Asbestos at Fairfax. Does anyone remember?
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I graduated from LAUSD’s Fairfax High School 41 years ago. Today I received a disturbing letter from an old friend, Les Perlman. Perlman is now Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Les writes,
I am forwarding a very sad EMail from Gina Blumenfeld about Tony Schultz, who was a half or whole year ahead of us at Fairfax, and, for many of us, at JB.If you have any information please contact Sol Weisel, at soweis@sbcglobal.net who will pass it on to Tony’s family.Sad Les,Sorry for the lengthy email, but the reason I’m writing you now is because Tony Shultz, who was at JB and Fairfax with us, has just recently been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, specifically, mesothelioma (the kind from asbestos exposure). It appears that he may have been exposed at Fairfax HS or at UC Berkeley during the 60s. I’m hoping you can help me try to contact all the Fairfax alums that you can think of to let them know about Tony and help us search for information that his family is seeking from anyone who may remember construction/destruction going on at Fairfax between ‘62 - ‘65, where asbestos was prevalent in building materials. Also, they’re looking for anyone who may have been involved in theater set construction or ceramics classes during high school or at UC Berkeley where Tony and some of the rest of us attended) since asbestos might also ihave been in those building materials, glazes, etc.If you could also help in spreading the word for this information it would be greatly appreciated. Your brother, Jay has already given me some important information: He does remember they did a core test in the building farthest north and east during that time and the wall cracked and the sample crumbled, but he thinks that the construction didn’t start anytime earlier then summer of 1967. It’s important to get as many recollections on this matter as possible - some may confirm Jay’s memory, others may contradict or add important detail.Sol Weisel and Ben Pomerantz are also trying to contact as many people who were at Fairfax and Berkeley with us. If you can contact or forward me current email addresses for the following (or any others you can think of), that would be great:p.s.Here is part of an email from Tony’s wife, Susan, that lays out more specifically the kind of information they are looking for:FAIRFAX ALUMS– T was there from 62-65. Do you recall any construction or tearing down of the buildings during that time? T remembers being in the rotunda area a lot and that there was a lot of construction and de construction happening around that time. And demolition of old buildings contained a great deal of asbetsos, most paints, stuccos that were sprayed, joint compound that was used. Can anyone help us to corroborate dates? Dusty conditions etc?? Please let me know?BERKELEY-Construction of Zellerbach Hall was in 68, exactly the time T was there and working as a theatre techie. it is quite possible that he went into the new construction to help set up the new theater–or was around the construction as part of his job, Any memories of Zellerback construction? Of Dwinnell builiding materials? OF light and cable materials that might be culpable. We are looking for a contact for Mitchell Levitan in Albion CA–who was T’s boss at the time.CERAMICS STUDIO from 62-65. we know there were certain glazes that contained talc and asbestos fibers. anyone work inthe studio and might be able ti identify a jar or box that held product used in the studio. we are looking for RON NAGLE his instructor. Any ideas? or anyone else in the studio at that time? Any way of checking what glazes and products were commonly used at that time?
Secret experiments on teachers. Now that’s what I’m talking about.
Eduwonkette goes to the heart of the matter. NY elementary and middle school principals volunteered their schools, keeping their teachers in the dark while a secret plan to evaluate them using test score data was tested on them.This is not about using test score data to evaluate teachers. That is certainly dumb enough. But about the secret experiment, Eduwonkette asks,
Where are the ethics?
“This is a line in the sand for the UFT.”
Leo Casey, a leader of the NY teachers’ union, says that the use of test score data to evaluate NY city public school teachers is
… a line in the sand for the UFT.
This echoes the statement of UFT president Randi Weingarten when she was quoted in the NY Times yesterday, saying,
If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life.
Some members of the UFT raised criticisms of the leadership, particularly because the Times reported that the union leadership had been aware of the secret use of test score data to evaluate teachers.
But Casey, writing in Edwize, denied that report, stating,
The DoE told us that they wanted to do an “academic study” on value added models over the summer. Randi made it clear from the very first time this was raised in a meeting that we would be in total opposition to the use of data from that study to evaluate teachers. When they told us how they wanted to do the study, we raised the sort of objections I discussed above, to no avail. The spectre of using this study for teacher evaluations and tenure was raised by the DoE first last week, in a speech the deputy Chancellor gave in Washington DC.
One can’t exaggerate the importance of this fight in NY for teachers all across the country. This is not about what one union local negotiates for it’s members. If Chancellor Klein gets away with this in NY, no teacher is safe.
Says Casey,
The DoE has no contractual or legal authority to use test score data in the evaluation of teachers, and the UFT will oppose it with all the means at our disposal.
I’m right behind you, brother.
