Tisch and Merry Band of Oligarchs Get it Caught in the Pickle Cutter

As the march of Oligarchs rolls on here in the Empire State it appears there may be a speedbump or two surfacing in their path.  The Titanically obstinate Regents and their little wooden boy John King insist they are firmly on course with their Common Core implementation full speed into the iceberg. New York remains one of only two dumbass states still clinging to the bogus deal to hand over our kids' data to Inbloom in spite of the uproar from parents and now elected officials. Of the original 9 states who signed up 7 have come to their senses and reneged. Ahh but there's more here folks from the front page of the Albany Times Union's Sunday edition.  Seems Empress Tisch and her friends from the financial ionosphere have been buying and selling education policy and calling themselves charitable donors not influence peddlers. 

The idea of creating a merry band of edupolicy wankers and dressing them us as helper elves who operate outside of the state, the law and any real department is yet another of those clever shuck and jive maneuvers our oligarch class likes to use to put them and their wealth in a position to call the shots with no annoying checks, balances or any of that other quaint democratic process nonsense. They are charitably called the Regents Fellows and they are none of your business thank you very much. Tisch and her hubby kicked in the first million or so and soon after came the flood of cash from all the usual selfless altruistic billionaires. In short they work the will of Tisch and Co. and are accountable to nobody in State Ed or Washington or in any of the local school districts. In typical Tischean hubris they are simply above all that and for that you peasants should shut your holes, eat your cake and be grateful.  She did actually point out that folks should be showing more appreciation for her donation not criticizing it. Here's a sample of the article that's not going to sit well with the Brahmin : 

...Barely heard of outside education circles and a mystery even within them, the "Regent fellows" are paid from entities such as the Gates Foundation and some salaries approach $200,000 a year. The arrangement is stirring concern in some quarters that deep-pocketed pedagogues are forcing their reform philosophies on an unwitting populace, and making an end run around government officers.

"We're a public education system," said Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Long Island's Rockville Centre. "Having the wealthy pay for it, you're seeing an agenda that is being pushed ... at a rapid pace, and outside the system of public accountability."

I recognized one of the names listed as a Regent Fellow from an article I read in the Buffalo paper when NYSED and Cuomo were both pretending they'd never heard of such a thing as an M.O.U. before and accused Buffalo Teacher's Federation of circumventing their screwjob APPR. Listen to the tone of the letter from the lovely Julia Rafal whose totally precious wedding announcement can be seen in the NY Times here.  Does this sound to  you like a brainy "fellow" offering a helping hand or is this the voice of a deputized NYSED official putting the smackdown on Buffalo's union President and its Schools Superintendent?  Referring to the Memo of Understanding between the Union and Superintendent  stating that test scores would not be used to fire teachers for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. Regardez : 

The state does not consider that letter to be part of the district’s annual professional performance review plan, wrote Julia Rafal-Baer, executive director of the state’s Office of Teacher and Leader Effectiveness, Policy and Programs.

“Accordingly, the department considers void any other previously signed agreements between and among these parties and does not recognize any such agreements as part of the Buffalo Public Schools’ approved Jan. 17, 2013, plan,” Rafal-Baer wrote.

The state reserves the right to revoke its approval of the district’s plan, she wrote – and if that happens, the district stands to lose not only its $33 million increase in state aid, but nearly $14 million in various other funding, she wrote, and could jeopardize tens of millions in additional funding.

In a follow-up letter to Brown on March 25, Rafal-Baer again expressed the state’s objections to the agreement between the district and the BTF.

The state does not consider that agreement to be part of Buffalo’s teacher evaluation plan, Rafal-Baer wrote.

“The department considers void any other previously signed agreements between and among those parties,” she wrote. “The Buffalo Public Schools must implement the terms of its approved [annual professional performance review] plan.”

Hmmm, if I didn't know better I'd say she was acting in an official capacity as a representative of NYSED in rejecting the APPR agreement and informing both Phil Rumore BTF President and Pamela Brown BPS Superintendent that she was officially voiding their agreement and advising them to try again. Sorry friends but I am getting really fucking sick of assholes with a lot of money telling us to shut up and take our medicine. It's time the Regents and Tisch and all of their little overpaid wunderkind get a nice taste of the light of day. This has to end. Now. 

Meryl Tisch Steals Michael Scott's Notes for Her Exit Interview.

In case you missed Meryl Tisch's self deluded exit interview the other day it pretty much boiled down to a paraphrasing of Steve Carrel's ingeniously self deluded character Michael Scott of The Office explaining to his boss how his strengths are his weaknesses. In Meryl's estimation she "tried to do too much too fast" and can't really be faulted for that. Conveniently, the cigarette billionheiress forgets that she opted into Obama's asinine Race to the Top scheme, a Faustian gotcha that ended up costing the poor "winners" who took its money more in mandates than it paid out in edu-bucks. She somehow forgot to mention her own personal involvement in the hiring of grossly unqualified data nerd John King whose people skills as Commissioner of NYSED led him to being booed, heckled and told to sit down and STFU when Tischy, Wheezer Bennett and Lil John tried to do a little barnstorming tour of the state. She famously opined on another occasion that "we all needed to jump into the deep end" meaning we should abandon ourselves and our common sense and leap into bed with Common Core and all of the insidious test and punish mandates it entails. 

Tisch was the poster dame for out of touch wealthy white Manhattanites as she putzed around New York with those other two dolts desperately trying to convince the unwashed masses or "special interests"  --as Kinger called them when they shouted him from the stage in Poughkeepsie-- to shut up and take their test and punish medicine. It was excruciating to watch. Meryl Tisch also took $1,000,000.00 from the tin box full of soap scraps under her bead at home and spent it to create her own little private army of ed reform stooges whom she dubbed "The Regents Fellows." Outrageously, she put them to work writing policy and sending out imperatives to Superintendents around the state. These "fellows" were not state employees nor did they possess any authority or credentials to do the things Tisch had them doing. They were Meryl's own little Blackwater if you will, a private army put to work to influence public education policies and shape them according to Meryl Tisch's grossly out of touch sensibilities. One of Meryl's minions sent an imperious missive to then B-Lo Superintendent Pamela Brown and BTF Pres. Rumore and I wrote about it at the time: Full Post

I recognized one of the names listed as a Regent Fellow from an article I read in the Buffalo paper when NYSED and Cuomo were both pretending they'd never heard of such a thing as an M.O.U. before and accused Buffalo Teacher's Federation of circumventing their screwjob APPR. Listen to the tone of the letter from the lovely Julia Rafal whose totally precious wedding announcement can be seen in the NY Times here.  Does this sound to  you like a brainy "fellow" offering a helping hand or is this the voice of a deputized NYSED Marshall putting the smackdown on Buffalo's union President and its Schools Superintendent?  Referring to the Memo of Understanding between the Union and Superintendent  stating that test scores would not be used to fire teachers for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. Regardez :

The state does not consider that letter to be part of the district’s annual professional performance review plan, wrote Julia Rafal-Baer, executive director of the state’s Office of Teacher and Leader Effectiveness, Policy and Programs.

“Accordingly, the department considers void any other previously signed agreements between and among these parties and does not recognize any such agreements as part of the Buffalo Public Schools’ approved Jan. 17, 2013, plan,” Rafal-Baer wrote.

The state reserves the right to revoke its approval of the district’s plan, she wrote – and if that happens, the district stands to lose not only its $33 million increase in state aid, but nearly $14 million in various other funding, she wrote, and could jeopardize tens of millions in additional funding.

In a follow-up letter to Brown on March 25, Rafal-Baer again expressed the state’s objections to the agreement between the district and the BTF.

The state does not consider that agreement to be part of Buffalo’s teacher evaluation plan, Rafal-Baer wrote.

“The department considers void any other previously signed agreements between and among those parties,” she wrote. “The Buffalo Public Schools must implement the terms of its approved [annual professional performance review] plan.” 

Isn't that just darling? Meryl's angels paid $200K by Gates and Co and Meryl's piggybank just to keep the rabble in line and bend state education policy to suit her whims.

No, Meryl, your fault wasn't that you tried to do too much too fast. Your fault was that you lined up on the wrong side of public education and worked against it every chance you had. You were a tuned out oligarch and you thought the small people just needed to shut up and listen to their betters -- meaning you. But you were wrong, wrong, wrong. And now we're glad to be shut of you. So go back to your lunch dates and private islands and "the club" wherever it may be and we'll go about trying to repair the mess you left behind. And if ever there's a next time you should memorize this. I sounds a hell of a lot better than you did.

New York Teachers Already Browbeaten and Bullied Can Now Look Forward to A Fear Based Workplace Too

Newly Crowned NYSED Chief Greets Critics of Her Racially Divisive Fear Based Work Place

With the shadowy appointment of MaryEllen Doubtfire as NYSED's reincarnation of Lil John King, the small people of the Empire State will get a ringside seat to enjoy yet another ed reform recycling project with a big price tag and Cecil B de Mille scale potential for edumayhem.

As a sports fan I can't help but see the similarity between ed reformers and NFL coaches. If you suck wind in Buffalo don't worry-- they can plug you in as an assistant down in Dallas. And for that matter why take an assistant gig when you can stick your chest out and take your cloud of failure to the next stop where you'll get head billing and a fat paycheck if you play your swagger right. Sounds like I'm talking about Rex but I'm not, really. 

Surely, Dragon Empress Tisch and her bridge club of apologists will try to tell us that Commissioner Doubtfire was railroaded in Florida, that she ended up on the short end of a crazy board of ed who, I dunno, hated her for her freedom? Why not? Makes about as much sense as anything else the reformy Regents who snuck her into town in the back of a pickup covered with a tarp at 2:00 a.m. for an early and unannounced vote might offer us as a rationale for this maneuver.  It's been noted by Carol Burris among others, that this secretive and opaque installment is a slap in the face and an in-your-face to the hundreds of thousands of Opt Out parents who've made it crystal clear they are fed up with the Tisch-King High Stakes Test and Punish Paradigm.  

Maybe when you're Pretty Meryl though, you don't even bother cooking up an explanation. After all who are these peasants to complain? Don't they realize she took a million out of the tin box under her bed to hire Regents Fellows? Wouldn't it all be so much simpler if she could throw them all into the deep end -- and boil them? Damned cheeky proles anyway. Perdido St School Blog as usual cites a litany of the failures and follies perpetrated under the Elia regime in Florida where parents glossed her "Evilia." It was about all I could bear to read but I know there's plenty more out there. Oh, Randi Weingrovel thinks she 's swell and Doubtfire thinks Bill Gates is keen too, hope that helps.

The recycling and repackaging of failures is not unique to ed reform or the NFL but we sure seem to be seeing our share of it. Here in Buffaltucky, which I recently learned the clever quipsters in Albany like to call "Beirut on the Lake" it appears we've dodged a recycled bullet in the form of one Jean-Claude Brizard. He's a twice polished turd who failed to turn into a butterfly in Rochester then again in Chicago. He couldn't cut it in Rochester and ended up with a vote of no confidence from the teacher's union along with miserable test scores that dropped on his watch. If you're playing the ed reform game your test scores better not work against you. In Brizard's case they did though he accepted no responsibility for them. How reformy. You can bet if they went up he'd have been on them like Rhee on Miracle Gro. 

Onto Chicago, where it was believed by some that Brizard would flourish under a Rahmbo Emanel controlled school board. Guess again. At one pathetic point Briz was busted trying to pass off  Broad Foundation power point slides as his own mental effluvium. You'll be un-amazed to learn that Brizard is a flunctuate of that august and unaccredited factory for ed reform Superintendents whose trail of failure stretches from Seattle to New Jersey.  

When CTU went on strike, Brizard kind of sat swiveling around in his big leather chair making funny noises while Rahmbo fumed and raged. It was agreed that the Superintendent of Chicago Schools only contribution to the situation was that he'd become a distraction. He resigned by popular demand and was given a big sack of money just to bugger off. (Sound familiar-- James Williams, MaryEllen Doubtfire, Judy Eliot?) And now the geniuses who comprise the Board Majority in Buffalo appear to be grinding their dentures that they couldn't net this two time loser to come in and allow them to destroy BPS a little more. They actually wanted to hire Jean-Claude Brizard but even he won't take the job. Were "It's Not You It's Me" cards sent all members of the Board Majority? Or did they all just get one big "I'm Just Not That Into You" boquet from Sampson's favorite florist?

We've dodged one turd but in Buffalo so far but lord knows how many more are working their way down the ed reform Superintendent's pipeline. WBEN radio today interviewed Larry Quinn to allow him ample time for whining that the threat of Mayoral Control being pushed by some of the other rich guys here in Buffalo -- some who may be richer than Lars no less, ha ha ha -- is hurting his chances of landing the next James Williams or Cami Andersen or Michelle Rhee. Have faith though. If the guy who managed to get rid of Ted Nolan, John Muckler, Pat LaFontaine, Chris Drury, Danny Briere and Stu Barnes can't get his net around a Jean-Claude Brizard, rest assured he'll find a way to get rid of somebody else, whether he means to or not. Let's just hope it's nobody we need. 

When Public Schools Mix with Private Funds People Get Hurt.

If you haven't seen the cell phone video yet of our colleague Kevin Coady being assaulted by 2 alleged students in a stairwell of Bennett High, fear not. By the time James Sampson, Larry Quinn, Carl Paladino, Patty Pierce and Jason McCarthy get their charter school, privatization mojo on there will be plenty more of this kind of footage.


Why would I say such a damning thing about our great white saviors? Well, if you take a look at whose footprints are all over the Dr.TerryRoss hiring, signs point back to the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood, a pet project of M&T Banker and Bordeax Chateau proprietor Robert Wilmers. This is yet another of these blurry little enterprises where people with access to a lot of money, either theirs or someone else's "invest it" in public education for the purpose of manipulating public education to their own will. We saw it in Albany when Dowager Regent Tisch got on all fours and reached into the tin box under her bed, withdrew a cool million and created her own little army of reformy policy wonks calling them The Regents Fellows and putting them to work doing her will with public education policy. Nobody in the public asked for this or benefitted from it. Tisch wanted a way to have more influence in public education policy so she bought some. Nobody had the presence of mind to tell her no, that's not how it works, lady. 
But we really don't have to leave town for examples of the local Brahmin thinking it's their right to interfere with public education by way of inserting themselves into the equation with their checkbooks and trying to buy the public school system they think would benefit them and keep the small folk in line. Remember when the Gioias and the Riches and some of the other local ruling caste members tried to bribe Pamela Brown with a half million to simply STFU and go away? Of course they were falling all over themselves in self congratulation and quietly damning all the ingrate proles who failed to see the shining magnanimity of their shamelessly politic gesture, some of the ingrates even went so far as to tell them public officials are not for sale. The cheek of that poxy lot. And who can forget the time Bordeaux Bob chided the sisters of The Board into allowing him to pick up the check for the "talent search" that eventually brought James Motherfucking Williams to B-Lo? Ralph the Un-re-elected Hernandez once told a table or two of constituents towards the end of a gathering that truth be told Wilmers never even wrote the check he'd promised when he offered to spare the city the expense of finding a Superintendent. So he stiffed the Board and boned the city, kids, teachers and parents with the most incompetent, racist piece of shit we've ever had the misfortune of calling Superintendent. 

Nobody can say for sure why anyone at Promise Neighborhood -- who have been dissed by Pamela Brown and Co. somewhere along the way and recently announced they are pulling out of Bennett -- found Dr.TerryRoss to be the guy they just had to hire. O.K. if we follow prevailing logic, he is African American. He looks good in a suit. He tells people to call him "Doctor" and he yells at teachers in front of student. The school he is charged with operating is a combat zone where kids know they can do whatever they want including selling drugs, threatening and assaulting adults and students sans consequences.  Ross was also was uncertified until February 1 of this year yet was put on the payroll last July. Sounds about the way things get done at the Alpha Kappa Alpha's City Hall Sorority House Satellite. And again, where was Chief Talent Officer Darren Brown when Ross started getting paid before he'd completed the appropriate certifications? Whose job is it exactly to vet these beautiful people who show up here claiming to be doctors and looking to make somewhere in the low 100's for starters? Most of us make half that or less and you can damned well bet our paperwork is all checked out carefully. The private/public marriage is pure West Virginia. It's never the fine hybrid all the rich felons claim it will be as much as the banjo playing lackwit whose only real goal is to entrench a puppet or a troublemaker who will work the will of the "donor." And with Sampson about to get a chance to flex his flaccid reformy muscles on the city stage -- remember, this is a guy who recently penned his own little Areopagitica, a frothy polemic defending the Common Core Standards, Commissioner John King and I believe he also managed to stick up for anal cancer. Add Carl Paladino whose Ellicott Development Corp. is already renting buildings to 3 charters and going halvsies with another company to convert Holy Angels into a charter, plus Larry, I don't know shit about education, but I was President of The Sabres when they had a mad goat emblem, and Patty Bowers, I will do as Larry and Carl tell me to do Pierce to the already seated charter bobblehead and bartender Jason McCarthy and we are going to have enough shitty administrators and schools under siege to start out own Youtube fight channel by mid year. 

We wish Mr. Coady a speedy recovery and stand with him in solidarity for his actions as much as we might want to brain him for jumping in, we've all been there and sometimes the only choice you have is to not wait for back up because it means standing there while someone's child gets their face kicked in. People have been saying this school needs a shakeup for months now and it should be noted that James Sampson expressed his support for Mr. Ross same as Pamela Brown does. Sometime you need to abandon your little rhetorical flourishes and do what's right. Getting rid of this clown in a suit who calls himself doctor and can't protect anyone from his ineptitude as an administrator is the right thing to do. NOW. Holding fast to what your ed reform flow chart says you should say will get people hurt. Terry Ross needs to be sent packing. NOW. 

Why All B-Lo Kids Need to Start Opting Out of State Testing Now

I am loathe as the next guy to flog the dead horse of why Buffalo's Opt Out numbers are all but non-existent but in the words of The Dude, new shit has come to light, man. It's rare that two posts overlap as mine have this past week but I'll try not to pat myself on the back too hard in reviewing the nexus between a sixth grade  kid being denied admission to City Honors because he opted out of NY State assessments and Dr. Nevergold's semi-rhetorical query as to why Opting Out rarely happens in Buffalo Schools. 

It's already been pointed out that NYSED Commissioner Elia and Commissioner King before her have a staunch ally in Buffalo's parent group of record, the DPCC. Their bond is so strong that Mr. Radford of DPCC was hand picked to sit on Governor Cuomo's latest stacked deck of ed reformers and pro Common Core agitators who supposedly reviewed the state of public education, testing and APPR in the Empire State. In short, any parents participating in the DPCC in an attempt to have some influence in their kid's education are encouraged to have their kids take the tests, love the Common Core and blame Buffalo teachers and their union for pretty much any and all of the district's shortcomings. 

That aside, I realized as I scrolled through the comments under the two articles where I posted them on social media that the kid being kept out of City Honors for refusing the test is not an isolated case but one of many who were punished for refusing to participate in a test Governor Andrew Cuomo himself has described as "meaningless." 

 In another case a parent commented that the child's Principal -- unnamed -- advised her in a patrician and condescending manner "Not to use her child to make a political statement." What I find really ballsy about this remark is that the Principal in question,  -- and it's tragic that we have so many of these spineless wombats in B-Lo with "Principal" plates on their desks that nobody will even be able to guess who it is -- somehow failed to see the full scope of this "political statement" which has already been made with the help of cowardly politicians beholden to hedge fund donors and henhouse foxes like Elia who've infiltrated education to serve as the handmaids of corporate ed reform's greed fueled agenda.

Politicizing education and using kids as pawns is the statement we've been trying to push back against for the past decade plus. It didn't spring out of thin air with some random Mom deciding Johnny isn't taking the test because she wants to "make a statement." 

In special ed college we were taught about the ABC of a behavioral situation:

• The Antecedent would be the imposition of the ed reform agenda replete with high stakes test and punishment and assault with The Common Core. 
• The Behavior is where Mom says I don't think so, we're not participating in this nonsense. 
• And the Consequence as we see is that the kid is punished for refusing/traumatized for participating and the scores are used against his teacher to accuse him of being ineffective. 

Sadly, Principal Invertebrate fails to include a particularly provocative Antecedent into his equation and instead strips the situation of its proper context, excusing the ed reform movement of imposing this assault on public education while accusing the mother of being the one with some irrational political axe to grind. He's absolved the real culprits of starting this fight and demonized the mother for trying to defend her kid. In the sad sorry light of day a parent has almost no way to respond to all of the above.  

The only way, I repeat for emphasis, THE ONLY WAY parents have found to respond to all of the above is by refusing to participate in a meaningless, high stress activity held in April that's so far out of wack that it even has its own protocol for administrators explaining in full detail how to proceed when a child vomits on his test paper. In case you're wondering the test paper in question -- vomit and all -- is to be loaded into a ziplock bag and sent along to Albany with the rest of the papers. Maybe the Regents Fellows have a special process for correcting them? 

The fact that NYSED had to develop an official protocol for this scenario should tell us all we need to know about whether or not April Foolishness is anything more than state sanctioned and state mandated child abuse. A parent sheltering her kid from such abuse is not making a political statement, she is demonstrating sound skills as a mother. It's criminal that she should be forced to protect her child from abusive policies and abusive adults claiming to be in the business of education.  

No kid should be punished as so many I read about were punished because they and their parents made the decision not to participate in state sanctioned child abuse that serves no educational purpose whatsoever. In politicizing education, guinea pigging our students and weaponizing these meaningless tests to exclude kids from criterion schools and to fire teachers over speciously low test scores, the agents of corporate education reform have declared war on the rest of us. 

The only answer now is not to stop Opting Out but to increase it exponentially. No scores, no exclusion from Criterion Schools. No scores, no receivership schools. No scores, no bogus APPR using them as 50% of a teacher's evaluation. They fired a bunch of first shots. We need to respond with the only weapon we have that will work: REFUSAL. 

Special Interests You Say Johnny ? We Need to Talk

Back when The Arnold was running California off a cliff he made the fatal mistake of calling union nurses  "a special interest group." They retaliated with a 60 second commercial produced by a Hollywood film maker, they hired a blimp to fly over a fund raiser and taunt him as he attempted to schmooze his own special interest groupies and they took out a full page ad lambasting him in a D.C. newspaper when Arnold was in town for some governor's get together.  Maybe it's me but it seems there'd be some awareness on the part of a so called public official like John King to avoid certain terminologies. 

Ahh but I am naive. Why would someone who breathes the rarefied ether of Madame Tisch, Regentus Emeritoid Bob Bennett and Prince Andrew Cuomo trouble himself with petty trifles like loaded words? His press release states that all he really wanted to do was have a discussion. Well, here read it for your own self :

“I was looking forward to engaging in a dialogue with parents across the state. I was eagerly anticipating answering questions from parents about the Common Core and other reforms we’re moving ahead with in New York State. Unfortunately, the forums sponsored by the New York State PTA have been co-opted by special interests whose stated goal is to ‘dominate’ the questions and manipulate the forum,” King wrote.

“The disruptions caused by the special interests have deprived parents of the opportunity to listen, ask questions and offer comments. Essentially, dialogue has been denied. In light of the clear intention of these special interest groups to continue to manipulate the forum, the PTA-sponsored events scheduled have been suspended.”

Awww, poor little fella was looking forward to engaging in dialogue with parents. I guess talking for an hour and a half then interrupting the parents repeatedly during their alloted 20 minutes is Johnny's version of a dialogue. 

The forums he tells us were co-opted by special interests. Let's have a look at one of them -- Mr. Gregory McCrea, a 20 year teacher and parent of a second grade boy named Liam:

Owch. Check out the conflict of interest in the assigned readings that happen to be written by E.D. Hirsch, Founder and CEO of Core Knowledge Foundation who happens to have a $12.9 Million contract with NYSED. Really, John King? Did you want to tell us some more about the influence of special interests? Look at the bitch slapped expression on King's face after the speaker insists that his contract be terminated and he be removed from the Commissioner's post. Priceless. And if you watch his body language the crossed arms at the end of the ass kicking is generally associated with low testosterone levels and high cortisol levels which earn the nickname "Low Power Pose" from Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy. He is eating dirt. 

Of further interest on the topic of Special Interests I happened to stumble across a Pearson textbook companion online purely by accident. Regardez :


Movements of large numbers of people who are frustrated with government policies have always been with us in the United States. Blacks, women, Native Americans, and the economic underdogs have, at various times, organized themselves into movements. Elements in interest-group power include size, resources, cohesiveness, leadership, and techniques, especially the ability to contribute to candidates and political parties, as well as the ability to fund lobbyists. But the actual power of an interest group stems from the manner in which these elements relate to the political and governmental environment in which the interest group operates. For many decades interest groups have engaged in lobbying, but these efforts have become far more significant as groups become more deeply involved in the electoral process, especially through the expanded use of political action committees (PACs). Interest groups also take their messages directly to the public through mass mailings, advertising campaigns, and cooperative lobbying.

Not much in the above excerpt that would describe Mr. McCrea or the assembled bunch of frustrated and pissed off parents and teachers. But when we get to the part about the ability to contribute to candidates and political parties, as well as the ability to fund lobbyists it's pretty hard not to think about Meryl Tisch and her million dollar donations to King's minions, what are they called the Regents Fellows or some shite? And when she was questioned about their role and their bought off allegiances her response was that the public should be appreciative of the donation. Also racking up the self serving donations one normally associates with Special Interest groups are the usual suspects Bill Gates and Lil Mikey Bloomberg. New York Times handles it pretty well here. And what discussion of Special Interests would be compete without revisiting the Million dollar donation Bloomberg made to the L.A. Schools Board of Ed elections this past February in the hope of sliding in some reformy excellence on the left coast as well.  Gates, Bloomie and Meryl, in case I forgot to mention are John King's allies in the wholesale privatization of public education through the use of high stakes testing, bogus teacher evaluations and widespread child abuse via the Common Core. 

I hate to mention the special interests who invested so heavily in Hollywood flops like Waiting for Superman and Won't Flush Down which actually misrepresented the parent trigger law making it look as though teachers could vote on it too. And as long as we're discussing triggers, special interests and the ability to fund lobbyists, I would be remiss in forgetting to mention Education Reform's number one lobbying group today, one we commonly know as ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council has a little p.r. issue or two though that most of our sentient neo liberal ed reformers would just as soon not discuss. Hard to roll your eyes heavenward in a gesture straight outta Gethsemane prattling on about "Ed Reform as the civil rights issue of our era" when your main lobbyists are the ones who crafted the Stand Your Ground Law that enabled gun toting bully and grown ass man Mark Zimmerman to murder unarmed teen ager Trayvon Martin in cold blood then walk away with a smirk on his face. Tell us again Ed Reformists about your deep commitment to the civil rights issues of our day when your number one front group writes laws that enable cold blooded unprovoked killings often of minorities. Be sure to remind them of this every chance you get too.

It appears John King's definition of a "special interest group" is a lot like his classroom technique. He doesn't get it, can't fake it and never should have tried to pretend he had the slightest clue as to what the hell he was doing or talking about. If special interests have led to King being sacked and sent to the great data silos I may just have to register myself as a special interest. 

Old Bob Bennett's Chickens Come Home to Roost in Tonawanda

Old Bob Spins a few Whoppers for the Proles

Well, well, well, a day of action it was. Old Bob Bennett cleared out of his castle on the advice of his court advisors so he wouldn't have to countenance the indignity of parents and teachers parading past in protest of his manifest failures as a Regent. Old Bob is a real piece of work. He has seen his puppet John King pantsed, swirlied, wedgied and dissed in everyplace from Jamestown to Poughkeepsie. Instead of acknowledging the hammering King has absorbed and the uproar and outrage he and his fellows have created, OB attempts to marginalize parents and teachers, painting himself and King as misunderstood prophets in the wilderness. They are not prophets and this in no wilderness. In Jamestown, 35 of 40 speakers told him his policies were failures and Common Core is making kids and teachers both hate school. Bennett tried to dismiss their message by calling them a "vocal minority." Tonight as he was whining to a t.v. news reporter by phone Bennett again tried to backhand the majority and marginalize their legitimate complaints by saying "Oh that's just the noisy ones..." He then went on to describe a little dog and pony show that some classrooms performed for him and King in Jamestown claiming the thing is a hit and it's catching on like wildfire. Ahem. I was only half surprised he didn't use the phrase "23 skiddoo" or refer to CCSS as "the bees knees" and tell us "all the kids are doing it!"  

At this point we arrive at one of the great lies put forth by Common Corons. Bennett in his snivel to the t.v. reporter claimed Common Core demands the following:

• Better Teaching
• More Work
• More Cooperation with Parents

I'd like to step back for a second here friends and ask how a former political hack who shilled for County Executives and Mayors of Buffalo, parlayed his connections into a CEO gig at United Way until he wheezed into retirement only to re-emerge as some Educational Deity of the Regents has a fucking clue in the world what 'Better Teaching" looks like especially when compared to teaching that is all ready taking place. Ahhh but I am being naive here aren't I? The real point of claiming Common Core requires "better teaching" is to slam teachers by implying that what they are all ready doing isn't as special as what David fucking Coleman and his merry band of Core Creators have cooked up -- in spite of the fact that nobody would hire his creepy fiveheaded ass to teach for them. So Old Bob repeats the oft trotted out prevarication that teachers don't like Common Core because they like the status quo and between them and their unions we'd never go forward without the brave new world of Common Core and right minded thinkers like himself. 

Common Core Wankertect David Coleman

Secondly, Old Bob trots out yet another favorite of the teacher hating crowd, namely, that Common Core is so chock full of "rigor" it's going to make those part time employees with weekends off and summers on the French Riviera actually get off their iphones and get to work. Yeah Bob, you nailed it. We got into this gig for the sweet perks, the downtime spent screwing around in between classes of 32 freshmen English students. Damn, this guy is sharp huh? To fill out the trifecta of Old Bob's insult he implies teachers aren't doing enough to make parents happy. We need to start listening to them and working with them. I'll pause a second while the Cyclopean irony of that statement sinks in. Yeah, Bob, some of us were marching in front of your house with parents today because many of them don't think you are worth a shit as a public servant. That's because you aren't worth a shit as a public servant. You serve the corporate interests of your CEO pals, of Pearson, of Bill Gates and Bloomie and every other hack with more money than decency who has figured out that turning public education into a market will create huge profits for a few even if the product is a piece of shit. Mass produced corporate products often are shit but quality isn't job one, profit is. And that, Old Bob is where you fall of the shit wagon and into the goo with all of your scumbag friends who are trying soooo desperately to dress this money grab up into something noble and rigorous. Your cause is rigorously deceitful and your objectives are rigorously despicable Old Bob. 

And to make matters even more disingenuous and phoney our sources tell us NYSED friendly/Teacher hostile Sammy the Moocher Radford the titular head of the DPCC (which represents Radford and about 7 other parents)  has been allotted 50 of the 300 tickets to the farcical kabuki they plan to orchestrate over at WNED studios. Sammy will have his anti teacher, anti union homies 50 deep all up in there spreading the illusion that King and Old Bob have widespread parent and community support.  Should be pretty funny with Radford and his crew stuck in the role of supporting "The Man" for the sake of political expediency. If anything ever smacked or stunk worse of "The Man" than this corporate driven pile of shit we call Common Core I would love to know what it was.  So this angry black man of the people, so called, can get up there and marvel at John King and Old Bob's liberation theology of Common Core by way of Pearson and Bill Gates. And when it's all over I wonder of he's going to be happy about throwing his support to The Man where everyone could see it and everyone could wonder just what exactly is his game anyway? Cause it's obvious he has one. You'd really have to wonder how every single community in New York State had parents and teachers overwhelmingly up in arms against this totalitarian bullshit being inflicted on our kids and schools but for some odd reason this angry dude in the fine suit from Buffalo thinks it's all that and a bag of Buffalo chips. It strains credulity, no? Oh and there's a counter protest competing in the same time slot as that promises to be a lot more lively than this dirge. More on that to come. 

"My Assistant Principal Is Telling Parents It's Illegal to Opt Out"

Has anyone else heard this from a fellow Buffalo teacher? 

Our Assistant Principal is telling parents that it's illegal to Opt Out of testing. 

Or: I work with some teachers who are encouraging parents and kids to take the tests? 

While I understand in recent years we've been browbeaten and cowed by NYSUT's Office of Politeness and Etiquette not to speak out on Refusal and not to encourage parents and kids to engage in the annual April Foolishness, I'd say the time has long past for teachers to be working against themselves and for administrators to be flat out lying to parents.

Last year in a bit of semi-hilarious Paladinoesque farce, one of City Hall's dimmer administrator bulbs was accused of barring an Opt Out activist parent from school grounds. And in classic Carl overreaction mode he used a lawyer from his own office as an intermediary who messaged the Principal in question on Ellicott Development letterhead instead of addressing the issue himself with a Board of Ed identifier. Simple point that was buried in the ensuing pinata explosion of stupid was that a board member actually sought to address the illegal actions of an administrator who'd given an Opt Out parent the boot from school property. 

In "the schools our kids deserve" as NYSUT is so fond of saying these days, this is as it should be. Anyone -- teacher or administrator or Chief Stenographer for that matter-- who tells parents and or kids they do not have the legal right to Refuse NY State Testing should be disciplined with the same rigor the board is using to go after the 5 teachers from Riverside who've been put on leave for following the accepted protocol on Regents exams. Nobody has the right to lie to kids and or parents and if they do they need to answer for it. In a more subtle shade of reality, any teacher who somehow attained the requisite certification to teach in New York State, yet is so lacking in basic common sense that he actually encourages parents and kids to participate in meaningless tests whose true function is to facilitate the firing of him and his colleagues should be told immediately by and and all of his fellows to STFU. That done he should further consider a livelihood in the vast network of corporate ed reform where his true leanings will be fully appreciated. 

Simple facts folks: Nothing has changed. All the same bullshit Cuomo wedged into last year's budget about receivership is STILL IN THERE. And all of the punitive nonsense he stuffed into last year's budget about using these test scores to punish teachers IS STILL IN THERE. So unless you're a moron and or a drooling masochist you have no incentive to encourage kids and or parents to participate in the test and punish Russian Roulette that is New York State Testing. As a professional who should by now be tired of being scapegoated, harassed, micromanaged and bullied by jerkoffs like Cuomo and his charter school pals -- who, incidentally reaped another windfall in this year's budget bonanza -- you have every reason to be non compliant in pimping the tests to the unwitting who actually think "it's not good to teach kids to avoid a challenge..." When you hear bullshit like that you need to be ON IT and capable of explaining how REFUSAL is meeting a challenge on a higher plane,  and is not teaching kids to AVOID IT. 

To steal a phrase from our esteemed ally Professor Andrea Nikischer: Civil Disobedience is a far better lesson than blind obedience.