Why the NAACP is Suing New York by Benjamin Todd Jealous - The Washington Post

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For 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our children have access to high-quality public education. Our founders made improving education our primary strategy for improving America. They did so because they knew from experience that educational inequities are not only the product of broader inequalities and dangerous social tensions but also maintain them.

We believe that if we make all our schools great places to learn, we will have more than better institutions and better-prepared students — we will have a better country.

Toward this end, we filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of New York City’s public schoolchildren and their parents.

The NAACP has a long history in New York. One hundred years ago this month, our first local branch in the nation was founded in Harlem. Since then, thousands upon thousands of New York students, parents and grandparents have volunteered with the NAACP to end the mistreatment of schoolchildren.

This lawsuit was filed for the most common reasons we have sued boards of education across the decades: Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.

There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.

First, the city has located charter schools under the same roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair and unjust. Their poor handling has led to many complaints from our members and their neighbors, including:

■ Students in the traditional public school must now eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students can enjoy lunch at noon.

■ The “regular school’s children” had library access for a little over four hours so that the “new charter school’s kids” could have access for almost seven.

■ “Traditional school students” were moved to a boiler room to make room for their charter school peers, and teachers of the regular students were forced to teach in the halls due to lack of space.

We are asking that the court require the city to follow state law and handle these shared space situations equitably.

Second, inequitable co-locations exacerbate the problem created by the city’s persistent failure to follow the law and engage parents before making major changes. New York state law requires the city to involve parents before announcing its intention to shut down a school or make way for a charter to share a school’s space.

We filed suit against the city in February 2010. New York City’s Department of Education lost the case in March 2010 and lost its appeal in July 2010. Yet it continued to close schools without regard for the law or a court order enforcing the law. The lawsuit we filed last month asks the court to enforce its judgment requiring the city to collaborate with communities on efforts to support and improve local schools before it shuts them — something the city has failed to do time and again.

The city’s actions impede learning, increase tensions among students and tear at the fabric of communities. When one set of students is perceived as getting preferential treatment over another, or the city refuses to work with parents to fix problems at a school before closing it, the inequity leaves all our children suffering.

Some have criticized the NAACP for joining the teachers union in this cause. Unable to refute the facts of our case, these critics question our motives, apparently also unable to comprehend that we are independent actors.

We have always been clear that just as we praise teachers for dedicating their lives to a heroic profession, we have no tolerance for bad teachers or bad schools. To spur the changes needed to help students succeed, we even stood with many of these critics when a Rhode Island district fired all the teachers at Central Falls High School.

For a century, the NAACP has practiced the maxim that Shirley Chisholm often reminded us of: There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. In this case, as with our past education cases, our permanent interest is clear: High-quality public education for all children and a stronger nation for us all.

The writer is president and CEO of the NAACP.

"We Are One" - Queens Solidarity Rally and March - April 4, 2011 04:00pm to 08:00pm

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Dr. King died in Memphis in April 1968. He was killed standing with sanitation workers who were fighting to form a union to bargain for a better life. They were demanding their dream of dignity, respect, and a pathway to the middle class.


In April 2011, that same dream--and those same rights and freedoms--are under attack in Madison and other state capitols. The American middle class is in danger, threatened by a corporate and political assault on the fundamental belief that if you work hard in this country, you deserve a good job with a decent wage, affordable health care and dignity in retirement.


That's why on April 4th in New York, we will rally to show that WE ARE ONE, from Memphis to Madison and beyond. We will remember Dr. King, rally for the rights of all workers, and march for the middle class.


Join Amalgamated Transit Union 1056, SEIU 32BJ, and South East Queens County Young Democrats, and The Jamaica Branch NAACP as we will meet at the Rallying point at 4:30 pm at the bus depot on Merrick Blvd. across from the Queens Public Library;


We will then March To 89th Ave; Go up 89th Ave; To Parsons Blvd.; To Jamaica Ave. to Grace Episcopal Church.


We will enter the church at approximately 6:00 pm.


Grace Episcopal Church, 155-15 Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11432 Rev Darryl F. James


Rev. Darryl F. James and Min. Corey Terry will both preach a word, there will be music as well. This will begin at 6:30 - 8:00/8:30.


Sponsored by: City Councilman Leroy Comrie and a host of South East Queens elected officials.

Sponsored by:
Amalgamated Transit Union
Local 1056

Location:
Jamaica Bus Terminal
Queens, NY
11432

Directions:
89-11 Merrick Blvd btwn 89th and 90th Aves

Bloomberg Booed at MLK Event in Harlem by Ben Fractenberg and Jill Colvin - DNAInfo.com

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MLK Day Draws Black Leadership to Harlem

Leaders urged New Yorkers to continue Dr. King's work when it came to guns, education and wages.

Political and civil rights leaders descended on Harlem Monday to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and urge New Yorkers to continue Dr. King's work by taking action on some of the toughest issues in the neighborhood — guns, schools and wages.

"Right now we are at a time of very significant turmoil," said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who spoke passionately at an event organized at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.

Gillibrand cautioned that tragedies like the Arizona shooting were happening every day across New York.

"Senseless acts of gun violence happen every single day in our communities, every single day," she said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was booed by the standing-room only crowd as he took to the podium — the only one on the long list of prominent politicians to be booed.

"This is a day when we pledge to further King's dreams," he said.

Bloomberg repeated his pledge to fight to close loopholes in gun laws and also reiterated his push to close upstate juvenile justice facilities that take kids away from their communities.

"Thank you. You should applaud. This is killing our kids," he said after some in the crowd clapped after he outlined his stance against illegal guns.

But he was booed again when he said that President Barack Obama considers the city a national model of education.

"Not true," some shouted from the packed aisles.

Earlier in the day, religious leaders and politicians welcomed new Schools Chancellor Cathie Black during the Convent Avenue Baptist Church's annual Martin Luther King Day service, urging her to improve the city’s education system.

Former mayor David Dinkins claimed there were more young African Americans in prison than attending school and urged Black to work toward keeping more students enrolled.

"Chancellor Black, it’s important we do something about that," Dinkins said.

Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the NAACP New York State Conference, urged Black to take the focus away from disciplining children at school and instead work to get better teachers.

"Chancellor Black, I’m glad that you’re here, but I don’t want you to be the disciplinarian of my children," she said. "I want some qualified teachers to teach my children."

The church was packed with several hundred congregants who clapped and called back to speakers as they connected Dr. King’s legacy to modern struggles.

"This is not a memorial service," Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, from the Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church, said to loud applause. "We came to revive the legacy of Martin Luther King."

Sekou spoke about the church’s support of a living wage law in New York.

"The City Council needs to be disabused of the notion a floor sweeper and cab driver not be able to make enough to live in this city," said Sekou.

Embattled Harlem congressman Charles Rangel was greeted with hugs and kind words before the service started.

Rangel sounded hoarse at both events as he spoke about the impact of Dr. King on his life.

"All of us have a bit of Martin Luther King in us," he said.

While speakers at both events celebrated past struggles, their focus was firmly planted on current issues.

"Things have gotten better, a whole lot better, but we’re not there yet," said Dinkins.

‘N Word’ Ed. Official Gets Fired, To Appeal by Sasha Austrie - Queens Tribune

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A School District 29 parent advocate who used the “N Word” to refer to parents in a school meeting earlier this year has been fired and is appealing his dismissal.

Ron Barfield, the family district advocate for District 29 in Jamaica, was recorded on May 27 using the “N Word” in a number of instances at a parent association executive board meeting at PS 134. The meeting was held to craft bylaws per the Chancellor Joel Klein’s regulations.

In the meeting, Barfield said the parent association should meet on Fridays because “niggers don’t like to come out on Fridays.” He closed the meeting with a reminder to the board: “Keep the niggers out.”

Barfield held his post since October 2007 and is one of 32 family district advocates throughout the City. A district family advocate’s responsibility is to assist parents if they still have questions after consulting with their parent coordinators or principals.

Felicia Galy, a former PA board member, who spoke against Barfield’s use of the “N Word,” said her initial reaction was “shock,” which turned into dismay when at a Nov. 18 hearing Galy said three members of the current PA were in support of Barfield’s return. She alleged that Lennon Murray, District 29’s superintendent, also supported Barfield.

As of press time, Murray and members of the PA did not return calls for comment.

William McDonald, a member of the NAACP and Community Educational Council for District 29, said the appeal is part of the process, but that the DOE has no interest in Barfield.

“This is a pattern,” McDonald said of Barfield’s behavior. He said Barfield has been ousted from Districts 16, 17 and now 29. McDonald said he has heard Barfield use the “N Word” on previous occasions.

“He uses it as a term of endearment,” McDonald said. “It disenfranchises parents,” he said. “His job is to empower parents.”

Matthew Mittenthal, a DOE spokesman, said though Barfield was terminated, a successor will not be named until the arbitrator makes a decision at month’s end.

McDonald said he found it interesting that the DOE was “holding the job for him.” He said the lack of a family district advocate is “a huge problem.”

“The parents are disenfranchised,” he said. “The community is disenfranchised. That is a big loss for the community.”

Though the NAACP is taking a wait-and-see stance, McDonald said Barfield would not be reinstated.

“Barfield will not be coming back to the district under any circumstances,” he said. “And if they are dumb enough to send him back, that is like declaring war on the community.”

Baldeo Announces Council Run by Ivan Pereira - Queens Campaigner

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Albert Baldeo is joining the growing list of candidates who are vying to fill the Council seat vacated by Thomas White, who died two weeks ago.

Baldeo, an Ozone Park attorney who has run for several elected offices in the past decade, said he is collecting signatures to meet Monday’s deadline to be on the ballot for the Nov. 2 special election for the 28th Council district.

“This is taking my advocacy and community leadership to a new level,” he said.

The 28th Council district includes the neighborhoods of Jamaica, Rochdale Village, Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park. Other candidates officially in the running for the non-partisan election include Leroy Gadsden, the president of the Jamaica NAACP, Nicole Paultre-Bell, Ruben Wills and Allan Jennings, who held the seat from 2001-2005.

Baldeo was defeated by White in the 2005 Democratic primary and the next year he came within 900 votes of defeating state Sen. Serphin Maltese. He was slated to take on Joseph Addabbo in the 2008 Democratic primrary for Maltese’s seat, but dropped out of the race and endorsed his opponent, who went on to win the seat.

Last year, he collected funds for a shot at the seat left open by indicted state Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, but the Queens Democrats chose Michael Miller to run the special election.

Victory for Parents and Kids in Stage One of Class Size Lawsuit! by Leonie Haimson - NYC Public School Parents

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We received a decision from Judge Barone of the NY Supreme Court this afternoon; the Court denied the city's attempt to dismiss the class size lawsuit. brought in January by the UFT, Class Size Matters, the NAACP, and other parents and community groups.

The city had claimed that only the State Education Commissioner could rule on whether they violated the law when it came to class size; inserted in the language of the law (at their insistence) was a clause that the “sole and exclusive remedy for any violation” would be a petition to commissioner, and “the decision of the commissioner on such petition shall be final and unreviewable.”

This language was the DOE’s sneaky attempt to ensure that they would never have to comply with the law, as they were convinced that the commissioner, then Richard Mills, would get them off the hook, as he had in so many cases before.

Yet the judge found the attempt to box out the court was likely unconstitutional, and that the legislature must have meant that the commissioner had the final right of review over the details of the class size plan, not the city’s compliance, especially as this entire matter flowed out of the court’s decision in CFE.

The city’s other main argument was that our petition should have gone to the Commissioner first in any case.

The judge agreed with our attorneys that this would cause unnecessary delay and would "irreparably damage the children who will during the course of these proceedings be relegated to learning in the overcrowded conditions which the legislature sought to alleviate.”

Yet another victory for NYC parents and their children's right to have a quality education, and another slap in the face of DOE’s outlaw mentality.

The Judge wrote they will see the attorneys in court on July 26 for a pre-hearing conference to start determining the facts of the case, i.e. whether the DOE has actually complied with its plan and reduced class size.

The facts on this issue are clear; they have not.

Mayor Criticized on Judicial Stance by Michael Howard Sau l- WSJ.com

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, vowing to keep fighting to shutter 19 failing city schools, suggested Friday that judges should take a more activist role when deciding cases.

The mayor's remarks—denouncing a unanimous appellate court ruling that prevents his administration from closing the schools—offer a provocative glimpse at Mr. Bloomberg's perspective on the role of the judiciary and would undoubtedly be a lightning rod if he launched a bid for president.

Mr. Bloomberg, 68 years old, contemplated a White House bid in 2008 and there is widespread speculation that he still harbors such ambitions.

On his weekly radio show, the mayor conceded it's "probably true" that his administration "didn't comply" with the procedures required under law to close the schools, but he suggested the five-judge panel on the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court should have looked at the bigger picture.

"We're playing with children's lives, not whether the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed," Mr. Bloomberg said. "They should look at the context of it, and for them to think, 'Well, you know, I'm just here to interpret the law,' that's not true. They are part of society."

Mr. Bloomberg said the judges "made a terrible mistake, and...should have found a ways to interpret the law—and they have plenty of discretion, it's ridiculous to say they don't—to accomplish what's good for society."

Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank based in Virginia, called the mayor's remarks "disturbing."
"The definition of judicial activism is a judge ignoring what the text of a law says—whether it's the Constitution, or a statute, or a regulation—and instead substituting his own view of what is the greater societal good," he said.

Mr. Clegg said the mayor's remarks "would come back to haunt him" if he decides to pursue a White House bid. Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly said he has no plans to run for president.

Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, said Mr. Bloomberg's remarks reflect his "hubris and arrogance."

"He's telling the judges that 'I am so right on the issue that your interpretation of the law doesn't matter. It's Bloomberg law. I am the philosopher king. I know best,'" Mr. Muzzio said. "It's outrageous, but characteristic of the mayor and his attitude."

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which brought the suit along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the mayor's administration was instrumental in crafting the very law it violated.

"You support a law, you help draft a law, then, your agency goes out of its way to make sure they don't follow it," he said. "It's ridiculous."

He said judges should make decisions based on the facts and the law. "We're in a lot of trouble if the facts be damned," he said.

An aide to Mr. Bloomberg declined Friday to respond to the criticism that the mayor's comments elicited.

New York’s New Voting Machines Flawed, Suit Says by Jack Healy - NYTimes.com

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Electronic voting machines being deployed for the first time this year across New York City and the rest of the state contain a flaw that could lead to thousands of votes being thrown out, according to a lawsuit that advocacy groups will file Monday.

The problem, according to the legal complaint, revolves around voters who accidentally pick too many candidates for a particular race — an error known as “overvoting,” which invalidates the incorrect part of their ballot.

When a voter submits such a ballot, the new machines do not automatically return it to be corrected and recast. Instead, the machines that scan the new SAT-style ballots are programmed to start beeping and to offer a choice on their digital touch-screens: a green button for voters to confirm their choices and cast their ballot, or a red button to scrap their votes and start over.

Lawrence D. Norden, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which is representing the New York State conference of the N.A.A.C.P., the Working Families Party and other groups in the lawsuit, said that the setup was poorly worded and confusing, and that the design of the new machines could prompt thousands of voters to press the green button accidentally, casting parts of their ballots into oblivion.

The lawsuit, filed against the State Board of Elections, says voters who are minorities or non-native English speakers would lose their votes in disproportionate numbers.

“They have to make a fast decision,” Mr. Norden said. “There are people behind them, and they tend to press ‘cast,’ especially because there’s nothing there that says, ‘Your vote will not count.’ ”

The machines tell people they have “overvoted,” but do not explain what, exactly, overvoting is, or its consequences, Mr. Norden said. And many voters are just more likely to hit a button with a green check mark than a red X — even if it has the effect of quashing part of their vote, he added.

In 2000, thousands of voters in Florida made a similar mistake by accidentally choosing two candidates for president, invalidating their selections and helping plunge the razor-thin contest into a chaotic stalemate for weeks.

The new scanning machines offer improvements like the creation of paper records of votes, but Mr. Norden said the way they were programmed to handle mistaken votes put New York at risk of sowing confusion. “This completely ignores what happened in Florida in 2000,” he said.

The old lever-operated machines prevented overvoting by locking themselves up if a voter flipped too many switches for various candidates. But Douglas Kellner, co-chairman of the New York State Board of Elections, called the conflict “a very minor issue” and said the new voting machines had taken a trial run in some upstate counties in elections last year with no major problems.

Rather than reprogram thousands of voting machines a few months before the primaries in September, Mr. Kellner said the board had agreed to assess how the system performed after the elections in November, in which New Yorkers will select a governor and vote on both Senate seats, among other races.

“We have a completely new system,” Mr. Kellner said. “That’s why the consensus is, don’t do an emergency fix of this one little minor point right now.”

A spokesman for the elections board called the new machines “compliant and legally sufficient” and said that tweaking how they handle improperly completed ballots would take months of testing and layers of approval to recertify the changes.

The new machines, which replace the lever-operated antiques many election districts in New York had used for decades, sprang from the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which aimed to update voting machines to prevent another election marred by thousands of rejected ballots. Voters in New York will now fill out ovals on a paper ballot, feed the ballot into a scanning machine and drop it into a locked box.

Public-interest groups began raising concerns about the potential for invalidated ballots this winter, citing a study in June 2009 by the Florida Fair Elections Coalition that attributed high numbers of overvoting in Florida’s 2008 elections to flaws in some electronic voting systems.

A letter sent in February to the New York State Board of Elections from several groups, including the Brennan Center, said that as many as 40,000 votes could be lost in a heavy election year.

Mr. Kellner disputed that estimate, saying the number was “made up out of thin air.”

The lawsuit says the current setup violates the Voting Rights Act and asks that New York not use the new machines until more safeguards are put in place.

The complaint, which was given to The New York Times by the Brennan Center, says that Wisconsin developed its system to “return a ballot to the voter immediately” if the scanning machine noted an overvote.

Connecticut does the same thing, said its secretary of state, Susan Bysiewicz, adding that it gives voters a chance to fix the ballot or to send it through, errors and all.

“This can happen a lot,” Ms. Bysiewicz said. “It’s much better if the voter has the opportunity to ask a question of a poll worker and be given the opportunity to vote a fresh ballot.”