As promised, there is more about the most inept AP ever, Rajendra Jimenez Jailall.


As has been previously reported on this pages, Mr J, or as he was affectionately known, Mr Bowtie, had promised me a demo lesson which never came to fruition. In his cross examination at my 3020-a hearing Mr J was asked;

"Do you recall if Mr. Zucker asked you during that post observation conference if you could provide him with a demo lesson?"

Mr J, being the man that he is replied;

"Not to my knowledge. Whether he asked for it, but we had Teacher's College working in the building and there was an opportunity for demonstration lessons to occur, but I don't remember that specifically."

Now mind you, the first time I asked for a demo lesson from Mr J was November 9, 2012. At this point I had zero staff development on the Cult of Lucy Calkins nor had a TC hack come to visit me. But I digress. The cross examination continued with him still being asked about me asking for a demo lesson.

Q.You don't remember him specifically asking you to provide him with a demo lesson? Mr J: Right.  Q. And what is a demo lesson to your understanding? Mr J:  That's when someone models a lesson about how to deliver a lesson.

That he doesn't recall, but he remembers the notebooks. Let's refresh his memory.

Listen here as Mr J promises me a demo lesson on November 9, 2012. 

But maybe we should give Mr J the benefit of the doubt, no? Perhaps he misremembered? What about when I asked him on January 31, 2013 for a demo lesson (Listen here) and his response to my request was;

"Absolutely, but before I do that DR Coviello will send you to a workshop with a TC representative , and we'll talk further on that. But if you want a demonstration lesson from me, fine, OK, (And here he tries to intimidate me in tough guy voice) but whatever I decide to demonstrate you will do it exactly...so we'll talk about it."

I'm still waiting that demo lesson Raj! Where is it? Even the first week of March of 2013 when I asked DR Alison Coviello; Principal and Ed.D. of PS 154 in the Bronx and she replied (listen here!).

I've always believed that I had never received those demo lessons because it went against the grand plan of the conspiracy that DR Alison Coviello; Principal and Ed.D. of PS 154 in the Bronx had hatched against me. But then again Mr J, or Mr Bowtie never gave me those lesson plans because he was just to inept and incompetent to give me a demo lesson.

Listen here as Mr Bowtie attempts to explain how to integrate Character Education and The Cult of Lucy Calkins.

What a maroon. One would assume that Raj would have decided to be a man. How sad.

That's it for now, stay tuned for more fun with audio and the most inept AP ever, Rajendra Jimenez Jailall.

Baseball is a great sport. Think about it. What other sport are you considered great if you fail 70% of the time?

The .300 batting average is what hitters wish to attain. Hit over .300 in a season you did well. Have a lifetime .300 batting average over a career you are considered one of the finest hitters of all time. Of the 18,274 (Including pitchers) players to play Major League Baseball since 1876 only 178 have a lifetime .300 average (Based on 1,000 games played). That is less than 1%!!!!!!!

From the highest, Ty Cobb with a lifetime average of .366 to a lowest .300 on the dot for 11 players, that .300 average is a mark of success.

Even the last player to he .400, Ted Williams in 1941 when he hit .406, failed to get a hit in 60% of his at bats (When I was a kid my dad always said Williams would have hit 800 if he didn't miss 5 years due to military service).

The great Mickey Mantle finished with a career .298 average. Mickey always lamented playing his last two seasons, 1967 and 1968 in which he hit .245 and .237 respectfully (He hit .300 or better 10 times in his career). Take away those two seasons, Mick winds up hitting over .300 lifetime.

The point?

Why is it acceptable for a NYC school to have 80% of it's 5th graders and over 80% of its 3rd graders unable to read or write and then go into middle school where they have no skills at all.

This school? PS 154 in the Bronx, led by that purveyor of all things Lucy Calkin, DR Alison Coviello, Principal and Ed.D, this is what is happening the students on East 135th St in the South Bronx.

These are the scores that came out last week. Of the 57 fifth graders tested at PS 154 31.6% scored a 1 and 54.4% scored a 2. That is over 80% This is acceptable? Yes, 14% scored a 3, but this comes out to only 7.98 students. EIGHT STUDENTS!!!!


In 3rd grade 58 students were tested Of these, 55.2% of the students recieved a 1 and 29.3% a 2. This totals 84% of students out of a class who apparently weren't taught well from K-2 and especially 3rd grade. Again, to be fair, 15.5% received a 3 in 3rd grade, only 8.99 students. NINE STUDENTS!!!

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE IN THE COMMUNITY???

The students and the community of PS 154 are being short changed by a failed writing and reading curriculum brought into PS 154 by DR Alison Coviello; Principal and Ed.d of PS 154 in the Bronx. Can/should DR Alison Coviello; Principal and Ed.d of PS 154 in the Bronx be trusted to impart the right reading and writing program into PS 154 when she has close ties to Lucy Calkins and her failed methodology?

The community of PS 154 needs to know that they can do something. Demand to whomever will listen that an 80 percent failure rate is not acceptable and demand accountability. This is your community, your school, and your children.

Would these scores be acceptable in Scarsdale? HECK NO! How fast would the Scarsdale superintendent clean house? Think about it. So why is it acceptable in the South Bronx?

Because they believe they have a compliant population that will not contradict what they are told and how they are told to think. 

The parents, the community of PS 154, are the only ones capable of taking charge of your child's education. The parents and community are the best and only advocates. But to do this parents must always question what they are told and come up with their own answers.

It is up to the parents and the community to put and end to the NYCDOE allowing a 80% failure rate to be seen as a success. 

If Mickey Mantle had failed to get a hit 80% of the time he would have been a .200 hitter. He would not have lasted in the Majors for 18 years and would not be in the Hall of Fame.

Individual Educational Plans, or IEP's if you will, are sacrosanct. They are mandated by federal law and are legal documents. Sadly, too many manipulate IEP's for their own evil ways and parents are not aware of their rights and how much power they wield.

Several disturbing stories from sources deep within my now former school, PS 154 in the Bronx, have come to The Crack Team in recent weeks alleging monkey business with student's IEP's and services that are mandated to them.

The first allegation, and this was from several sources as well, was a veteran staff member with involved in the IEP's for the last several years at 154 decided that at the end of the 2013-14 school no longer wished to be involved in the IEP process anymore and decided to move on to a different path at PS 154.

A newbie teacher is now the one who make the decisions and she is one who only has an initial certificate. How could this happen?

The Crack Team was informed that upper echelon at PS 154 was allegedly exerting undue pressure of the veteran staff member to manipulate IEP's. This staff member has a conscience. This staff member could no longer deal with unethical requests.

Better yet to have a pliable newbie teacher for administration to work with, no?

The Crack Team has also come across something as equally disturbing.

Allegedly, paras, one to one paras, have been pulled from being with their students this year at PS 154 to give tutoring to students in Reading Rescue.

Allegedly, these tutoring sessions have been happening in the morning and while we here at SBSB applaud any and all methods to help our most troubled students get up to speed we do not believe it should be done at the expense of students whose federally mandated one to one paras are spending less time do what they should be doing by law. We are also troubled that the Cult of Calkins endorses Reading Rescue.

To get around such shenanigans either the IEP's are either being ignored or being changed.

If they are being ignored then that would be not only unethical but can appear to be stealing money. Funds are allocated for paras based on how much time they spend with a student. If said paras are only spending part of the day with the students they work with then the they are not full time paras and the monies for these paras should be cut.

On the other hand, and we have seen it before at PS 154, IEP's are being changed that a student needs his one to one para for only half the day. Of course this is easy to do in the South Bronx where parents are not fully aware of how much power the posses and not knowing the law. Even with this method monies are being spent for full day paras when they are in essence not full day paras.

We at SBSB are quite concerned with these allegations and wish to see a special blue ribbon panel put together by Chancellor Fariña post haste. The children of PS 154 deserve to be protected.

Some teachers from PS 154 have shared some concerns with The Crack Team here at SBSB. The biggest concern is the lack of transparency from Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal when it
comes to the monies being strewn about.

With the register down to the mid 400's this year and losing approximately $125,000 due to the low enrollment teachers and parents should have a right to know how, and on what, Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal spending the schools dwindling coffers.

While this and this give some idea of how monies are being spent, the information is way to convoluted for the average non doctoral person to understand. If only there was an easier way.

That is why the some parents and staff, not the Socs at PS 154, but the Outliers/Greasers want to see the real budget. The real expenditures. As of today, November 18, 2013, teachers have been very concerned that the Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal has failed to provide a copy of the budget since her reign began back in April of 2012. Only when there is full disclosure of the monies spent can those that are asking these pertinent questions be satisfied.

And satisfied they should be. While all welcome professional development, one can ask if the monies are being spent wisely for PD.  In the meantime, Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal had hired several high priced consultants since last year with so far less than desired results.

We can start with Responsive Classroom and its lack of change this year at PS 154 in the Bronx. Reports have come into the SBSB newsroom that discipline is still a major problem at the school and that several students have been in danger. How much money was spent on RC to do 4 straight days of PD in school the last 4 days of June? How much does the entire program cost? How much does it cost for the staff developers from RC to come into the school and to support the school?

More importantly, what is being paid to Teachers College and Lucy Calkins for the Readers and Writers Workshop method? Thus far this year a TC trainer has been in the school almost 4x a week for almost every week of the year. This was pretty much the same last year. How much is Calkins and TC receiving? What is the length of the contract? What are the terms of the contract? Should not the staff and the community of PS 154 in the Bronx know such things? Surely in Scarsdale or Harrison there is transparency.

As was reported on these pages in August, not only is Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal a disciple of Lucy Calkins, but was at one time an adjunct professor at Teachers College as well. Who are her loyalty's to? The students, or Lucy's bottom line? Especially due to the DOE willing to pay for the full non-approved TC Common Core aligned curriculum. Yet, Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal would rather spend the schools money on something that has no produced results.

With Calkins way of failure Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal has allowed the students of PS 154 in the Bronx to display grammatically incorrect, rambling, misspelled, punctuated work being considered as "finished".

Calkins stole Donald Graves' work, created a "program" she could sell to the masses. By creating a calendar and strictly scheduling it, she made it work for her PD people. She needs to have all of the teachers on the same page when her hacks appear because it works for THEM. You don't schedule it and script it. As soon as you do that, it stops being workshop - it becomes just another program! 

As far as the Coaches" - they are in no way experts in literacy. Almost none are literacy certified. Their "expertise" is their ability to  parrot Lucy. They all sound exactly alike. They speak with the same high falutin, condescending tone in their voices, they imitate that irritating Lucy hand action and if you ask them a question they can't answer from the script , they get quite nasty.  But what comes across are the coaches are like "Herb Tarlek" or salesman or saleswomen for the product than knowledgeable literacy experts they think they are. 

So why then is Dr Alison Coviello; PhD. and Principal involved with such a racket? Some have suggested that she might be kicking money back to Lucy Calkins. Or some have said she is just too stubborn to see the failure of Calkins. But at the very least there is a perception of a conflict of interest. 

So the old saying goes, show us the money!

From the files of "You Can't Make This Shit Up!" comes the new 1st grade ELA Learning and Listening strands.

Yeah, I know that there is supposed to be literacy used with this, but we are not sharing the books The Crack Team shared with the students while attempting to make some type of rhyme and reason with
this crap.

Our first student comes to us from Scotia NY. His name is Barry Rosenberg. Barry is in 1st grade and loved Kindergarten. The Crack Team at SBSB recorded and transcribed Barry's responses.


18. Compare and contrast (orally or in writing) similarities and differences within a single fiction read-aloud or between two or more fiction read-alouds;  

 My book that Ms Smith had is big, the two books, bigger

19. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure;  

I poop my pants.

20. Plan, draft, and edit a narrative retelling of a fiction read-aloud, with a title, characters, some details regarding the plot, the use of temporal words to signal event order, and some sense of closure;  

My daddy uses temporal words when he see Obama on TV and another time when he burned his hand

21. With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed;  

I have to make pee

22. With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including collaboration with peers;

I ate peers at lunch than i make a doody and I see the peers again.


And for those schools that still use that cult of learning from Lucy Calkins and Teachers College a 1st grade student, Chaim Rosenbaum, from an unnamed school on East 135th Street in the Bronx.

Remember, as before, the student either gave an adult the responses verbally or wrote the responses. In both cases a member of The Crack Team at SBSB transcribed the responses on tese pages, verbatim.

18. Compare and contrast (orally or in writing) similarities and differences within a single fiction read-aloud or between two or more fiction read-alouds;  

DFJSJDFuwfhHuq!!! gjojowoj ojojwofjwojf owjdfowjfwojwlldledlodlodol,l9378383jdcmsxhdf.

19. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure;  

wdfqsfwfgafgeqgwegeg! GAGAGA$#@?()SHf

20. Plan, draft, and edit a narrative retelling of a fiction read-aloud, with a title, characters, some details regarding the plot, the use of temporal words to signal event order, and some sense of closure;  

 rfaaa

21. With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed;  

peepee

22. With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including collaboration with peers;

cvbmoiofgfgffffffffffffffff

So here I am on Saturday on I-81 driving north just outside of Binghamton on my way to Skaneateles. My wife is on her iPhone doing whatever as is my son. I am left alone to listen to flip between the Sirius channels.

One can do a lot of pondering in such a situation. I did. I pondered, or was it wondered, or was it
daydreaming, that the Godfather movie (or even organized crime) is a lot like what we are seeing now in education amongst the deformers. Think about it, we're fighting against a crime family.

So what if the Godfather movie and the Corleone's were involved in education reform. Let's take a look.

Be sure to read the last fantasy or parody all the way at the bottom.

Michael: My credit good enough to buy you out?
Moe Greene: Buy me out?  [Fredo laughs nervously] 
Michael: The school, the playground. The Corleone Family wants to buy you out. 
Moe Greene: The Corleone Family wants to buy me out? No, I buy you out, you don't buy me out.  Michael: Your school loses money, maybe we can do better. 
Moe Greene: You think I'm skimmin off the top, Mike? 
Michael: [Michael shakes his head] You're unlucky. 
Moe Greene: You goddamn guineas you really make me laugh. I do you a favor and take Freddie in when you're having a bad time, and now you're gonna try and push me out! 
Michael: You took Freddie in because the Corleone Family bankrolled your charter school, and the Molinari Family on the Coast guaranteed his teaching position. Now we're talking business, let's talk business. 
Moe Greene: Yeah, let's talk business, Mike. First of all, you're all done. The Corleone Family don't even have that kind of muscle anymore. The Godfather's sick, right? You're getting chased out of New York by Barzini Charter School and the other Families charters. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my charter school and take over? I talked to Barzini - I can make a deal with him, and still keep my charter school! 
Michael: Is that why you slapped my brother around in public? 
Fredo: Aw, now that, that was nothin', Mike. Moe didn't mean nothin' by that. Yeah, sure he flies off the handle every once in a while, but me and him, we're good friends, right Moe? 
Moe Greene: I got a business to run. I gotta kick asses sometimes to make it run right. We had a little argument, Freddy and me, so I had to straighten him out. 
Michael: You straightened my brother out?  Moe Greene: He was banging erasers against the board two at a time! Students couldn't get any work at the table! What's the matter with you? 
Michael: I leave for New York tomorrow, think about a price. 
Moe Greene: Sonofabitch! Do you know who I am? I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders! 
Fredo: Wait a minute, Moe, Moe, I got an idea. Tom, you're the Consiglieri and you can talk to the Don, you can explain... 
Tom Hagen: Now hold it right there. The Don is semi-retired and Mike is in charge of the Family business now. If you have anything to say, say it to Michael. 
Fredo: [Moe Greene leaves] Mike! You do not come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that! 
Michael: Fredo, you're my older brother, and I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.


Michael: Well, when Johnny was first starting out as a teacher, he was signed to a personal services contract with this big high school. And as his career got better and better, he wanted to get out of it. But the principal wouldn't let him. Now, Johnny is my father's godson. So my father went to see this bandleader and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the principal said no. So the next day, my father went back, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, he had a signed release for a certified check of $1000.
Kay Adams: How did he do that?
Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Kay Adams: What was that?
Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.
Kay Adams: ...
Michael: ...That's a true story.
Michael: That's my family Kay, that's not me.

Tom Hagen: Sollozo is known as the Turk. He's supposed to be very good with a number 2 pencil . But only in matters of business, or of some sort of reasonable complaint. His business is testing. He has the field testing in Turkey, where they create the tests. In Sicily he has the plant to print the tets. He needs cash and he needs protection from the communities for which he gives a piece of the action, I couldn't find out how much. The Tattaglia Family is behind him here in New York so they have to be in it for something.
Don Corleone: What about his prison record?
Tom Hagen: Two terms, one in Italy, and one here. He's known as a top testing man.
Don Corleone: Santino, what do you think?
Sonny: There's a lot of money in that testing.
Don Corleone: Tom?
Tom Hagen: Well, I say yes. There is more money potential in testing than anything else we're looking at now. If we don't get into it, somebody else will, maybe one of the Five Families, maybe all of them. And with the money they earn they'll be able to buy more deformers and political power. Then they come after us. Right now we have the unions under control and we have the charters and those are the best things to have. But testing is a thing of the future. If we don't get a piece of that action we risk everything we have. Not now, but ten years from now.
Sonny: Well, what's your answer gonna be, Pop?

Don Zaluchi really hits the nail on the head in what the deformers, the politicians, the principals without souls, the TFA's, the TC's really think and believe. 

Don Zaluchi could be anybody we know. Uncle Mike, Sock Puppet Walcott, Governor Andy, Lucy Calkins, a pretentious principal, Whitney Tilson, Evan Stone. The list can go on and on...

Don Zaluchi: I also don't believe in Ed Reform. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, "I have Ed Reform; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing their programs." So they can't resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable.
[slams his hand on the table and shouts]
Don Zaluchi: I don't want it near charter schools! I don't want it sold to affluent communities! That's an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.

Let's pretend for a moment that someone is offered a brand new 2014, fully loaded Audi A5 Cabriolet and not have to pay a dime. But the person that offered this deal says no thank you and instead wishes to buy for themselves a 1977 Chevy Caprice Classic that barely drives. We would think this person as meshuga, no?

At PS 154 in the Bronx, DR Alison Coviello; PhD and Principal is ignoring that Audi, and all the freebies that come with it and instead wants that Chevy clunker.

As reported on these pages on March 1, the NYC DOE finally fed up with the ignorance that befalls the students of NYC through the usage of Lucy Calkin's cult like Readers and Writers Workshop method of not learning how to read and write, threw Lucy out with the bath water and instead installed recommended curriculum (Or is it curricula? Is there someone with a doctorate pretentous enough to tell me?) attuned to the Common Core.

But I am not here to get into the details other that through NYSTL the DOE will pay for the entirey kit and caboodle for the schools. The textbooks, the curriculum, everything. Those wishing to continue the path of failure are still allowed to use TC but that money comes out of the school's budget.

At PS 154 the path was chosen to go with what has failed in the past, TC. Even though the DOE says that the recommended curriculum (Or curricula, is there a pretentious person that can correct me?) is in place. Curious.

Curious in the fact that TC does not align with the Common Core. Curious in that having the DOE buy our textbooks, etc... that it will free up money to possibly have a full time SETTS or AIS techer, or even a literacy coach, or pencils for the students at PS 154. But what the heck, as long as one can prove they are impervious to those being able to question their decisions.

Or even to do well on the exams. In this audio, of March 5, 2013, DR Alison Coviello; PhD and Principal shares with me that the reason why TC is used at PS 154 is the "test scores."

But that does not seem to make sense. With the ideology of PS 154 in the 2012-2013 school year, TC or bust, and all apostates be damned, teachers in grades 3-5 shared with members of SBSB's Crack Team that nothing they had taught appeared on the ELA exams.

But we had The Crack Team do some investigating and came up with something quite curious. As you listen to the audio, DR Alison Coviello; PhD and Principal says we use TC because, "that is the best program there is." But not only at no time could she articulate why it is so good, but she infers that TC in PS 154 was her decision.

Even though such decisions must be brought up before the school leadership team. Sources from the SLT have told The Crack Team that at no time was TC, or the new recommended curriculi (I know, I am being passive aggressive), were ever brought up to the SLT to make a choice.

But we, the community, the families, or the teachers of PS 154 have no clue about the process of the SLT for we never see the minutes of SLT meetings.  How are decisions made? My consensus? Vote? Fiat?

But, why this devotion to TC from DR Alison Coviello; PhD and Principal? Could it be, and mind you, nothing is being insinuated here, that DR Alison Coviello; PhD and Principal is on the faculty of Teacher's College? Is this not then a conflict of interest?  No one has ever seen a budget for PS 154, is it not natural to question the school's link with TC?


We here at SBSB call for a blue ribbon panel or any panel, or an individual to look into this conflict immediately. The students, the families, and the community of PS 154 deserve this post haste.

We cannot allow our most precious gifts be exposed to failure of Lucy Calkins anymore.

 Does Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD. care as much as she claims she does about the students of PS 154, or does she have some nihilistic agenda to rid the school of teachers she does not care for no matter the cost and damage to the students?

Now the type of teachers that are victims of her nihilistic approach are those that are primarily of color, over the age of 40, due for tenure, make too much money, and possess an independent streak in which they
refuse to sip the laced Kool-Aid Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD serves up.

But The Crack Team has suggested not answer the above concerns on these pages. Rather, it will be you the reader, to decide whether or not Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD had the best interests of the students or the best interests of her agenda at heart.

This past April in the middle of teaching a lesson, a 2nd grade teacher allowed a man into her classroom. This man, unbeknownst to the teacher, was about to serve her with 3020a papers for being incompetent. This teacher received a U rating from Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD in the 2011-2012 school year after Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD had been on the job 7 1/2 weeks.

Now one must ask themselves, how can Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD decide that the teacher in question was unsatisfactory for the year after barely two months of her exalted supervision? And why did Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD feel the need to not only have to humiliate and defile this teacher in the middle of the lesson?

But it gets more interesting.

The next day of course the teacher is removed, the students have no teacher, and of course the parents are not informed immediately of the change. Someone must teach this class, but whom?

Substitutes! Not only the regular run of the mill, hit or miss, substitutes that are ubiquitous in any NYC school, but a special breed of substitute never before seen at PS 154.

The substitutes brought in were white, female, and disciples of Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD, Teachers College, and Lucy Calkins. Now this is important for not only is Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD a disciple of Lucy Calkins but Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD is an adjunct professor at Teachers College as well.

This being a rough class as it was, and the inability of Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD to look at the bigger picture and see how the teacher was an expert in classroom management, needless to say all hell broke loose in this class.

Not only were these special subs in above their heads, but zero instruction and learning was achieved. Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD had to go in there many times to calm the class down, to give support to her disciples, only for the class to revert back to mayhem once she had left.

And this class was not the only class to be affected.

This past school year, the 2nd grade changed classes for math. The students that went to the removed teacher's class ceased going to her for math. All that they had worked for and worked to was all for naught for only but decision of Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD.

 But we should not fault the Teachers College ATR's alone. The normal subs had the same problems.

As did the ATR's, except one, but that ATR was not always assigned nor available to that class. Once, there was an ATR guidance counselor that was assigned to that class.

Worse, during this time of ineptitude, or I meant to say "substitute roulette," Ari Epstein, a smart student, a student that does have some challenges, was removed at the beginning of the day and sent to another 2nd grade class. Ari was never invited in to be with his classmates nor given the chance to show he can behave. His education was crapped upon and I am sure that his mother never was informed of this (Readers please take note of this. The hypocrisy will be unveiled in an upcoming blog post).

But the biggest slap in the face to this class came about at the beginning of June or around that time. The class was permanently split up for the remainder of the year. Not just to 2nd grade classes, but 1st grade as well. What was the point? Who did this benefit? How did this benefit the students, especially the students that spent a month with 1st grade classes? Will these students come into 3rd grade this September behind?

Who is being held accountable for this boondoggle? Why is this allowed to happen? This would never happen in Harrison NY, Scarsdale, Ardsley, Putnam Valley, but this behavior by principals and other administrators is enabled time after time.

It happens because those in charge know that they are dealing with a compliant populace that will not and cannot stand up for its rights. God forbid what was shared on these pages was attempted in Riverdale or Forest Hills.

Now it is up to the readers; decide whether or not Principal, DR Alison Coviello; PhD had the best interests of the students or the best interests of her agenda at heart.

On March 6 we here at SBSB shared the wisdom of Robert Pondiscio and his thoughts on cult leader Lucy Calkins methods of of abusing children with her failed Reader's Workshop. Later that evening I tweeted Robert and asked him if he had ever shared his thoughts on the other abusive Calkins failure, of Writer's Workshop. He indeed did.

A few things stick out in his article. Just for full disclosure, I have been blessed this year to be at several Writer's Workshop workshops given by 25 year old presenters. I have also been blessed with reading those writer's notebooks that Lucy so loves and must say how amazed I am by the writing in these notebooks. Amazed at how all the bad grammar, spelling, and lack of any writing mechanics whatesoever.

Rob wrote, Of course children will be become better writers if they write personal narratives instead of book reports.

I think, I pray he is being sarcastic with that statement. I know he is, but it got me to wondering.

Yes, the students are always supposed to write about that life experience garbage and make a list of what they can write about because "good writes pick stupid fucking things" from their lives to write about. But how does this help you get a job or show that you understand widgets?

Think years down the road when that student that was abused from years of dealing with the Calkins methodology gets a directive from his boss.

"Jones, I need a report on the widgets we're shipping in from Hong Kong tomorrow, stat!"

Jones, wanting to make his boss happy will undoubtedly say, "Yes sir!" and then proceed to sit at his desk staring into space wondering to himself and scratching his head, "What the fuck is a report?"

Jones scours the Internet to find out how to write that report. Sadly, he has no previous knowledge to assist him and he falls back into familiar habits.

He runs to Staples and buys a black marbled notebook, turns to the front page and writes; "Good writers create reports from life experience about widgets."

He lists everything he knows about widgets excepting the widgets arriving in from Hong Kong the next day.

He then puts pen to paper and and writes his first draft of the report. Sadly it is not a report but more a personal narrative of his knowledge of widgets.

With his first draft, he scampers from cubicle to cubicle in the office looking for a colleague to edit the so-called report. His work colleagues, already with a command of the English language and proper writing mechanics, tell him to "piss off!" whilst laughing hardidly at him.

Ashamed, Jones does the best he can to write the report. When his boss reads it and sees that it is not a report but rather a narrative of Jones' experience with widgets the Boss promptly fires him.

Fired, Jones goes home dejected and explains what happened to his pregnant with twins wife. Fed up at last she tells him that she can not be married to someone so ignorant and promptly orders him to leave their home.

With nowhere to go, Jones moves into the local homeless shelter. He is unable to get Unemployment benefits due to being fired for cause and without medical or dental benefits he can't have the gigantic goiter removed from his neck and see a dental professional for his bleeding gums.

With a goiter and no teeth, not one company will hire Jones. Penniless, homeless, and with a new goiter prominently protruding from the other side of his neck, Jones is left to wander the streets of Morningside Heights ruing the day that his idiot principals, who were mesmerized and brainwashed by Lucy Calkins, allowed him to turn into an writing illiterate.

When things just can't get any worse he sees Lucy Calkins get into her $55k car on Amsterdam Ave. At that moment, he figured out what matters most to Lucy. and it was never him or his classmates.

What a week it has been for Lucy Calkins and her cult of failure. Aside from being vilified on these pages twice in one week, yours truly had inquired, when confronted with "the students are not reading and writing" by a self important person high up the NYC DOE chain with the answer, "so why are we using a program like TC then?" Of course that question was met with silence.

But then lo and behold what is it that is gracing the pages of in the Op-Ed section of today's Daily News? Simply, a great piece by former NYC teacher at PS 277 in District 7, Robert Pondiscio ( I wonder if I know him from back in the day).

Robert brought up some really great points in his piece; in fact he educated me a great deal.  Without stepping on his toes, I would like to comment on some of the points he made.

....And the big news is that the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, a “balanced literacy” curriculum developed by literacy guru Lucy Calkins, was left off the city’s recommended list.

It would have been safe and easy to stay the course, since the city has spent tens of millions of dollars on this approach in the last decade. Instead, the Education Department is steering teachers in a different direction.

Here is what I wonder. Though it seems I might have some facts incorrect, it seems from what The Crack Team has picked up thus far it will still be a schools prerogative whether or not they stick with balanced literacy or shift to the new recommended curricula the DOE is introducing. 

Say for instance a school, let's say a school in which the entire administration has been brainwashed into believing balanced literacy works, and the leader of said administration believes the leader itself is never wrong keeps balanced literacy, then what? Should the administration share with the parents not only why but announce that balanced literacy is staying. How can such an administration justify this when up to 70% (numbers that expected) of schools across the city are using the recommended curricula? Who will be held responsible?

The reason for the poor performance is that Calkins and her acolytes have never fully understood the way kids learn to be fully literate.

Like the Tenctonese (Newcomers) finally able to live free, the persecution of NYC's over 1 million  students finally ceased with a whimper rather than a thud.

The NYC DOE is;

...recommending a set of math and English curriculum options for grades K-8 and will spend the coming months supporting principals and teachers in becoming familiar with these new materials. 

Now break out the champagne. None of these options involves Teacher's College, Lucy Calkins, Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop. (Is it just me or am I the only one thinking of the celebrations on Coruscant at the end of Return of the Jedi?)

According to the NYC DOE;

For English Language Arts, the Department is recommending that schools select either NYSED’s Core Knowledge or Pearson’s ReadyGen for grades K-2, either of which could be used by a school as a stand-alone curriculum or paired with the Fundations phonics program. For grades 3-5, the DOE is recommending that schools either continue with ReadyGen or select NYSED’s Expeditionary Learning curriculum. Expeditionary Learning is also recommended for grades 6-8, along with Scholastic’s Codex.  While varying in style and structure, these programs—like those the DOE is recommending in math—hew tightly to the Common Core’s instructional shifts: they include a balance of rigorous fiction and non-fiction texts, build students’ academic vocabulary and knowledge across content areas, and engage students in using evidence from texts to make oral and written arguments.

The Department of Education believes that the selected programs represent the highest-quality Common Core-aligned curriculum materials currently available. They include brand new curriculum materials and materials that are being updated to fully reflect the shifts required by the Common Core standards.

While we here at SBSB cynically assume that these curricula are probably crap, or at the very least, need to be proven, we applaud the fact that Lucy Calkins has probably seen her last case of abusing children in NYC. But we are encouraged by seeing the word PHONICS mentioned and look forward to the day that 8th graders in NYC will have decoding skills. No longer will TC be responsible for making the students of NYC "dumber than wood" as one qualified educators once shared with me.

What of all the students who are suffering through a year, not to mention their entire lives in the NYC public schools, in which they learn nothing due to the incompetency of Lucy Calkins? Who will give them back their lives? Who will give them back all those precious wasted years of not learning and being able to read and write?

Who will give back the careers of teachers forced to teach the horrible Balanced Literacy approach that was used as a sword against them rather than a blanket to protect them? How many sick, twisted principals got off knowing that they set up VETERAN teachers to fail by forcing a known and failed method of teaching our most troubled youths to read, write, and appreciate the written word?

A generation of NYC children will pay the price of a failed experiment. But Lucy Calkins and the $5 million she received last year from the DOE, as well as the close minded administrators that implemented her cult of learning, will not pay the price.

Lucy Calkins and her Balanced Literacy abused children. As teachers, as educators, we are mandated reporters. Is it not mandatory for us to notify the Child Protective Services in Albany or ACS in NYC?

We here at SBSB wish to take some credit towards the eradication of Lucy Calkins. It was here on this very blog that we feel assisted in exposing what Lucy Calkins is and isn't.

So long and be gone Lucy Calkins. Please, stay far away.

We have called for the arrest and prosecution of Lucy Calkins. We have sampled the child abuse of Lucy Calkins methods. We have called for all administrators that buy into Lucy Calkins to be terminated post haste. And we have pulled back the sheath of the Cult of Lucy Calkins.

The sign of insanity is doing what results in failure over and over again and hoping for a different outcome. Apparently if any administrator that relies on anything from Lucy Calkins to improve the reading and writing skills of the students in the charge must be legally insane.

Therefore we hear at SBSB feel it is incumbent on ourselves to advocate, nay, call for, any administrator that believe that after years of failure of the Calkins Method to be legally insane. Of course it goes without saying that Lucy Calkins could be legally insane as well.

So with that being said, please read what my pal The Frustrated Teacher wrote back in 2008; 

So Do Her Methods Work?

Calkins is shaping the education of millions of children, yet no independent research backs the efficacy of her programs. Aside from grumblings from the New York City teachers required to work under her system, there has been remarkably little open debate about the basic premises behind Calkins’s approach, or even feedback on how the programs are faring in the classroom.

What controversy exists generally centers around two concerns: First, her programs do not explicitly teach phonics—which she calls “drill and kill.” She favors a “whole language” approach to literacy, which builds on the premise that reading and writing develop naturally in children. Her detractors argue that this lack of direct instruction leaves many children, especially those who already struggle, at a disadvantage.

The other argument, perhaps resonating with a larger audience, is that her methodology lacks real content, has no reference to any knowledge that should be learned. In The Art of Teaching Reading, she explains that she doesn’t want “all reading and writing to be in the service of thematic studies” but instead seeks to “spotlight reading and writing in and of themselves.” Calkins’s insistence that students should focus mostly on writing about their lives rankles the many educators who believe that curriculum should be focused on content-rich material, and that students should read and write about information outside of their own personal lives. Broadening one’s knowledge base strengthens reading comprehension, builds vocabulary, and deepens knowledge of the world, all of which help students understand the text, but also, as E. D. Hirsch writes, “what the text implies but doesn’t say.”

What has not been openly questioned is the assumption that Calkins has retained her ordinal stance, that it is the teacher’s job to midwife a child’s own, often richly imaginative voice, rather than impose her own. Calkins’s program originally gained its popularity, at least in part, because of its mission to help children make their distinct voices heard. She was known as a champion for flexible, creative teaching, uniquely attuned to children. “If we adults listen and watch closely,” she wrote in 1986, “our children will invite us to share their worlds and their ways of living in the world.” And while this impulse continues to inform aspects of her approach, she has tended over time to become increasingly focused on enforcing her own methodology; many of her techniques limit children’s genuine engagement with reading and writing. This insistence on only one way to do things, not surprisingly, has translated into a demand that teachers quiet their own impulses, gifts, and experiences, and speak in one, mandated voice.

Recently, Common Good, a bipartisan organization committed to “restoring common sense to American law” asked New York City public school teachers to keep a diary for 10 days and consider specifically “how bureaucracy impacts everyday teaching.” The results were presented in a town hall–style meeting attended by more than a hundred educators and union representatives. One of the topics was “mandated teaching,” which referred specifically to the required presence of Calkins and Teachers College in city schools. The responses were almost universally negative.

This entry from a teacher’s diary is typical: “Administrators expect all our reading and writing workshops to adhere to an unvarying and strict script.…For example: ‘Writers, today and everyday you should remember to revise your writing by adding personal comments about the facts.’ Sometimes I feel like I’m a robot regurgitating the scripted dialogue that’s expected of us day in and day out.”
A kindergarten teacher reported how she was instructed to ask her students, on the third day of class, “to reflect on how they’d grown as writers.” She explained that the children were still preoccupied with missing their mothers and felt the assignment was “ridiculous.”

The truth is there isn’t one way to teach writing, or a limited number of ways to have conversations with children about their imaginative work and their lives. Calkins would have done well to heed the counsel of Donald Murray, whose prescient caution she quotes in The Art of Teaching Reading: “Watch out lest we suffer hardening of the ideologies. Watch out lest we lose the pioneer spirit which has made this field a great one.”

Barbara Feinberg is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times and the Boston Globe. She is the author of Welcome to Lizard Motel: Protecting the Imaginative Lives of Children, Beacon Press, 2005.

So, citizens, inform yourselves. Stop voting for a board of education that has no clue about education. Hold your superintendents responsible for implementing mandatory crap and calling it a best practice. Talk to a teacher about this stuff. Find out how we really feel (promise to keep conversations private, because we all fear for our jobs).

UPDATE: There are some folks who really like Lucy Calkins, and they feel as if those of us who rail against it are being unfair, or trying to hurt feelings, or something. This is a pretty silly way to get your point across. If you think Lucy Calkins--a whole language advocate--is the best way to go, then state why, don't whine and say it works for you, therefore it should work for all.
Also, let's make it clear that the program has different assets and liabilities depending on what age students are using the program, the competence of the teacher, the background knowledge of the teacher regarding the teaching of reading and writing (besides LC) and myriad other considerations.

My state scores for my 2nd graders the last 2 years in a row have far exceeded the state, district, and grade-level average in my own school--by and average of 10 points! I shun Lucy Calkins, I shun Everyday Math and Scott Forseman Math. Why am I successful? Honestly, it doesn't take much more than being smart yourself, learning a little theory, finding out what standards need to be met, and then teaching the kids! If you can't do it, well, then, you just can't do it. I believe teachers are born, not molded!

More railing against Lucy Calkins here. Some of the problems folks are having with these reviews are that they emanate from right-wing machines. Just because someone is Right, doesn't make them always wrong. People are simply more complicated than that (yes, simply complicated. it works)!

We here in the past month or so we have taken, and deservedly so, Lucy Calkins to task for her systematic compliance in ruining the lives of NYC's students.

Tonight we welcome a special correspondent attached to The Crack Team with a post on how Lucy Calkins and her cult of failure have ruined not only this guest blogger's students, but the reading process as well.

Administrators advocating for Teachers College Reading and Writing are either completely clueless and lacking common sense or are simply corrupt administrators just playing the game.

Students who have been completely immersed in TC, are having great difficulty in upper grades in reading comprehension and fluency largely due to the fact that they were deprived of phonics instruction in the earlier grades.

My first graders are not  permitted to copy anything from a chart or board. They are not permitted to get formal instruction in Phonics or Grammar. They are not permitted to read from any anthologies. They are not permitted to have skills practice books of any kind. They are not permitted to have "Spelling" words or tests.

What are they permitted to do??

They are permitted to read on their own or with their equally clueless reading partner so that they learn to read "naturally". They are permitted to sit on a filthy carpet most of the day and take notes in their Reading and Writing notebooks. They are permitted to get a short list of "Word Work" words every week that are completely unchallenging. They are permitted to "turn and talk" to the person next to them on what they're thinking during the minilesson. They are permitted to make sure they memorize their reading and writing goals in case the principal comes in to ask them. They are permitted to spend 4 to 5 weeks on a "unit of study" that consists of the most worthless mini-lessons imaginable. They are permitted to have an endless supply of post-its so that they "jot down their thinking." They are permitted to publish a piece of writing completely loaded with spelling and grammatical errors and have a "celebration" to showcase this to administrators and parents.

Get the picture?

We here at SBSB bashed Lucy Calkins and her cult of Teacher's College Reader's and Writer's Workshop on these pages and rightfully so. However, in going through our writings we have discovered we have left one demographic out of our cross hairs. The principals of the schools that enable, or rather disable, the student's of their schools chances to ever read.

We here at SBSB call for charges, removal, and eventual termination of any principal that chooses the TC method of Balanced Literacy as their curriculum in their schools. With the Common Core standards facing us down as educators, why would any principal in their right mind choose TC?

In the New York Times of March 11, 2012, it was reported that;

Children in New York City who learned to read using an experimental curriculum that emphasized nonfiction texts outperformed those at other schools that used methods that have been encouraged since the Bloomberg administration’s early days, according to a new study to be released Monday.

Again, another black eye for Lucy Calkins, TC, Balanced Literacy, and her adherents.

According to studies done by The Crack Team here at SBSB, Balanced Literacy is fine if the students come into school with the skills to read already. If not, these students because of Lucy Calkins are plain shit out of luck. If this is not corporal punishment what is? Therefore we here at SBSB advocate that all principals pushing TC should be brought up on corporal punishment charges post haste!

Remember, this is a system put into place by Joel Klein and Uncle Mike Bloomberg ostensibly to throw teachers under the bus. With the Workshop Model of "NOT" teaching students literacy, it has become very easy to write teachers up for any little nuance away from using the tenets of TC along with the subsequent and predictable drop in test scores that are foreseeable. It becomes easy for these teachers to be easily removed and brought up on incompetency charges. Lucy Calkins and her "program" were USED for how lacking it is. A great scripted program to use to target teachers. This all is a recipe, all unreasonable and designed, to help administrators target teachers.

As one SBSB groupie shared with The Crack Team;

"I could not believe how low the reading levels of my students are this year compared to 10 years ago. TC is an instrument to be used to destroy kids. TC  is used to crapify schools!"

We need to face cold hard facts as educators. LUCY CALKINS IS A SCHEISTER, A GONOFF, A FRAUD!

Schools are diverting money from where it is needed to pour thousands of dollars into the pocket of Lucy Calkins and Teacher's College, rather than spending the money on where it is needed most such as textbooks and skills books. THIS IS HURTING THE CHILDREN OF NYC!

More curious to us here at SBSB is why the NYC DOE on its website contradicts and does not even mention the "greatness" of Balanced Literacy.

Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension are stressed. These are not stressed through Balanced Literacy.

 Even more perplexing is this;

All schools in the NYC Reading First initiative use an Anthology Collection developed by the Harcourt School Publishers. These materials offer explicit, systematic instruction in the essential elements of reading.

Oh, oh Lucy! Seems as if people are paying attention to the crook behind the curtain.

Lucy Calkins and her cult at Teacher's College and in the NYC DOE are damaging the students of NYC in a reprehensible and damaging manner. Because of these people, we are losing an entire generation of kids who will not be able to read properly, let alone write a sentence. It is time that these people be stopped within the confines of the law and legal system without a minute to waste.

Last Monday, the cult of Lucy Calkins and her Teacher's College reading and writing thingy was thoroughly eviscerated on these pages. However in the comments section one lackey defended TC and Lucy Calkins, and while we disagree with this anonymous commenter, we salute this person for bringing up a point that opposing viewpoints must be heard.

With this in mind, and in deference to the above mentioned commenter, we here at SBSB felt that is was not only important, but in the name of fair and balanced reporting, to show the other side of the story, the good work that Lucy Calkins has done with students in the NYC schools.

What better way to show that than inviting a guest blogger to SBSB to share with all how he learned to write through TC's Writer's Workshop model. Let's all give a warm SBSB welcome to Anthony a current freshman at CUNY. Anthony learned to write using the TC method and is proud of the progress he has made. Anthony, with just his words, just his mind, will show us all what Lucy Calkins and TC's Writer's Workshop has done for him. Anthony, we turn the blog over to you.

Thank Yu two the crak teem... It is nicce to bee herere on the blogg and ltting me hve a opprtonitee to right bout how i lrnered tooo wrrtte. Furst thing I wnt ti sai iz that f I liked to lrn to wrter using thwe woikshoppmoddle It lerndd me how two wrtre my felings.So lt me tll yu wy I lke tu wright.
i lke tu wright bcawse it make me fll lkie i cher felngs and my in my mynd.

SEcoN, i lrn frm a peeeeeer. not a tchr. I ws told two sai tht once and now I remmembber.

Tird, i gforget, buttt i know It is ggood tht i lrnd two wrrite.

Thank you so much Anthony for taking the time to share with not only us here at SBSB, but the world, the wonders of Lucy Calkins and her Writer's Workshop.We here at SBSB thank you, the teachers thank you, and so does all the students and parents of NYC thank you.

Would you feed someone that has high cholesterol, or heart problems KFC's Double Down (bacon, cheese, sauce, between two pieces of chicken), mashed potatoes w/gravy, and a mashed potato bowl? No.

Would you throw someone who is drowning a cinder block instead of a life preserver? No.

So why is it that in chronically poverty stricken  areas of NYC, where students come into kindergarten lagging so far behind, where each day it is a struggle to learn, where they don't get support at home, why is it we as real educators continually get shoved down our throats the teachings of the cult of Teacher's College reading and writing crap, led by its supreme leader Lucy Calkins? A person that has never ever taught a day in her life.

The cult of TC is leading our students down a path towards ignorance and the inability to read. As one leading educator has shared with the Crack Team, "TC is making our children in NYC dumber than wood."

But what is it about TC that is so bad, so dangerous to the minds of our students? Simply put, the basic tenants of reading and writing are ignored.

Students do not learn any grammar, there are no writing mechanics to speak of. TC relies on independent work, even for the most left behind student.

With all this testing being foisted upon students and relying solely upon test scores to evaluate teachers, with an ELA tests that emphasizes, and states, spelling and grammar are paramount, TC provides none of the basics for the students to do well on the ELA exam.

Decoding, fluency, are lacking. TC offers no practice books to develop writing skills. Zero skills books. Teaching vocabulary is frowned upon as is spelling.

Our students are becoming illiterate and no one above the rank of "teacher" seems to care. This is the damage that TC's program is doing to our students, to our schools, to our communities, to children's futures.

We can not teach, and students can not learn, without the basics the same way a pitcher can't throw a fastball with out the basics, the same way a batter can't hit without the basics. As these children get older and they are reading to learn and not learning to read anymore where will there skills sets be to learn how to decode with words they don not know? These skills are vital to learn at a young age for they last a lifetime. I should know! From the ages of 4-9 I was in speech therapy for a major articulation issue. I remember in my 20's I was reading something aloud and had difficulty pronouncing a word. A friend of mine (who happened to be a speech therapist) told me that she could tell I was in speech therapy, that I was still using the skills I learned so many years earlier. Our students today are not acquiring any lasting skills.

Teacher's College can cost up to $1,600 a day, Surely, there are better ways for a school to spend their monies. More troubling is how anyone in their right mind in a position of leadership and decision making can allow the infiltration of the TC cult into a school. Schools are abandoning TC left and right, right and left. Ask yourself Lucy, how many schools in Westchester County get suckered by you? The only reason one implement TC is to go with the flow, to conform, to follow the leader. The mindless always follow the crowd.

As long as we are damaging the students, let's just feed them White Castle cheeseburgers, fries, and milk shakes at lunch. But there would be howls of protests if we do. Where are the same howls at those wishing and contributing to the demise of students by implementing Teacher's College's Reading and Writing Project. It is time to step up.