After reading some remarks from fellow teachers and realizing a lot of us are feeling about the same regarding our national lack of leadership and the Dumbocrats fully expecting us to run out and vote for them thereby participating in our own annihilation at the hands of their hedge fund buddy philanthropists who never saw a charter school they couldn't turn a profit on I looked up the following site for American Federation of Teachers.
This page invites you to share your thoughts so I did but I didn't copy them but you can imagine the general tone. Among other things I informed them that I am launching an active campaign among teachers to withhold their vote for the Dumbocrats in the presidential election unless we get some concessions from this charter happy President and his wholly unqualified Secretary Basketball Duncan Arne with his law degree who has likely never even written his name on a chalkboard. I also suggested Ms. Weingarten's 15 minutyes of fame are long since up and she should simply go take one of those cool do nothing charter school jobs and leave us to our own devices instead of trying to sell us out every chance she gets. Please contact them, have fun, give them hell, they give is to us at every turn, we may as well do our part. Weingarten's whopping ten month teaching career as well as her law degree point to a rich future in charters where top down reform by self appointed experts is the coin of the realm not this bottom up crap that involves actually interacting with kids, reading and grading their disgusting work and putting up with moronic administrators suggesting maybe the teacher is wrong and the kid and his parents are right. No our reformers don't operate from such a base and unflattering level, they write policies and design teacher evaluations to critique those sad sacks who actually embrace the coarse and common shore of trying to teach anyone something. As one of my new favorite blogs said the other day OMG the Greatest Thing About Charter Schools is There Are So Many Great Things About Charter Schools! Best of Luck Randi, mmmmm - bye bye. Watch below as Norm Scott does his thing to highlight Weingarten's total abandonment of everything we represent.
This page invites you to share your thoughts so I did but I didn't copy them but you can imagine the general tone. Among other things I informed them that I am launching an active campaign among teachers to withhold their vote for the Dumbocrats in the presidential election unless we get some concessions from this charter happy President and his wholly unqualified Secretary Basketball Duncan Arne with his law degree who has likely never even written his name on a chalkboard. I also suggested Ms. Weingarten's 15 minutyes of fame are long since up and she should simply go take one of those cool do nothing charter school jobs and leave us to our own devices instead of trying to sell us out every chance she gets. Please contact them, have fun, give them hell, they give is to us at every turn, we may as well do our part. Weingarten's whopping ten month teaching career as well as her law degree point to a rich future in charters where top down reform by self appointed experts is the coin of the realm not this bottom up crap that involves actually interacting with kids, reading and grading their disgusting work and putting up with moronic administrators suggesting maybe the teacher is wrong and the kid and his parents are right. No our reformers don't operate from such a base and unflattering level, they write policies and design teacher evaluations to critique those sad sacks who actually embrace the coarse and common shore of trying to teach anyone something. As one of my new favorite blogs said the other day OMG the Greatest Thing About Charter Schools is There Are So Many Great Things About Charter Schools! Best of Luck Randi, mmmmm - bye bye. Watch below as Norm Scott does his thing to highlight Weingarten's total abandonment of everything we represent.
A couple of things: I came across a mind boggling theory yesterday that Randi is angling and positioning to become the new Secretary of Education if Obama decides to dump Arne, which I doubt will happen. (You know, a bball bro don't do a bball bro like that, or something.) Back to the NEA and UFT, though. That money, OUR money, has already been forked over to Obama and he is certainly not using it to advance the cause of public education.
ReplyDeleteOn a local note, the proposed takeover of two of our public schools by the local charter mavens is a complete outrage. I do not for one second believe that the Board of Ed did not know about this. Actually, Polowitz essentially told the Common Council that he was planning to do this a while back. The deadline to submit those proposals was Jan 1, so this has been in the pipeline for a while. There are some devout charter advocates on the Board. Can it really be just that easy to seize a public school for your own political purpose? The Buffalo ReformEd "parent trigger" apparently has become the "lawyer trigger" and is being used by the local school corporatizers to create jobs for friends of Amy, Steve, Lynn,et al. Watch how fast the low performing students at East and Waterfront will be shunted into the District schools. If this goes down without a fight, shame on all of us.
Yeah b-ball bros before political hoes I think is the phrase. But as a gay woman does Randi even count in the hoe tally ? As the local coup appears to have something of the fait accompli wafting from it, my focus is on making sure the kids who attend East remain at East. Waterfront from my impressions has been ripe for a shutdown since its ill fated conception, the unstructured open campus model being the least likely to succeed with a population of poverty stricken urban kids with boundary. behavior and learning issues. East on the other hand could be the litmus test those of us in reality land want to see the Charterians address. Let's just see how easy it all is when the fields are leveled and they can't start flinging the less than stellar test takers out the windows. I want to hear their No Excuses refrain when they are threatened, physically challenged, attacked by angry dysfunctional parents and generally exposed to all of the same stimuli our dedicated Buffalo teachers have to wade through on a daily basis before the class even leaves homeroom. Maybe I am seeing things a bit pessimistically but as long as it looks like this is going to happen the least we can do is put the "reformers" under the same critical lens they love to put Buffalo teachers under and let's just see how they change their tune. I also want the cameras on dear old Sam Radford when he is disinvited to have any input into these charters and he realizes the trigger sounds the end of his involvement not the beginning as I am sure he imagines it.
ReplyDeleteI love Norm Scott.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband received a huge button in the mail from AFT that says OBAMA 2012, I found myself mad but not surprised. How many thousands of teacher dues were used to send out this 1.5" square button in a big, big envelope to every AFT member in the U.S.? In addition to the Dumbs selling us out, we have our union leadership selling us down rivers as well. I just hope that the BTF stands strong.
PP--You could be right about Randi and the Sec. of Ed. position. But most likely not because of the bball thing of course.
East and Waterfront charter school planning has probably been in the works for at least a year, don't you think? Makes one wonder what other "plans" the deformers have up their sleeves.
And how many of the scurrilous Board Members are in league with them, another likely reason they didn't want Amber Dixon around.
ReplyDeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteArne Duncan doesn't have a law degree.
Dr. King has one.
Arne Dumbkin has ONLY a Bachelor of Sociology degree. ( and his kids went to school with the Obama girls.)
My adrenaline hit the ceiling this morning when I read about the astounding hutzpah of the charter school gang of thieves wanting to take over two of our schools.
ReplyDeleteI was on the staff of the Waterfront School when it opened in 1977. We all worked the previous year, and had the kids in for three weeks during the summer before school opened. Then we walked the picket lines outside the school for a month while scabs and administrators took over our "pods" and our kids, and our "stuff".
We really bonded on the picket line, and I love them all to this day!
It was the happiest year ever! The Principal, Pat Sheffer was amazing, and the teachers were unbelievably talented.
We had to have a lottery for enrollment because so many parents wanted their kids to be enrolled.
Discipline was easy because the kids wanted to be there too. All you had to say to one who was acting up, "Where do you want to go to school tomorrow, I'll help you get in?" It was almost magical.
Obviously things have changed since then, but the Waterfront School is still a beautiful, elegant building.
It must be difficult for the "charter gang" to walk without help when they are saddled with such a huge "set" that they even made an attempt to steal that building, and East High.
I'll join the picket line if anyone will join me there.
Chalk, thank you for clearing my imagination of that misfact. I guess I am so converted to the reformers idea that nothing means anything I felt it was ok to hand out a law degree to poor doofus Arne. Possibly the little fellow in Albany was clouding my thoughts as well as the useless law degreed hood ornament currently perched atop NYSUT. A sociology degree huh ? Well it was going to be cab number 12 or Secretary of Education. Good thing he plays basketball.
ReplyDeletePeg, we've degenerated a long way. I remember the Christmas after that strike my both my parents taught in Buffalo. We were really able to focus on the christ part I guess cause there sure as hell wasn't much money for gifts.
ReplyDeleteWithholding your vote for "dumbocrats" is essentially voting for GOP'ers.
ReplyDeleteYou think "dumbocrats" are gunning for you? Wait until the GOP gets into a position of power.