Who's The Cookie Monster in City Hall?

So The Buffalo News is talking about the investigation into the grants department and from what they say BPS and its minions are in no mood to discuss or reveal anything they absolutely don't have to reveal, FOIL requests or not. From what's out there it appears the gender of one possible perp is male as they used the masculine pronoun to describe someone who was signing off and paying for work that a follow up showed was never completed. In the original breaking version of this mess we were told by The News that Mr. Kelleher, lawyer to the rock stars of City Hall, shoved a paper under Debbie Buckley's nose and told her to sign it. It said that Mark Frazier had never asked Ms. Buckley to sign over a check for $80,000.00 to him. She refused and apparently made the point that the opposite was true and he, in fact, did exactly that. She was shortly thereafter suspended and has since been terminated by The Board of Education. Several wags have suggested that Frazier's departure from his Royal Court position under Williams, also known as "Exempt" provided him little job protection and for that matter why did he need it as long as Jimmy Dubz was at the wheel ?  Shortly after Amber Dixon was appointed as interim Frazier took a sizable pay cut and serious demotion in rank when he applied for a union administrator's job as a Special Education Supervisor. Frazier's "haircut" to use the Chameleon's term, brought his salary down under $100K to a paltry $98,222.00 a drop in salary of $37, 778.00. Owch. Yeah but there's more. As a union administrator  Frazier will receive the benefit of a rigorous due process procedure and will likely remain on paid leave as his case is fought. Again this is mere speculation but if I know Frazier, he'd do the same for me. 

The Children, It Turns Out, CAN Wait

Caution Charter Schools Crossing

When asked why their little band of "reformers" couldn't wait and give the new Superintendent, Dr. Brown a chance to work with Waterfront and East before denuding them into charter schools, one of the Chameleon Group spat out a mealworm and chirped "The Children Can't Wait !" Oh, so it's "The Children" again is it folks? If I had a nickel for every time I read some snarky union hating half wit in the Buffalo News croaking "I thought it was all about the kiiiiii-iiiiids?" when BTF fails to comply with any of the asinine edicts from Albany or City Hall, I'd be driving a Hummer with spinning rims. No BTF rep or teacher is so fatheaded that they'd actually give voice to such an horrifically sappy and melodramatic screech but it's always force fed into the mouths of the strawmen teachers these galoots seek to characterize as uncaring, lazy, greedy and generally sleazy. So here go Steve and Amy and  Da Chameleons with their chart topping mantra " The Children Can't Wait..."

Oh the kiddies can't wait to be charterized
The kiddies can't wait to be marginalized
Oh the kiddies won't share in the profits realized
No excuses!!! they roar, they've got it idealized.

No special ed kids they wreck our learning curve
No ESL kids we're only here to serve
Kids who love tests and taking tests all day
Kids who test well, those kids are here to stay

Oh the reformers can't wait
They have some friends to hire
The reformers can't wait they say
our schools are dire.
Oh reformers can't wait to test and twist and shout
them bad apple kids they gonna counsel out.

Oh The Children can't wait
it's an imperative
no the children can't wait
we have our narrative :
The public school folk
they're just no goddamned good
they say that they care
but blame the neighborhood.
No excuses! we roar but
we're misunderstood.

Oh but we know best we
went to private schools and we
have never taught, the work of
lowbrow fools. No we administrate
and we write policy, yes we're without
a clue as one may plainly see.

We're here on our white horse
because the kids can't wait
we're here to push  the tests
and say we educate. So pony up
your bucks, reform's not free you know.
And if you can't comply then you are
free to go...

here are a few of the cool things  The Chameleons believe our kids can't wait for :

Being kicked out of their schools and sent back to public schools because they have Down's syndrome and/or autism

A CEO errrr I mean Superintendent who earns half a million a year and will take a huge pay cut if his senate run succeeds.

Another CEO who skims the money given to his charter by the state so he can pay himself 5 Million a year salary, Ron Packard is joined on his Board by Andrew Tisch of Loews formerly of Lorrillard Tobacco Co. Testifying under oath before Congress in 1994, Tisch said that he didn't believe that nicotine is addictive nor that cigarette smoking causes cancer. Great guy who really cares about The Children even if they are being targeted by Joe Camel. 


Idiotic poorly trained teachers taping their mouths shut because they failed to learn any management skills in their TFA crash course for edu million making.


Being kicked out for failing to produce high enough test scores as in the case of Geoffrey Canada who booted an entire grade level of middle schoolers from his Harlem Success Charter aka Shuck and Awe and those miracle workers at KIPP who never met a lousy test taker they couldn't get rid of either. 

Come to think if it I am pretty sure our kids CAN wait. Chameleons should be kept warm and fed lots of worms and cockroaches, they need to stay out of our city's schools. 

The "Reformers" Run It Into the Ground Like a Business

It used to be when you told someone you were planning to be a teacher they looked at you with a mix of pity and resignation. The first thing anyone would say is You know you're not going to make much money right ? And my answer would always be I don't need a lot of money to make me happy or some variation on that theme. So many of the people I have worked with over the years fit the same profile, they chose a career that gave them an opportunity to make a difference in someone else's life and that was its own payday. Nobody goes into education to make a ton of money right ?  Well, not so fast there Piaget...
Lately we've seen a bit of a shift in this philosophy. The "Reform Movement" and its charter school acolytes have taken a page from the old Michelob ads of the 80's the ones that promised You Can Have Pinstripes and Rock n Roll - You Can Have It All! Enter non-teacher "edu-experts" who administer their way to the top of the payheap. Hilariously, they all seek to reform education from the outside in using that addled old notion of "let's run it like a business" to line their pockets with green while providing a lackluster product to the hapless souls who've been co-opted into their classrooms with promises of wild success, high test scores and shared decision making with parents. In some ways they resemble the used car salesman's schtick. Excite, Confuse, Manipulate. They lure students and parents in with wild promises, generally demonizing the available public schools and offering the keys to a bright future at Charter Heaven. Once the saps are on the hook they start to wonder just where exactly all of this input, decision making and excellent teaching are that were promised. Oh, that, says the Charterian Board, yeah well, Uhhh.... Anyway, it seems we're having some trouble delivering all of those services to your kid. Does he REALLY need all that OT, PT and Speech ? I mean we're really not set up for all of that, not like OTHER public schools anyway. We are all about Excellence and it's kinda hard being excellent with kids like yours slowing us down and screwing up our test curves. Maybe he'd be better off Oh I dunno in one of those OTHER public schools, you know because we're a public school too, we're just a different public school. And so it goes.
They "reformers" are heavily invested in turning a profit. I have offered a default motto for them to emblazon over all of their doorways "PROFIT OVER PROFICIENCY" but so far I haven't heard back from them.  Today I found this little bit of math of Diane Ravitch's blog :

The school that can lower its costs the most wins. How do you lower costs? You increase class size and/or hire the least experienced, low-cost teachers.

So, the “winner” is the school with the largest class sizes and the least experienced teachers.

But these are not the factors associated with quality education. This would not describe the education at our nation’s elite schools, like Sidwell Friends, where the Obama daughters are enrolled, or at Exeter or Groton or Deerfield Academy, where so many of the corporate reformers send their children.

Pretty simple formula to the outsider but it doesn't take an insider to realize the Deformers are more than willing to offer our kids a shite education for the sake of having two boats instead of just one.  Here are a few of the "reformers" Rock Stars and their salaries. Do these people strike you as the type who care about your kids' education or their own self promotion? Ravitch's blog again: 

Eva Moskowitz, the head of the Success Academy chain in New York City is paid about $400,000. Geoffrey Canada, who oversees the Harlem Children’s Zone, is paid between $400,000-500,000. Deborah Kenney of Harlem Village Academy is paid more than $400,000. This is considerably more than the chancellor of the New York City public schools, who is paid $250,000.

Public education has never attracted people by the compensation it offers. Neither should charter management. The lure should  be the mission, not the money.

Locally, after trading barbs with Mr. Martinez, "Superintendent" of the Charter for Applied Science and Technology in the comments section of the Buffalo News, nobody I know was able to locate a salary for him anywhere even though he claims as they all do to be part of a public school. On See Through NY all of his teacher's salaries were posted but his somehow escaped the rigorous transparencies the "reformers" demand of everyone else but are slow to employ in their own affairs. So few surprises when you deal with these people.

The Emperor Has No Shame

James Williams : a trademark hybrid of shiftlessness and arrogance

Has anyone seen anything as comical and self delusional James Williams' job application for the Superintendent's position in Duval County Schools Florida? Jaysus Dubz, are ye daft or something?  He actually refers to himself as a shared decision maker and has the balls to use a phrase like "student achievement." He avoided using the phrase Williams actually managed to lower the graduation rate of Black males to something hovering around 25% He also failed to mention firing attendance teachers in the hopes of using them as pawns to force unions to drop pending litigation caused by his earlier misdeeds, bad faith and general sliminess. That this moron in the information age thinks he can just throw this bucket of shite in the eyes of a school district anywhere and not get caught LYING is the best testimony one could ask for of his absolute lack of any character, credibility or decency. James Williams is a liar and a thief. He hired his pals from Maryland to come in here and run an alternative program for the city's most at risk children. Their plan lacked any kind of human interaction and was based on the programs used in drug rehabs and prisons where interaction is discouraged. The kids @44 stared at computer screens and failed because a good number of them were being taught with the wrong grade level software. So when they took their exams the stuff they "learned" wasn't on them. The entire class of grade 8 students failed the math exam. They had a 0% passing rate. Williams and his friends on the board renewed the contract with them and it wasn't until NYSED became involved that anyone seemed to notice the child abuse going on at Academy @44 under the direction of a band of  thieves who called themselves Resultech. When the state finally shut them down they took all of their stuff and left the teachers and kids in the dark with no computers no software and no books 2 weeks before Christmas. They also stole 7.1 million in the deal while failing to meet the needs of our most needy students. Resultech saw no cause to return any of the money they took but did not earn. But hey they were James Williams friends from Maryland how could they be bad? 

Does This Surprise Anyone?

Feds charge Philly charter school mogul in massive fraud

July 24, 2012|By Martha Woodall, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

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Dorothy June Brown founded 3 city charters.

A charter school mogul was charged today in a multimillion-dollar fraud case by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Dorothy June Hairston Brown, who received accolades for students' test scores and gained notoriety for collecting large salaries and suing parents who questioned her actions, was indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.

Brown, 75, and four executives from her charter schools, were charged with defrauding three charter schools of more than $6.5 million in taxpayer funds.

U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced that a federal grand jury had returned a 62-count indictment against Brown and four of her trusted employees.

Story continues below.

Had a Good Job When You Left -- You're Right !!!

Another curious footnote to last night's meeting. In scouring the minutes I noticed an approval to pay JROTC instructors 1/200 of their salary for 21 days in July. I have no beef with the JROTC guys per se but I have to question why they are needed in July when the ostensible purpose of summer school is to get kids through courses they failed during the year. In my experience with the program when I was teaching high school their role was decidedly non academic and more of a social emotional component focusing on discipline and teamwork and etc. but I don't recall any of them teaching anything remotely geared to passing exams. One of the guys spent a good deal of his time taking cigarette breaks, working on his real estate deals and wooing a lonely female teacher on his floor. When the ingenious decision was made at the incessant urging of a certain wildly unpopular Speech Dept. Supervisor to cut Special Ed. teachers out of 1/200th summer duty, breaking the day in half and gutting things like community travel for low functioning kids, field trips for all the kids and forcing kids who need 12 month programming to adjust not to just one new teacher but now to two different teachers I had to wonder what the savings really were. And now that the district goes begging on Craig's list for summer school teachers and trolling the depths of rookies, burnouts and general hacks to fill the room with warm bodies I can't help but ask why do the JROTC people need to be in the buildings in summer if they aren't teaching Math, Science, English or Social Studies?  Figuring an average salary of 50K for 21 days the city has coughed up nealry 32K to have these guys standing by. Why ? 

A Hot Time at the Board of Ed Meeting

Tonight's Board of Ed meeting was supposed to be a low key affair -- over in a few minutes with just a few quick bits of business to handle. There weren't even any speakers from the peanut gallery so Hannya and Jason and the ReformED crowd didn't even get a chance to bloviate all of their "concerned citizen" malarkey and advise Dr. Brown of school "reform." But that's not to say there was any dearth of malarkey. On the topic of the Extinguished Educatrix Board members had their boxers in a knot. It seems they objected to the high minded folks at NYSED, John King and Katie Campos et al, imposing this lady (who was run out of L.A. by way of  a 200K + buyout) on Buffalo Public Schools and telling Buffalo to pony up her outrageous and exorbitant salary demands. "An unfunded mandate in the form of a persona non grata," as one wag put it.  Oh but it gets better. "Judy" as she 's been jauntily dubbed by all, only has to spend 25 days here between the opening of school and the end of December. Lacking any hard numbers we will use Florence Johnson and Mrs. Kapsiak's figures. Kapsiak reiterated that Board members only earn 5k a year and this woman is expected to make nearly that per diem. Here's a little sampling of the gnashing of Boardfolk teeth as the "Judy" Eliott debacle was tossed around like a South Park High baloney sandwich toward the end of A lunch :

"Judy" Eliott, complete with LA hair and buyout package not so much a favorite of Ralph and the Sisters. Click this text and see where she gave a keynote address, then click the green arrow and see who the sponsors are and I think you'll be able to figure out why charter school loving NYSED found her to be so the cat's arse 

6:57
Mary Pasciak: Johnson, re: the contract for the distinguished educator: I really am offended by how this is being executed. We never had an opportunity to discuss it. Everything is being done without our input, without our participation. We have a board that is dedicated to increasing student achievement.


This document is so cumbersome. When I read it, it's like I've given all my rights away as a board member.


I was elected to represent the interests of the children.  ( by taking trips and going shopping) If our attorney says we must approve this tonight, I will approve it, but it will be under protest. I think it's an absolute disgrace that everything that's done at this board table will be reported to the commissioner.


If the distinguished educator decides in favor of the two charter schools by an outside entity, but the board opposes it, who (prevails)?
6:57
Mary Pasciak: Johnson: If this is to be paid, why can't it be paid by state ed? If we do this per diem, we're paying the distinguished educator more than we're paying anyone else in this district.
6:58
Mary Pasciak: Hernandez: I knew this was coming. We all knew this was coming. We've been talking about the distinguished educator for months.


The problem I have, this was a document created at the state level and then just sent down to us.


The commissioner is asking us to approve a contract paying $190 an hour plus $275 a day for travel expenses, and we haven't even met this individual yet.
6:59
Mary Pasciak: Hernandez: We have to struggle with the position we've taken and the oath we've taken -- any time we allocate resources anywhere, we have to be cognizant of what the public will say about it. (Including this year's travel itinerary Ralph?)


If we approve it, we have to say we approved a document for an individual we haven't even met yet.
7:00
Mary Pasciak: Kapsiak: I wonder what would happen if we got criticized for our selection process of the superintendent. And here the state is asking us to approve a contract with someone we never met, never even had a phone call with. In my mind, that's not right.


7:01
Mary Pasciak: Licata is asking if the state set the salary. Attorney Chris Putrino said no.


Putrino: The initial request for compensation was significantly higher.
7:01
Mary Pasciak: Licata: Seems the most troubling aspect of this agreement, this individual, working from wherever, will be making determinations about what is best. I think this is a bureaucratic train wreck waiting to happen. This is ridiculous. This is a ridiculous exercise of power.
7:02
Mary Pasciak: Petrucci: Where's the money going to come from to pay for Dr. Elliott?


Smith: I don't have an answer. In one of the letters, the commissioner said they could assist with identifying funds to pay her. In one presentation, they said Title I funds could possibly be used to pay a distinguished educator.


7:03
Mary Pasciak: Petrucci: I did have a conversation with Dr. Elliott. She said she would make herself available for a conference call with the board.


State Ed declined our request for a conversation with them about the distinguished educator. But we could submit questions in writing.

But when New York State Education Department did the same thing to teachers on the APPR and tried to jam absent students into the mix so teachers can be duly disciplined for the failures of these MIAs and their absentee parents, Board members sniffed and acted put out. They tried to paint the BTF and Phil Rumore as self serving renegades for refusing to sit there and take it from a rookie commissioner who never even broke up a hallway fight but thought he was going to strut into Buffalo and tell us what's up. Well it looks like the BTF has set the precedent. The Board decided to roll the dice and refused to sign Judy's contract according to Ralph Hernandez "in contempt" of NYSED's edict.  I hearken back to the infamous line delivered by Mae West in My Little Chickadee when the judge asks "Madam, are you trying to show contempt for this court?" Mae takes a beat and breathes "No, Your Honor, I was doing my best to hide it."  And so are we.  $190.00 an hour plus $275 a day for hair gel and parking. Get Real NYSED

Meet ALEC : Friend of Charter Schools, Stand Your Ground Laws, Voter Suppresion

If anyone still hasn't had the misfortune of meeting ALEC The American Legislative Exchange Council yet, here is your big chance. Seriously, if this name doesn't ring a bell you need to see this. And if it does then you'll need to add to your data base. This bunch is the perfect marriage of lobbyists and do nothing congressmen, Senators and various other shitheels whose raison d' etre seems to be collecting swag, junkets, hookers booze and blow that their representative position seems to put in their path. If you love the parent trigger laws in Cali as much as you love the Stand Your Ground Laws in Florida that enabled Trayvon Martin's killer to ride back to the station with the cops as if he was one of the fellas then you will LOVE ALEC. This group is responsible for trigger laws and the idiotic mess in Florida that enables you to shoot first and confess to "feeling threatened" later.  Oh and they are also big into voter suppression too. 

Bill Gates and the Mrs. eventually dropped ALEC after a litany of others among them :  Procter & Gamble, Yum! Brands, McDonald's, Wendy's, Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Intuit, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Reed Elsevier (owner of LexisNexis and publisher of science and health information), American Traffic Solutions, Arizona Public Service and Kaplan. Colors of Change started the ball rolling making thousands of phonecalls and making contacts to appraise some of these corporations of how bad it looks for them to be associating with a group who enables the theft of public school funds, suppresses voters and advocates the killing of unarmed civilians by other civilians who happen to be trigger happy. You need to be aware of this if you are a voter, an unarmed citizen or even a reasonably armed one, a non billionaire or even a lowdown teacher. You need to know what's going on behind your back as you correct your nightmarish English 9 papers thinking everything's on the level because you haven't heard otherwise. 

The Chameleons' Charter Takeover Try Is Exposed Again

I tried linking this from my phone but it didn't take. It's great to know that somebody else out there gets it, someone who isn't a Buffalo teacher. He is from South Buffalo though so I guess that gives him an edge... Click HERE to read Mike Blake's p.o.v. on the Chameleon's attempted Land Grab. 

The Usual Suspects Return Buffalo Public Schools to Business As Usual

A while ago there was some discussion about the Buffalo Board of Ed members traveling to conferences and living high in the hog. They booked private rooms for themselves which cost about $200.00 per night on average. One Board Member who has since gone on to become a judge, Catherine Nugent-Panepinto remarked rather shockingly :  

"It seems it's just become a travel club," said board member Catherine Nugent Panepinto. "What I hear back from [the people who go] are not ideas of what we can do. It's more about the dinner or the shopping opportunity. I don't think I've ever heard back, 'Here's an idea we can pursue,' or 'Here's a contact we can develop.' " 

Enter Amber Dixon whose first order of business was to ground all flights and cancel all reservations: 

During her first week as interim superintendent, Amber M. Dixon let central office administrators know the time had come for them to start cutting costs. Specifically, during Dixon’s first day on the job, she sent out a memo indicating that out-of-state travel would pretty much be a thing of the past. A few days later, she sent out a memo telling administrators to stop buying food for staff meetings. And she spread the word that administrators should not be helping themselves — as some regularly do — to the buffet that the School Board orders for itself every Wednesday evening when it meets. “It’s not business as usual in our schools — it shouldn’t be business as usual in our offices,” she said. “I want to ensure district funds are first and foremost supporting our schools.”


Well in case anyone else was wondering why there was so little support for Amber Dixon's Superintendency look at what got snuck into the Board Minutes of the June 27th meeting very quietly buried toward the end of the thing. And look who proposed the re-start of the travel and shopping club :

So my suspicions about the weary travelers were dead on. I can't say for sure where I predicted this little end run but it's not like I have a tea leaf reader or a crystal ball or need one either. This bunch is about as predictable as Romney signs on Nottingham Terrace. . Last time the boardfolk were questioned about their penchant for fine dining and travel NONE of the 4 most frequent fliers would agree to be interviewed by Mary Pasciak in the Buffalo News. Yet here they go again when they think the coast is clear, the new Super wasn't even sworn in yet but apparently they knew who the new Super wasn't going to be when Taylor and Johnson voted to lift their own travel ban and get back in the saddle. Can the new and improved feedbag be far behind?  Bet on it. 

In spite of my innate cynicism I really would like to believe some of the hype flying around about Dr. Brown bringing the Buffalo Schools a fresh start. It would be a lot easier to believe if the usual suspects weren't fighting so hard for a return to "business as usual."  You know, the stuff Amber Dixon called a halt to so money went where it was needed not where Board members wanted it.  Maybe Dr. Brown's first order of business, just to show there's no need for a baksheesh to them for selecting her, should be to reinstate Dixon's cancellation of the frequent fliers club. Dr. Brown ? You're up...

Beware of Rich Guys Who Suddenly Care About Public Schools (and whose kids all went to private schools)

The best way to stop the creep of charter schools is the same way you stop a terrible candidate from ascending to elected office : Look at what they've done so far. I can't say enough about the Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. And in watching how NYC Mayor  -- and 11th richest person in the US with an estimated monetary worth of about 22 billion-- went around eliminating school boards and replacing them with one panel of "experts" and "reformers" to which he named 8 of the 13 "experts." From there they proceeded to overcrowd public schools by setting up charters inside of them and causing the two to fight for space.  Not shockingly, teachers and parents both said it felt like a takeover. Let's keep this in mind next time the Chameleons want to flick their tongues and pick off Buffalo Public Schools instead of the hissing cockroaches that are said to make an excellent repast for the little fellows. I wonder if these edu-lizards are hoping they can at least score a compromise and inflict some charter "cohabitation" on Waterfront and East High School.  Isn't that a pleasant little euphemism for mooching or overcrowding or taking over though? A Cohab might make the Principals of these two places balk as it would seem likely to reduce their negotiating power for more money as they were only able to deliver half a school. Question for parents and skeptics who still think teachers and their unions are the bad guys : When was the last time you saw a rich guy who gave a shit about public schools ? Well now that you see a whole bunch of them - Bill Gates, John effing Legend, Bloomberg and all of the Hedge Fund managers from Dumbocrats for Ed Reform -- are you street smart enough to ask what in hell are these rich white dudes up to? I really hope so because if you don't wonder then you're going to find out after it's too late to do anything about them.

P.S. Do your HW and read the above link about DFER but not on a full stomach. You'll see local hacks Antoine Thompson and Sammy Silver Spoon Hoyt both mentioned as beneficiaries of this crowd. 

Birds of a Feather "Reform" Together

 Last night as the sweat rolled off my nose I watched The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. If you haven't seen the original pro charter Propagandamercial don't bother. What I heard loudly from the Inconvenient Truth however caught my attention. The "reformers" run around spouting their "No Excuses" mantra. Hilarious that they would choose for their battlecry the same phrase used by a jeans company who actually courted disgraced figure skater, honeymoon porn tape starlette and Jim Rome's favorite 9-11 caller, Tonya Trailer Park Harding to be their celebrity spokes-ho. Among the "Excuses" the deformers like to pretend pretend things like poverty and family dysfunction don't matter and societal influences play no part in what happens in school. Have any of these dilettantes ever found themselves in between two 17 year old boys on a Monday morning or more likely on the floor with them as they punch their way into a formal suspension over something that went on in the neighborhood over the weekend?  No of course not, they don't trouble themselves with the actual boots on the ground end of teaching in a building surrounded on all sides by poverty, drug gangs absentee landlords, absentee parents and zero cooperating witnesses to anything that happens in the street. No the eduwankers live far behind the lines in their safe little bunkers where  they can lob their policy missiles at kids and teachers who live in a world filled with such urgency that the inane policies of these dopes may just as well be junk mail shoved under the door.

Educational "Reformers" discuss policy decisions on a  sylvan weekend retreat

If you've ever watched The War by Ken Burns you will note a frightening similarity between the pose of the "reformers" and General Lloyd Fredendall, the chickenshit who was replaced in Africa by General George S. Patton. Among his misdeeds, Fredendall once stayed aboard ship until all the fighting was done : After the Torch landings (Fredendall stayed on his command ship, HMS Largs until after fighting was over), Fredendall became the de-facto military governor in Oran. Orders from his headquarters in the Grand Hotel of Oran were headed with “II Corps – In the Field” which prompted laughter from his troops living in tents and slit trenches. 
And in a show of solidarity with educational "reformers" everywhere : During the advance into Tunisia, Fredendall used an entire engineer company of the 19th Engineer Regiment to build him a large, dug-in Corps headquarters bunker 70 miles (110 km) behind the front in a place called Speedy Valley (nine miles southeast of Tébessa). Blasted and drilled out of solid rock, the bunker (actually two U-shaped complexes running 160 feet (49 m) into the hillside) took three weeks to construct.^[4] An entire anti-aircraft battalion was emplaced to protect the headquarters. Fredendall also ordered a bulletproof Cadillac similar to Eisenhower’s, and regularly phoned Oran to find out why it wasn’t being delivered faster. General Omar N. Bradley called the headquarters "an embarrassment to every American soldier," and General Eisenhower, after viewing the elaborate structure, reminded his senior commanders that even generals must assume personal risk in combat.
Just like the swaggering big mouth who hid in the bunker while the shells flew we see the same unchecked arrogance in theory and incompetence in execution from people like big mouth Geoffery Canada who takes home about half a million from his Harlem Charter's C.E.O.  gig and tells teachers it's their problem and their fault if the kid doesn't learn yet he kicked out an entire grade level from his school when they didn't score high enough on standardized tests. Sad to say "deformers" the above mentioned contingencies are not "Excuses" they are Realities and they damned well DO have an effect on how a kid learns. In fact, the 2 most important factors research shows to influence learning are Class Size and Teacher Experience.  Isn't that interesting as the Philadelphia Public Schools are poised to be taken over by charters and a wave of brainwashed do gooders and know nothings still wet behind the ears are going to rush in where angels fear to tread. The real news will be coming out of Philly probably around early October when it becomes apparent their experiment is going the way of the Hindenberg.  Sadly, as always "The Children" these shills pretend to care so deeply about are going to be the victims - again.