Damn, this blog got right to the heart. I'm forwarding this to my teacher friends for sure. Consider this bookmarked. Thanks for leaving me speechless.
jose
Bravo-Your analysis is right on target. Charters and privitization are the real agenda. Klein is a union-buster and has been stated to be such by our union leaders. The public is being fooled, and Bloomberg's resources can be seen in this venue as dangerous as the industrialists who supported the fascist leaders of the 1930's.
Your letter should be distributed to every constituency involved in the New York City Public Schools.
BRAVO....
Great post!
A generation of students has already been "socialized into the corporate agenda," though --they're some of the ones itching for placements in alternative teaching certification programs. It's hard to buck the corporate school reform model if you recognize in it the things you learned how to game best in your own education (workaholic hours, measurements of accountability).
When I was teaching I could never decide whether be blunt with my students about the reform game, or to teach them how to play. One approach risks disengaging them from education for good, and the other skirts around those quality of working conditions issues which will shape their lives in the workplace.
Unfortunately the question doesn't leave room to think about how best to teach them.
Why no mention of the UFT going along with most of this?
Fantastic post and scary at the same time.
UFT Role analyzed should be part 2.
Superb piece of work RBE. When you get a chance take a look at the elephant in the room - the UFT. Did it have no role in all of this? Was it a passive observer, a helpless fly on the wall? Or an active participant?
The Unity crew like Mangone will say the UFT did a great job in forestalling even worse and will defend their response to the BloomKlein assault. So if you get to part 2 here is what you will hear:
Don't you realize this is the most difficult, anti-union mayor ever and we held our own -- look at all the victories (ie, read Weingarten back to school letter.)
Ok, we were for mayoral control but we just have to hold on until Bloomberg is gone. When we get the mayor we want mayoral control will pay off for us.
Don't criticize us for anything because that is anti-union and plays into Bloomberg's hands.
If you do a part 2, I bet Mangone won't be distributing it to his school, which by the way is Lafayette hs where the UFT is claiming a great victory in getting rid of Rohloff even though the school is being closed - the old "we got the tumor, but the patient died case.
This is as REAL as you can get. Excellent piece of writing and analysis.
Incredible work. Please make sure to send this piece out to every education site you can think of, and some political ones as well.
Great post. I excerpted liberally at my own site, hope you don't mind.
We'll all be getting value added scores soon.
Thanks for the kind words about the post. It's been something I've needed to say for a while.
The reason why I did not add the UFT to my targets in the post is simply logistical - the post was already too long. To adequately cover the union's passive and active participation in the process would have made it even longer. As it was, the post took me 4 and 1/2 hours over 2 days to write. So I left the UFT out and figured I would perhaps revisit that in a later post. But I also figured NYC Educator does such a great job covering the union angle that many of his readers would already be familiar with the union's role in this mess.
Still, let me say that there is no doubt in my mind that a strong union opposition could have mitigated many of the past and future impending disasters brought upon the system by Bloomberg and Klein.
There is also no doubt in my mind that a strong union opposition to re-approving dictatorial mayoral control in '09 could put an end to one politician having ALL the power and say in a system of 1 million kids, millions of parents, and 130,000 educators.
That would be a good thing.
oh, poo...this data stuff has been going on since the early '90's in the so-called surr schools and you didn't sqeak then and neither did Randy. so grow up and take your medicine.
Ouch Northbrook! But it has never been so badly micromanaged. The tests(es) were really never so devastating if you did not do so well. The climate is, when they say "accountability", never in a teachers favor. Teachers are blamed for raising these children.
So what do they do with the kids in schools that are shut down? Don't they have to go somewhere? What if they ALL get shut down? Is this going to be like Reagan closing all of the mental institutions and having scads of mentally ill people in the streets, homeless and uncared for? Will the streets be full of unsupervised children with no place to go because some dumbass closed their school? Where will they all go?
Schools are already overcrowded.
mrs t, the kids, if they are in high school, end up at Packeminandscrewem High School, which is now at about 260% capacity and has the largest special ed unit in at least the city if not the country. They are mostly good kids being treated like dirt
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