When someone early on in a conversation, without prompting, tells you that there is nothing “sinister, evil or vile” happening, your immediate response is to assume that this is sinister, evil and vile. The item in question is an ad promoting an “essay contest” that appeared in the Newton TAB last week asking Newton North students to submit a 200 to 400 word essay on Israeli/ Palestinian peace AND to list the sources that led them to their conclusion.
Prizes for the winning entries included hundreds of dollars in gift cards to “The Mall at Chestnut Hill”. The ad does not appear in the December 7 issue of the newspaper.
Joshua Resnek, the person whose email is in the ad, admitted that it was designed to unearth curriculum materials about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that are being taught at North. He was sure to tell me that “there is nothing sinister, evil or vile” involved with this ad.
Specifically the contest rules asks students to:
List all lesson plans, outlines, chapters in specific textbooks, handouts, homework or other work related to this issue assigned to you during the class.
Allegations that anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian curriculum materials are being taught in Newton Public Schools is not a new issue. A group, led by Newton resident Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Justice, has long sought to prove that Newton is teaching its kids anti-Israeli rhetoric, is continuing its efforts to obtain damaging information where none actually exists.
Not so, says Resnek. He tells me that his group, which he claims is not at all associated with Jacobs, has tried going through official channels to review school curriculum materials but hasn’t received documents.
From what I understand, various document requests under the Freedom of Information Act have been filled with Newton Public Schools but that the petitioners have balked at paying the fees which NPS is allowed by law to charge.
So if we hold Resnek at his word when he says he’s not connected to Charles Jacobs, then who? Resnek claims it’s for a “fella doing a long report on education standards and how things like this are done. It’s footnoted, it’s pretty well done. It’s coming out in several months, the missing piece is Newton North High School.”
So, who is this mysterious researcher?
“He’d rather not be publicly revealed until the study comes out. It’s a well-known educator who has done multiple studies. It’s not Mr. Jacobs or one of his associates.”
But Resnek did say that Russell Pergament — founder of the Newton TAB and someone who has long history of being concerned about an anti-Israeli bias in Newton schools and who does have had a long affiliation with Charles Jacobs and his associates — paid for the ad in the TAB.
Resnek has a resume that includes a long list of articles written for the big players like the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and the New York Times. He founded a publishing company that ran community newspapers in what he calls “post-industrial cities” around Boston. Most recently, he spent 13 months as publisher of the Jewish Journal before starting a couple of papers in Brookline and Newton. Neither paper has an online presence, both have a Facebook page where the ad in question also appeared. No other ads have been posted to the Facebook page.
On the plus side, Resnek told me that no North students have entered the contest. In fact he said not one person has responded to this ad, with the exception of me.
“I had the feeling in composing this that if some students did this they may pay a price for it,” he said. “So not hearing from anybody makes me feel that there is a bit of conspiracy of kids coming forward to do this. But I’m not a conspiracy theorist.”
Or of course, maybe that’s because he ran an ad for an essay contest for teens in a print newspaper and most teens have stopped reading newspapers.
Or perhaps it’s because all this alleged anti-Israeli, Newton Public Schools sanctioned, materials that Jacobs, Resnek, Pergament and others are so worried about simply don’t exist.
Great; tricking and manipulating minors to achieve one’s political goals. It surely doesn’t get much sleazier than that.
I agree sleazy, sinister, vile and ridiculously executed.
More importantly, I just don’t understand why — with so many real problems in the world — there is a faction of our neighbors so hell bent on proving the existence of material that by all accounts is not part of the 2016 school curriculum and perhaps never was. If it was, I’m sure some bright high schooler would have presented it already….no phony, manipulative “contest” needed.
Sounds sinister, evil and vile to me.
How much does Newton charge for looking at the records and does it cost more than advertising in the TAB? I thought public records were supposed to be free and the one time I went to the clerk’s office to get the records for my property I don’t think it cost anything.
What you experienced is a standard request and that’s a far cry from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. A FOIA is usually a specific question that requires searching for documents and records around an idea.
In this case, if you use the list on the ad as a guide, it would include books, articles, lesson plans, and other papers around how a group of teachers handle a subject. It could also include multiple time periods (say, 2014 through 2016). It’s a simple question to ask, but more difficult to fill, since the documents in question could be in any of a number of different places.
So the documents need to be found, collected, reviewed, copied and then given to the group that requested them. The city handles these requests and, as is standard procedure, determines how many hours they think it would take to fill, applies an hourly rate to that and then lets the other party know what it will cost.
Often, if the cost is too high, the requesting party may adjust the search to make it cheaper or easier to narrow down. Think about it like a blind Google search, but the searches cost something.
In this case the number I heard was in the neighborhood of $4000.
All FOIA requests are paid for by the individual making the request.
Thanks to Chuck for picking up on this sinister, evil, and vile Newton Tab ad and FOIA request.
Sinister, evil, and vile sums it up nicely for me. It is also ridiculously stupid.
Yes, sinister, evil and vile it is. Thanks Chuck. Great that no one but you responded. Kids are smarter than they’re given credit for. I’m always relieved when someone tells me they are not a conspiracy theorist as they spout a conspiracy theory.
This reminds me of the “conservative watchlist” to keep tabs on left leaning professors. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/01/new-conservative-watchlist-targets-professors-for-advancing-leftist-propaganda/?utm_term=.6a3c3a513c5d
On the other hand, perhaps some enterprising North student ought to enter before tomorrow’s deadline just to collect the one of three gift cards, which I’d would think Joshua Resnek would be obligated to award or else be liable for false advertising.
I hope they are good critical readers and just ignore him.
Why can’t the city approach the teachers who teach the curriculum and just ask for their syllabus for the past 5 years. I understand what Chuck explained, but why make it so difficult. Just get these people the information they want and end this charade. Maybe the next administration will be more transparent.
Also, if this group can afford an add in the Tab, can’t they afford the FOIA? I know they say they aren’t the same group, but there must be overlapping people involved. This just seems so ridiculously easy to fix.
This doesn’t slightly bother anyone????
@Tom: I would guess that if someone genuinely believes the Newton Public Schools is trying to brainwash our kids by feeding them pro-Palestinian propaganda, they don’t trust the NPS or their co-conspirator teachers to turn over the materials, either via your overly simplistic method or via a FOIA.
In other words, logic and facts do not apply here.
It’s not a matter of “making it difficult,” it’s a matter of law and properly filling the FOIA. There is a process to making sure that they comply with the law and that takes time.
The city can go back to the petitioner and offer something like you described, but then it’s up to the petitioner to agree. If you want more information on FOIA requests there is a group working out of Somerville called MuckRock (https://www.muckrock.com/) that specializes on FOIA requests. The guy who runs it, Michael Morisy, is a great person and I’m sure would be willing to answer questions on process.
I should also note that the city has filled these requests regularly and will likely fill any that come through the door.
I have a theory on this topic:
The teacher(s) involved chose to take a world dispute and show both sides of an issue. In this case it was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I would guess the kids were instructed to take both sides into consideration and try to resolve the dispute.
The Charles Jacobs led group only focused in on the Palestinian side of the curriculum, saying that the schools are teaching Palestinian propaganda.. Obviously, just a guess.
@Greg: It is sadly an open question whether facts apply anywhere these days. I am hopeful that the amazing brainpower and ingenuity of the American people will move us past these frightening times.
So, copies of the rules and a list of winners may be obtained by writing to The Chelsea Press, LLC. Never heard of this company before – perhaps because it didn’t exist prior to August 9th of this year when it was incorporated to publish “books and newspapers” according to the Secretary of State’s Dept. of Corporations database. A brand new publisher launches with a contest that targets kids at a specific high school to quite obviously obtain classroom materials. Nope, nothing sinister here. Clearly all on the up and up. [LOL]
I’m saying the following with absolutely no disrespect to Andy Levin or his woefully understaffed
team who labor overtime to crank out a respectable weekly edition of the TAB; but I’m baffled as to why Mr. Resneck chose the TAB to reach High School Students and why he was surprised that not a single student responded. The TAB is probably the major communications resource I’d use while trying to reach older residents of Newton, say those over 55. A few weeks Back Rodney Barker and I drafted a letter that Andy published about the proposed Local Historic District (LHD) in Newton Highlands. A letter in the TAB is a powerful tool for reaching older homeowners in our Village, probably the most read section along with the obits and police arrest reports. But it’s one of the last I’d use to reach high school students or anyone under 30. They just don’t read newspapers generally and for those few that do read newspapers, local issues are almost always way of the radar screen unless something is affecting them personally. I’m not implying that the Millennial generation is uninformed. It’s just they are tuned into different things and rely on different forms of media to get their news.
No worries Bob. Maybe not just 55 and up (I think many people in their 40s are still print readers, especially when it is delivered free every week). But high school kids certainly are not curling up with the TAB on a Wednesday evening to check out our ads. My guess is the ad was probably aimed at their parents.
BTW: I received a phone call last week from someone who thought I was responsible for the ad (apparently not the best reader). He then proceeded to tell me his solution to the Israeli-Arab problem, which I will not relate here… and then hung up before I could, er…respond to him.
@Andy Levin – It could be a big story Andy. “Suburban Boston newpaper editor finally solves intractable political problems of the Middle East”. I smell a future Nobel Peace Prize for the Tab