The New York State Education Department’s Commissioner John King, who should be fired, wants the Board of Regents to have the ability to take over school boards in districts that are “failing”. WGRZ in Buffalo has the story.
So let’s get this straight. John King wants to use junk science to label school districts as “failing”. The he wants to give Merryl Tisch and the Board of Regents the ability to take over the school boards of those “failing schools” so that they can “fix” them? Keep in mind this is the same Merryl Tisch who has said that the public dislikes teachers. She also claimed that our “scientific, objective” evaluation system, which is neither scientific nor objective, would fix that problem.
It’s a rigged game folks. Unless we raise our collective voice to a roar we’re gonna get steamrolled.
John J. Flanagan- ENEMY OF PUBLIC ED- use a deferential tone when speaking to him!
Way back in July, before Dr. Rella became a celebrity, before we called for John King’s firing, and before we rallied for public ed, we announced a new series of posts that we would be writing this year. That series would be broken into two parts. One part titled “Know Your Friends” (KYF) and one titled “Know Your Enemies” (KYE). The first post of the series was a “Know Your Friends” detailing a dear friend of public education, Diane Ravitch. Today we pull back the curtain on our first “Know Your Enemies” post.
Our first KYE post is a special two for one edition featuring two of our most local politicians, New York State Senators John J. Flanagan and Ken LaValle. Each of these state senators represent parts of the Comsewogue School District. Each of these politicians received one of Dr. Rella’s letters regarding the scores of the NYS Common Core tests. Each of these senators could not be bothered to show up to the rally because they do not support the will of their constituents and the rally message “Students, Not Scores”.
We will discuss LaValle first. He issued this statement the day before Saturday’s #SNSRally. There are a few problems with this statement…
I met with those parents, listened to their concerns, and also met with representatives of the State’s Education Department.
He chose not to meet with any actual teachers who, you know, proctored the exams and teach the content the students are responsible for?! Surely those reps from NYSED included the reformy John King and others of his ilk… people who are selling NY State’s public education system to the highest bidder.
I agree that the implementation of the Common Core could have been better handled
Perhaps LaValle meant. “It could have been handled better. But we were really in a rush to get this system in place so that we can start firing teachers sooner rather than later. If it hurts the children in the process, so be it… I have a political agenda and I am not going to let common sense stand in the way of it!”
The bill also requires the Commissioner of the State Education Department to report, annually to the Legislature about: the effectiveness of Common Core state tests in enhancing student learning and performance
The commissioner already tells us that our Common-Core assessments are “very high quality”. I am just dying to hear his report to the legislature.
Now onto John J. Flanagan. Senator Flanagan, representing the 2nd Senate District, also chairs the New York State Senate Standing Committee on Education. No wonder public education is a mess. He also was a recipient of Dr. Rella’s letter. While LaValle issued a cop-out statement, Flanagan didn’t even bother. Maybe he was busy basking in the glow of his “Pet Lemon Law“. He did contact Rella privately. You can read between the lines to figure out how that went.
Additionally, the PJSTA knows from it’s own personal experience that Senator John J. Flanagan is no friend of ours.
A little while back PJSTA President Beth Dimino went to Flanagan’s office with the rest of the Suffolk NYSUT contingency during a NYSUT Committee of 100 event. This was right after the Comsewogue cap budget failed to get 60%. During the meeting Dimino confronted Flanagan about the fact that he supported the tax cap. She told him that as a New York State Senator that represents Comsewogue and as the head of New York State Senate Standing Committee on Education that he was directly responsible for the fact that we would have to eliminate programs, have larger class sizes, lay off teachers and reconfigure our elementary schools, even though 59% of the voters didn’t want these things to happen. She was respectful in her presentation, though in typical Dimino fashion she was passionate and didn’t sugar coat anything. He was not pleased with what she had to say or the way that she spoke to him. At the end of the meeting Dimino went up to him and when he shook her hand she presented him with a gift. She gave him one of these pins…
The pin Dimino gave to Flanagan.
Mrs. Dimino told him that the gift was a pin from Comsewogue and the PJSTA and that she hoped he would wear it. Flanagan was furious. He proceeded to complain about her to a NYSUT official and then he called a Comsewogue School District official. Flanagan told the NYSUT official what she said and demanded that Dimino needed speak to him in a more deferential tone in the future. He asked the district official to “get control of” Dimino. The individual told Flanagan that if he had actually knew Dimino he would know that no one was going to control her!
So please make sure that when speaking to King Senator Flanagan you are deferential enough. He is after all an extremely important guy. He will even tell you so himself.
As the chairman of the New York State Senate Standing Committee on Education, Flanagan will be holding hearings throughout New York State in the coming months to review the impact and effectiveness of recent education reforms. Of course he could skip the hearings and just walk into any school and a teacher could tell him how destructive these education “reforms” have been. The first hearing is scheduled to be right here on Long Island. His office informed me that the hearing will take place during the second week in September and is by invite only. By waiting until the school year has started Flanagan has a built in excuse not to invite many real teachers to the hearing. That would be a disaster of course because then he wouldn’t get to hear what he wants to hear. Holding these hearings without real educators is akin to seeking medical advice from your dog. But we already know that public education is a rigged game and John J. Flanagan is making sure that he does everything he can to rig it in the favor billionaires, corporations, and potential big money donors.
Senator Flanagan, like Senator LaValle will likely be running for re-election again in 2014. He too is an enemy of public education. He too should be voted out.
Another rally story, this one from longisland.com, including a quote from Dimino.
What many of the rally stories seem to miss (or ignore) is the fact that these assessments really were never meant to assess students. Instead they are all part of the rigged game to destroy public education. Just ask John Merrow, who can’t get the real story of Michelle Rhee published.
On a separate note, we have discussed the need to contact our elected officials who do not support us (particularly John Flanagan and Ken LaValle). In addition to this you should be contacting politicians who have supported us to express your gratitude as well. When calling Assemblyman Englebright and Assemblyman Graf today to express my gratitude for their support at Saturday’s rally I didn’t get the sense they had heard from many people. They each had staff members who spent 10-15 minutes each on the phone with me, however. They wanted to know my experience as an educator dealing with the destructive “reforms” that have entered our profession recently. The idea that legislator’s would want an educator’s opinion on education issues shouldn’t have been surprising. But it was. It was refreshing too. They should hear from all of us. When they take our fight to Albany they need to know that they have an army of us behind them.
An estimated 2,000 people converged on Comsewogue High School yesterday to tell the powers that be what they should do with the Common Core State Standards. The crowd, a mixture of teachers, administrators, parents, students, and other concerned citizens turned out despite only having a week to organize the rally.
Speaking at the rally were Comsewogue Board Trustee Ali Gordon, PJSTA President Beth Dimino, NYSUT President Dick Ianuzzi, Comsewogue Superintendent Dr. Joseph Rella, Comsewogue High School student Arya Hezarkani, parent Gina Renard, New York State Assemblymen Steve Englebright and Al Graf, and former Suffolk County Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher.
Perhaps the highlight of the rally was Assemblymen Englebright saying, “Somebody’s head should be on the block and it should be John King!” He was right of course, but he neglected to mention King’s host of other ed deform cronies: Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Andy Cuomo, John J. Flanagan, Ken LaValle, Chris Christie, Cory Booker, Mike Bloomberg, Merryl Tisch…. and the list goes on and on and on.
PJSTA members should be taking the next few days to bombard their elected officials with their feelings on these matters. Ask them if they are with us or against us. Tell them there is no middle ground. They will earn our votes or they won’t. It should be noted that 2,000 people at a rally in Comsewogue is a nice turnout with only a week’s notice. However it is hardly enough. It’s nice to gather together, make signs, wear green laces, show our community and union pride, and scream and shout a bit. However it all means nothing without sustained further action. The PJSTA will again provide you with ample opportunities in the coming school year to work towards our agenda. It’s time for you to decide whether or not you are willing to get involved. Yesterday was the fun part. Today the work starts.
The Offical Website of the PJSTA 
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