The NY Post smells blood in the water around the New York City Department of Education. Four articles today attacking the schools.
First, there is Chancellor Richard Carranza reportedly going around the rules to hire his cronies and throwing contracts at a firm one of them used to work for.
Chancellor Richard Carranza waived job postings and other requirements to hire ex-employees he knew in California and Texas, including the former vice president of a company that has since racked up millions in sales to New York City schools, The Post has learned.
A complaint to the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools alleged the Department of Education violated rules in giving six-figure jobs to two women Carranza met in two other school districts he led.
According to the complaint and inside sources, the DOE hired San Francisco teacher Martha Martin Perez and ex-Houston principal Raquel Sosa-Gonzalez outside normal protocol “at the instruction of Chancellor Carranza.
Whistleblowers also questioned the hiring of Abram Jimenez as “senior executive director of continuous improvement” for New York City schools, a newly created job in the DOE bureaucracy with a salary of $205,416.
I am having a difficult time being sympathetic with the DOE insiders who moved up in a corrupt system and are now crying about corrupt hiring. Did any of them do anything to help Absent Teacher Reserves get placed in regular positions?
Further down we learn some details about Abram Jimenez who has the newly created $205,416 a year job with DOE. Jimenez worked for Carranza in San Francisco and then went back to a company called Illuminate when Carranza left California for Houston.
Back to the article:
...within three months of Jimenez’s arrival, Illuminate gained a foothold in New York City. The company has since racked up 28 purchase orders from city schools totaling $700,000 to date.
Each order is for $25,000 — just below the threshold at which city Comptroller Scott Stringer would have oversight.
Illuminate bought IO Education, another company that sells student data systems, in July 2018, while Jimenez was still vice president. IO has racked up $33 million in sales from New York City schools since 2011, records show. Since its acquisition by Illuminate, IO has pocketed $5.4 million in New York City purchase orders.
There is more on jobs never posted; you get the idea. The Post is not letting up here.
Attack article two is on an Office of Special Investigations investigator arrested for driving while intoxicated. There have been other complaints about this investigator.
Article three concerns a Bronx principal who likes to tweet out tips on fast horses.
Article four goes after the DOE for trying to defend itself against the NY Post.
I do not trust the NY Post's anti-union, anti-public school agenda but their attacks on DOE have clearly hit a nerve. DOE is corrupt in many places as far as I can tell and finding more corruption won't be that difficult. This is a very odd situation with some major media outlets against the Chancellor and DOE with the UFT either silent or defending the Chancellor it seems.
Carranza is done, he just doesn’t know it yet. Everything he’s doing, including today’s parade, is to shine a positive light on himself. He’s desperate. The problem is he did indeed use racially incendiary terms and it was recorded by parents. He has also set this tone, which is used by his principals and APs. NYC can’t allow him, as head of its school system, to piss on federal anti-discrimination laws - the same laws that they use to prosecute and terminate teachers. The UFT should condem Carranza in the strongest possible terms - that they haven’t is yet another indication of how corrupt they have become. Amazing how they fawn over him because he smiles and is civil. Klein hired mostly white women and gay white men. He was also a racist, unfortunately he wasn’t stupid enough to admit it. It’s unfortunate - I actually like Carranza as a person, but I can’t defend him.
ReplyDeleteThese attacks are BS. Illuminate owns PupilPath, which has been used in NYC Schools for over a decade (way before Carranza). My school uses it. It sucks. But, it has nothing to do with Carranza. Much like all of the other smears, these stories ring hollow to anyone familiar with our schools. Yes, Carranza does a lot of implicit bias training. But, I’ve never heard any of the trainers use the term “toxic whiteness.” The Post just wants to sell more stories to the aggrieved, white, lumpenproletariate of Staten Island. Honestly, nobody is buying it. Nonetheless, I think it is starting to rattle Carranza.
ReplyDeletePar for the course. It is all a scam. Why is this issue any different. The chancellor does what he wants. The uft says nothing. Every issue has the same results. But I am buried in jupiter grades, as in excessive paperwork, with a hitman principal, as students are graduating after doing 4 years of nothing. This is why the uft is worthless.
ReplyDeleteI say good. All of our complaints fall on deaf ears despite what we are paying the union. They continue to ignore. If I have to email The Post directly to let them know what is going on, I will. All fraud. If only the public knew...
ReplyDeleteMulgrew and UFT leadership laugh, get paid, and don't deal with the abuse, we suffer.
ReplyDeleteI know the administrators at the DOE, including the Deblasio, are corrupt and immoral so I believe the exposure of the nonsense is just desserts. I do find it curious though, as to why the NY Post is going after Carranza. Why expose all this nonsense now but not before? The administrators in the DOE will continue to be corrupt and immoral after Carranza is gone. Will the NY Post continue to report? There are plenty of other topics, in addition to Carranza, that should be exposed.
ReplyDeleteTime to break it up and establish local control. An educational Tammany Hall is what you've got,
ReplyDeleteIf Di Blasio hires you.....well....you know.
ReplyDeleteLook a few pages back, a teacher wrote a many paragraph diatribe about grade fraud...What happened to that? If this were based on legit numbers, the DOE would be long shut down. 18 year old students who can't write a sentence. If it wasn't so sad I would laugh.
ReplyDeleteI know why, what carranza is doing, what the doe is writing, it is against the law. Hiring or seeking men of color, it is against eeoc regs. Now i know why the open market has never worked for me.
ReplyDeleteInvestigators getting arrested, drunk driving, smoking on the job, smoking weed. Can you imagine if roles were reversed? Hiring people without a license. I have been assaulted on the job. Uft had no response. I'm all for exposing the sham.
ReplyDeleteWith Chancellor Richard Carranza focused on race instead of achievement, why hasn’t the state Board of Regents stepped in to censure Carranza for his comments about ‘toxic whiteness’ and remind taxpayers about all the money he wasted on consultants pushing Louis Farrakhan-level garbage?”
ReplyDeleteHere are more questions: Since Mayor de Blasio defends Carranza, shouldn’t the legislature use its oversight power to find out if mayoral control is permitting Carranza to engage in racism, as some employees allege?
Why has Gov. Cuomo, who promised to be the students’ lobbyist, been silent? Doesn’t he want to know if the mayor and chancellor are making key decisions on the basis of race and ethnicity?
If white privilege explained everything, please tell me how seven out of eight of the recent National Spelling Bee champions were Indian Americans. If skin color was the scourge of people of color, they would not be able to succeed. Why did they succeed? Because they studied their butts off and that's what inner city kids have to start doing.
ReplyDeleteSorry to go off topic, but I have a question I'm hoping someone can answer about Tuesday for Elementary teachers. Having an argument with UFT. This Tuesday is a clerical day for Elementary schools to transfer records and such for next years classes. In reference to Extended day time, do we work the 75 minutes of extended day or is it a 6 hr 50 min. day? I say it's a non-student attendance day and therefore 6 hrs. 50 mins. UFT is saying it's a clerical day (not PD) and therefore we work the extended day time. The UFT was unclear about whether or not it is still 40min parent engagement and 35 min other professional work. They seemed to imply to us that we just had to do the longer time. Any help would be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteIt’s clear. The attacks on the specialized high schools is why this targeted attack is happening. Take down the man who wants to change the system.
ReplyDeleteYou dont think this should be exposed? Could you image someone calling black people toxic?
ReplyDeleteDiBlasio is happy for the distraction - he doesn’t want the Post finding out that the vast majority of 2019 NYCDOE hs grads are functionally illiterate.
ReplyDeleteLet's go to the contract Unity Must Go. If we are going literally that tomorrow is not a professional development day and school is not in session, then the contract does not cover a clerical day. Only PD and if school is in session are covered. UFT I guess will not push it that it is more like a PD Day than a day when school is in session.
ReplyDeleteContract copied below:
(b) On Tuesdays when school is in session there will be a 75-minute block
immediately following the conclusion of the school day that consists of 40-minutes for
Parent Engagement activities as set forth below in section c of this section B(1),
immediately followed by a 35 minute block of time for Other Professional Work as set
forth section d of this section B(1). If less than the entire 40-minute block of time is
taken up by Parent Engagement activities, then the time will be utilized for Other
Professional Work as set forth Section D of this Article.
(c) On Wednesday through Friday, the day shall begin no earlier than 8:00 a.m. and
end no later than 3:45 p.m.
(d) On citywide professional development days the workday shall be 6 hours and 50
minutes.
carranza feeling the heat this is not houston or sf
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the Chancellor did not call White people toxic. That is a complete misrepresentation of the truth. And if anything, he is working against a corrupt system not contributing to it. The attacks on him and his character reveal the truth about NYC. Those who stand to benefit from the status quo do not want anything to change. His job is to change things so that each student has an equal opportunity to succeed. And given a history of blatant inequities, what each student needs to be successful may look very different and may even seem unfair. But this is where the bias training enters into play, without a balanced perspective of historical, social, economic, & racial realities that have produced a NYC school system that does not meet the needs of all students, teachers put the onus on students and therefore tend to alienate rather than include. The training is not about demonizing white people, it is about understanding the impact that whiteness has had on our educational system and the students it serves. It's about understanding why extra efforts around inclusive practice are necessary and the morally right thing to do.
ReplyDelete"It is about understanding the impact that whiteness has had on our educational system and the students it serves."
ReplyDeleteWhat a load of bullshit. Blame the whiteness for the kids not learning.
This sounds like a DOE idiot is commenting.
This is what will work...If the students can't write standard English, they don't advance. Period. No funny grading policies, excuses because they tried, or because they are too old.
ReplyDeleteWhat is whiteness 1:24?
ReplyDeleteNo 4:20. If they can't write standard English it is because the English is too white. We've had to pass all kids since Bloomberg. Now the rationale is getting nutty.
ReplyDelete1:24
ReplyDelete"His job is to change things so that each student has an equal opportunity to succeed."
Do you expect Carranza to convince people to stop having children out of wedlock? Convince fathers to take responsibility for their children?
What each student needs to be successful is a family that instills morals, dignity, a respect for education, and self-reliance.
1 24
ReplyDeleteyour comments say it all and the real reason for the insanity regarding students of color or brown students. The political hacks will spin it every which way but all should read your post which is really the definition of the pains suffering by students and teachers alike.
Anyone who uses the pretentious, idiotic term "whiteness" should be driven out of town.
ReplyDelete