NYC Schools and Mark Dayton Part 2

Wednesday, 01 September 2010 18:25 Last Updated on Wednesday, 01 September 2010 20:46

I posted yesterday about my response from the NYC Department of Education/NYC Schools to a Freedom of Information request to verify Mark Dayton's employment with their school system.  I was surprised when the department could not confirm any employment for Mark Dayton since he's talked for years about working as a teacher in the NYC Schools and has made this experience a prominent part of his personal history.

Some have questioned the ability and integrity of the processes of finding records in the NYC School System.  I can only say that they have an entire department dedicated to fulfilling FOI requests and the letter I posted was from an attorney in their Department.  Based on his response, it is fact that the NYC DOE has no records of Mark Dayton working anywhere in their system.

Politics in Minnesota Morning report picked up my post around 8:30am this morning.  I called the Dayton campaign around 9am for comment and by noon Politics in Minnesota had posted their own defense of Senator Dayton and misquoted my blog (which they later corrected.)

Dayton's campaign released this Teaching Certificate as proof that Senator Dayton had taught in the NYC Schools....(they also sent it to me as a response to my phone call, saying that they "hoped" I'd update my blog)

The certificate shows that Senator Dayton was licensed as a teacher of general science teacher in the Jr High Schools in the City of New York effective Oct 21st, 1969.  It also shows his address was in c/o "The Teachers, Inc."

Blogger and liberal activist Charlie Quimby took the step of contacting the founder of The Teachers, Inc. today and here was his response:

I can indeed verify that Mark Dayton was a teacher in the New York City public schools for two years, and a member of The Teachers Inc., which was the predecessor of Teach for America.

I was one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers (1961-1963).  Following that experience I created The Teachers Inc. as a kind of "peace corps" for American inner-city schools.  Unlike the Peace Corps the organization itself was a private non-profit that recruited, trained and placed outstanding and highly-motivated young people in urban school districts.  We operated by contract with school districts in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Atlanta.

Mark taught on the Lower East Side where my headquarters were located.  He was one of the first to come into the program, along with a number of recent Yale graduates, and I knew him quite well.  He did a very good job and the conditions were in some ways more demanding than the Peace Corps.

It is indeed contemptible that anyone would attempt to claim that Mark did not teach in the New York City public schools or deny his youthful idealism.  

I would never deny Senator Dayton's youthful idealism.  I am however, still confused about Senator Dayton's dates of employment and the job title he held.  And Senator Dayton could also be confused, look at these conflicting press accounts.

From Education Week (date unknown- emphasis mine)

Thirty years before he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 2000, Mark Dayton was a ninth-grade science teacher at PS 65 in New York City — his first job after graduating from Yale.

"I have always said it was the toughest job I ever had," Dayton told the National Education Association before retiring from Congress.

Dayton, who spent three years in the classroom, was one of 79 members of the outgoing 109th Congress who identified themselves as former educators in an NEA survey conducted for American Education Week.

"The experience left me with profound respect for the tremendous work that dedicated teachers perform all across our country, for which they receive too little pay and too little appreciation," Dayton said. The NEA is one of NYSUT's national affiliates. The United Federation of Teachers is NYSUT's affiliate in New York City schools.

And currently, per his website:

After college, I taught 9th grade general science for two years in a New York City public school.

Perhaps the EdWeek writer had it wrong?

I've done some research myself on The Teachers Inc, here's one thing I found today... According to the New York University Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor archives index :

This Two Bridges Model School District is apparently where Senator Dayton taught.

If Senator Dayton didn't have a license to be in the classroom until late October 1969 and records show that The Teacher's Inc existed within the NYC system from 1967-1970....how many months did Senator Dayton teach?  And why doesn't the NYC DOE have any record of his employment?

My guess (based on instructions in the corner of Senator Dayton's own teaching certificate) is that he did not turn in his certificate to the school secretary so it never made it to central records.  The campaign simply needs to rectify this by having their attorneys contact the NYC DOE with this record in order to verify his employment dates....or they can just go on the word of his former boss I suppose.  (Of course this method of employment verification wouldn't pass muster in the "real world".)

And although he was licensed to teach, it's been reported that he was a student teacher.

From the International Falls Journal, March 2010)

“Dayton said he taught 32 kids in a ninth-grade classroom as a student teacher in New York.”

Was he a student teacher, or was he a teacher?  There's a huge difference.  Senator Dayton gives the impression time-and-time again that he was a 9th grade Junior High School science teacher in New York City at P.S. 65.

This is basic employment verification that any average Joe would have to complete before getting a job.  Apparently the media doesn't agree.  (Although I did have an AP reporter ask me for my FOI request, which I provided.)

All of this reaction for simply trying to confirm that Senator Dayton worked at a ghetto school?

Next up:  The Boston years.

P.S.  If any media would like more detailed information about this organization "The Teachers Inc." (because there is very little online), I have an interesting report from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education from June 1970.

NYC Schools Says "No Records" for Mark Dayton

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 12:40 Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 August 2010 13:23

As a self-appointed Minnesota "journalist" for this 2010 campaign season, I've been doing some research on DFL candidate for Governor, Mark Dayton.  As I've said many times, I find it amazing that we know so little about this 63-year-old man who has been running for statewide office on-and-off for nearly thirty years. 

Two of the campaign antecdotes that Mr. Daytons shares over-and-over again are:

1.  That he worked in the New York Public School system post-college and

2.  That he lived with a family on welfare while in New York

I'm particularily interested in the welfare story and thought I'd try to track down where exactly Mr. Dayton lived, who the family was, if they still keep in contact, and if they're still on welfare.

As an amateur genealogist, I'm pretty good with finding records, (especially in NYC where I've spent time at the Chambers Street Archives office.)  I decided to sent a request to the NYC Department of Education Chambers Street office where all records are kept for the public schools.  NYC has a superior Freedom of Information Act law whereby requests must be acknowledged within five days.  I exchanged a couple emails with the Department's attorney, and today received the following letter via email:

This is very interesting.

Mark Dayton's current website biography reads:

After college, I taught 9th grade general science for two years in a New York City public school. It was the toughest job I’ve ever had!

This was my request (in addition to standard template language for a FOI request)

Please email the following records:
 
confirmation of employment of:
Mark B. Dayton (birthdate 1/26/47) by the New York City Dept of Education/NYC Public Schools
dates of employment (believe them to be approximately July 1969-July 1971)
job title at the time of employment
school of employment
home address during the period of employment

Now, it's quite possible that Mr. Dayton never took a salary while teaching, however there would still be some record of his employment.  Why doesn't the NYC public schools have any record of Mark Dayton working there when he says he did?

With an insanely left-leaning Minneapolis media establishment-- with long-standing ties to the Dayton family-- it's unlikely that any will bother to ask Mark Dayton about it nor likely that this post will make any news.

Investigating an Emmer antecdote about Minnesota pig farmers?  You betcha.

Update on the VOICES PAC

Monday, 30 August 2010 18:16 Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 August 2010 07:48

Former State Representative Laura Brod (New Prague) made the national Hot Air blog this morning with an interesting post about how the left keeps women in a "little glass box" in the way they choose to endorse female candidates.

The post echos the sentiment of my July blog post:  The Most Important PAC in Minnesota (for Conservatives) where I praised the VOICES of Conservative Women group based here in Minnesota.  From that piece:

There's great irony in the fact that the liberal-feminist agenda requires women be so rigidly defined in the political world by one single issue.  It's time to move on, it's time to grow up, it's time to move into the 21st century and understand that our equality hinges upon judging women by our individual minds not our common biological anatomy.   

There are hard-working, young conservative women ready to change the status quo.  Put some big bucks behind that sort of talent and you can be assured that the women winning in Minnesota elections will be conservative ones.

Seems that the big bucks are rolling in....as one single donor gave the PAC $25,000 earlier this month with the promise of $20,000 more should an additonal $10,000 be raised.  There are Minnesota CEO's and high-profile donors whose interest has been piqued by the PAC and I'm confident VOICES will make this goal.  (Did I mention they had more cash-on-hand, as of the last campaign finance report, than the long-established Women Winning of the left?)

Politics in Minnesota did a nice profile on the group a couple of weeks ago.

I happened to run into Senator Rudy Boschwitz and his wife Ellen about a month ago at the Minnetonka Byerlys and mentioned VOICES, Ellen donated to the PAC on the spot.  There is big buzz with this PAC and it will need to have key wins this election cycle in order to be sustainable for the long run.

In the small sorority that is elected Republican women in Minnesota, Rep Brod is most certainly a leader.  I look forward to her ideas about how to help enlarge that circle because there's no doubt that we need to grow the sisterhood.

Disclosure:  I'm a donor to the VOICES of Conservative Women PAC  If you'd like to help VOICES make their fundraising goal, contribute today.

The Wood-rill Foundation and Quack Medicine

Thursday, 19 August 2010 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 19 August 2010 22:01

On December 27, 2009 Mark Dayton went public with what many people knew privately:  He's been medicated for depression and he had an alcoholic relapse in 2007.  The Star Tribune piece served to preempt any bombs that the opposition could throw in the early stages of the Governor's race.  A 10-minute interview couldn't possibly reveal anything substantive about the mystery man nor did the Star Tribune seek to find out more after the piece was run.  Questions like:  How many depressive episodes have you had?  When was your last one?  Have you been hospitalized for depression? If so, how many times and when was the last time you were hospitalized?  A man who wants to be Governor drops the news and the media moves on....excellent political strategy....if you're a liberal that is, because you'll get away with it. 

Something else happened in December of last year to prepare Mark Dayton for a run at the Governor's office:  Wood-rill Foundation was dissolved.  Wood-rill is the Foundation of Mark Dayton and his immediate family and has been since 1968.  Wood-rill has given away over $60 Million in grant money since 1994 (that's as far back as online records go.)  They've funded everything from Bill Clinton's Foundation to the Minnesota Environmental Partnership with the vast majority of their grants bestowed in Minnesota.  They've funded arts projects and environmental projects large and small all over the state...great projects and not-so-great projects but certainly enough projects to garner some goodwill for Dayton.

I suppose one could also argue that Wood-rill was dissolved after forty years because of Mark's father Bruce's advancing age (according to the New York Times he winters in Antigua these days,)  I don't know.  I do know that when you used to google "Mark Dayton" you would see him listed on the Wood-rill Board of Directors on Guidestar (the free online research tool of charities,) and now you don't.  (I have the cached page though.)

In 2002 and 2003, Wood-rill provided the initial seed money ($700,000) for the "Philanthropic Collaborative for Integrative Medicine" which became the Bravewell Collaborative. The Bravewell Collaborative is probably the best-known promoter of "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" (CAM) in the country.  They were founded by a group of Philanthropists "frustrated with the U.S. health care system."

Wood-rill funded a PBS documentary "The New Medicine" (which was produced and shown here on Twin Cities Public Television in 2006,) as a source of legitimacy for Bravewell.  The Collaborative's main work during the last eight years has been to ensure that medical schools are incorporating Alternative Medicine courses into new Doctor training.  They've been very successful as forty medical schools are now doing just that- all because of Bravewell.  The University of Minnesota leads the way with fifty staff members in it's very own "Center for Spirituality and Healing" (of course-- how embarrassing.)

Bravewell is based here in Minneapolis.  It is funded today by the uber-uber-wealthy from all over the world...the 2007 tax return is peppered with New York, New York addresses and includes large donations including ones from a Jordanian Princess, Oprah Winfrey's Dr. Oz and even direct contributions from Goldman Sachs and the infamous Tides Foundation.

Here's what the Science-Based Medicine Blog (written by a neurologist at Yale Medical School,) has to say about the organization:

The Bravewell Collaborative, a relatively recent actor supporting these techniques has been literally buying its way into medical schools – faculties and curricula. It sponsors almost forty medical school programs of classes, courses, research, and post-graduate training – training students and physicians in irrational thinking and integrating belief systems.

In their own words Bravewell's mission is:  "to help transform the culture of healthcare and to reclaim Relationship-Centered Healing."   What?

Bravewell was founded by a core group of people including Christy Mack, wife of the Chairman of Morgan Stanley and other very wealthy women who want to change how doctors are trained and how medicine is delivered in this country.   The ladies who lunch practice yoga too.

Per a 2002 Forbes article about Bravewell:

"The practice of medicine should be focused with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of mind, body, spirit and community," says Mack, who herself is a trained practitioner of Reiki, an ancient Eastern massage technique that she claims transmits energy to the patient.

..."We want Bravewell to be a catalyst for change, and we think we are reaching the tipping point," says Mack, who won't be satisfied until the medical establishment accepts her point of view as an integral part of their profession.

These people see things like homeopathic remedies, therapeutic touch, yoga, meditation, and accupuncture as necessary services in modern hospitals.  Services that should be provided and paid for as a part of any standard treatment, services that they've re-branded from "Alternative Medicine" to the much less Shirley-Maclaine-sounding "Integrative Medicine". 

In March 2009 the Washington Post had a piece "Critics Object to Pseudoscience Center"

From the article:

The impending national discussion about broadening access to health care, improving medical practice and saving money is giving a group of scientists an opening to make a once-unthinkable proposal: Shut down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

The notion that the world's best-known medical research agency sponsors studies of homeopathy, acupuncture, therapeutic touch and herbal medicine has always rankled many scientists. That the idea for its creation 17 years ago came from a U.S. senator newly converted to alternative medicine's promise didn't help.

Which Senator?  Iowa's Tom Harkin, who started the spending on Alternative Medicine when he found the funding for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) back in 1999.  Why?  Because he believed bee pollen had cured his hay fever.  Thank you Senator Harkin!  Because of you and your allergies, federal tax payers have paid $1.3 BILLION over the last eleven years for quack research.  That's Billion- with a "B."(Remember everyone, there's nothing to cut out there, I mean government is just dying on the vine and we must increase revenue!) 

The Bravewell Collaborative works hand-in-hand with NCCAM to promote their quackery in medical schools all over the country.  They also sponsor events like last February's "Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public".  From the Science-based Medicine Blog:

Eschewing the scientific basis for modern medical practice, however, is another matter. In February of 2009, Dr. Berwick gave a ‘keynote’ address at the IOM and Bravewell Collaborative-sponsored Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public. He shared the podium with Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Senator Tom Harkin, and other advocates of pseudoscientific health claims.

Combine the quackery of the NCCAM with the recent Obama-appointment of Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ....

Berwick has said things like this:

I suggest that we should without equivocation make patient-centeredness a primary quality dimension all its own, even when it does not contribute to the technical safety and effectiveness of care.

The patients run the show, the yoga mats hit the floor and the herbal remedies hit the pharmacies...what year is this?  What country are we in?

From the December 2008 Wall Street Journal article "The Touch that Doesn't Heal"

Fees for CAM services are increasingly passed on to insurance through a creative -- some might say fraudulent -- interpretation of the Current Procedural Terminology codes that govern reimbursement for authorized services. (Various tutorials, some online, guide practitioners through the reimbursement maze.) Such creativity may soon be unnecessary if the alternative medicine proponents have their way. For example, ABC Coding Solutions, a medical-software company, has been promulgating a set of 4,000 treatment codes that cover "nearly every healing modality practiced by alternative healthcare providers," to quote one report. If such codes are fully absorbed by the health-care industry, CAM will have been mainstreamed -- while bypassing all the customary peer review, controlled studies and other hallmarks of sound medicine.

I thought our health care system was too expensive?  Now, we want to add massages to the reimbursement roster?

Let's be clear:  Alternative medicine therapies are "feel good" frivolity.  Physicians in training should be focused on one thing:  how to make sick people well using the best methods that modern science has to offer.  And as far as "spiritual wellness"....praying to God when you're sick is free.  Just FYI.

Mr. Dayton is an unabashed far-left liberal whose top campaign promises include single-payer Universal Health Care in Minnesota, (because Obamacare isn't awful enough.)  Based on his Wood-rill Foundation's involvment with a quack organization like the Bravewell Collaborative, isn't it fair to ask if he believes that non-science based medicine should be funded via his government-run vision?