The Buffalo News Exploits a "Poster Boy" with a Little Help from their Friends at Sam's Club

If The Buffalo News Has Any Room on its Masthead Here's a Motto for Them

In case anyone forgot, The Buffalo News is the newspaper that once called John King's failed attempt to lead The State Education Department "a breath of fresh air."  In recent vitriorials The News has accused parents and teachers of attacking Andrew Cuomo and trying to distract everyone from the real issues at stake. The fact that people are catching onto these very issues and thus the uproar seems to have eluded the braintrust of the  News' editorial coven. Curious to note that they have even borrowed from the failed and run out on a rail King using his famous phrase "special interest groups" to describe parents and teachers in one of this week's insufferable blarrrrgh eruptions. 

You can hear their roar of agony in Tuesday's front page foul ball. While calling him "a poster boy" the News exploits the struggles of an obviously troubled young man, gathering hearsay after hearsay from his mother and a so called "parent facilitator" (translation: DPCC hack who got the job as a member of Sam's Club) who point finger after finger at the school and the so called "system." The News blithely attempts to gloss over the kid's 30 suspensions, his innumerable write ups and fights, threats against adults and other kids, bullying, swearing and generally doing none of what kids are expected to do in school starting with following the rules and showing basic civility for peers and adults. The News bemoans this kid's placement in the same class for 3 years seeking to direct all blame for his failure at his school and the adults charged with educating (raising) him. It's as if he's been abducted by aliens who've sealed his feet to the floor with space glue in this one little corner classroom of hell. Except of course when he's being suspended which his mother says is more frequent than his attendance. 

Wouldn't it be novel if the Buffalo News approached one of the charter schools they love so much and requested that this troubled student be enrolled in one of them? The News loves Tapestry and Elmwood Village Charters. We hear all the time of the miracles being worked in these high performing halls of excellence. The News is also big on Charter for Applied Technology. Doesn't it make sense that one of these excellent institutions would welcome our poster boy for failing schools into their supportive, grit filled, excellence loving atmosphere of high performance and college and career readiness? 

If you know the first thing about charter schools you're nodding your head about now. If not I'll share with you what my neighbor who teaches in one told me last fall at little league football practice one afternoon: "As soon as BEDS forms are filed we breathe a huge sigh of relief cause that means now we can start unloading all the bad apples." She also spends every free second she has working on her c.v. and trying to get interviews in Buffalo and surrounding districts in hopes of being paid a fair salary and benefits. If the Buffalo News' poster boy ever got past the lottery and actually got himself a seat in one of these educational miracle factories the News promotes, he wouldn't have to worry about being stuck in the same class for 3 years. Odds are he'd be long gone within 3 months. That's just one of the silver bullets the charter schools use to avoid dealing with the kids public schools teach every day.  

Last week The News was shown up by WBEN's knuckle dragging constituency when even their Sandy Beach worshiping listeners' poll sided with teachers  65% to 35% against Governor Cuomo's systematic attempts at teacher bullying that The News rabidly supports. The editorial invertebrates of this one horse rag have always fed from the bottom. There is little they won't stoop to demonize teachers and unions, painting them as avaricious libertines with feet propped on desks shopping online from their iphones while their students starve, hallucinate and hemorrhage in the aisles. It's a despicable business but one they embrace deep down in the editorial bunker. And now that Old Bob Bennett has been rousted from the Board of Regents the bunker trolls are badly butthurt.  The gnashing of teeth and flailing of knockoff Michael Kors handbags is audible from the street. 


The year of the ed reformer is not happening with the sound and fury our entertaining ed reformer friends had been predicting. Seems every time they turn around something's gumming up their works. I really believe the pasturing of Old Bob Bennett was more than The Buffeteers in the bunker could bear. Their desperation has never been more obvious. Sandra Tan did their bidding in grinding out Tuesday's serving of half baked tripe. It's likely the worst thing I've ever seen from her. She and the News took such an ass whooping in the comments section the only thing they could do was shut them down. Shutting down the comments is an obvious last ditch desperation ploy by an outfit whose every action seems fueled by desperation these days.  

In Tuesday's  listener's poll  WBEN listeners were overwhelmingly disappointed that the Lancaster school board voted to stop calling sports teams "Redskins." In today's poll they voted 58% in opposition to raising the age from 16 to 18 at which underage offenders can be housed with adults. WBEN-ers favor locking up 16 year olds with 40 year olds. Kenny Wagstaff from Oz anyone? They support calling sports teams Redskins in 2015.

How does it feel, Buffalo News, to have these people looking down on you?