Showing posts with label kidspac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kidspac. Show all posts

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Video: Parent Organizing 101 - KidsPac/Class Size Matters Conf Jan. 27, 2018

Two Wonderful stories of parent organizing including Bonnie and Kalmiris of Central Park East 1 fame to remove an abusive and incompetent principal -- who by the way is still working in District 4 and is rumored to be resurfacing in another school. I never get tired of hearing, their story especially since some of us in MORE were so deeply embedded in it. But what do you have to do to rid ourselves of evil vampire principals -- put a stake in their hearts?

Also doing a great presentation was Naila Rosario from Sunset Park, an amazing organizer who started with very little other than trying to get her kid into pre-k and from that experience built a powerhouse.

https://vimeo.com/253303228


Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Video: Jamaal Bowman at KidsPac/Class Size Matters Parent Conference, Jan. 27, 2018

Jamaal Bowman is always worth listening to. It is rare to find school leaders with vision and understanding of the damage high stakes testing has done and is doing. He even races against the kids in his school - he won a race in the gym wearing his suit and dress shoes. It's a shlep to the Bronx for me but I may take a shot at going up there Monday night, Feb. 5 at 6PM for his BLM week event -  if my old bones can make it. But I am not racing Jamaal.

vimeo.com/253187266

Thursday, September 7, 2017

KidsPac - de Blasio's Education Report Card

Don't mistake KidsPac for one of those astroturf ed deform groups just because they are legitimately holding deB accountable. Many of our parent allies are involved. It is funny to read the illegitimate attacks on deB from the likes of Eva and other charter slugs because their whining for more space hasn't led to him putting them at the top of his To Do list. He has not done very well in terms of resisting their outrageous demands which are also based on lies and distortions of their needs as they attempt to disguise their real goals -- to take over entire swaths of valuable real estate while squeezing public schools into oblivion. deB doesn't get a very good grade in resisting this trend.



http://nyckidspac.org/2017-mayoral-report-card/

http://nypost.com/2017/09/05/school-advocates-give-de-blasio-an-f/ 

Chalkbeat links:
REPORT CARD A parent advocacy group gave Mayor Bill de Blasio poor marks on school policy. DNAinfo, Chalkbeat (Sept. 5)


Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Parents Rate de Blasio (and Farina) Poorly - and they were being nice - Is Farina making us miss Joel Klein? And Leo Casey goes wild at daring to crit de B

Media outlets that reported on our report card include News 12-TV, Wall St. Journal, NY Post, WCBS radio, and Epoch Times (in Chinese).  Please take a look at the grades we awarded the mayor on education issues below, and leave a comment on the blog.  thanks, Leonie 
Photo by Norm Scott for Ednotesonline
I attended the press conference on Sunday and taped it - but luckily pro Michael Elliott was there to cover and did the video below. One of the fascinating conversations I had with some people was just how bad Farina is in so many ways in relation to parents - even a few words of comparison to Joel Klein. He didn't bother to try to hide his disdain for parents and other voices. She has the de Blasio rhetoric - backed by the UFT.

I'll do a follow up with Leo Casey's attack on Leonie and KidsPAC for daring to be critical of de Blasio --- he and Mikey will punch you in the face. Casey said that by criticizing De Blasio we are supporting Eva and the hedgehogs. It makes you want to punch yourself in the face.

[VIDEO] NYC KidsPAC Education report card for the Mayor press conference - Video taken by Michael Elliot at our NYC KidsPAC press conference on April 19 where we released our education report card for Mayor de Blasio.
ON the steps of TWEED, NYC KidsPac held a press conference to deliver a report card on Mayor De Blasio's first year in office and how his initiatives stacked up against the promises he made during the election. Lets just say that there's lots of room for improvement!
https://youtu.be/mSq9pMj3J3U



Updates on opt out and NYC KidsPAC releases Mayor de Blasio’s education report card - April 20, 2015 Dear Friends, As you may have heard, a huge number of kids opted out of the ELA exams last week throughout NY State; the unofficial count so... 
Chaz thinks the parents marked too easy. I agree

What The NYC KidsPAC Report Omitted. - With much fanfare and great hopes, the De Blasio Administration would make real change to the NYC public schools. Even our UFT President, M... 

According to the organization Bill de Blasio and his disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, gets an "F" for failing to reduce class sizes, despite promises to do so.  Moreover, they received a "F" for the lack of transparency on funding and contracts that was the hallmark of the Bloomberg years.  Finally, they get another "F" for their failure to allow for the segregation of too many schools in the City without a diversity plan to correct this.

The De Blasio Administration does little better when it comes to parent engagement, receiving a "D" for not providing enough parent outreach.  Further, the De Blasio Administration was given a "D" on how it handled busing and Special Education services.  Finally, their failure to adequately handle the co-location issue deserves another "D" rating.

What was left out of the report was the continuation of other Bloomberg policies that has not been corrected by the De Blasio Administration or his disappointing Chancellor, they are:

Fair Student Funding:  The continuation of fair student funding has resulted in principals selecting "the cheapest and not the best teachers" for their schools, while allowing teaching talent to waste away as glorified babysitters in the ATR pool at a cost of $150 million dollars annually.

Frozen School Budgets:  Despite the increase in the overall DOE budget, Chancellor Carmen Farina froze the school budgets at last year's levels which was 14% below the 2008 level for the schools.

Teachers Teaching A Sixth Class:  Too many schools, trying to meet their unrealistically tight budgets are requiring teachers to pick up a sixth class to save on teachers,  This is especially true in shortage areas where the DOE picks up the tab for the sixth class not the school.

There are other "education on the cheap" issues like Science and AP classes being shortened, teachers not certified to teach in their content specialty, resources like paper and school supplies not being sent to the classroom, and special education students not being given their mandated services.  All of these issues were omitted by the KidsPAC report but are still going on despite the demise of the Bloomberg Administration as the Mayor and his disappointing Chancellor has failed to make the changes necessary for our public schools to succeed.