dagblog - Comments for "Bslev's Spouse and Little One Make News"

Thanks, I think all of you at

trkingmomoe — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 21:35:03 +0000

In reply to Wow. What Mona said Trkin.

Thanks, I think all of you at DAG would do the same thing if faced with my situation. I wrote about this to let all of you know that there are battles going on like the one in New York City buses, all over the country right now because of the conservative funding cuts and privatization of education. Like Bruce's wife ,Abby, there are many parents out there on the front lines trying to protect children's best interest. I have met many in my journey in this, that are very poor, but because their kids are their only assets they push just as hard to correct abuse until they can find someone, that knows the system well, willing to help. We are certainly all in this together.

Thank you Mona, you're very

Bruce Levine — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 14:04:19 +0000

In reply to Your wife and daughter are

Thank you Mona, you're very kind.

So, since yesterday, Abby got another call from the reporter on this segment, who really is wonderful and totally engaged in this story and has become buddies with Abby and some of the other parents. And I never watch local news and have to say I see real value to it at this point.

Anyway, so the reporter speaks to the NYC School Board's chancellor here and the dude is livid. He wants to know the names of the parents so he can offer responses to individual complaints!! Hee. She tells him to go whatevah (as we say) and then he starts on the 35 percent drop in complaint meme. She says to him, what does that mean????? He says duh, basically, because as AA suggested up top, he probably has no idea what it means. It's a talking point!!

So the micro and macro components of this. First, Norm Siegel, a civil rights lawyer somehow found out about this even before the segment aired and called Abby and apparently is interested in some kind of federal civil rights action on behalf of these kids.

Second, back to the point Trkin made so eloquently in her comment, could you imagine where we would be right now if it weren't for the parents taking matters into their own hands? It kills me inside to think that this really is just the tip of a very large and multi-dimensional iceberg.

Finally, in the end, things are going to be OK for my little Noa regardless of what ultimately happens here. I've been doing the private practice thing for about 25 years now, after having left a wonderful first job out of law school with the USDOL. I was 27 with two kids at the time and just couldn't afford the government pay and I left a job I truly loved. Seems like an eternity ago.

So, starting in November I'm going in-house to be general counsel for a group of union/mult-iemployer benefit trust funds that I've been working with since 1989. The folks there are another family I'm blessed with and I'm ready for a more regular lifestyle, particularly because I've been through the raising kids thing and getting home at 9 pm every night. And the last few years I've been doing lots of traveling, yadda yadda.

Anyway, so I'm doing that and will still have a relationship with the firm and partners I love (another family) and do some work with a couple of unions for them--subject to my new duties of course. But the point of all of this is that I'll plan to have more time with my Noa, including the opportunity to drive, yes drive (weird because we're in Manhattan) her to school every morning. My new job requires a reverse commute as we call it, and Noa's school, which is on the Upper East Side is right on the way to the Triboro bridge, which is what I'll take to get to work.

So things will work out for us in that sense, but the problem will undoubtedly continue for others and then the true challenge (staying committed on behalf of those outside one's own clan) will reemerge and hopefully guide us going forward. I know it will guide Abby--she is one helluva woman. And I know I'm biased but heaven knows it's true.

Thanks for reading my digression Mona.

Bruce

Thanks Oxy, betchya say that

Bruce Levine — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 13:26:30 +0000

In reply to Bruce, thanks for sharing

Thanks Oxy, betchya say that to all the dudes who wear their hearts on their keyboards!

Can't help it. Medium is too there, or something.

And kids, kids stole my heart long before I had my own. And for heaven's sakes the "kids" I grew up with are all becoming grandmas and grandpas and making fun of me for Round 2! I love it.

Wow. What Mona said Trkin.

Bruce Levine — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 13:23:09 +0000

In reply to I call it slaying dragons for

Wow.

What Mona said Trkin. Bless you.

Bruce

Momoe, you are one truly

Ramona — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 12:16:35 +0000

In reply to I call it slaying dragons for

Momoe, you are one truly amazing woman. The world needs more of you, and it's for sure that your grandkids are pretty darned lucky to have you.

I call it slaying dragons for

trkingmomoe — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 03:19:53 +0000

In reply to Thanks AA, believe me I

I call it slaying dragons for my grandkids. My oldest grandson came to live with me when he was 11 years old. He was depressed and over medicated. I gave up my paying job and did what I needed to do for him. It took many phone calls and meetings to get him the right help. He is now in his 3 rd year of college. I was told that he would end up in prison or if he was lucky learn a trade from the school's social worker. That was a bunch of horse feathers and I told them that. He wants to be a English teacher.

I have watched program and teachers get cut as the 3 younger ones entered elementary school. Two of them are high achievers and the gifted program was cut. A teacher and program that they enjoyed. The youngest didn't get to go to preK and had to get over his shyness and separation anxiety his first year in a school setting. Speech was another handicap for him. It took all year to get him tested and on the list for help when entering in first grade. It was cut backs that limited the kids to qualify and I was worried that he would fall through the cracks. I learned how to pull the strings and who's desk I needed to jump on to navigate through the system when helping his big brother. He is now starting to catch up and will be where he needs to be when he finishes first grade. You are right, there are so many kids that our education system is not investing in their future.

Your wife and daughter are

Ramona — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 02:30:08 +0000

In reply to Bslev's Spouse and Little One Make News

Your wife and daughter are just lovely. Very photogenic and good with the camera. That story is unbelievable. An hour and a half on a school bus, and much of it just sitting and waiting? Has anything happened since this first aired? Heads should roll and someone should be fired--or at least totally embarrassed by this.

But it really was great to see your family.

Bruce, thanks for sharing

Oxy Mora — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 01:31:40 +0000

In reply to Bslev's Spouse and Little One Make News

Bruce, thanks for sharing this uplifting story with us, especially in this climate of absurd behavior. I was an investor and worked at a pediatric rehab equipment company where I had experience with some of these kids. They can really steal your heart with their great spirit.

Thanks AA, believe me I

Bruce Levine — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 17:15:17 +0000

In reply to I watched it because I was

Thanks AA, believe me I understand your frustration with the city bureaucracy and it's one of the things we all deal with in so many ways.

Your focus on the claim in your P.S. comment about the city's claim of declines in the rates of complaints is so right on for the reasons you state and for others as well. Let me give you a supplemental take on "complaints" and I guess from what we know we have to assume that the Board is comparing apples to apples in terms of their Kafkaesque type defense.

But, whatever, the thing is our Noa is lucky because she has two educated parents who know how to one way or another get through the bureaucracy on her behalf. I know how difficult it has been for us to navigate the system, which of course includes calling politicians who know someone who know someone, etc.

But there is a whole different and larger segment of the city population that doesn't have the support network that we can give to our Noa, and thus for example so many folks probably don't even know that there is a way to complain, or in Noa's case, that there is a way to "demonstrate" that their child cannot get an appropriate education in a public classroom with 25 or 30 or more kids and with all different types of special needs. We've been fighting for her for years and we're both lawyers and we still find dead-ends. But I know, I've seen it and you see it too--there's a helluva lot of kids out there who have nobody to do the navigating for them. For every kid like Noa, whose parents went to 8 gazillion school settings to find the right place for her, I bet there are dozens that are pushed through the regular system (because they "look" and "seem" "normal"), or are shoved into a special education program that just cannot meet their individualized needs.

You know my orientation, and I fully empathize with teachers who are forced to do their job with too many kids and too few resources, and with no parental support. I know what they're going through. Heck, my son is learning the hard way right now, doing the TFA thing in an inner city school in Newark. Now that's a charter school, and there are abundant resources and smaller classrooms, but the kids he teaches (9th grade English and the kids average a 4th grade reading level) get in there by lottery. I cannot even imagine what is offered to the kids who wind up in public schools with zero funding and no textbooks. The stories we read about are all too true and it is a stain on our society--it is a damn shame.

So in any event, I'm ranting, but I know I'm lucky, and Noa's lucky too. And I know that my three older kids who grew up in the suburbs and got decent public educations--really decent--demonstrate that the public school system can work, and with buses that run on time.

If we're not going to invest in our kids, why do anything? This vicious cycle of poverty starts here in these kinds of stories. And as I said we as a society have quite a bit to answer for.

Anyway, I love my little Noa, and she's doing great, and there's nothing that I like more than watching her have a conversation--a real one--with her Mom (my beshert)!

P.S. The story really

artappraiser — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 15:54:47 +0000

In reply to I watched it because I was

P.S. The story really encapsulates what frustrates me about the long-time attitude of a lot of NYC government workers. I was enraged by the b.s. bureaucratic spin that Channel 4 got from the Department. Complaints are down 36% this year, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well goodie for you, hope you got a promotion or at least a gold star review. You sound like a Soviet official bragging about meeting this year's quota for shoes no one in reality can find. Now what about these kids in particular? Why didn't you help them and their parents fix their particular problem? Why did they have to organize into a group and in frustration have to go to the TV news? Silly me, I thought you are paid by taxpayers to serve them, not to treat them as statistics to win political points on the job.