Monday, January 2, 2012

Truth in Reporting? NY Magazine Fails the Test Regarding Bronx Science


New York Magazine recently (12/4/2011) published an article A Bronx Science Experiment by Robert Kolker (Bob Kolker, work 212-508-0811, cell 917-743-9843) about Valery Reidy’s “experiment” as principal at the Bronx High School of Science (http://nymag.com/news/features/bronx-high-school-of-science-2011-12/).


My 2005 exploits at BxScience were chronicled in the article, and I was quoted, but do you think Mr. Kolker had the courtesy to actually interview me? Nope. I did speak with him briefly on or about 11/17/2011, offering my cooperation, but he said he was busy, and there was no rush because the article would not be published until after the first of the year. According to him:


“In May 2005, a group of Bronx Science teachers started distributing leaflets outside the school, slamming Reidy’s approach. Chief among her critics were chemistry teacher Robert Drake and ­social-studies teacher Mel Maskin, the union chapter leader. That school year, the United Federation of Teachers filed 25 grievances against Reidy. The majority of the objections involved the guided-discovery method. But there were other criticisms.


"At a faculty meeting, Reidy was reported to have explained the school’s SAT-prep courses by saying students who “speak Asian” needed them. And after receiving an honorary doctorate from the College of Mount St. Vincent, she was said to be telling people to call her “doctor” (she later denied that). Drake seized on this and began handing out buttons labeled QUACK. “Somehow I crossed her, though I still do not know how,” Drake later said. “I had 30 years of college experience as a research chemistry professor and several excellent years at Bronx Science before my fall from grace.” The protest caught on with students, and one junior reportedly accused Reidy of trying to get him to say he was coerced by Drake into protesting. Drake left the school that summer, as did a steady stream of teachers, about fifteen each year over the next several years.”

I first wrote a comment (http://nymag.com/news/features/bronx-high-school-of-science-2011-12/comments.html#comments) but it was not published:

“[One student commented:] ‘And despite Dr. Drake's creepy glass eye, he was a passionate teacher who prepared me for every science class I took at that school, and he deserved better than he got.’


“OK. I have Duane Syndrome, not a glass eye, but I'll accept the rest of the student's comment on The Bronx Science Experiment. My score on RateMyTeachers.com (one of the few sites banned by Ms. Reidy) of 4.6 out of 5.0 still is posted.


“I asked to be interviewed for this article but was not, despite the fact I am liberally quoted. I was the only faculty member passing out leaflets on the sidewalk outside a PTA meeting when I began my NO QUACK campaign. I was accompanied by a parent [Laurie Faber] and a former guidance counselor wronged by Ms. Reidy [Livia Sklar]. Her secretary answered the phone ‘Dr. Reidy's Office.’ I hardly believe she did that without permission. A member of the press who was a senior at Mt. Saint Vincent when Ms. Reidy got her honorary doctorate told me that her talk included the line, ‘Don't worry if you don't amount to anything, most of us don’t.’ True words of wisdom at a commencement, don't you think?


“Ms. Reidy is not a scientist. Few teachers are. I am. It makes a difference when experiments in research fail to give expected results. That is when true learning occurs. Many scientists do not accept the Scientific Method; not Nobelists Sir Peter Medawar nor Richard Feynman, but Ms. Reidy not only accepts it but expects teachers to teach it her way: Step 1: State the problem. In chemistry and physics you are unlikely to know you HAVE a problem. Ms. Reidy doesn't really GET science, never mind how to teach it.


“Ms. Reidy not only trashed my teaching but removed me as a faculty mentor despite my record of getting kids into quality schools and despite parent protests against my removal. Another mentor, who asked to write her son's letter herself, cried when she read my letter for him. My (unedited) letter got her son into Harvard.


“Her choice in APs was abysmal. Rosemarie Jahoda in math came with baggage from Stuyvesant and created her own mess at BxScience. Ms. Falzone in science was a poor replacement for the great Martha Szporn, and gave professional development demos for faculty that were factually incorrect. Ms. Chang in guidance was hand-picked after several great people left after one year each and collaborated in reporting problem student's parents to ACS to punish student behavior.


“The class of 2008 redid my 2005 NO QUACK campaign out of homage to me as well as to emphasize new issues. I still have a bunch of NO QUACK buttons to give away.”


Then I wrote a brief letter to the editor, but it was not published, either:

“Despite the fact that I was quoted in the article The Bronx Science Experiment by Robert Kolker (12/4/2011) I was never interviewed, though I made myself available to him.


“I was the only faculty member involved with my NO QUACK campaign. I stood outside the school on the public sidewalk the night of a PTA meeting with the parent of a senior and with a guidance counselor who had been wronged by Ms. Reidy, the principal, and distributed anti-Reidy pamphlets I had written and NO QUACK buttons. We were later joined by two former students of mine who were later grilled by Ms. Reidy for their participation.


“I am gratified by student comments about me from my two years at Bronx Science some six years ago. I thank my supportive colleagues at the time, Dr. Mel Maskin and Helen Kellert, both superlative teachers, and those seniors who revisited my No QUACK campaign in 2008, both to honor me and to address new grievances.

Last September the New York Times’ Schoolbook website had an article about Reidy as well (http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/09/15/bronx-science-sees-exodus-of-social-studies-teachers/):


I wrote a comment (http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/posts/91-what-s-your-take-on-the-turnover-at-bronx-high-school-of-science) about that article as well, but it was also not published:


“Jim Litsas noted that he was impressed with the speech Principal Reidy made at a parent-teacher meeting. But why was she at a parent-teacher meeting? I asked this question back in 2005 during my No Quack campaign when Ms. Reidy was calling herself ‘Dr.’ (Mike Tyson, the fighter, has an honorary doctorate, also, but does not presume to call himself ‘Dr. Tyson.’) How can parents and teachers have a meaningful dialog if Ms. Reidy is always there to intimidate. Parents told me that they did not want to jeopardize any advantage that Bronx Science might give their child by antagonizing Ms. Reidy.

“Ms. Reidy got her job after the previous principal, who was well respected, had his career put in limbo by then Chancellor Levy, a Bronx Science grad, who decided that the school should have a Nobel Prize winner as principal. When the search came up dry, and the principal in limbo walked, Ms. Reidy, an assistant principal of science and biology teacher, was chosen. Her education credentials are ordinary at best and her charisma is nil, but what she does excel at, besides reasonably good fiscal management, is vindictiveness towards anyone who crosses her.

“Somehow I crossed her, though I still do not know how. I had 30 years of college experience as a research chemistry professor and several excellent years at Bronx Science before my fall from grace. After a summer during which I mentored new teachers for the DOE, I began a new semester in which every observation, each of the unannounced ‘gotcha’ variety, was unsatisfactory. The written critiques, probably written by the assistant principal, were nonsensical and educationally ignorant. (A chemistry or physics teacher cannot start the scientific method with ‘state the problem’ because chemistry students do not know enough chemistry or physics to know they have a problem, unlike biology students who have 15 years of life experience when they walk into a biology classroom.) And all lessons had to be of the ‘developmental’ variety during which the ‘aim’ of the lesson is elicited from the students after a demonstration. Teachers could not announce the topic of a lesson beforehand, or suggest textbook readings or homework. Ms. Reidy claimed such assignments would destroy the ‘wow factor.’ One day I was challenged by Ms. Reidy regarding giving prior knowledge after a good student used the 25¢ word ‘equilibrium’ in her discussion during class.

“Despite the fact I had an excellent job elsewhere I returned to face the DOE hearing brought about by Mr. Reidy's unsatisfactory yearly evaluation of my work. I had three heroic witnesses appear on my behalf, one of which was still teaching at Bronx Science. Mr. Reidy, testifying by speakerphone from the comfort of her office, misspoke many times in that hearing, a hearing in which the deck is always stacked against an untenured teacher. The committee never asked her how I could be perfectly competent for two years (and 30+ years prior), then a miserable failure the next. The DOE has a battery of lawyers whose job is to assist principals in building cases against unwanted faculty. In my case Ms. Reidy's superiors back-dated letters and ignored evidence in accepting her evaluation. Ms. Reidy has absolute power and she wields it absolutely. As she once told me, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way but I will win.’ At least she doesn't call herself ‘Dr.’ anymore! However, I cannot ever teach for the DOE again in any capacity, even as a substitute.

“Bronx Science Alumni wring their hands over the possibility that Ms. Reidy's successor might be a graduate of Bloomberg's ineffectual ‘Leadership Academy.’ That is a very real concern, given the quality of recent principal appointments in the northwest Bronx, but it is no excuse for allowing Ms. Reidy to drive experienced teachers out of Bronx Science to replace them with cheaper, more compliant novices, bringing them to tears in the process. Unnecessary roughness. Penalty.

“I will end by recalling a day at Bronx Science during which Neil deGrasse Tyson of Hayden Planetarium and PBS Nova fame, and a Bronx Science graduate, returned to the school for a visit. His grace and demeanor with students that day made me daydream about what might have been had he, and not Ms. Reidy, been appointed as principal in 2001, before the Reign of Terror. A crazy idea, perhaps, but was it any crazier than the quest for a Nobel Prize winner?”


Mark Sadok, a former BxScience teacher, asked me to rewrite that comment for his anti-Reidy website http://www.bronxsciencenewprincipalscholarshipfund.com/ where a number of ex-BxScience faculty experiences, including his own, are chronicled. Mark still pickets BxScience—there is a picture of him doing so in the NYMag article. My rewrite:


“I have a research Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry and taught at the college level for 30 years before I started teaching high school. I taught at Bronx Science from February of 2003 though June of 2005, first under the exceptional assistant principal Martha Szporn and then, on her retirement, under the unexceptional Annelisse Falzone. At Mrs. Szporn's suggestion I became a faculty mentor. I was the founding advisor of the Go Club (now combined with the Chess Club), did photography and art work for the Robotics Team and the Alumni Association, was a Lincoln-Douglas debate judge and traveled with the team to Harvard, and took photos of the production of Oklahoma! because one of my senior mentorees [Evan Faber] played Curley. For the first two years I got straight Satisfactory ratings.


“I had a blast teaching and mentoring during 2003-2004. But everything changed in the fall of 2004. In September, Ms. Reidy was blackballing me among the assistant principals. Despite the fact that I had seniority, I was assigned none of the courses I had requested the year before. A first year teacher was given honors Regents chemistry. Ms. Falzone claimed she thought the novice would do a better job with there class than me. I was given no chemistry courses whatsoever. Instead I was relegated to a freshman Research Literacy course. I filed my first grievance that month over my assignment. (I won the grievance regarding the honors course but backed off switching courses because the first year teacher begged me no to.)


“As a bit of history, Ms. Reidy got her job after the previous principal, who was well respected, had his career put in limbo by then Chancellor Levy, a Bronx Science grad, who decided that the school should have a Nobel Prize winner as principal. When the search came up dry, and the principal in limbo walked, Ms. Reidy, an assistant principal of science and biology teacher, was chosen. Her education credentials are ordinary at best and her charisma is nil, but what she does excel at, besides reasonably good fiscal management, is vindictiveness towards anyone who crosses her.


“It became obvious in fall 2004 that I had somehow crossed Ms. Reidy, though I still do not know how. After a summer during which I mentored new teachers for the DOE, every observation that fall semester, each of the unannounced ‘gotcha’ variety, was unsatisfactory. The written critiques, probably written by the assistant principal, were nonsensical and educationally ignorant. (A chemistry or physics teacher cannot start the scientific method with ‘state the problem’ because chemistry students do not know enough chemistry or physics to know they have a problem, unlike biology students who have 15 years of life experience when they walk into a biology classroom.) And all lessons had to be of the ‘developmental’ variety during which the ‘aim’ of the lesson is elicited from the students after a demonstration. Teachers could not announce the topic of a lesson beforehand, or suggest textbook readings or homework. Ms. Reidy claimed such assignments would destroy the ‘wow factor.’ One day I was challenged by Ms. Reidy regarding giving prior knowledge after a good student used the 25¢ word ‘equilibrium’ in her discussion during class. In January 2005 Ms. Reidy removed me as a mentor because she alleged I was ‘derelict in my duties,’ though my letter for another mentor's son got him into Harvard and brought tears to his mother’s eyes. Of course Ms. Reidy was her own judge and jury in that matter, making things up as she needed to. The year made me physically ill, and when I left to go to the doctor on the last day of school I left a Mac notebook computer, a handmade walnut Go board and many, many other items that were never returned to me.


“Despite the fact I had an excellent job elsewhere I returned to face the DOE hearing brought about by Mr. Reidy's unsatisfactory yearly evaluation of my work. I had three heroic witnesses appear on my behalf, one of which was still teaching at Bronx Science. Mr. Reidy, testifying by speakerphone from the comfort of her office, misspoke many times in that hearing, a hearing in which the deck is always stacked against an untenured teacher. The committee never asked her how I could be perfectly competent for two years (and 30+ years prior), then a miserable failure the next. The DOE has a battery of lawyers whose job is to assist principals in building cases against unwanted faculty. In my case Ms. Reidy's superiors back-dated letters and ignored evidence in accepting her evaluation. Ms. Reidy has absolute power and she wields it absolutely. As she once told me, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way but I will win.’ At least she doesn't call herself ‘Dr.’ anymore! However, I cannot ever teach for the DOE again in any capacity, even as a substitute.


“Parent Jim Litsas recently noted in the Times that he was impressed with the speech Principal Reidy made at a parent-teacher meeting. But why was she at a parent-teacher meeting? I asked this question back in 2005 during my No Quack campaign (begun in late May) when Ms. Reidy was calling herself ‘Dr.’ (Mike Tyson, the fighter, has an honorary doctorate, also, but does not presume to call himself "Dr. Tyson.") How can parents and teachers have a meaningful dialog if Ms. Reidy is always there to intimidate. Parents told me that they did not want to jeopardize any advantage that Bronx Science might give their child by antagonizing Ms. Reidy. (I still have a bunch of No Quack buttons and duck calls if anyone is interested!)


Bronx Science Alumni wring their hands over the possibility that Ms. Reidy's successor might be a graduate of Bloomberg's ineffectual ‘Leadership Academy.’ That is a very real concern, given the quality of recent principal appointments in the northwest Bronx, but it is no excuse for allowing Ms. Reidy to drive experienced teachers out of Bronx Science to replace them with cheaper, more compliant novices, bringing them to tears in the process. Unnecessary roughness. Penalty.


I will end by recalling a day at Bronx Science during which Neil deGrasse Tyson of Hayden Planetarium and PBS Nova fame, and a Bronx Science graduate, returned to the school for a visit. His grace and demeanor with students that day made me daydream about what might have been had he, and not Ms. Reidy, been appointed as principal in 2001, before the Reign of Terror. A crazy idea, perhaps, but was it any crazier than the quest for a Nobel Prize winner?”


None of this chronicles my original appeals of Reidy’s decision, during which Elena Papaliberios, a DOE Local Instructional Superintendent in Region 1, clearly backdated a 8/7/2005 letter to me (8/7/2005 was a Sunday) since it mentions my correspondence to her through 8/13/2005—and the Region 1 attorney, Diana L. Armenakis initialed that letter!—so that she could meet contractual deadlines to prevent me from returning that September. (The “8/7/2005” letter had a postage meter date of 8/15/2005, and Papaliberios was on vacation at the time.) I requested that the New York State Office of the Attorney General Public Integrity Unit investigate the backdating, but nothing ever came of it. There clearly is no integrity in the DOE from bottom to top.