach to actual teaching and leadership. 

Serving as the principal of Public School 6 on the Upper East Side during the 1990s, she overturned 80 percent of the staff, greatly improving the school’s standing. One teacher was so awful, Ms. Fariña told me, that the incompetence became consuming. “I’d wake up during the night thinking about the children who had to deal with this teacher,” she said. 

I know teachers who take the position "what the guy does next door is not my business - there are supervisors for that" and I know teachers who say "it is a moral imperative if you see utter incompetence to the point children are being harmed to try to do something." What a slippery slope that can become. Luckily I don't think I would say I saw any teachers reach that level but I did think there were people who did not belong in the classroom -- maybe they can do paperwork too.

But Ginia Bellafonte doesn't seem to see it that way -- while it is OK for Farina to bump a principal into a paperwork job, for teachers it is wasting money.

One of the most contentious challenges the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio will face is contract negotiations with the teachers’ union, particularly around the question of the so-called A.T.R. — the Absent Teacher Reserve. These are teachers who are receiving full pay even though they are working as substitutes or in clerical positions, having been dismissed for poor performance or having lost their jobs to school closings or budget cuts without getting rehired. 

Because Mr. de Blasio and Ms. Fariña are not fully in the reformist mind-set, their critics speculate that they will be reflexively acquiescent or at least highly vulnerable to union influence, but it’s hard to imagine someone with Ms. Fariña’s record prodding the mayor to consent to outrageous and possibly perilous demands. 

 Solving the ATR situation is a "perilous" demand? Note the mindset here -- having been dismissed for poor performance. How can you be dismissed for poor performance and still be working? Bellafonte seems to miss the point that they were exonerated. Remember Christine Rubino who was dismissed  for Facebook comment having nothing to do with her performance - and rehired after she won her case in court - and has a perfect record as a teacher but has been put in limbo doing paperwork.

Ms. Farina is a progressive educator who speaks movingly about returning joy to the project of teaching children. “We’ve lost the spirit that education is a calling,” she told me. 

I'm on board with the above. How many teachers locally and nationally have pointed to how the ed deformists have removed the joy of teaching - and learing. 

She is passionate about social studies and science; 

Yes. Me too. As long as we don't add alcohol to the chemistry experiment (good article in NYT today on that -School Experiment That Burned Boy Was Focus of Federal Warning.)

...she is not opposed to the Common Core or to testing generally. “Life is a series of tests in many ways,” she said. 

I wouldn't expect her to be or say she was if she was opposed.

What she opposes, she explained, are myopic systems of learning in which real knowledge becomes a casualty of test knowledge, and what she calls “the gotcha mentality” of the Bloomberg years, when teachers and principals were often abandoned instead of being given whatever support they might need to improve. “Even the worst principals work hard,” she said. “When we support them, then we can hold them accountable.”

Good points. And she is the first former BloomKlein official who has used the term "gotcha mentality."

Ms. Fariña said she had left the Bloomberg administration because of the issue of professional development, though other education insiders alluded to other philosophical differences as well. 

What does the PD issue mean here? I thought they did PD up the kazoo. As a pro-PDer too I think her objection was to bringing in so many outsiders who knew so much less than the teachers they were training -- the Aussies for instance.

I'd love to know what other issues there were- the holdover policy? The gotcha mentality? Make your own best guess. No wonder she was told (by Klein?) that she didn't have the skill set for the job. I think she left pretty pissed off.

Ultimately Ms. Fariña’s biggest task may be to broker an ideological peace between those who believe that joy and rigor are compatible and those who don’t, between those who believe that progressive education works only for children growing up in prewar apartments with parents who have read every John Updike novel twice and those who believe that disadvantaged children can benefit from it as well. 

Jeez, how much are we hating the phony word "rigor." If there's a conflict I'll take joy any time.

Which side are the ed deformers and real reformers being presented? RRef do believe that disadvantaged children can absolutely benefit from progressive education -- but if class sizes are small enough to enable a teacher to manage things. And therein lies the rub of Farina's arrogance - she refuses to recognize that class size goes hand in hand with effective progressive education -- no amount of PD will compensate for that.

Now comes the kicker that won't bring joy to many Mudville classrooms.

Ms. Fariña is a fan of “balanced literacy,” designed chiefly by Professor Lucy Calkins of Columbia, an approach rooted in the idea that children build reading skill by reading books that they love and that engage them. The Bloomberg administration favored this approach until a study two years ago, following 1,000 city school children in 20 schools from kindergarten through second grade, indicated that those second graders taught with a curriculum focused more on nonfiction scored higher on reading comprehension than those in the comparison schools. At the time, Ms. Fariña criticized the study for focusing on too few schools. 

 I can't tell you how many teachers learned to despise Lucy Calkins - for her arrogance too when she was the lap dog of the DOE for a time. But also teachers I respect who were trained in the program, they feel the implementation and forced feeding was so utterly incompetent - like most things BloomKlein did - that it was doomed.

Ms. Fariña said there were many potential ways to approach context-based learning and, for instance, to improve vocabulary. Giving children actual lyric sheets when they are singing in class, she said, could be one way of exposing them to new words. 

I really love these points -- because I did them myself - I used song sheets a lot and did a lot of work on vocabulary in many unorthodox ways -- it was clear that an important component of improving reading was to increase the oral vocabulary.

One method for going forward might be to teach fundamentals in a more traditional way until fourth grade or so, to lay the groundwork for more expansive learning, and then take things in more experimental directions. The Ascend network of charter schools, educating some of the poorest children in the city in central Brooklyn, has had great success with that model, borrowing the humanities-driven approach of progressive private schools once children are beyond the earliest elementary grades. By sixth grade, Ascend students are reading “The Iliad.” The network’s test scores have been impressive. 

I don't quite get the above. Is that Farina or Bellafonte talking about this "wonderful" charter? Throwing her own 2 cents into the debate?

Here's one of the really good points in the article:

Dialogue, debate and excitement in the classroom should obviously be the goals of all educators. “Once I was about to visit a principal,” Ms. Fariña said, “who told me, ‘You’re going to love coming here because you can hear a pin drop.’ I said, ‘I better not come because that isn’t going to make me happy.’ ”

EMAIL: bigcity@nytimes.com

YES. Carmen is against "pin drop" principals -- just watch the pin head principals tell teachers on Monday to make sure their rooms are not TOO quiet -- just in case Carmen drops by -- hopefully with a set of pins to drop.

Read More

Farina Delay: Charter lobby, ed deformers and UFT and allies working behind the scenes?

Who might be opposing a Farina appointment? I know some people are left scratching their heads at what seems on the surface an unholy alliance. Can we talk?

We know that de Blasio has been getting pressure from the Obama administration to appoint a pro-test person. As Naison says, given that she wants the job and de Blasio supposedly wants her, Farina should have been announced a week ago. That she wasn't means there is something funky going on behind the scenes.... RBE at Perdido St.

I often trust Vera Pavone's instincts. She looks at the delay from the point of view that Farina is not so desperate for the job as to be a lap dog and in fact is making her own demands to de B for certain resources and personnel if he wants her to be chancellor -- probably the only person he can choose at this point that would not lead to a massive public outcry of "sellout... Ed Notes

With many real reformers having settled on Carmen Farina as the best we could do at this time, what seemed like a slam dunk 10 days ago is causing concerns over the delay given that we are days away from the end of the Bloomberg reign. Farina is certainly not perfect given her ties to the old ed deform BloomKlein regime but for educators with a progressive, child-centered view, Farina's history before the BloomKlein era might point to a lowering of the test-tosterone.

Last night I was with a friend who confirmed she got it directly from Farina when she left Tweed that Farina was told (not sure by whom but I'm guessing Klein) that she didn't have the skill set for the job.

Mark one for Farina.

RBE at Perdido Street School has a post today worth sharing. No Chancellor Pick Announcement Coming Today 

And so we wait, and the longer we wait, the more I wonder what is going on behind the scenes to delay the announcement. Mark Naison has been tweeting all kinds of warnings about de Blasio picking a reformy chancellor, suggesting that is what may ultimately happen:

Kamagana @ya_kamagana

@McFiredogg you are scaring me with your posts.. do you have inside information?

Mark Naison @McFiredogg 

@ya_kamagana Some. Carmina Farina should have been appointed a week again. Something happened and it's not good.

So, Mark Naison has some inside information and he is concerned. His wife is a long-time progressive principal in District 15 and probably has some ties to Farina. Which to me means there is concern in the Farina support camp.

RBE points to Obama/Duncan.

I would agree that the delay is unsettling. We know that de Blasio has been getting pressure from the Obama administration to appoint a pro-test person. I would say one thing - you can bet the reason for the delay in the chancellor announcement from de Blasio is not a good reason. 

While Obama - and maybe the Clinton's - might be doing behind the scenes work -- and given Farina's original ties to BloomKlein -- I don't see why they would think her such a great threat to the testing program as to get involved -- I
have a somewhat different take and view things in a more local manner.

My friend Vera Pavone shared her analysis at a party we were at last night when I brought up the story of the Farina appearance at PS 15 2 weeks ago with Diane Ravitch (and Julie Cavanagh) basically at the flash point of an expected announcement by deB for her as chancellor. I believe there is a connection to the delay.

But first let me bring in the UFT which prefers Cashin and I imagine they and their astroturf supporting orgs worked behind the scenes. (That Cashin has disappeared from the conversation is not a slam dunk she is done -- from what I know of her she will not give up until Yogi Berra sings to the fat lady.

One interesting thing happened -- an internal email inside the UFT requesting "information" on Farina. I didn't hear a similar request for Cashin.

Back to the PS 15 story.

When I heard the day before the Ravitch/Farina event that Farina was going to introduce Ravitch, I said, "No way she'll show" given the swirl of her pending announcement. I was assured she would show but was still surprised she did.

There were a few factors in my reasoning that she might be hurting her candidacy with this act.

• PS 15 was the epicenter of one of the major co-location battles with a charter school and Farina was thus sort of taking sides in her support of PS 15. The charter lobby must be fuming.
• Support for Ravitch, who by the way as a major deB supporter but in the deform community is poison.
• Julie Cavanagh and the prominent role she has played in the battle against ed deform (especially our movie) plus of course her role in MORE and the fact she ran against Mulgrew. PS 15 is a MORE school top to bottom. How does the Farina connection to the school play inside the UFT?

When I heard Farina did show I figured she might be making a mistake and until Vera's analysis last night, was sure she had.

So Vera's point is that Carmen knew exactly what she was doing that evening and in fact was sending a message to de Blasio and the ed deformers -- and maybe even the UFT leadership (as opposed to the rank and file teacher) that she would not be a patsy and if de B wanted her it would be as much on her conditions as on his.

I often trust Vera Pavone's instincts. She looks at the delay from the point of view that Farina is not so desperate for the job as to be a lap dog and in fact is making her own demands to de B for certain resources and personnel if he wants her to be chancellor -- probably the only person he can choose at this point that would not lead to a massive public outcry of "sellout.

If this is true my respect for Farina rises. But I worry that she adheres to the ed deform concept that the way to improve education is to improve the teachers (or replace them). Meaning: PD and U-ratings will not go away.

A litmus test would be just how a Farina admin would address a Portelos-like case where an outstanding teacher who sacrifices enormous amounts of time to do stuff for the school eventually comes up against an incompetent and repressive school administration.

===
Read the Gotham Schools Report on the PS 15 event (also check the comments).

Chancellor candidate Farina praises Ravitch, but keeps distance

Read More

Rosalie Friend Reports on Ravitch and Farina at PS 15

Excellent report from Rosalie as a follow-up to the report I received yesterday (Carmen Farina Introduces Diane Ravitch at PS 15K Community Library Opening).
And by the way, for those who don't get what school-based organizing is all about, check out an expert like Julie Cavanagh.
From Rosalie Friend to Change the Stakes Listserve:

At the presentation at PS 15, Carmen Farina seemed to back Diane's assertion that we need to return to a district system in which district supervisors are responsible for neighborhood schools. Carmen spoke of the importance of providing a GOOD school for every child in every neighborhood.
Diane spoke about the influence of private money in politics and school decisions. She cited an upcoming conference on how to make money in public education. She mentioned the methods the corporate "reformers" are using to minimize the cost of teachers' salaries. She also said that as she travels to schools around the country she finds a lot of fraudulent financial dealings among the charters.
I asked about whether we should be tackling Common Core when we have such a big challenge in getting rid of high stakes tests and getting small classes, support services like social workers, psychologists, and nurses, and effective programs like reading recovery. She responded that common core was going to drain resources from everything else, because of the need to buy huge amounts of computer equipment and services. The tests for the Common Core are going to be administered on computers. She also criticized the idea of having computers grade essay questions (one of my pet peeves).
Diane said she is hoping that Bill de Blasio will be the leader who will challenge the free market approach and the corporate "reformers." Jim Devor, who knows de Blasio from the District 15 school board, was much much less hopeful, though he did not give any specifics.
The audience was a mix of teachers, parents, and community members. Many were local, but there were several from Manhattan and one lady from the Bronx who had traveled to see Diane Ravitch. We heard from one distressed parent whose daughter is struggling with deadening lessons and poor test scores despite good classwork. There was a full range of age among attendees. I gave out 80-90 Change the Stakes fliers, so maybe we will get some new members.
Three cheers for Julie, her PS 15 colleagues, and the student "ambassadors" who guided us through the school to the library.

Read More

Carmen Farina Introduces Diane Ravitch at PS 15K Community Library Opening

Yesterday was a big day for the PS 15K community in Redhook with two red hot ed superstars, Diane Ravitch and rumored next chancellor Carmen Farina, in attendance. Actually in my book, 3 superstars if you count Julie Cavanagh, PS 15 chapter leader and one of the event organizers.

Carmen Farina has been the chair of the "Friends of PS 15 Committee" for 3 years and helped get the school a new library out of the ashes of co-loco battle with PAVE charter.

Today being the first book talk to introduce the new library as a community space, the Committee thought it fitting to  invite Diane Ravitch, who graciously accepted.

Farina in introducing Ravitch, talked a lot about PS 15 and connected the struggles there to Diane's book. Carmen complimented Diane's work, pointing to her travels around the nation as she visits schools and programs and listens to what people have to say.

She made the point that there is plenty of room for agreement and disagreement but informed discussion should be at the center and Diane's work is an important part of that.

Diane said during her talk "Every community needs a great neighborhood public school like PS 15.... We need to be citizens, not consumers, when it comes to public education."

Carmen closed by saying we need to stop focusing on what "they" – the corporate reformers – are doing and focus on what we are doing, echoing Diane. We need great public schools in every neighborhood.

Afterburn
I'm not sure exactly what Farina was trying to say here but I agree with this point: That we are beyond focusing on the outrages and should work on organizing. How to do that effectively is another story.

Read More