Buffalo Board of Education Battens Down the Hatches for July 1 Arrival of Hurricane Carl

Board Members Attempt to Distract Paladino with Talk of Cosmetic Rider

Well once more we see the usual suspects up to their old tricks. The Board of Education one day before it has to install Carl Paladino as a member, has gone to the cosmetics rider card yet again. Hey, I know, they say, since you are all complaining about the music department being decimated, let's cut into your benefits and take the money from you to pay for music teachers. Or are you all so SELFISH and GREEDY that you'd rather get a skin peel or a boob implant and watch your fellow teachers kicked out of their jobs by our clever new per building budget scheme?

As any Ed Reformer worth her toney private school degree can tell you, these budgeting schemes work to get rid of experienced teachers who tend to cost more in salary than their more malleable, (easily bullied) colleagues. Another benefit of these budgeting schemes from a Reformy point of view is that they also narrow curriculum to the bare bones costing kids music, art, phys ed, Spanish French and yes even Mandarin Chinese. In limiting the kids' exposure to the arts, humanities and athletics more time can be dedicated to test prep and improving the almighty standardized test scores. After all, isn't that what kids really need if they are going to be college (online unaccredited high tuition) and career    (low paying no benefit retail or food service servitude) ready?

Buffalo Schools Superintendent PamelaBrownPhDHarvard is suggesting she expects donations from the private sector. Somehow the Sixth Sorority Sister seems to be forgetting about the money and instruments already donated by VH-1's Save the Music Program. Their director told the Buffalo News he is distressed to hear about the decimation of half the City's music programs which are in violation of the agreement by which BPS received a generous gift from his organization. Brown has Elena Cala in full deflection mode dodging their calls and deleting their emails and generally acting like some of the less than stellar parents do when teachers or admins try to call home to discuss their little darling's troubles at school. A kid once laughingly told me and the rest of the class that his grandmother would say, "It's them white people. don't answer it" when she checked the caller ID. I have to wonder what Brown is telling Cala when VH-1 shows up on the  City Hall caller ID.

It strikes me that the Board is shaking in their boots having hired a Sargeant at Arms (!) to "preserve decorum" at their meetings. They've also hastily scribbled up a new appendix of by-laws intended to make Carl behave himself as they shift from ham to ham in their seats hoping he doesn't call them out by their government names. And just in time to bloody the waters before he is sworn in they go and chum the cosmetic rider from the stern of their leaky ship of fools hoping to God, the dead and damned that Carl will go for it instead of them. He may poke his nose into it. There's a chance for him to take a run at Phil Rumore at least. But I don't really think it's going to divert him from ramming them amidships with every ounce of his wrath. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.