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November 26, 2010
MAYOR BLOOMBERG, GEOFFREY CANADA, CATHIE BLACK
By Profesor Martin Danenberg "El Quijote del GED"
All of the country people connected with minority communities and education are finding out the truth. The facts are reaching people, but what will they do is the big question. Community leadership is relatively weak, principally because the communities are funded by elected officials that keep doing the same things and because people do not know what to do once they get the revelations.
On page 215 of "Whatever It Takes" about Geoffrey Canada by Paul Tough, you can begin to see the turn- around in test scores heading in a new direction. The school headed in a new direction and was not the same as it had been. Dennis McKesey knew about practice testing. This kind of help was given and it works when people know what they are doing. How could I correctly predict a jump in points on short answers for my GED students without knowing what I was doing? How could I predict a jump of several points on the essay without knowing what I was doing? These are things I was able to do, the same things that many GED teachers do every day. These were things that I started talking to teachers about around the year 2000 when I retired and the book was revealing details that happened around 2007. The very same compilation of facts can be done about the work of Chancellor Joel Klein. Why are so many students failing in Far Rockaway and other school districts? The failure to standardize important practice test procedures. It is like going to Mc Donald's, expecting the same quality of service. Chancellor Klein should have been able to recommend these things to all schools, including the Harlem Children's Zone because of his conversations with Geoffrey Canada.
Christine Quinn, I read today, said that Joel Klein did a "terrific" job as chancellor. This accolade is hardly what I am writing about here. Joel Klein messed up the GED programs and people outside the system know it. I just did some investigation with the Bronx GED programs about it and people running programs are on the same page with me. I brought GED information to the attention of Michael Bloomberg before he was mayor and he failed to do what I wanted. I brought information about GED to ex-Governor Pataki and Commissioner Mills started doing an inquiry with the GED in Albany, an investigation that was only as good as the man who did the investigation. Not good at all! This is the same commissioner who gave the waiver to Joel Klein. Now Joel Klein was not as bad as a man. I did research on yesterday (Rafael Trujillo). We could have done without both men in power. I feel that more that we study these last eight years, the more we will reduce the impact of the chancellor. In other words, what has really helped the students that have passed or progressed?
As I write the rest of this article knowing that a waiver was not granted and that mayoral control is being modified by the Department of Education of the State of New York, it is not surprising to me at all. In the last presidential election, a lot was said about who would be ready on day one. The consensus is that Cathie Black would not be. Dividing the power makes sense, especially if we cannot agree about who is ready on day one. I cannot say that Cathie Black, Pedro Noguera, yours truly, or anyone else would be ready knowing that nobody has run a system that large and that well for years. Did I say yours truly. Oh my! Getting back to Geoffrey Canada and his "miracle" and this is important and fresh. Let us close our minds to the fact that the test or tests were easier for a minute. Let us say that he was extremely successful for a year or more. If he succeeded and he had great access to Chancellor Klein, would you not expect the chancellor to immediately share all of the key bullet points with failing districts throughout the city so they could have the "miracle" and make their communities better? Repeating that success all over the city, especially during a great recessionary period, would save time and money (okay money I am not sure of and that is where Cathie Black comes in-save our money by keeping us from bad programs). Bad policies would fall under the Deputy Chancellor would was possibly placed there to replace the chancellor.
I am forming a committee to move very important items along that need to be addressed as soon as the appointee or appointees are approved. My friends at the UFT are expecting to go to the next chancellorship. I expect to do the same thing because I know many things that are needed that nobody has brought forth in the last eight years. The committee will not include any elected official, because elected officials have been part of the problem. See my other articles and find out. I started a GED campaign in New York City in 2001 and the elected officials did not do what I was asking and it took about 5 years for some of them to change and most of them have still not done anything. They are people of all races and they did little or nothing and some of them win elections with a ninety percent vote. That is politics and I am not into that. If they win that big and they believe they are that big, I will never get anywhere to help the people in need that they serve.
When you eat a bagel, as I did this morning, and half is well done and the other half looks like it was baked outside of the oven, you know something is wrong. That is what is wrong with the system. Bake it and make sure things are right, be careful, get the right input, and in the end the bagel will be worthy. Just showing slight improvements and not knowing where the improvements are coming from is not helping the rest of the school districts that are hurting. Mayor Bloomberg has or had mayoral control, but he did not deserve it. He may or may not be totally happy with the decision about Cathie Black. I do not know. We want him to do a much better job than he done. He keeps telling us what a great job he has done. Even better results may not be because of the mayor and the chancellor.
New revelations surfaced that have tarnished the recent Klein success. If you look at Geoffrey Canada's book, you can see even those staff members were concerned about students not doing as well on practice tests after teaching and drilling them so they could succeed. I would suggest that the same study made of the real tests, which proved that the tests were either easier or very predictable, be made of the tests given before the last school year. Let us determine what has really been going on in the last few year.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
martin@mygedhotline.com
New:
www.mygedhotline.com
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg November 26, 2010 11:55 AM