Bill Perkins Charter School Hearing Videos - Parent and Community Voices

New You Tube channel: ednotesonline

Today's NY Post is already throwing up candidates to oppose Bill Perkins. They will raise lots of money. But they will be facing people in the streets like the speakers here.

This particular panel was very inspirational. The ed deformers should be nervous, very nervous.

I know all of the people speaking here except Sonia Hampton, who is a delightful discovery for me. Many of the things they say will blow you away. It is growing voices like these from the community that is the biggest form of resistance to BloomKlein since no one cares much what teachers say. A very important point is that the ed deformers and charter school forces cannot accuse them of being tools of the UFT. Some work with GEM. But just watch them all in action and try to tell them they are a tool of anyone. [Still being processed from this batch: Jim Devor and Rosie Mendez which will be added to this post later.] Also, don't forget to check out my video in the post below this - I was the last speaker at around 9pm. I spoke after 3 HSA parents spoke. Nice people and we had a good chat afterwards. But I challenge the HSA political machine supporting BloomKlein and mayoral control while at the same time attacking the failures of the very school system they are running.


Lydia Bellahcene, Parent PS 15K. Lydia was there all day - from even before I arrived at 10- with her young child, who just may be the best behaved child I have ever seen in my life. Lydia makes an awesome presentation here. I've gotten to know her through the PS 15/PAVE battle and she is one of the main CAPEers. She never ceases to amaze me. That the actions of BloomKlein have led to activating her and people like her is a sign of their ultimate failure.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU-n8OvBhao


Khem Irby, Parent District 13, Brooklyn- another awesome parent advocate. Khem is always there for everyone. She makes a statement for Leonie and for herself.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1FYsHYo0ww


Sonia Hampton, Parent PS/MS 149, Harlem. This is the first time I've seen Sonia and my mouth fell open at her testimony. I wanted her to go on forever.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47MJUHScfuo

Bill Hargraves and Akinlabi Mackall do a lot of community organizing in a number of spheres including the Coalition for Public Education, which has been exploring opportunities to work together with GEM.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkHfkNtX4ss

Add-On:
These parent and community voices have been so strong and it's been a pleasure getting to know them over the past year. Ed Notes has often been looked at as a voice for teachers. But since I began teaching I had the utmost respect for many of the parents I met. I can honestly say I had fantastic relationships with the parents of the kids in my class. I worked very hard at it. The first day of school I gave them my phone number (see KIPP, we did it 40 years before you). That built trust and helped enormously, though they rarely called. Kids were very rarely able to divide me from their parents or use them against me. It had a big impact on their behavior and created an extremely positive climate for all of us. Teachers must find ways to create links to parents, both educationally and politically. Without a joint alliance, the forces of BloomKlein and neoliberalism, which has a basic aim of sowing divisions, win out.

I started a new you tube channel - ednotesonline - and future videos will no longer be listed under norscot2, though you can still access the 77 videos I already posted there. Other videos will be posted at the GEMNYC you tube channel.

If traffic gets too heavy for all these videos and slows up the blog, let me know and I will pull them and leave just the links to you tube.

All videos must be 10 minutes so I had to do some trimming to get them in. So if you see yourself and a bit is missing that is why.

Coming in next batches: Magnificent Mona and cohort charter school parents rake over charter school operators, followed by the John White interrogation on how charter schools get parent info.