Better Spend More Money, Moneybags

A Gallup poll released yesterday finds that 84 percent of Americans "believe that there is a candidate currently running for the White House who would make a good president."

In past election cycles, the number of Americans who believed a candidate running would make a good president was much lower.

For instance, in 1992 when Bill Clinton beat George Bush, only 40% of respondents felt that way.

The survey also found that people overall are feeling positive about this year's presidential election:

The positive responses to whether candidates are talking about important issues was more than 70 percent, a number that is close to the percentages seen in polling conducted in October of both 1992 and 2000. Similarly, positive responses to whether any of the candidates have come up with good ideas for solving the country's problems (58 percent) are higher than results from January polls of previous election years and are close to the numbers of polls taken in October of previous election years.

So what does this mean for Mayor Bloomberg's independent, post-partisan bid to purchase the White House with $1 billion in campaign money?

It's not looking so good:

The results from today's poll suggest that no possible independent candidate would do as well in November as Ross Perot did in 1992.

Sorry Bloomberg shills and paid operatives - your man with the money is going to have to spend a lot more of it to buy the White House than even he imagined.

Which is not to say that he still isn't going to try.

He's already in full pander mode, bashing the current crop of presidential candidates over and over again for coming up short on every major issue.

For instance, in this early January speech, the foreign policy experience-less Bloomberg criticized candidates like John McCain and Hillary Clinton who sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee for not telling America how they will handle foreign policy post-Dubya:

"I have not heard anybody who's said what they'd really do when it comes to foreign policy, how they would rebuild the relationships America has around the world," Bloomberg said.

I guess Moneybags is too busy cranking out the standardized tests here in NYC to have noticed that both McCain and Clinton have explained just how they would do that. First, Clinton's plan:

New York Senator Hillary Clinton called for a broad reform of US foreign policy that would include better cooperation with other nations and bilateral talks with enemy nations.

Criticizing President George W. Bush's foreign policy from Iraq to Afghanistan and North Korea to Iran, the wife of former president Bill Clinton called for a more internationalist approach to foreign policy in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy think tank.

"First, and most obviously, we must by word and deed renew internationalism for a new century," said Clinton, a likely Democratic Party presidential candidate for the 2008 election.

"We did not face World War II alone, we did not face the Cold War alone, and we cannot face the global terrorist threat or other profound challenges alone either," she said.

Clinton also defended the idea of bilateral talks with nations that Washington has been avoiding, such as Iran and Cuba.

"We must value diplomacy as well as a strong military," Clinton continued. "We should not hesitate to engage in the world's most difficult conflicts on a diplomatic front."

"Direct negotiations are not a sign of weakness; they're a sign of leadership," she said.

Clinton blasted what she said was the Bush administration's "simplistic division of the world into good and evil. They refuse to talk to anyone on the evil side, as some have called that idealistic. I call it dangerously unrealistic."

Now McCain's:

Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security challenge of our time. Iraq is this war's central front, according to our commander there, General David Petraeus, and according to our enemies, including al Qaeda's leadership.

The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq demonstrate that America should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of conflict did the United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, backed by increased force levels, that gives us a realistic chance of success. We cannot get those years back, and now the only responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most likely to protect U.S. national interests.

...

Defeating the terrorists who already threaten America is vital, but just as important is preventing a new generation of them from joining the fight. As president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims -- women's rights campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and many others -- who are resisting the well-financed campaign of extremism that is tearing Muslim societies apart. My administration, with its partners, will help friendly Muslim states establish the building blocks of open and tolerant societies. And we will nurture a culture of hope and economic opportunity by establishing a free-trade area from Morocco to Afghanistan, open to all who do not sponsor terrorism.

You may not like either Clinton or McCain as people, you may not like them as candidates, but the one thing you cannot say is that they have not stated pretty explicitly how they would handle foreign policy in the post-Dubya era.

You also cannot say that 8 years on the Armed Services Committee for Clinton and 20+ years for McCain does not give them some experience with foreign policy (even if you don't happen to agree with how they plan to handle it in the post-Dubya era.)

But I guess if you have $20 billion dollars and you're a potential candidate for president, you can say it and get away with it.

Bloomberg has also criticized the presidential candidates for pandering to voters and not telling America the harsh truths it needs to hear to solve the political, social and economic problems facing it. Yet the NY Daily News finds this morning that Bloomberg himself is pandering to voters:

Mayor Bloomberg adopted the 2008 campaign tactic of bashing Beltway insiders Wednesday night as he issued a compassionate call to help Americans who received shady home loans - a dramatic shift from his earlier stance.

Appearing before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Bloomberg - who once bluntly blamed the buyers rather than the lenders in the subprime mortgage crisis - said no one should become homeless by defaulting on a loan.

"The most important and immediate economic relief we can offer is to help people who are in danger of losing their homes stay in their homes," Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg said preventing families from getting kicked out of their homes "is more important than giving everybody a check."

"We must make sure that people still have a place to live, regardless of how they got it," Bloomberg said to applause.

Only last August, Bloomberg faulted homebuyers "who really didn't have the wherewithal" or "lied about their incomes" to take out subprime mortgages.

But amid rumors of a possible third-party presidential bid, Bloomberg has suddenly adopted a less harsh tone, offering to help counsel those threatened with foreclosure.

So here is the Little Mayor criticizing the "Beltway Insiders" for saying anything to get elected while he himself says anything and changes positions (and political parties) willy-nilly to get elected.

Oh, and he's also backed by a bunch of "Beltway Insiders" like Sam Nunn, William Cohen, David Broder (the "Dean of Beltway Insiders"), et al., which kinda takes away the whole "I'm an outsider" thing.

So remind me again why it is Bloomberg thinks America needs him when 84% of the country think one of the current candidates will make a fine president, most Americans believe the candidates are addressing the important issues of the day and the criticism Bloomberg is leveling at the current crop of candidates is hypocritical and wrong?

Oh yeah, because he's a billionaire and in America billionaires always get listened to, even when they're full of themselves and a whole lot of horse#$%^.

The Vision Thing

Under the beneficent leadership of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, school principals are now required to have "visions" for their schools. The first time I heard our principal talk about vision, images of Carlos Castaneda eating mushrooms with the venerable Don Juan filled my mind, and I wondered how exactly our school would be affected.

But it turns out that "vision," in fun city, has everything to do with following the various dictates of Tweed without question, and applying what little variation is possible within those narrow limits.

"My vision is a 2% increase in test scores for every year of my tenure. When we reach 110% passing, I'll retire."

"My vision is to examine test results, and secretly use them to assess teachers rather than students."

Those are some great visions, and they bring comfort to our great leader, Mayor Mike. Certainly principals who've attended the Leadership Academy are well-schooled in which visions are appropriate. Notice that when their schools fail miserably, accumulate preposterously unacceptable safety records, or simply disappear altogether from this astral plane, their principals are always retained with vague words of appreciation:

"Ms. Wormwood did an extraordinary job under difficult circumstances, and is being reassigned to the central office."

They need to keep these principals, because they have "vision," which is necessary to achieve "reform." Principals who have not received this training are liable to abuse their visions:

"I want to reduce class size to 20 per class."

"This school was built to accommodate 800 kids, and we now have 3,000. Therefore, I want to reduce this school's population by 2,200."

"This building is crumbling before our very eyes. I want to repair it, even if it diverts money from valuable sports stadiums."

Such principals cannot be tolerated. They lack appropriate "vision," and as such, have no place in the "reform"-minded administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Testing 1, 2, 300...

New York City is in the business of testing, and tests are the Holy Grail of Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein. In fact, at Public Schools 40 and 116 (among many others, no doubt), they've added 10 annual tests designed to test new tests. That's right, we're not testing the kids, we're not testing the teachers (secretly or otherwise), we're simply testing new tests, and doing it ten times this year (on top of all the other tests these hapless kids are up for).

“We’re using tests to figure out how kids will test on tests,” said Jane Hirschmann, the founder and co-chairwoman of Time Out From Testing, an anti-testing group that sponsored the news conference.

Parents from these schools have decided to boycott the tests. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, displaying his trademark indifference to public school parents, suggested that the tests would provide useful information for teachers. Perhaps the mayor thought it would somehow help them raise test scores, a feat his "reforms" have been patently unable to accomplish.

It's encouraging to see parents in New York City standing up for their kids. With enough of this, perhaps we'll finally see this system move away from nonsensical "reforms," and closer to what everyone knows works---good teachers, reasonable class sizes, and decent facilities for kids.

Parents Give Mike and Joel an "F"

In Mayor Bloomberg's incredibly short-sighted view of grading schools, only test scores count. Not only that, but a school that's gone from 50 to 55% passing is somehow better than one that's gone from 90 to 88% passing. Schools the state rates as "persistently dangerous" are granted As, while schools parents actually wish their kids to attend don't do well at all.

It appears parents are beginning to question Mayor Bloomberg's well-oiled propaganda machine:

'It really saddens me that this is how the Department of Education thinks that parents are best served, by boiling everything that happens in an entire school to a letter grade,' said Lee Solomon, the mother of a first-grader at the Brooklyn New School, a sought-after school that accepts students only by lottery but got a C.

Could there be more to a school than meets Mayor Mike's eye? Some parents think so:

Jim Devor, the father of a fifth-grader at P.S. 58 in Brooklyn _ which got a D on its report card_ said students there were 'strongly invited' to attend Saturday test-prep sessions but have no time to discuss current events like the presidential campaign.

'I'm appalled at how little my child knows about social studies,' he said. 'They're all obsessed with test prep.'

There could indeed be more to school (and life) than English and math tests. But you wouldn't know it if you went by Klein and Bloomberg. Of course, their kids wouldn't attend public schools anyway, so why should they care? The largest class sizes in the state, the rampant and unconscionable overcrowding, and most remarkably, the inability to show progress on test scores they can't manipulate--none of these things will ever be problems for the children or grandchildren of "reformers" Mike and Joel.

Personally, I think those who'd presume to run a school system ought to have their kids patronize it. If they don't think it's good enough for their kids to attend, they ought to either fix it or find work more suited to their talents.

Related: Here's a new blog with a request for a respite from Mike.

Panic

Last week, the U.S. financial markets tanked on recession fears. The Dow and the Nasdaq fell 4%, the S&P fell 5.4% and the Russell fell 4.7%.

This week isn't expected to be any better, and after European and Asian stocks got hammered Monday with the worst losses since 9/11 and Asian stocks continued to tank on Tuesday, things are really getting scary:

LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks nosedived and demand for safe-haven bonds and currencies soared on Monday as fears gripped investors that a deteriorating U.S. economy would drag others down with it.

The losses on the blue-chip stock indexes of Germany, Britain and France alone amounted to more than $350 billion, or roughly the size of the combined economies of New Zealand, Hungary and Singapore.

The Financial Times put it this way:

Global equities plunged on Monday as investor concerns over the economic outlook and financial market turbulence snowballed into a sweeping sell-off.

Tumbling Asian shares - which continued to fall early on Tuesday - led European stock markets into their biggest one-day fall since 9/11 as the prospect of a US recession and further fall-out from credit market turmoil prompted near panic among investors, who rushed to the safety of government bonds.

About $490bn was wiped off the market value of Europe’s FTSE Eurofirst 300 index and $148bn from the FTSE 100 index in London, which suffered its biggest points slide since it was formed in 1983. Germany’s Xetra Dax slumped 7.2 per cent to 6,790.19 and France’s CAC-40 fell 6.8 per cent to 4,744.45, its worst one-day percentage point fall since September 11 2001.

“September 11 aside, I can’t remember a day like this. It was carnage,” said Jimmy Yates, a dealer at CMC Markets in London.

Dow futures are now down over 500 points.

Tomorrow could be very, very bad on Wall Street.

The Dow is down 15% in the last four months.

This year could be very, very bad on Wall Street.

Fears of potential ratings cuts for bond insurers like Ambac and MBIA have added to the blood in the streets.

Financial talking heads are no longer talking about if the U.S. is going to fall into a recession; now they're talking about just how long and how bad the recession is going to be.

It looks like it's going to be very bad.

If panic continues to spread across the markets and the recession is as bad as some fear, mass public and private lay-offs won't be far off.

You can bet Mayor Moneybags will be looking to rid the Department of Education of some expensive substitute teachers in the ATR pool.

How much you want to make a bet Randi and the UFT throw the ATR's overboard if Bloomberg comes to them in the midst of a really bad recession and says "We have to cut payroll"?

UPDATE: The Dow futures were still down 500+ points this morning and Asian and European markets were still selling off. So Uncle Ben and the Fed panicked and cut interest rates by 3/4 by issuing an emergency rate cut just minutes ago.

When I woke this morning and saw the futures down as much as they were, I said to my girlfriend, "I bet Uncle Ben issues a surprise rate cut of 75 basis points at 8:30 before the U.S. markets open to stave off the panic."

I missed the surprise rate cut by 10 minutes. It was announced at 8:20 AM.

Another 50 basis points will probably be cut next week when the Fed meets officially.

That means the Fed will have cut the target interest rate from 4.25% to 3% in a week.

There goes the interest rate on my savings account. And that, of course is the point - they're trying to get you to borrow money, banks to lend money and people to BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

Ironically, the Dow futures rose from 525 to 190 within seconds of the announcement of the cuts, but now they're back down over 350.

What happens if the Fed gives a 75 basis point emergency rate cut and the markets still panic?

SECOND UPDATE: Dow futures down 555 as of 8:52 AM.

Should be an interesting day.

BTW, according to CNBC, the 75 basis points rate cut is the largest one-time cut since 1984.

Gee, no panic at the Fed.

THIRD UPDATE: As of 9:35 AM, the Dow is down 454, the Nasdaq 118. But 4:00 PM is a long way off and maybe they'll find a bottom and finish up from there.

As of 9:52 AM, the Dow is only off 240...

Grading Teachers

The NY Times reports today that New York City has "embarked upon an ambitious experiment, yet to be announced" in which 2,500 public school teachers are being measured on how much their students improve on annual standardized tests.

The program, which may be a breach of the teachers contract, is considered so "contentious" that it has been kept secret from some of the teachers who are being scrutinized in the 140 elementary and middle schools participating in the program.

The Times article says DOE officials will not say publicly what they plan to do with the information being collected, but Chris Cerf, a deputy chancellor of the NYCDOE and former head of Edison Schools, surely gives a good indication:

“If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city — every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will — that will have been a powerful step forward,” said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. “If you know as a parent what’s the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.”

The Times reports the UFT has known about the program for months but does not know which schools are involved because of "confidentiality" agreements between the DOE and the principals who agreed to participate in the program.

The Times says UFT President Weingarten is concerned about the program:

Randi Weingarten, the union president, said she had grave reservations about the project, and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it. She and the city disagree over whether such moves would be allowed under the contract.

“There is no way that any of this current data could actually, fairly, honestly or with any integrity be used to isolate the contributions of an individual teacher,” Ms. Weingarten said. “If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life.”

Ha - what a joke! When Ms. Weingarten and the UFT leadership agreed to merit pay for teachers based upon standardized test scores earlier this school year, they opened the door to all kinds of funky other things related to test scores - including grading teachers based upon scores whether the tests were meant for that purpose or not.

While the Times reports that DOE officials "adamantly deny" they plan to hand out letter grades to teachers and base tenure decisions solely on test score performance, those of us in the system know better.

That's exactly where this is going in the near future. And just as giving letter grades to schools based upon a formula overly weighted toward annual test score improvement has proven reductive and harmful (schools with 85%-95% test score passing rates have been handed D's and F's by the DOE for failing to improve on their test scores while schools with 30%-50% test score passing rates have been handed A's and B's because their test scores have improved from one year to the next), so too will handing out letter grades to teachers.

And before my friends at the Democrats For The Return Of Feudalism and other education "reform" groups starting chirping about how I must be a bad teacher because I'm complaining about being held accountable to standards, let me tell you that I am a teacher who works at a school that received an A and a "Well Developed" assignation from the DOE in this year's assessments, I teach at least three sections of ELA Regents prep each year (sometimes four or five if I teach remedial Regents prep in the Spring), and have very high passing rates every year.

I'm attacking this program not because I'm worried I will be exposed as a "bad teacher," but because I do not believe the testing regimen as currently constituted was designed to provide enough insight into teachers' performances to base salary decisions, tenure decisions and personnel decisions nor do I think any one annual standardized test should be given the kind of weight Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein and others are giving them.

And yet, that is where we are headed, and despite Ms. Weingarten's "Oh, I am so concerned about this program..." tone, Ms. Weingarten and the UFT leadership have partnered with Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein and the other education "reformers" to bring them to us.

The NY Sun reports that Ms. Weingarten is widely expected to move up the ladder this year and take over the reins of the American Federation of Teachers when the current head steps down.

That means all the concessions that Ms. Weingarten has made here in New York on merit pay, on additional days and additional time, on grievance rights, on seniority rights, on authoritarian mayoral control, on charter schools, on curriculum and a host of other issues can now be made at a national level so that teachers all across the nation can learn just how much fun it is to be lead by Rod Paige's favorite teachers union head.

Frankly, I'm not as mad at Bloomberg, Klein and Cerf for the merit pay, the additional standardized tests a year (10 and counting so far), the additional days and time, the loss of grievance and seniority rights, and all the other things they've done to take more power for the DOE and diminish the power and work conditions of the teachers in the system as I am at Randi Weingarten, Leo Casey, and the other sell-outs at the UFT who have enabled all these things while telling us to our faces they're fighting them.

That's who is at fault here. And despite her "grave reservations" to the contrary about the newest DOE horror show - measuring teachers in secret by how much their students improve on test scores, you can bet Ms. Weingarten is either in favor of the program or doesn't care enough to stop it.

Ego Trips

Mayor Bloomberg kicked off his presidential campaign unofficially yesterday when he gave his annual State of the City speech.

The speech was the usual self-aggrandizing pat on the back rah-rah pom-pom moment you usually get from a politician getting ready to jump to higher office, so I'm not going to bother you with the details.

Suffice it to say that if you work at a vocational high school in the New York City public school system (as I do), Mayor Bloomberg has got some reform for you starting in September 2009!

But let's leave that horror show for another post and get back to the real story (at least in much of the major media's eyes): will he or won't he run for president and if he does, can he win?

Now Bloomberg's been playing coy this last year or so, ordering his administrative minions and political aides to tell the press to ask the mayor publicly at press conferences if he's going to run for president or not so that the mayor can get all smiley and deny he is running but say boy the candidates who are surely suck.

You see, that's his strategy for creating an opening in the race. He wants to create as much dissatisfaction with the current crop of presidential candidates as he can while his political aides and paid shills (including the supposedly "independent" Unity 08 ticket so lovingly trumpeted by "post-partisans" like Sam Waterston, Sam Nunn, Bill Cohen, David Broder, etc) prepare a 50 state strategy for getting their hero on the ballot and competitive in the '08 race.

Bloomberg has a billion bucks to drop in this race and he knows that the current right track/wrong track numbers are so bad (about 19/75 in the latest Washington Post/ABC News and NY Times/CBS polls) that people are desperate for some sort of "change" from the current direction.

So he's doing the best he can to stir up excitement among his true base - the media and press corps - so that they in turn will write glowing stories like this one from David Broder that describe what a competent, post-partisan genius he is and how he is tanned, rested and ready to take on America's problems.

They're also selling him as a businessman who handled the post-9//11 economic problems in New York City so well that he will make mincemeat out of the current mortgage mess/housing slump/coming recession and make America into the beautiful smoke-free, trans-fat free, fiscally solvent land the Founding Fathers envisioned .

But there's only one problem with all these theories: when Survey USA conducted a 50 state poll to see what Bloomberg's support is and the kind of base his potential candidacy would appeal to, they found something quite startling - he garners little support anywhere across the country, never receives more than 13% in any state including New York, wouldn't even win in New York City as a presidential candidate no matter who the Democratic or Republican candidates are and has little effect on the presidential race except that he takes some votes away from Republicans.

In other words, as of now he has no shot to win the White House as an independent.

Now it's true he has a billion dollars or more to drop on advertising to sell himself and his candidacy to America and it's true that a billion dollars in advertising can change opinions awfully fast. Think about how he outspent his opponents in both 2001 and 2005, sold himself to the electorate and bought City Hall. But even so, Bloomberg's got a long hard slog to do it and I don't think even a billion dollars and glowing columns from David Broder would pull it out for him in the end.

As for the rationale behind his candidacy, Bloomberg likes to sell himself as the change agent in the race, a post-partisan figure who will bring the parties together and stop the fighting in Washington, but we already have one of those in Barack Obama, the Democrat who claims Ronald Reagan is his hero.

Bloomberg also likes to sell himself as the competent businessman who can clean up the fiscal mess left behind by George W. Bush, but we also have one of those candidates already in the race and his name is Mitt Romney.

Bloomberg's supporters also like to sell him as a candidate without the personal baggage of a Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Rodham Clinton, one who has no skeletons in his closet and will not be hit with personal or public scandals as president.

But let us not forget that Bloomberg has been slapped with a plethora of sexual harassment lawsuits in the past and settled them all and got non-disclosure agreements from the victims. Let us also remember that his company, Bloomberg LP, is being sued by the federal government for gender discrimination and that his own role in the discrimination problem is being eyed by the feds.

Bloomberg is NOT a candidate without personal or public scandal baggage.

Bloomberg's supporters also say that Bloomberg needs to run because people are fed up with politics as usual and only a post-partisan independent like himself can restore America's interest in politics.

And yet how turned off from politics can America be when interest in the election is so high and turn-out in the primaries and caucuses this year is at a record high? (See here and here for that story.)

It doesn't seem to me like people are being turned off politics these days. If anything, the Iraq war and the tanking of the economy have heightened interest in politics and the '08 elections among all segments of the America - including young people.

So at the end of the day, why is Bloomberg going to run for president?

Well, given that the man feels the need to put his name on everything he owns (Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg TV) and given that the man seems to only be happy when he's the center of political attention and everybody's calling him a political genius, I'd have to say it's nothing more than ego for both the Little Mayor himself and the "wise old men" of Washington and the media who are trying to sell him as just what the nation needs.

Or as Glenn Greenwald put it:

A Bloomberg candidacy would have no purpose other than satisfy his bottomless personal lust for attention and bestow the wise old men threatening the country with his candidacy with some fleeting sense of rejuvenated relevance and wisdom. His political views are conventional in every way and he's little more than an establishment-enabling figurehead. The whole attraction to his candidacy has nothing to do with any issues or substance and everything to do with an empty addiction to vapid notions of Establishment harmony and a desire to exert control, whereby our Seriousness guardians devote themselves to a candidate for reasons largely unrelated to his policies or political views, thus proving themselves, as usual, to be the exact antithesis of actual seriousness.

Indeed.

POSTSCRIPT: One last thing about Bloomberg's poll numbers. Right now his approval in NYC is high - in the 65%-73% range. But if you look at his Q poll numbers over the course of his time in City Hall, you will see that his approval numbers are completely tied to how the economy in the city is doing. When Wall Street is doing well, unemployment is okay and the tax receipts are rolling in, Bloomberg's numbers are quite high. But when the economy was bad, as it was in 2003-2004, his poll numbers sink and he has higher disapproval numbers than approval numbers.

With the economy either falling into a recession or already in one and with financial institutions like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bear Sterns and a bunch of others writing off almost a a hundred billion dollars, and as lay-offs, inflation and recession start to take a toll on the city economy (as the mayor warned it would in his State of the City speech yesterday), you can bet the mayor's approval numbers are going to plummet as they did during the worst of the 2003-2004 economic downturn.

Which means he may not be as popular as he (or his paid shills in and out of the media) think he is.

Britney Update

Forgive me for being remiss on this vital topic. The Education Wonks were very tough on the Britster today. But perhaps things will change when she converts to Islam.

Best Bets

There's an interesting piece in Firedoglake about who can best carry the upcoming 2008 elections. For Republicans, it appears John McCain is their man, but only because FDL has written off Rudy Giuliani. Despite the polls, I wonder how many skeletons would crawl out of Rudy's closet in a major national race.

And though the entire country seems to have written off John Edwards, he looks to be the best chance for Democrats to take the White House, followed by Obama, with Hillary in dead last.

The upshot of all this: If Hillary's the Democratic nominee, we could very easily lose to any likely GOP nominee. If Obama's the nominee, he does OK so long as he doesn't face McCain. But if Edwards is the nominee, we're sitting pretty. Which, I suspect, is one reason why Big Media hates John Edwards so much and does everything it can to destroy him. (Speaking of which: KingOneEye at DailyKos pointed out this morning how the NYT is ignoring a key result of its own poll on the race -- namely, that as more people get to know him, Edwards' favorability rating keeps going up.)

Even though polls show a statistical dead heat in Nevada, Edwards is routinely ignored by mainstream media. Hopefully sometime between now and February 5th, Democrats will take a look at the big picture and vote with their eyes wide open.

Kids and Money

In Nashville, Tennessee they're having kids take personal finance classes. While the article doesn't go into much detail, it could be an excellent idea.

I'm particularly concerned about how kids deal with credit cards. At night, I teach college classes, and the credit folks are standing outside the college, in the student union, and in the cafeteria handing out applications like they're candy. They give free t-shirts, water bottles, and other inconsequential goodies to anyone who signs their forms.

My classroom has a bulletin board on the side, and credit applications hang there by the dozens, stapled over one another.

I remember when I got my first credit card. I was working one job, I foolishly ran it up and couldn't pay it off till I was working two jobs. That frightened me enough to start paying my bills in full each month, and not spending more than I could realistically handle.

New college kids, though, are not that much more mature than they were when they were in high school. I regularly read of such kids running up tens of thousands in debt, and sometimes committing suicide rather than dealing with the debts. While it may be profitable for credit card companies to saddle our children with debt early, we'd damn well better warn them about it.

Classes like these, if done well, could be a good start.

Competitive Bidding Is for the Little People

How on earth is Mayor Bloomberg supposed to get anything done? That goshdarn Thomas diNapoli is at it again. First, he went and audited the KIPP schools, finding the following:

lack of documentation of criminal background checks for seven employees at the school;

an unclear policy regarding the competitive bidding process that resulted in the awarding of four contracts totaling in $181,584 without the benefit of competition;

no written policies and procedures to determine and approve salary increases;

missing or incomplete overtime records;

no system to track employees’ sick or personal leave accruals; and

no written policies and procedures or Board approval for employee bonus and stipend pay.

With such indifference toward compensating their employees, it's no wonder they needed to send them on "vacation" (which supposedly consisted largely of work-related meetings and discussions). When this story came out, "reformers" round the net branded diNapoli as "political." I found that a very unpersuasive argument, as nowhere did they use the word "inaccurate." But it turns out that diNapoli has his eyes on public schools as well.

Apparently, the Bloomberg administration's policy of offering no-bid contracts to whomever they please does not please Mr. diNapoli. Sure, it's easier for Bloomberg to just hand out money to anyone he feels like, but is that in the public's best interest?

The city came under tough criticism in 2006 over a $15.8 million deal with Alvarez & Marsal, a consulting firm that was hired to restructure the schools’ financial operations and cut as much as $200 million from the city’s more than $15 billion budget. The consulting firm also restructured several school bus routes to save money, but the plan infuriated parents when it took effect last January.

You may remember when kids were left to freeze on the coldest days of the year last year. This led to widespread dissatisfaction with the Bloomberg regime, which came to an end only when UFT President Randi Weingarten unilaterally stopped a demonstration against reorganization number 3 (The clear implication that reorganizations 1 and 2 had failed was largely ignored by the press).

Some of the consultants charged as much as $450 an hour for their work, and were able to bill as much as $500 a day for such expenses as transportation and housing.

Perhaps competitive bidding could have saved the city money and avoided the bus fiasco, but apparently the Bloomberg administration feels doing what it wants, when it wants, however it wants is more important.

School officials have said that awarding contracts without bidding gives them more flexibility and allows them to get better and faster results...

What, exactly, are these results? Under Mr. Bloomberg's leadership, I've watched my school mushroom to 250% capacity, and by his own standards (standardized test scores) he's made no progress at all.

Is diNapoli political? Well, of course he is. In fact, that's an adjective I'd apply to virtually all politicians. After all, there's a reason they're called politicians.

Is he accurate? We'll have the results of his audit in six months. Perhaps we can't attribute the unconscionable overcrowding, or the failure to reduce class sizes or raise test scores to no-bid contracts. But kids freezing on NY streets were indeed a disgraceful spectacle, and not remotely the sort of "results" I want, particularly from someone who aspires to be President of the United States.

The Teeth of the Storm

Bad times are coming.

Americans are in debt up to their eyeballs.

Take a look at the chart to the left to see just how much debt levels have increased since the beginning of 2000 (let alone since the 1950's and 1960's!)

For a while now I have been saying that individual and public debt levels in America are at scary levels that cannot be maintained much longer without some serious consequences.

Reaganomics and Bushonomics helped the top 5% (let's call them the "Haves") make tons more money in the past 25 years, but the other 95% (let's call them the "Have Debts") have seen little benefit from trickle-down economics and the Bush tax cuts.

In fact, the bottom 95% are now worse off in 2008, adjusted for inflation, than they were back in 2001 when President Bush first took office.

So the "Have Debts" have resorted to borrowing to maintain lifestyles that could no longer be financed by their squeezed wages or their outsourced jobs. Increased health care, housing, education, food and energy costs have further squeezed the "Have Debts" (although the Greenspan-created Housing Bubble enabled them to survive a little while longer before the implosion...more on that in a minute.)

Times would have been tough, but the "Have Debts," encouraged by Uncle Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve and the president and the media (owned by multi-national corporations with huge stakes in financial institutions) and a bunch of other shills for the credit card companies and banking industry, encouraged people to buy houses (even if they couldn't afford them), encouraged people who already owned homes to refinance them for vacations, home improvements and other consumer spending, and encouraged Americans to do their "patriotic duty" and buy, buy, buy after 9/11, even if all this buying was being done on credit with money people didn't actually have.

The fact that Uncle Alan decreased interest rates to historic lows and kept them there for a very long period of time, further encouraging spending and discouraging saving, helped people to continue on their spendthrift course.

It worked for a while, of course. As long as real estate values continued to inflate, people could continue to tap into their home equity for ready cash or could buy homes, wait six months for them to increase ridiculously in value, and "flip them" to other sellers looking to cash in on the housing market themselves.

The banks played a role, lending to just about anybody with a pulse (my favorite loan product was the NINJA loan - this stands for NO INCOME, NO JOB, NO ASSETS...NO PROBLEM, HERE'S YOUR LOAN!!!), Wall Street investors played a role by buying up all these mortgages after they had been bundled up into CDO's and other non-transparent financial instruments and the regulatory bodies like the ratings agencies and the federal government played a role by turning a blind eye to all the fraud and insanity and calling it "financial innovation."

Now, with real estate values plunging across the country and many of the mortgages made in the last three years going bad, with credit card late payments and defaults increasing, with financial stocks tanking and mortgage companies going belly-up as a result of the bursting of the housing bubble, people are starting to wonder if Uncle Alan Greenspan and the president and the financial companies weren't completely insane for encouraging all this debt.

Only it's kinda too late to do anything about the problem. You see, all that borrowed money has already been spent and it's starting to look like the only way people can continue to make payments on their debt is if they can borrow more money.

Which, due to the credit crisis, tightening lending standards, and falling home prices, they mostly can't.

So, the storm created by Uncle Alan and the banks and the rating agencies and the federal government and the news media and the people who borrowed all that money and now can't pay it back is here.

Amex took a $440 million writedown in the fourth quarter because of credit card defaults. Amex stock fell 11% yesterday and other credit card companies also took a hit as investors fear consumers will continue to default on their credit card bills.

Capital One also cut its profit outlook on Thursday because of default problems.

Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, was about to go belly-up until Bank of America, perhaps urged by Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, purchased the company that many people feel ushered in the era of lax lending and fraudulent mortgage practices in the first place.

Other financial companies like Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are selling parts of themselves to foreign governments like China to shore up their books after taking record losses from the mortgage mess.

According to the Washington Post, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns have gotten about $30 billion from sovereign wealth funds. Merrill and Citigroup are set to get another $14 billion. With additional write-downs expected as a result of mortgage losses, credit card and auto loan defaults, (Merrill is expected to write down a total of $15 billion, Citigroup as much as $24 billion), problems with these financial institutions are nowhere near over.

And then there is the job market. Citigroup is rumored to be cutting somewhere between 5%-10% of its workforce (between 17,000 and 34,000 employees) in the coming months. If recession fears turn out to be accurate, firms from Main Street to Wall Street will be laying off tons of people and curtailing spending to weather the storm.

Since 72% of the American economy is powered by consumer spending, when Americans cannot or will not do their "patriotic duty" and go shopping, economic problems will grow even worse. Americans with record debt levels and no jobs will probably not be able to do their patriotic duties and spend, spend, spend.

The Fed will do its part, of course, and try and lower interest rates back to Greenspan levels. Indeed, Uncle Ben Bernanke said Thursday that he is ready to get up into his helicopter and shower the U.S. economy with as much cheap money as it wants or needs. The problem is that food and energy inflation is already so high (oil hovers between $90-$100 a barrel, soybeans and corn hit all-time highs again this week, gold hit $900.10 an ounce this week) that the Federal Reserve risks stoking 70's style inflation if it prints too much money.

We're in a heap of trouble and Uncle Ben and President Bush and the shills on Wall Street know it. The financial markets have suffered their worst start to a year in 20 years. According to Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank, "From an earnings perspective, we're already in recession." The housing market hasn't been this awful since The Great Depression, as home prices and values continue to decline month after month across the country while inventories continue to grow. Manufacturing declined last month for the first time since 2003 while job creation fell to 18,000. Local governments and even state governments like California are facing huge shortfalls and looking to cut millions/billions of dollars in spending. New York City faces a $3.1 billion shortfall in the coming fiscal year and Mayor Bloomberg has said he is open to tax hikes and drastic budget cuts to make ends meet. If stocks continue to tank and Wall Street layoffs are larger than expected, New York City will face even larger budget problems in the near-term.

Scary times, and while it's true that one month does not make a trend, the direction for the U.S. economy seems pretty clear.

The financial excesses of the last decade will have to be paid for. The hangover cannot be put off anymore.

Bad times are coming.

The "Haves" will no doubt weather the storm like they always do.

As for the "Have Debts", I have a feeling that things are going to be really, really bad for awhile.

I hope I'm wrong.

Who Really Took A Vow Of Poverty?

The Associated Press reported yesterday that the union representing 10 high schools run by the Archdiocese of New York urged teachers to call in sick to work on Thursday to protest the lack of a new contract.

The union says about 300 of its 375 members called in sick to work, forcing some schools to close early.

A spokesman for the archdiocese says the "sick-out" has done nothing but hurt the kids in the schools and cause the teachers to lose a day's pay.

The teachers have been without a contract since August 31.

The archdiocese offered a "last, best final offer" of salary increases of 17%-19.5% that would take top salary for teachers from $45,000 a year to $58,000 a year.

In addition, teachers would have to contribute to their health care. The article does not say what percentage of a teacher's salary would go to this contribution.

No new talks have been scheduled between the union and the archdiocese.

Couple of things here:

1. Can you imagine what the tabloid press and politicians would say if Randi Weingarten urged her union members to all call in sick on a particular day to protest the lack of a new contract for UFT members and 80% did so? And can you imagine the havoc such a "sick-out" would wreak across the city?

2. The current top salary for teachers in these 10 Catholic High Schools is $54,000? Yikes, how do these teachers provide for their families? Two jobs? Three jobs? Rob banks?

I guess the archdiocese, which used to use the "free labor" of priests and nuns to teach in their schools, will argue that they cannot pay teachers livable salaries and provide health care for them because they don't have the money.

The church is, after all, in the soul-saving and charity business.

But a cynic would note that the church owns an awful lot of real estate and the cardinals and the archbishops and the bishops and pope live awfully well for men who have taken "vows of poverty".

Just take a walk by St. Patrick's Cathedral and take a look at how well Cardinal Egan is living.

I guess the cardinals and the archbishops and the bishops and the pope figure it's the lay teachers in Catholic schools who have taken a "vow of poverty."

UPDATE: The NY Post reports low-end salaries for Catholic high school teachers currently stand at $38,107 and high-end salaries currently stand at $45,757. Under the offer from the archdiocese, low-end salaries would rise to $44,585 while high-end salaries would increase to $54,701. The highest salary offered would be $58,200.

Try raising a family in New York City in 2008 on any of those figures.

"Reformers" at Work

Ah, the battle cry of the "reformers." Schools are for the children, not for the adults that work there. If the adults are treated well, the children must be getting a bad deal. I suppose, therefore, public school teachers in NYC must be the best since we have the lowest pay, the highest class sizes, and the worst working conditions in the area.

Oddly, though, the theme song of Mayor Bloomberg and his "reforms" is still "Children First." Now he's managed to worsen working conditions for teachers considerably, so you'd think he'd be satisfied. But every time the UFT tosses away another hard-earned right, he demands more.

Perhaps he's just jealous. In New Orleans, they've beaten Mayor Bloomberg at his own game. After President Bush did a heckuva job with Hurricane Katrina, he managed to privatize, voucherize, and charterize most of those nasty public schools. And it turns out that the new charter schools don't offer health benefits to retiring teachers.

So when Dennis Mischler went back to work after a leave of absence, he couldn't return to his former workplace. Now this certainly shows that the Lusher Charter School, where he worked before it became a charter school, is not concerned about adults. Bravo!, cry the "reformers." Parents are less convinced:

...one Lusher parent complains that Mischler feels forced to leave midyear -- and that other teachers might need to leave school shortly before their retirements as well.

"I just find it very frustrating that the School Board would think that it would be an educationally sound move to yank a teacher out of a classroom," said Lonnie Smith, whose four children attend Lusher.

After the parents, the only hitch for the "reformers" is the children they care about so much. The sad truth is that they're very likely to become adults (the same selfish oafs we have to stop worrying about), and will face a world of fewer and less desirable opportunities. Who wants a career that dumps you after 20 years with no insurance? Who wants their kids to have such careers?

You can't minimize the importance of medical insurance. I just got a bill for some medical tests that came to almost $2,000. GHI paid $136, and I have to send $15, so the company was able to profit even after offering GHI a 90% discount. The poor shmoe without insurance is out of pocket for 2000 bucks. Should teachers have to wait till they're eligible for Medicare to retire? Will the prospect of a miserable future attract the best and brightest?

Clearly some think so. But young people don't always consider they'll one day be old people, and things are not getting easier in these United States. When I was a kid, I lived across the street from a guy who worked in a bread factory. He was the sole support of his family of six. Today, they'd be living in a tree, and not one in a very good neighborhood either.

There's more to life than test scores. There's the future of our children, and as far as I can see, once they pass those tests, the "reformers" don't give a damn about them. Let's leave things better, not worse, for our children, for the people who will have to work here.

Thanks to Schools Matter and Schoolgal

Haga como digo, no como hago

Rudy Giuliani insists immigrants must read English, write English, and speak English to become citizens. Curiously, he neglects to mention these demands on his Spanish-language ad:



Hat tip to Crooks and Liars

President Mike

Good old Mayor Mike. He finds strikes by public employees morally reprehensible, but greets torturers with the best of them. Is this the sort of "centrist" philosophy our country needs right now? Well, over at Pseudo-Intellectualism, blogger David Bellel stumbled upon a biting analysis by Tom Robbins suggesting President Bloomberg may not be what the country is clamoring for after all:

Michael Bloomberg thinks he hears America calling. He alone hears this call, but that doesn't matter. Unfortunately for us, he is eager to answer...

He needs no stinking caucuses to do this, no treading through New Hampshire snows, no forced smiles through endless living-room chats, no stadium rallies only half-filled with supporters, no late-night flights over frozen cornfields, no town-hall meetings that so easily go awry with one little misspoken word. He need engage in none of these tedious democratic exercises. He will simply buy himself a place on the ballot, just as he did here in New York in 2001.

Now you have to grant that Mayor Bloomberg bought Graycie Mansion fair and square. It was a minor miracle, with Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 ascension from bum to saint, Mark Green's astounding ineptitude, and of course, all that money. But can Bloomberg buy the White House?

Ross Perot tried and failed in 92. Before the race, all I'd known about Ross Perot was what I'd read in Ken Follet's On Wings of Eagles. I thought he was an American hero. By the end of the race he looked like a paranoid lunatic (though in retrospect, he was right about NAFTA). Will Mayor Bloomberg fare better under public scrutiny? It's hard to say. He could talk endlessly about the nebulous "reforms" he's embarked upon here in NYC. But who will listen?

Michael Bloomberg, who couldn't get a crowd to stand on its feet and cheer with real enthusiasm to save his life; Michael Bloomberg, who raises the temperature in the room only when he reaches for his wallet; Michael Bloomberg, who has managed to duck every tough question about the direst issues confronting our country, from Iraq to Iran. Michael Bloomberg will run for president because he hears America calling for change. He alone hears his own name in that same wind, but no matter. He can do so because he can afford to. And that's that.

So he can buy a lot of air time, no doubt. Robbins suggests it would be problematic for Bloomberg to face either McCain or Obama, but any other lineup and all systems are go. As usual, NYC public employees are already on the case:

His full-time Deputy Mayor for Presidential Politics, Kevin Sheekey, keeps track of these small but vital things. Sheekey did such a good job for Bloomberg's re-election that Bloomberg paid him a $400,000 bonus. Back on the city payroll, Bloomberg hiked Sheekey's salary to almost $200,000 a year, this time with our money.

So if you're enjoying "reform," calculated solely to raise test scores, that doesn't actually work, on a local level, here's your chance to see it used all over the country. And if you think billionaires don't have enough power in this country, here's your chance to do something about it.

The Carnival of Education...

...is being hosted this week by the Columbus Education Association. Where the heck is that, you ask? Why, it's right here.

Democracy, More or Less

Every four years, I turn into a political junkie and spend a lot more time watching CNN. With Sirius satellite, I now have it in my car, so I'm never far from the genius pundits.

They're always willing to let me know who won the election well before anyone actually casts a vote. A few weeks back, they told me Hillary would win and everyone else was wasting valuable time. All last week, they told me Hillary was toast, and that Obama was unstoppable.

So while Hillary's not my favorite candidate, I was very happy to see her hold onto a lead last night, and even happier when MSNBC projected her as the winner (Flicking back and forth, I noticed that CNN and Fox didn't join in that projection until Obama actually came out to concede).

Hillary spoke very well, and clearly seemed to have taken a page from John Edwards' playbook, speaking about the disappearing middle class and corporate control (In fact, the moment when she teared up last week saw her saying how "personal" the campaign is, exactly what Edwards stressed at the ABC debate).

There's something really distasteful and grotesque about having 0.5% of the country determine who the presidential candidates will be. Two states have spoken, and there are 48 more to go. Here's someone else who thinks so:

Bush is Tested

While President Bush is in Chicago explaining how he knows NCLB has worked, one of those goshdarn lawyers has revived a troublesome lawsuit. Apparently, the plaintiffs complain, if the federal government requires testing and tutoring and whatever, it behooves them to fund these requirements.

It's hard to say what will happen, as Bush may take the matter to the Supreme Court, which has been known to rule in his favor before. But I like the idea of demanding things I won't have to pay for. I'd like better service in restaurants. I'd like a third faucet with an alternative to hot and cold, perhaps vodka. And many of my colleagues are clamoring for free donuts and prostitutes in teachers' lounges.

It's good to be in the federal government, where you get the best health coverage, you can vote raises for yourselves and then insist that states spend money on whatever you say. No wonder all those people are running around New Hampshire 24/7.

The New Primary Primer

The Education Wonks lament the fact that three states have so much power in determining who gets the nomination for President of the United States. Here at NYC Educator, we share that disappointment, and we have a simple proposal to remedy the situation.

Now Iowa, for example, has about 3 million inhabitants, while New York has closer to 20. Let's make this race interesting. Let's move up the primaries in The Education Wonks' home state, California, and ours in New York, so that they come first. Why should the folks in Iowa get to meet all those politicians in their coffee shops and diners? We have coffee shops and diners too.

Now skeptics among you will say, "Sure, NYC Educator, we can move the primaries, but won't that just move the problem somewhere else?" That's a fair question. But take a look at those politicians after they run all over Iowa drinking a hundred cups of coffee every day. They're working themselves to death. Just think how much harder they'd have to work if they were covering NY and CA instead of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Now sure, fewer of them would be able to keep up. But that's just natural selection. I think Republicans and Democrats can agree we want the toughest candidates possible. So if two or three collapse from massive coronaries, or simply fall off diner stools from sheer exhaustion, we'd know right away that they weren't up to the job.

Admittedly, we'd still have the problem of a few states determining who the candidates are. But you gotta admit, candidates who can visit every coffee shop in NY and CA probably deserve a shot at becoming President.

Who's Winning?

While pundits of all stripes are now discarding Hillary's inevitability and crowning Obama, here's a blogger declaring Hillary is ahead, because of the odd tradition of "superdelegates" that allows 40% of the delegates to vote as they wish, whether or not primary voters agree with them.

Rudy's Claim to Fame

Rudy runs on 9/11. But despite his elevation to sainthood on that day, his judgment was questionable at best. I share the feelings of some of these interviewees, who wonder what he actually did beyond looking good on television.



More here.

On Teaching...

...on Miss Cellania right now.

A Full Day

Imagine you're teaching a bunch of kids who barely speak English how to pass the English Regents exam. What can you do? You break it down to bare bones, try very hard to get them to understand and respond directly, and ask for four-paragraph compositions that marginally get the job done. You write sample compositions, and explain how you wrote them.

You make them write until their hands bleed, you do drafts and more drafts, you read everything, and they rewrite everything. By the end of the semester, you think you've made progress.

Then two kids scan compositions you wrote, type their names on them, and fully expect a good grade. They don't expect you'll remember having written them yourself. They don't expect you to notice that they're responding to a different question and this answer no longer applies. They don't expect you to remember that the written notes they've been making have nothing to do with what they submitted.

Another kid hands you a summary of Moby Dick that's clearly plagiarized and has nothing to do with the question. You ask the kid what certain words mean, and the kid has no idea. You ask how the kid managed to use the words while not knowing what they meant, and the kid looks up at the sky.

Then a kid brings you a doctor's note, explaining he had a headache and couldn't come to school yesterday. It's from an obgyn, and it carries the signatures of three other teachers, who clearly haven't looked at it closely.

Finally, one kid hands you the entire text of The Cask of Amontillado. As your head bangs loudly on the desk, you seriously begin to wonder whether the other boy's gynecologist can help you with the pain.

Webmaster's Note

I'm going to have to ask that posters refrain from name-calling. Also, while you are free to say what you think, I'll ask you to refrain from telling me what I think, or other posters what they think. Posters here can speak for themselves.

Thank you.

Post-Iowa Analysis

For my money, the most interesting pundit around is Jon Swift. Here's a small portion of his take:

The biggest loser of all was Hillary Clinton. If she can't win in Iowa, where can she win? In every contested race since 1972 (Bill Clinton ran unopposed in 1996), the winner of the Iowa caucuses for the Democrats has gone on to be elected President, except for 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2004...

You can read the rest right here.

God Created the First Teacher

On the 6th day, God created men and women. On the 7th day, He rested. Not so much to recuperate, but rather to prepare Himself for the work He was going to do on the next day. For it was on that day--the 8th day--that God created the first TEACHER.

This TEACHER, though taken from among men and women, had several significant modifications. In general, God made the TEACHER more durable than other men and women.

The TEACHER was made to arise at a very early hour and to go to bed no earlier than 11:30 p.m.--with no rest in between.

The TEACHER had to be able to withstand being locked up in an air-tight classroom for six hours on a rainy Monday.

And the TEACHER had to be fit to correct 103 term papers over Easter vacation.

Yes, God made the TEACHER tough ... but gentle, too.

The TEACHER was equipped with soft hands to wipe away the tears of the neglected and lonely student ... of those of the sixteen-year-old girl who was not asked to the prom.

And into the TEACHER God poured a generous amount of patience. Patience when a student asks to repeat the directions the TEACHER has just repeated for someone else. Patience when the kids forget their lunch money for the fourth day in a row. Patience when one-third of the class fails the test. Patience when the textbooks haven't arrived yet, and the semester starts tomorrow.

And God gave the TEACHER a heart slightly bigger than the average human heart. For the TEACHER's heart had to be big enough to love the kid who screams, "I hate this class - it's boring!" and to love the kid who runs out of the classroom at the end of the period without so much as a "good-bye," let alone a "thank you."

And lastly, God gave the TEACHER an abundant supply of HOPE. For God knew that the TEACHER would always be hoping. Hoping that the kids would someday learn how to spell ... Hoping not to have bus duty ... Hoping that Friday would come ... Hoping for a free day ... Hoping for deliverance ...

When God finished creating the TEACHER, He stepped back and admired the work of His hands. And God saw that the TEACHER was good. Very Good!

And God smiled, for when He looked at the TEACHER, He saw into the future. He knew that the future is in the hands of the TEACHERS. And because God loves Teachers so much, on the 9th day God created "Snow Days" and "Summer!"

-anonymous

Thanks to Schoolgal

We Try Harder

Last night I stayed up and watched a lot of CNN and MSNBC (and even a little Fox). I heard a lot of talk about Huckabee and Obama, of course, and I saw their speeches. I heard an awful lot of talk about Hillary, and what last night may have meant to her. But I didn't hear much, if anything, about John Edwards, who actually outpolled Hillary.

I first saw him in 04, on CSPAN, at some event Tom Harkin hosted. He was very impressive, and it was very disappointing to see him play second banana to John Kerry's bumbling campaign.

I don't know if it was my compulsive channel-changing or not, but I didn't see this last night. Here's a voice that's largely absent from cable news, and through the miracle of the internet, you can hear it right here, right now:

You Passed the Test. Here's Your Money.

Today's New York Times reports that Joel Klein is out on the stump again, telling the world what a great job he's doing. Thus he visited District 26, which was actually doing very well long before his arrival. Nonetheless it's still doing well, and that's what passes for success under this administration. If the building hasn't fallen down yet, it's because they were propping it up when no one was looking.

Yet still, there came a voice of dissent in the form of Assemblyman Mark Weprin:

Mr. Weprin, a Queens Democrat, seized nearly five minutes of the news conference to lambaste the grading system and the Bloomberg administration’s focus on standardized testing to measure achievement.

“Our schools have turned — I know the chancellor is standing here, but — to Stanley Kaplan courses in a lot of ways,” Mr. Weprin said, referring to a large test preparation company.

Lacing his comments with apologies for being “impolite,” Mr. Weprin said, “Too much focus is trying to get the right answers on tests and not enough focus on, in my opinion, on learning. And a good teacher doesn’t just teach how to get the right answers, a good teacher inspires, and a lot of that is being lost in our schools.”

I agree that a good teacher inspires more than simply how well to fill in bubbles, but I seem to be in the minority on this one. Still, the truth is that even great reformers Klein and Bloomberg have failed to achieve more correctly filled bubbles on tests they couldn't manipulate. Mr. Klein emphasized the versatility of his programs by asking whether the kids studied art:

The school's art teacher, Rita Rothenberg, said she works with most of the school's students once a week, though that particular class of fourth-graders does not visit her at the moment.

Oh well. So what do these awards mean? Philissa at the Inside Schools Blog calculates it comes to about 30 bucks per kid, and adds:

I wonder why the amounts being disbursed are not all multiples of $30 -- perhaps it's a result of the DOE's class size reduction plan that diminished classes by an average of just a fraction of a kid each?

Yes, in a mere six years, they've cleverly managed to remove 20% of one kid from each classroom. How do they do it? Maybe by loading schools like mine to over 250% capacity. But that 30 bucks surely makes up for both the overcrowding, the cold-in-the-winter, hot-in-the-summer trailers, and the crumbling buildings they sit behind.

Nothing shows you care quite like 30 bucks. Try approaching your significant other and saying, "Wow. You look like thirty bucks." Let us know how that works out for you.

Thanks to Schoolgal

On Language (and Monsters)

In Edwize, Randi Weingarten's internet mouthpiece Leo Casey accuses Joe Williams of calling Robert Jackson of CFE "a pimp." What Williams said, exactly, was, "courtesty of YouTube we get to watch a prominent NYC politician pimp himself on behalf of the lowest-performing teachers in the NYC schools..."

Now there is a distinction to be made here. Apparently unbeknownst to Mr. Casey, English utilizes both nouns and verbs. Williams was using "pimp" in the new and trendy verb form, as in "Leo Casey pimped the worst contract I've ever seen," or "Randi Weingarten pimped mayoral control." Personally, I don't interpret Mr. Jackson's actions remotely as Joe Williams does, and I couldn't disagree with Williams more. But unlike Leo Casey, I tend to read things before I criticize them.

Frankly, I know some remarkably bad teachers who've never been targeted for anything. I've also seen the DoE place teachers in rubber rooms for using school fax machines to communicate with the press. I've seen people targeted on the basis of schoolyard battles with administrators on numerous occasions, I've seen teachers suspended without pay based on unsubstantiated ultimately false allegations, and I've seen Tweed invest public resources into vilifying its critics (like Diane Ravitch). I have no logical reason to believe the DoE we know and love will target incompetence when there are personal vendettas to be settled (and there are always personal vendettas). This administration, like its predecessor, loves incompetent teachers, as they keep the focus off of Tweed (whose top accountability officer literally runs from parents).

While this administration routinely breaks every promise it's ever made about class size (most recently reneging on a promise to take kids out of trailers), while it makes no progress whatsoever on test scores it can't manipulate, while it focuses more on making Mayor Bloomberg President Bloomberg than actually improving public schools, it's in dire need of a scapegoat. And that scapegoat is going to be unionized teachers, of course.

The fact is, without mayoral control, and the 05 contract that earned Ms. Weingarten the admiration of teacher basher/"Texas Miracle" hoaxter Rod Paige, we wouldn't have the anti-labor, anti-teacher monster that Tweed has become. Ms. Weingarten and her minions give Bloomberg and Klein everything for less than nothing, and repeatedly feign indignation when they come back and demand more. Why don't these people learn from their mistakes? In fact, in very predictable fashion, the so-called "gotcha" squad came about immediately after Ms. Weingarten gave the mayor merit pay.

When you throw a monster a piece of raw meat, it may stop it temporarily. But it will be hungry again tomorrow. Weingarten and company have been feeding the monster for years, and have yet to figure out it will always demand more.

Gosh Beav, How Do I Maintain Discipline?

Follow the intrepid Mr. Grimes as he miraculously transforms from Scrooge to good ol' boy in less than 15 minutes.

The Carnival of Education...

..is up and running, over at So You Want to Teach. The affable host has shown extraordinary taste and discernment by selecting an article from this blog as the no. 1 pick, so don't miss it.

There's Something You Don't See Every Day...

In Kalona, Iowa, a largely Mennonite area, there's a new program where young children are learning Arabic. And to judge from the article, they've got an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. Not only that, but the town's using a federal grant of $200,000 to help support the first three years of the program (which hopefully won't be the last).

Stories like these amaze me because we seem to have learned very little about teaching language in the US. The best language learners are young children, and standard practice in most schools is to withhold serious instruction until high school, or close to it. In Nassau County, where I live, there are only two districts that offer dual language programs in Spanish beginning with kindergarten. The idea is to get two classes together, one dominant in each language, and instruct both classes in both languages. I know of only one school in NYC that's tried it (and they like it).

Of course, if you don't have enough kids who speak the target language, you'll have to take another approach, as they do in Iowa. But in a city like NY, you've got speakers of many languages, and in that, the resources for great programs. It's too bad Tweed is fixated on test scores and squeezing as many kids as possible into classrooms. We've got potential here for some really worthwhile programs.

Too bad the kids are all filling in bubbles to try to improve the Mayor's stats.