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Leonie Haimson: What Matters Most in Really Reforming Our Schools: Must Watch!

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2018 //
12

Leonie Haimson is a true school reformer, unlike the hedge funders, tycoons, and entrepreneurs who have falsely claimed that title. She is a dedicated education activist who has led the fight over many years for fully funded public schools and student privacy.

In this video, she talks with veteran journalist Bob Herbert about the mistakes of those in power who rely on standardized testing as the sole definition of success, about segregation, about the damage wrought by charter schools, and about the changes that will benefit all students.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York City, Privatization, Testing

Join Me at the Class Size Matters Dinner in NYC June 19

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2018 //
1

Leonie Haimson is executive director and founder of Class Size Matters. In addition to advocating for reduced class size, Leonie is a nationally recognized defender of student privacy and has won notable battles against data mining. She is also the most effective education activist in the city of New York. I am a member of her board.

I hope you will join us on June 19 for the annual dinner to benefit Class Size Matters.

Please reserve your seat now for our Annual Skinny Award dinner on Tuesday June 19. We will be honoring four tremendous individuals who have given us the “real skinny” on NYC public schools:

Council Member Danny Dromm, Chair of the Finance Committee & former Education Chair

Norm Scott, retired teacher and
blogger/videographer extraordinaire

Fred Smith, testing expert and critic

And a surprise honoree who will be announced at the event!

Join us on June 19, 2018 at 6 PM at Casa La Femme, 140 Charles St. in Greenwich Village, for a delicious three course meal with a glass of wine and great company!

This is always one of the most joyous events of the year, where we celebrate our victories and gain strength for the challenges to come. Buy your tickets today.

Even if you can’t make it, please consider making a contribution at the above link in honor of these terrific awardees, and to support our work going forward.

Hope to see you at the Skinnies, and thanks! Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539

Make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!

Categories Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Education Reform, Privacy and Privacy Rights

Leonie Haimson: Parent Activists Win a Temporary Restraining Order to Prevent NYC ED from Closing PS 25

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2018 //
14

Parents have been outraged by the New York City Department of Education’s policy of closing schools as a “reform” strategy. They were especially outraged by the decision to close PS 25 in Brooklyn. The DOE says it is “under enrolled,” which it is, but it is one of the most successful elementary schools in the city. Since it is doing such a good job, why not recruit more students instead of closing it? One answer: closing it would allow Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter school to take over the entire building.

Leonie Haimson led an effort to save PS 25. She got a lawyer to sue the DOE pro bono, and yesterday her group won a temporary restraining order which will likely save PS 25 for at least another year. If the DOE comes to its senses, it may save the school, period.

The judge ” seemed impressed with our research showing how all the other 33 schools DOE offered these students to apply to 1- all had far lower positive impact ratings 2- many of them were miles away, 19 of the schools in Staten Island alone 3- 25 were overcrowded, and 4- none had class sizes as small as PS 25. And the DOE has not offered to provide busing for the students.

“In short, she was impressed that in most every other proposal to close schools, the DOE had promised higher performing schools that students could apply to, but they didn’t in this case, because according to DOE’s own estimation, there are only three other public elementary schools as good as PS 25 in the entire city and they are full.

“In fact, the City itself admitted in their response papers to the lawsuit that according to the school performance dashboard, PS 25 is the “second best public elementary school in Brooklyn and the fourth best in the City, and that PS 25 outperforms charter school other than Success Academy Bronx 2 in its positive impact on student achievement and attendance.”

Why in the world should the city close one of its highest performing schools? The Bloomberg administration closed scores of schools, routinely, without a second thought.

Good work, Leonie!

PS: The annual dinner of Leonie Haimson’s organization, Class Size Matters, will hold its annual fundraising dinner on June 19. All are invited to attend. The price is modest, as these dinners go. Invitation to follow.

Categories Class Size Matters Org, Closing schools, New York City, Resistance

Last-Minute Change of Restaurant for Class Size Matters!

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2017 //
0

If you live in or near New York City, I hope you will join me, Leonie Haimson, and others who fight for better public schools at the annual Class Size Matters dinner on June 20.. At the event, Leonie gives out the Skinny Award (not the Broad Prize) to champions of public schools.

There is a change of location, due to sudden closing of restaurant where originally scheduled. Bet this doesn’t happen at the Broad awards!

There is a last minute change in the venue of the annual Class Size Matters dinner, to be held this Tuesday, June 20 at 6:30 PM.

Leonie writes:

The dinner will now be held here:

Casa La Femme, 140 Charles St., New York 10014

Map here: https://goo.gl/maps/NiQiePw2vLS2

I have informed all those who have already signed up. If you haven’t yet signed up, but intend to come, please do so as soon as possible. I will try to accommodate last minute attendees but it’s especially unpredictable this year, given the change in venue.

You can purchase your tickets here: https://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?etid=9954

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director
Class Size Matters

124 Waverly Pl.

New York, NY 10011
phone: 212-529-3539/917-435-9329
leonie@classsizematters.org

http://www.classsizematters.org

Follow on twitter @leoniehaimson

Make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters

Subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates on class size and related issues at http://tinyurl.com/kj5y5co

Subscribe to NYC education list: email nyceducationnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Categories Class Size Matters Org

Join Me at the Skinny Awards Dinner in NYC on June 20

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2017 //
2

Please join me at the Skinny Awards to benefit Class Size Matters on June 20.

Meet your fellow fighters for public schools!

If you need partial aid to attend, let Leonie know. Leoniehaimson@gmail.com

Categories Class size, Class Size Matters Org

An Organization Fighting to Protect Student Data Privacy: Please Help!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2016 //
5

Please consider a gift to Class Size Matters, an organization that fights for smaller classes and for student data privacy. Its leader, Leonie Haimson, is a national leader in the movement against data mining of student i.d. Leonie works full-time for no salary or remuneration. Every dollar you give goes to programs and activities.

 

I belong to only two boards: one is the Network for Public Education; please join us as a member and consider a gift. The other is Class Size Matters. Please consider a year-end gift to both.

 

To My Friends, 

Please consider giving to Class Size Matters; a remarkably streamlined and effective non-profit on whose board I serve, that relies on the contributions of parents, teachers and concerned citizens just like you.

 

Your support will help the organization continue its work to ensure that all public school students in this city, state and nation are provided with small classes in uncrowded buildings, with sufficient individual attention from their teachers, and that parents can protect their children’s education data from breach and misuse.

 

This year the organization accomplished several important goals:

 

First on privacy: In 2014, Class Size Matters spearheaded a successful state and national effort to defeat inBloom, the $100 million Gates-funded corporation designed to collect and share the personal data of students in nine states and districts. inBloom closed its doors in 2014 when NY State passed a law against it – the last state to pull out.

 

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which Class Size Matters helped start after inBloom’s demise, is now leading the national effort to oppose the dangerous, Gates-funded campaign to overturn the federal ban against the US Department of Education collecting the personal data of public school students, from birth to preK through high school and beyond. If this ban were overturned, it could allow the federal government to track and create a dossier of sensitive information on nearly every American family – a dangerous threat to the privacy and civil liberties of us all.

 

As part of the 2014 law that caused inBloom to close, the NY State Education Department was required to appoint a Chief Privacy Officer who would create a comprehensive Parent Bill of Privacy Rights with input from parents and other stakeholders. This fall, Class Size Matters helped convince the NY State Education Department to finally appoint a Chief Privacy Officer as the law requires. The group also persuaded NYSED to rescind their decision to send all the personal data of the state’s public school students into the NY state archives, where it would have remained for up to a hundred years, vulnerable to being publicly released or misused.

 

Class Size Matters is also continuing to advocate for smaller classes and less overcrowding in our public schools. NYC added nearly a billion dollars to the school capital plan last spring to build more schools, in part because of their advocacy. The organization’s analysis revealed that the DOE had hugely underestimated the need for new seats. New reports and strategies to address the class size and overcrowding crisis in our public schools will be released this year.

 

In October, the NY Appellate Court ruled unanimously that the DOE must open School Leadership Team meetings to members of the public in a lawsuit in which Class Size Matters intervened. These teams, composed of half parents, are an essential part of the school governance system and have an important role in decision-making, and thus full transparency must be required. (A fact sheet that you can post in your schools or forward to parents and teachers is here.)

 

In November, the organization held a very successful citywide parent conference, including guest speakers Comptroller Scott Stringer, Council Member Danny Dromm and education advocate Robert Jackson. Workshops were offered on fighting privatization, parent organizing on school overcrowding, perspectives on diversity, and more.

 

At the national level, given the priorities of Donald Trump and his pick of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, we must all work together to protect our public schools from privateers and profiteers who want to defund and dismantle our public schools. Supporting Class Size Matters is more critical than ever before, in the fight for adequate, equitable and well-funded public schools.

 

Please contribute to Class Size Matters. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. If you’d like the donation to go to the organization’s efforts to protect student privacy, please note that on the check or in the comment box online.

 

Yours,

 

Diane Ravitch

 

 

Categories Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Education Reform, Privacy

You Are Invited to the “Skinny Awards” in NYC on June 9, Hosted by Class Size Matters

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2016 //
2

Class Size Matters will hold its annual “Skinny Awards” (the opposite of the Broad awards) in New York City on June 9. Unlike the Broad awards, which come with a prize of $1 million or so, the Skinny awards are accompanied by a lucite figure and the priceless gratitude of many. Class Size Matters fights for smaller classes, research-based practices, and student privacy.

 

You are invited!

 

Please click on the link to reserve your seat for this wonderful event.

 

 

I will be there, along with Leonie Haimson and other friends and allies who fight for better schools for all.

 

 

 

 

Class Size Matters Annual

 

“Skinny” Awards Dinner

 

 

When: Thursday, June 9 at 6:30 PM
Where: Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco
191 7th Ave (21st St)
New York, NY 10011

 

 
A fundraiser for Class Size Matters

Please join us to honor

investigative reporter Juan Gonzalez

with a Lifetime “Skinny”award

and

former Bronx member of the Panel for Educational Policy

Robert Powell

 

 

An opportunity to enjoy a four course dinner with wine

 

 

Tickets: $250 – Defender of Public Education

 

$150 – Patron

 

$75 – Supporter

 

Categories Class Size Matters Org

Leonie Haimson: The Woman Who Stopped Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and the Ed Profiteers

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2013 //
19

Below is a letter from Leonie Haimson, who was previously added to the honor roll of this blog for fighting for students, parents, and public education.

Leonie almost singlehandedly stopped the effort to mine student data, whose sponsors wanted confidential and identifiable information about every child “for the children’s sake.” Leonie saw through that ruse and raised a national ruckus to fight for student privacy. Privacy of student records is supposedly protected by federal law (FERPA), but Arne Duncan weakened the regulations so that parents could not opt out of the data mining.

It is not over. The Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation put up $100 million to start inBloom, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation got the contract to develop the software, and amazon.com plans to put it on a “cloud.” They will be back. We count on Haimson and the many parents she has inspired to remain vigilant on behalf of our children. As a grandparent of a child in second grade in a Brooklyn public school, I have a personal interest in keeping his information private.

Here is Leonie’s letter, written 12/20/13:

Dear folks,

I have good news to report! Yesterday, Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NYS Assembly, along with Education Chair Cathy Nolan and fifty Democratic Assemblymembers sent a letter to Commissioner King, urging him to put a halt to inBloom.

“It is our job to protect New York’s children. In this case, that means protecting their personally identifiable information from falling into the wrong hands,” said Silver. “Until we are confident that this information can remain protected, the plan to share student data with InBloom must be put on hold.”

Why is this important? Because Speaker Silver and the Democrats in the Assembly appoint the Board of Regents, as the Daily News noted. The Regents control education policy in New York, and appoint the commissioner.

We have begun to make real headway in the past year against inBloom, but we need your support so we can continue the fight for student privacy and smaller classes in the public schools.

We count on donations from individuals like you as our main source of funding. If you appreciate our work and want it to continue and grow stronger, please give a tax-deductible contribution right now by clicking here: http://www.nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=1757 or sending a check to the address below.

I am proud to have been called “the nation’s foremost parent expert on inBloom and the current threat to student data privacy.” We were the first advocacy group in the nation to sound the alarm about inBloom’s plan to create a multi-state database to be stored on a vulnerable data cloud run by Amazon.com with an operating system built by Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify. The explicit goal of inBloom was to package this information in an easily digestible form and offer it up to data-mining vendors without parental consent.

In February, inBloom formally launched as a separate corporation, and nine states were listed as “partners.” We worked hard to get the word out through blogging, personal outreach to parent activists and the mainstream media. After protests erupted in states throughout the country, inBloom’s “partners” pulled out. Now, eight out of these states have severed all ties with inBloom or put their data sharing plans on indefinite hold.

Sadly, as of yesterday, New York education officials were still intent on sharing with inBloom a complete statewide set of personal data for all public school students– including names, addresses, phone numbers, test scores and grades, disabilities, health conditions, disciplinary records and more. To stop this, we helped to organize a lawsuit on behalf of NYC parents which will be heard in state court on January 10 in Albany (note the new date), asking for an immediate injunction to block the state’s plan. (The state has delayed the hearing in order to gain more time to respond to our legal briefs.)

In addition, we will continue our work on the critical issue of class size. As a result of our reports, testimonies and public outreach, we have been able to shine a bright light on what many consider to be the most shameful aspect of Mayor Bloomberg’s education legacy: the fact that class sizes in NYC have increased sharply over the last six years and are now the largest in the early grades since 1998. More on this issue is in my Indypendent article just published, called Grading the Education Mayor

Class sizes have increased every year, despite the fact that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case was supposedly “settled” by a state law in 2007 that required NYC to reduce class sizes in all grades. As a result, 86% of NYC principals say they are unable to provide a quality education because classes are too large. Parents say that smaller classes are their top priority according to the Department of Education’s own surveys. There is no more critical need than smaller classes if the city’s children are to have an equitable chance to learn.

But class size is not just a critical issue in NYC public schools. Because of budget cuts, class sizes have risen sharply throughout the state and the nation as a whole. In more than half of all states, per-pupil funding is lower than in 2008 and school districts have cut 324,000 jobs.

At the same time, more and more money is being spent by billionaires and venture philanthropists on bogus “studies” to try to convince states and districts that class size doesn’t matter and public funds should be spent instead on outsourcing education into private hands – despite much rigorous research showing the opposite to be true.

With vendors trying to grab your child’s data in the name of providing “personalized” instruction – a euphemism that really means instruction delivered via computers and data-mining software in place of real-life teachers giving meaningful feedback in a class small enough to make this possible — our efforts are more crucial than ever before.

Please make a donation so that our work can continue and be even more effective in 2014.

Thanks for your support and Happy New Year,

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320

Categories Arts Education, Class Size Matters Org, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privacy and Privacy Rights

If You Are in New York City, Join Me to Discuss “Reform” on September 11

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2013 //
10

I will be discussing my new book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools” at Judson Memorial Church, near New York University, on September 11 at 6 pm.

The event is sponsored by Class Size Matters and New Yorkers for Great Public Schools

Wednesday, Sept.11th

6-7:15 PM at Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square South, Manhattan

Trains: A, B, C, D, E, F, M to W 4th St.

N, R to 8 St.; #6 to Astor Place; #1 to Sheridan Sq.

New Yorkers are ready for a new direction for public education, and as the whole country watches our mayoral election, Ravitch will discuss how we can move away from failed policies of the past and towards a successful school system that will work for every student. A question and answer session will follow.

  

 

 

 

 

 

RSVP at http://reignoferror-eorg.eventbrite.com/

Or call 212-328-9271 for more information

Categories Class Size Matters Org, Corporate Reformers, New York City, U.S. education

“A Danger to National Security: Mainstream Education Reporting”

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2013 //
3

Last night, I attended the 5th annual Skinny awards, hosted by Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters. A large and enthusiastic crowd cheered this year’s winners: teacher bloggers Gary Rubinstein and Arthur Goldstein.

Gary Rubinstein teaches at Stuyvesant High School. He was honored as a great blogger, with special mention of his deconstruction and demolition of NYC’s “teacher data reports.” Gary showed that they were random and worthless.

Here is his latest post: http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/06/17/wisdom-from-a-2012-cm-it-doesnt-matter-what-their-scores-are/

Arthur Goldstein teaches at Frances Lewis High School. He blogs at http://nyceducator.com/.
Arthur writes with the most amazingly sardonic wit. He has roasted the Powers-that-be to well-done in a thousand different ways. I used to think I was first to say that VAM was “junk science,” but Leonie said that a careful review demonstrated that Arthur beat me to it. (Apparently Michael Simpson of the Office of General Counsel at the NEA was truly first in the world to label VAM junk science, in an article titled “L.A. Story: How the Los Angeles Times used junk science to malign an entire city of teachers).

I would have an impossible time picking out his best blogs. Here are a few recent ones. Here you will read about the most perfect mayor ever of all time and any place, whose reforms have transformed NYC into utopia. Here is his latest on our state commissioner John King, who is referred to sometimes as Reformy John, as here, but sometimes as King John. And here he shows the genius of both. And those are only the latest. He has been skewering the mighty for years and has been an inspiration to people like me.

Surprisingly, when these two accepted their awards, they switched roles. Arthur, the wit, spoke briefly and modestly. Gary, the serious mathematician and data cruncher, delivered a hilarious spoof. He used reformer language to describe the terrible crisis stalking the land: mediocre education journalism. He explained that bloggers emerged to save readers trapped into failing mainstream media. He said that scientific evidence conclusively demonstrated….something about three times in a row or three times as much.

Watch the video (luckily, Norm Scott was there to tape the event). I hope Gary prints his speech on his blog. If you have trouble hearing him, it is because the audience was laughing so much.

Categories Class Size Matters Org, Humor
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