The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman

Mayoral control is not yet law

UPDATE:See the long article on this press conference in the Amsterdam News. The Coalition for Public Education made it clear today that until the State Assembly approves the bill the Senate passed last week, New York City still has a “decentralized system of education as enacted in 1969,” not mayoral control. “All reports to the … Continue reading →

Charter school hearings this week in the Bronx

Listen tonight on WBLS or WLIB

At 7 PM tonighton WBLS (107.5 FM) or WLIB (1190 AM): Community Activist Jitu Weusi and special education teacher Carmen Applewhitewill speak about the school governance bill, amendments,and the press conference scheduled for Monday, August 10,on the steps of City Hall at noon.

Make your own label

We found these useful at community events collecting signatures, and some people started asking for them. Email gemynyc@gmail.com for a a printout of the text and the easiest instructions in the world. VERY IMPORTANT TO COME TO CITY HALL FOR THE PRESS CONFERENCE on Monday, Aug. 10th, 12 noon. The Bloomberg’s machine is swamping the … Continue reading →

Report of a charter hearing in Brooklyn — D22

There has been much talk in the blogs and listservs about the sham hearings taking place on new charters seeking a foothold in public school buildings. We reported what happened over at the District 4 hearing (July 29th) in this post and in this one. GEM will continue to publish reports of the questionable and … Continue reading →

CPE exposes the media hype on mayoral control

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THE COALITION FOR PUBLIC EDUCATIONPress Conference on the steps of City HallMonday, Aug. 10th, 12 noon CPE is holding a press conference to expose that Mayor Bloomberg and his media friends are giving us the false impression that Mayoral Control is the current rule of law for our public schools. As of … Continue reading →

Parent to Chancellor: What’s going on?

GEM received a copy of a letter that a concerned Bronx parent wrote to the Chancellor back in July. We continue to be dumbfounded as to why letters like this have to be written at all in a public system of education. Joel Klein is not asleep at the helm. He knows what’s going on … Continue reading →

Something to print out, sign, and send in

The Senate voted to renew mayoral control for another six years this morning with the addition of four amendments, but the bill they passed won’t become law until the Assembly votes on the same four amendments. Presumably that will happen when the legislature comes back into session next month. Senator Perkins, one of the eight … Continue reading →

More on the District 4 charter school "hearing"

Last Wednesday’s “hearing” in El Barrio/East Harlem on the Hyde Leadership and Mott Hall charter school proposals was attended by more than 40 people, most of whom showed up to protest placing these new schools into District 4 public school buildings. We wrote about some of what occurred at that meeting yesterday. Since minutes weren’t … Continue reading →

Charter school testimony — this time Staten Island

See this Ednotes post for more on this hearing. The following is the testimony of long-time educator Loretta Prisco at the Charter School hearing in Staten Island last night. I don’t think there were any formal documents such as this submitted in the Charter School hearing I attended last week in District 4 (see our … Continue reading →