Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

You know you’ve been waiting for it:

TEACHER FROM HELL

Detower Editions Supports the Cause of Francisco Garabitos vs. the NYC Department of Education

THE CHILD ABUSE CHARGES ARE BEING INVESTIGATED AS ONE MORE TRICK IN A SERIES OF 18 CASES PROVEN AS FALSE ALLEGATIONS. THE PUBLIC CAN REST ASSURED THAT EDUCATORS LIKE ME WOULD NEVER HURT A CHILD…AND I NEVER HAD.

However I do have fundamental differences on educational theories and instructional strategies:

1- The DOE claims that ‘ALL CHILDREN CAN LEARN”…so when 40%+ fail it is the teachers’ fault.
2- I claim that “CHILDREN LEARN AT DIFFERENT PACE & STYLE” so when 40% fail we must change the method, the materials and the teaching strategies to reach and support the failing child.

I am a UFT union activist in the fight for universal human rights; pro-veteran rights, Native American rights, pro-women choice, pro-gay rights, pro-separation of church and state, pro-immigration reform, pro-Israel-Palestinian states, pro-green peace, amnesty international and habitat for humanity. I  served 4 years in the ARMY-NYNG  and dedicated 27 years to Public Education. Although ‘they’ have accused me over 20 times with bogus charges,  I have never been arrested nor convicted of any crime.  But members of an  education-less, profiteers, anti-workers union bureaucracy are actively trying to demonized  my name and did send me through the labyrinth of hell by: fabricating false allegations, reassignment to unnecessary rubber rooms,  unlawful imprisonment, professional harassment, slander and character assassination…

Now  I must rise, coming back from Hell with the help of Angels and Demons to expose and reform the NYC Department of Education.

WHEN  WE SEE SOMETHING… WE MUST SAY SOMETHING AND DO SOMETHING.

There is also a public statement and press release – along with some linky love for Monday’s EIA Communiqué. In accordance with that item, Garabitos did receive a hero’s welcome when he spoke at a meeting of Community Education Council 9 on Tuesday night.

While California teachers had to settle for “pink slip” rallies up and down the state, it’s good to know that their union, the California Teachers Association, had enough cash on hand to help fund an invitation-only block party in Sacramento for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The party, headlined by Wyclef Jean, was held last Saturday in conjunction with the state Democratic Party convention. Newsom is running for governor.

According to published reports, the event was simultaneously underattended and over-restricted. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci reports:

The Gavin show, which had been billed as an extravanganza to draw 3,000, didn’t quite come off as planned. Half an hour before it was really supposed to get going, about 400 people were on hand. By showtime, cops told me they estimated about 1,000 to 1,500. And that was ironic, because apparently lots of people who wanted to get in couldn’t.

Nick Miller of the Sacramento News & Review liked the novelty of it all, but wasn’t too impressed with the execution:

Anyway, no one really knew about the event until Saturday afternoon, when a green chain-link fence went up around 20th between J and K streets and the general public—uninvited—started asking questions.

The show’s sponsors, the California College Democrats, expected 3,000 invite-only attendees, which is way more than the 12 people who typically show up at Convention after-hour hotel soirees. You know, open bars, Steely Dan, tequila shots, sodomy.

Ah, democracy.

By 10 p.m., the fenced-off area was a-third filled with guests. Wine by the plastic cup went for $8 and, onstage, a deejay looped Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” for 15 minutes.

“DJ Carnival Cruise,” as my friend put it.

The seven-hour party cost $100,000 – or about what it would cost to keep two rookie teachers for another year.

I haven’t been able to independently confirm this yet because the California Secretary of State’s campaign finance site is down, but the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the National Education Association contributed another $2 million towards the passage of Proposition 1B, an initiative on the May 19 ballot that would provide public schools with an additional $9.3 billion, but only if Proposition 1A also passes.

That would bring NEA’s total contribution to $3 million, plus the $5.3 million the California Teachers Association has given. CTA is prepared to spend up to $12 million from its ballot initiative fund.

Unfortunately for NEA and CTA, the sinkhole is widening as their spending increases. A Field Poll released this morning shows not only are the key initiatives trailing, but they are falling further behind.

A Public Policy Institute of California poll last month showed 1A with 39% in favor, 46% opposed, and 15% undecided. This morning’s Field Poll shows 40% in favor, 49% opposed, and 11% undecided.

PPIC had 1B in front, with 44% in favor, 41% opposed, and 15% undecided. That support collapsed. The Field Poll has 40% in favor, 49% opposed, and 11% undecided.

Traditionally, successful California ballot initiatives have had large margins of support at the start of campaigns, which dwindle as the election approaches. It would be highly unusual for initiatives to reverse these kinds of deficits.

NEA and CTA have one glimmer of hope, and it is something I have mentioned when discussing poll results concerning other issues – the utter cluelessness of a significant number of survey respondents.

The Field Poll surveyed registered voters and likely voters, and determined that a full 28% “had not seen or heard anything about these proposed ballot measures.” Even worse, when likely voters were told that both 1A and 1B had to pass in order for 1B to take effect, only 43% knew about the provision, while 24% didn’t believe it when they heard it.

With three weeks to go before the election, NEA and CTA appear to be throwing good money after bad. Statewide, 72% of the Field Poll respondents agreed “if the budget measures are defeated it would send a message to the governor and the legislature that voters are tired of more government spending and higher taxes.” Even 60% of Democrats agreed.

Since this seems to be a week for educators and self-published novels, let’s take a look at Crazy Fortunes, the romance novel penned by Lawrence, Massachusetts, school principal Beth Gannon. The local teachers’ union isn’t too thrilled with it because Gannon reportedly is “peddling her steamy story on the school department’s dime, urging teachers during faculty meetings to buy the $13.95 paperback.”

Judging only by the excerpts available through Amazon, I think Crazy Fortunes has a lot of educational value. An English composition teacher could use it to illustrate the improper use of paragraphs, overdone dialogue tags and a bad case of adverbosity. Gannon does seem to have mastered the art of the romance novel blurb cliché:

When Jake attempts to recapture her heart, Lila must wade through the memories of their relationship and the sea of questions plaguing her thoughts. Now she is faced with an uncomfortable decision. Will she choose a second chance with Jake, or will she remain with the man whose ring she wears?

The book apparently contains “explicit sex scenes,” which you could use in biology class, or maybe you could redact all the naughty bits and lead the class in a discussion of censorship.

At the very least, we should all chip in and find Gannon an editor. She needs the help.

Click here to read:

1) Barricade a Classroom, Become a Folk Hero
2) More Neat Stuff Added to EIA “Declassified” Page
3) Roving Through ROVE 2009
4) California Teachers Association Employees File Notice of Dispute
5) Contract Hits
6) Last Week’s Intercepts
7) Quote of the Week

The New York Post has an exclusive interview:

Key quotes from the interview:

* “I am actively pursuing change. This is a political movement by the union, too. The union wants change on the school administration. And we actively pursue those things. We negotiate, but when they don’t pay attention, we try to do something dramatic to bring attention.”

* “The UFT does not approve those type of tactics.”

* “It wasn’t just me. It was 20 teachers. It’s just that I took responsibility because I am the chapter leader…. All the teachers knew that I was going to do this.”

Reporter: “When did the other teachers know?”

Garabitos: “That morning at 8:01.”

* I’m going to hold a press conference, maybe Tuesday.”

Here is a short bio page of school principal Dorald Bastian (posted as Dorald Knowles). Bastian is a Teach for America alumnus.

Bronx middle school teacher Francisco Garabitos was accused of striking a student and evidently was told to report to a New York City “rubber room” instead of his classroom. Garabitos was a teacher union chapter chairman at his school and his first response, naturally enough, was to call the United Federation of Teachers and ask to speak to UFT President Randi Weingarten. Told Weingarten was in Washington, he asked to speak to Sterling Roberson, the union’s head of school security. It isn’t known at this time whether they spoke.

What isn’t in dispute is that at about 8:30 this morning, Garabitos barricaded himself in the school’s computer lab, claiming to have planted a bomb in the school. He told school officials, “I have a date with God.” The school campus was evacuated and police called in. During negotiations, Garabitos admitted there was no bomb, but that he was going on a hunger strike and wanted the school principal ousted. He surrendered to authorities at 11:15. No one was injured.

An Internet search reveals Garabitos is connected to Detower Editions, a Bronx publisher. His résumé is posted, but more interesting is an article he evidently co-authored on school discipline. It begins:

Most approaches to child’s care today are focused on pampering cognitive behavior and understanding academic subjects based on ‘children first’ ideology. On the contrary, we believe that academic skills are secondary to psychomotor skills, and that children should not to be the center of social attention but need to be assigned a place of limited importance within the adult group. They shouldn’t get an automatic power rank like we do, because social-academic status is something humans develop into over time and only exists within the context of other adults.

He goes on to describe the Primal Network Brain, which boils down to:

Consequently a parent or a teacher should not waste time providing redundant explanations and details when giving simple direct primordial instructions. Children become unstable when adults try to explain the implications of primal commands (such as; stop, come here, eat, sleep) the reasons for which could not be comprehended at their developmental level of metacognition.

There is no evidence yet that Garabitos’ approach was related to the alleged run-in with his student, but there’s no doubt he understood the consequences of such actions:

Teachers and parents should avoid any kind of hitting, slapping, whipping, kicking, punching, grabbing, pushing, or pulling for it may be misconstrued as part of aggression and could lead to physical and/or legal confrontations.

Ironically, Garabitos had a particular interest in school safety issues. The photo accompanying this blog post shows him (at left) attending a UFT school safety workshop last November, speaking to Anthony Orzo of the New York City Department of Education. Sterling Roberson spoke at the workshop, and there were sessions devoted to violence prevention and the discipline code.

UFT will be holding a press conference momentarily to provide further details. There is irony involved here for the union as well. Just last Friday, Weingarten issued a press release commemorating the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School. In it, she said:

The AFT has long been a proponent of proactive measures to ensure that all students, teachers and school staff are afforded a supportive and safe learning and working environment. Large-scale violent acts like those at Columbine, though rare, understandably grab our attention. However, it is crucial that we focus on early intervention to address more common signs of antisocial behavior-such as bullying, teasing, fighting and harassment-before they lead to tragedy.

UPDATE: The UFT press statement is here, and WNYC radio has further details of the press conference available as an mp3 file. Apparently UFT and the principals’ union are at odds over who is to blame for this.

UPDATE #2: It wasn’t clear at first, but after additional digging it seems that Garabitos and Dr. Fran Detower are one and the same person, which means all the material at http://www.detower.com is his writing (he also owns the domain names richteacher.net, signalglo.com and dhernz.com). I invite you to examine all of it. Of particular note is Genocide XXX – A Regressive Archive Video Documental, produced by F. Garabitos, directed by F. Detower, and narrated by “C. Amampour.”

The New York press has already latched onto The Virgin & the Beast (the graphic of the cover actually reads “Virgin & the Bitch”), which contains “mature content.” Fran Detower and Dr. Hernz appear in the story.

UPDATE #3: The New York Times reports:

A spokesman for the school system said Mr. Garabitos’s service has included more than a dozen allegations of misconduct, mostly for corporal punishment of students. Two of the allegations have been substantiated and two remain under investigation, including Thursday’s incident.

Twice in the last three years, Mr. Garabitos spent time in a reassignment center for teachers and other school officials removed from the schools.

The New York Post also mentions the previous allegations, but none ever reached the city’s special investigations office:

Garabitos, a teacher since 1981, has been investigated 14 times for allegations and has twice been cited for two cases of using corporal punishment against students, in 2002 and 2004.

“There are so many reasons why this teacher does not belong in a school, much less in front of children,” city Department of Education spokesman David Cantor said yesterday.

But the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigations, which handles probes of the most serious misconduct allegations against school personnel, said it had never received a complaint against Garabitos.

UPDATE #4: Garabitos released without bail. Apparently no bomb threat was made. The latest is here.