Free Parking

Mayor Bloomberg, appearing jointly with UFT President Randi Weingarten, has announced that he will negotiate lower fines for parking tickets for any New Yorker who asks. How will he pay for this measure, given the prospect of a bleak city budget? The Mayor stated it would not affect the budget in at all.

"Every time we reduce a fine by, say, twenty bucks, we'll deduct the same twenty bucks from the paycheck of a city teacher. That way, it's a win-win," contended Mayor Bloomberg.

This was almost certain to draw the ire of some city teachers. But Ms. Weingarten, in a continuing spirit of reform, had only encouraging words for the program:

"First of all, all VIP teachers are members of the invitation-only Unity Caucus. I've given Mayor Bloomberg a list of our members, and they will be excluded from the pool. Therefore, only less important teachers would see the deductions on their paychecks, and in all likelihood, they won't even notice. If they do, we'll simply refund the money and deduct it from someone else."

Pressed for further explanation, Ms. Weingarten said, "Look, three-fourths of working teachers don't vote in union elections, and probably don't read this paper. I didn't hear a whimper from them when I partnered up with Green Dot Schools, which rejects both tenure and seniority, and no one objected when I told DC teachers everything was on the table except vouchers. And anyway, DC already has vouchers, so what's the dif, really?"

Several teachers, when asked to comment on Ms. Weingarten's statements, asked, "Who's Randi Weingarten?"

Worth a Look

Jon Swift's best blog posts of 2008 (chosen by the bloggers themselves).

Industrialist and charter school magnate Smellington G. Worthington endorses Caroline Kennedy.

Those who wish to spend money for nothing ought to head to the nearest Best Buy.

Miss Cellenia bemoans poor attendance at the Apathy Rally.

And Ms. Cornelius explains why Chip Saltsman is eminently qualified to be the next GOP Chair.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

An Israeli doctor says 'Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks.'

A German doctor says 'That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.

A Russian doctor says 'In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks.'

The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, says 'You guys are way behind, we took a man with no brains out of Texas, put him in the White House for eight years, and now half the country is looking for work.'

Thanks to Schoolgal

The Problem with Teachers

Of course, a lot of us don't know how to relax. And who can blame us? What with troglodytes all over the internet vilifying us, saying we don't deserve health insurance because it makes us fat, bemoaning the fact that Mayor Mike can't balance the city budget by unilaterally cutting our salaries, and ignoring what's going on in the country to focus more on the alleged perfidy of those who choose to teach children, it's tough to be both informed and relaxed.

An alternative, one that appears to work for the over 75% of UFT members who don't bother to vote in union elections, is to place your head firmly in the sand and hope for the best. But there's always a better way.

One of the great solaces in life is family, and one of the great things about being a teacher (under constant attack by "reformers") is that we actually get to see our families now and then. That's worth fighting for, not just for teachers, but for all working people. And a great tradition in my family, commenced by my daughter, is to watch A Christmas Story every year around this time.

A highlight of the film, of course, is when the father wins a "major award," a leg lamp, precisely as pictured here. So my advice to teachers who are bored, in a funk or otherwise preoccupied is to light up your lives right here. It's my feeling that once you begin prominently displaying one of these lamps in your home, it won't occur to you to worry about job-related stress anymore.

Disclaimer: NYC Educator owns no stock in any leg lamp companies, either here or abroad.

Best Wishes for a Great 2009

from our entire staff!

Resolved to Destroy Your Enemies for the New Year?

These fingerprint-proof trash bags may be just what you need, and they're on sale.

Uncle Jay Explains 2008

Thanks to Schoolgal

Buy Your Own Senate Seat...

...for as little as 35 bucks. Take that, Rod Blagojevich!

Mr. Bloomberg Addresses Class Size

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared that all kids are in classes by themselves, and that class sizes are, therefore, now as low as they can possibly be--one student per class. The trick now, Mr. Bloomberg suggested, was to get teachers to utilize differentiated instruction for each class, so that no students would be left behind. To accomplish this class size revolution, the mayor enlisted the assistance of UFT President Randi Weingarten, who was all too happy to accomodate.

"This is a banner day for city teachers," declared Ms. Weingarten. "We've now got a historic agreement to keep class size down to one, and what's more, we've procured a one-time bonus payment of five hundred dollars for city teachers."

Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Weingarten explained that teachers would now be in charge of 200 classes a day, and, due to time constraints, would now be teaching 40 classes at a time. In addition, teachers would continue "small group instruction" four times a week. As there are no longer "groups" the instruction would consist of only 34 classes at a time.

In addition to the five-hundred dollar one-time bonus, Ms. Weingarten was able to negotiate zero-percent raises for teachers, to be paid over a three-year period. Union sources stated this was a great victory, as Mayor Bloomberg had initially demanded a twenty percent pay cut.

Qualifications, Shmalifications.

Caroline Kennedy, famous primarily for being Caroline Kennedy, wants to be our next US Senator. Her qualifications? Well, she's co-written a bunch of books, and it's entirely possible that she actually wrote some part of those books. I mean, some people put their names on books they didn't actually write, but there's no proof that's true in Ms. Kennedy's case.

Over at Accountable Talk, Mr. A. lays out her qualifications neatly:

1. I am a Kennedy.

2. I have written a children's book, which got published because I am a Kennedy.

3. I have raised funds for education, mostly by virtue of being a Kennedy and thus able to put the bite on other rich people. ("Hello. I'm a Kennedy. Would you care to contribute tax-deductible funds to my cause?")

4. I am a mom.

Now there's nothing wrong with all that, of course. But if Ms. Kennedy's boss, Mayor Bloomberg, weren't shoveling kids into public schools like sardines so as to make room for non-unionized charters, perhaps her work wouldn't be necessary. In fact, Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice suggests she was not precisely as accountable as unionized teachers are expected to be:

For months after she started, even some high-level education officials said they were not quite sure what she did. In an interview about eight months into her tenure, she would not say how often she worked at the department headquarters or how many hours she spent on the job, saying only, 'I put in as much time as I can.'"

Can you imagine what your supervisors would have to say if you reported with that attitude? I doubt you'd make teacher of the month anytime in the near future. And it appears her best buddies, Mike Bloomberg and Joel Klein, are juking her stats just as they do standardized test grades and dropout rates:

Klein "credited her with bringing in a $51 million gift from Bill Gates's foundation," according to a Times piece yesterday, but a top former Klein aide told the Voice that the Gates grant "was totally put together" by Michele Cahill, senior counsel to Klein who came to DOE from the Carnegie Corporation and has returned there. Though Klein has praised Kennedy in the past for raising $65 million for an entirely different initiative--the Leadership Academy--he's never attributed this Gates grant to her, the largest ever for the school system.

So here, in the era of accountability, is yet another poser who's accomplished nothing and trumpeting her alleged qualifications. Very Michelle Rhee of her. And what does she say about education?

Ms. Kennedy would not say, for example, whether she supported proposals to abolish tenure for teachers and offer them merit pay instead.

To sum up, she said absolutely nothing. Frankly, I'm unimpressed by people who claim to have expertise on public schools but refuse to send their kids to them--people like Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein, and Caroline Kennedy. And while Ms. Kennedy has eluded that she'd support a Democrat for Mayor, there's no law saying Mayor Mike couldn't run as a Democrat (If there were, he'd ignore it, just as he ignored two referendums on term limits). Has she got any disagreements with Mayor Bloomberg's policies? According to the NY Times:

But when asked how she might differ with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or with Governor Paterson, who has sole authority to make the Senate appointment, she demurred.

“I’m not going to talk about my disagreements with him,” she said. “You’ll find out over time.”

In other words, "Trust me."

But how on earth can we trust anyone who asks us to do such a thing?

Thanks to David Bellel

The New WMDs

I've been following the adventures of J. on Mildly Melancholy lately, and apparently the latest trend at her school is knitting. Oddly, kids at her school just can't get enough of it. And there are certainly worse ways kids could occupy their time.

I once taught special ed., and there was a clique of women in my department who knitted furiously every free minute they had. They frightened me a little for some reason. But they never caused any trouble, as far as I knew.

I can't help but wonder, though--if kids at my school got caught carrying sharp knitting needles around school, they'd probably get in trouble for carrying potential weapons. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be if kids in my daughter's schools were carrying long pointy implements around. How many years has it been since metal butter knives in school cafeterias were replaced with plastic? Perhaps they did that for expediency rather than safety, but a knitting needle could potentially do more damage than a butter knife.

So am I just paranoid about this, or is it a perfectly healthy pastime for kids in school?

Poetry Corner

For this, the day after Christmas, we humbly offer enlightening lines from some New York teacher-bloggers.

First, Accountable Talk offers a little ditty about The Klein Who Stole Tenure.

Over at Have a Gneiss Day, we get a teacher's eye view of The Night Before Christmas.

Not technically poetry, but frequent poet Jose Vilson offers ten ways to channel your inner grinch.

To round it all off, Trashman's Disposable Reader gives us a first peek at The Night Before Inaugaration.

Hey - Get Back To Work!!!

What are you teachers doing take Christmas off?

How dare you lazy, coddled, tenured ne'er-do-wells take a holiday?

Don't you know kids are being hurt by your union-protected laziness?

Don't you know charter schools had a half day of school today where kids got to read the classic Dickens tale A Christmas Carol and take a standardized test quizzing them on content and vocabulary from the story?

Don't you know we must never miss ANY opportunity or day to educate our children to reach education checkpoints set by the Great Gods of Tammany Hall/Tweed Courthouse?

Don't you know there is a periodic assessment with holiday content created by the mayor's buddies at Random House your students could be taking right now to help them prepare for a life of part-time toil, poverty wages and overwhelming debt in our Depression-era America where the top 5% own 99% of the wealth?

Don't you know that Uncle Joel Klein, Mayor Moneybags, Arne Testmeister, Michelle Media Darling, Mistress Eva, Whitney the Hedge Fund Shyster and the rest of the education "experts" know what is best for schools and students and parents and kids and they ALL say days off are bad!!!

So next year I hope all you lazy, coddled, tenured ne'er-do-well teachers in unions will accede to what the education experts say is "good educatin'" and work a half day teaching your students how to bubble in circles and take endless batteries of useless test prep created to enrich the buddies of Uncle Joel and Mayor Moneybags at Random House.

But since you're probably feeling a little guilty just now for taking the WHOLE day off, why don't you take a few hours away from celebrating the holidays with your families and friends to grade some papers, analyze some student data on the mayor's vaunted ARIS computer system, plan some lessons and/or take part in some professional development.

Better yet, why don't you lazy bastards do all of those things today?

After all, in the feudal state that is Depression-era America, school AND work are never out - unless you've been laid off, of course.

To All

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the entire staff here at NYC Educator.

Tumbling Down

The stock market is open for a half day and the folks at CNBC are covering the day's trading.

Erin Burnett just asked a guest the following question (I'm paraphrasing):

"It seems the last 8-10 years of economic gains - home sales, increases in stock values, consumer sales, everything - was ephemeral...built on debt with people spending money they didn't actually have. Does this mean we have to go back to 1998-2000 levels of wealth before we finally bottom out in the economy?"

The answer is, we'll be lucky if we only retrace to 1998-2000 levels of wealth before this economic mess is all over.

Let's look at the latest economic news to see where we are so far:

Existing home sales fell sharply last month while inventories increased. Home prices fell at a record rate - in the last year, the median sales price of existing homes fell 13.2%, the most since the Great Depression. Existing home inventories are at a 25-year high. Mortgage applications did increase last week as mortgage rates fell but most of those are refinancings, so we shouldn't expect those home inventories to fall or prices to stabilize any time soon.

Many on Wall Street and in Washington were hoping that modifying mortgages for homeowners under duress would help stabilize foreclosures - only it hasn't happened and homeowners with modified mortgages continue to default at alarming rates:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- More than half of mortgages modified in the first quarter were at least 30 days delinquent after half a year, and it's necessary to figure out why so many modifications are not preventing re-defaults, regulators said Monday.

The proportion of modified loans delinquent by 30 days or more was 55% after six months, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. Modified loans that were 30 or more days delinquent after three months stood at 37%, the agencies' data showed.

"One very troubling point is that, whether measured using 30-day or 60-day delinquencies, re-default rates increased each month and showed no signs of leveling off after six months and even eight months," said Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan.

On the jobs front, the economy has lost nearly 2 million jobs since December 2007. First time applications for state unemployment benefits are at the highest levels in 26 years and according to Marketwatch

The jobless claims report shows businesses are laying off workers at a rapid pace, and finding a replacement job is ever harder for those who have lost their job.

...

The insured unemployment rate -- the proportion of covered workers who are receiving benefits -- was steady at 3.3%, the highest in 16 years.

Initial claims represent job destruction, while the level of continuing claims indicates how hard or easy it is for displaced workers to find new jobs.

The initial crisis in the housing market was creating by banks handing out adjustable rate mortgages and so-called liar loans to people who weren't credit worthy and who started to go belly-up when their ARM's adjusted to higher rates. But with unemployment accelerating, some analysts worry that even homeowners with good credit will default on their mortgages (as is already happening) and eventually lose their homes to foreclosure, further exacerbating the housing crisis and plunging home values well below the 2004 levels they have currently hit.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that developers of commercial real estate are begging for government bail out money as thousands of office complexes, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial buildings are headed into defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies. Manhattan has been hit very hard, with the office rate hitting 10.9%, the highest in two year and 3 percentage points higher than last year. Hotel occupancy rates have fallen nationwide and delinquency rates are increasing.

The stock market slide has stopped for now, with the Dow hovering at 8400, down more than 36% this year. Plenty of market prognosticators are calling a bottom to the market, but you can bet the Dow would have fallen well below 8000 had taxpayers not bailed out financial firms like Citigroup, AIG, Goldman Sachs and the like and you can bet that as the housing and unemployment pictures continue to worsen and the financial firms blow through the TARP money and come back for me that the markets will fall again.

And who knows what inflation rates are going to be like in the years ahead as the trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve has printed and circulated into the economy fan prices. Remember the double digit inflation of the late 70's and early 80's? You shouldn't be surprised to see that again in a few years. Sure, it's possible the boys at the Federal Reserve will figure out how to pull that extra cash out of the monetary system before rampant inflation hits, but they surely haven't inspired confidence in the way they have handled the financial crisis so far so I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it.

So 2008 comes to an end, a year in which we saw the socialization of risk for investment banks, commercial banks and other financial firms (total cost of TARP bailout and other Federal Reserve "infusions of cash" into the system - $8.5 trillion dollars) even as the privatization of profits for these firms continues (pay back the bonuses based on phony profits from past years? NOT!!!). Home values are at 2004 levels and look like they will continue to plunge further in the next year. Job losses are accelerating, further trouble for the housing market as even solvent homeowners default on their mortgages after they lose their jobs. Ponzi schemes like Bernie Madoff's little venture are being exposed and the costs calculated even as people who are tied to these schemes end up in the morgue.

While all this carnage listed above sounds terrible, I think it's about time that the go-go Bush years - built on the accumulation of trillions of dollars of debt, overleveraging, the socialization of risk, greed and a lack of accountability at ALL levels of society but especially for the top 1%, the so-called MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE - fade and a new era of humility, accountability and a less is more attitude be ushered in. As Todd Harrison wrote on Marketwatch this week:

It's long been my belief that a stealth recession has existed for many years, masked by the lower dollar and skewed by the spending habits of a slimming margin of society. That created a de-facto two-class society of haves and have-nots that persisted until the age of austerity arrived this year.

The combination of involuntary thrift -- when people can't afford basic necessities -- and voluntary thrift - when folks with money choose not to spend -- created a perfect storm for the consumer and industries dependent on them.

The conspicuous consumption that once defined our immediate gratification society has passed as flashy rides and outrageous lifestyles now serve as hollow reminders of misplaced priorities.

And that is my hope for this holiday season - that the misplaced priorities and immediate gratification that so many of us have seen as our entitled legacies as Americans shift to a more humble, spiritual way of living less concerned with accumulation of wealth and more concerned with gratitude, service and love and care of others and this earth we live on.

This is an abundant universe we can avail ourselves to if we stop allowing ourselves to be blinded by short-sighted greed and selfishness.

But since the new stewards of our economy look pretty much like the old stewards of our economy, I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.

Happy holidays everybody.

A Joyous Holiday Season to All

It's pretty exciting to be off for a week, isn't it? If you're a teacher, you're just as happy as the kids, and who can blame you? What are you going to do? Are you going to visit your long lost relatives? Are you going to go to Hawaii and search for the meaning of life in a pinacolada served in a coconut shell?

I certainly hope you've got an equally worthy plan. Or if you just want to sit around filing your nails and plotting revenge against your enemies, well, that's your right too. Of course, if that's how you think, you might be able to find a higher paying job at Tweed. Or maybe you could plot to take over the world with another political organization. I hope the end result is some sort of improvement.

Are you going to improve the world next week? How do you propose to achieve this?

Bailout Nation (Continued)

U.S. taxpayers have bailed out AIG, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, BoA, Goldman Sachs and other financial firms to the tune of at least $700 billion dollars while these firms continue to hand out dividends to their shareholders and Christmas bonus money to their executives.

At the same time, these financial firms refuse to say what else they have been doing with the bailout money other than hand out dividends and bonuses.

They say it's none of our business.

Are they lending any? Are they packing it under the mattress?

Who knows - the government certainly doesn't because these financial firms don't have to tell regulators anything at all.

U.S. taxpayers have also bailed out U.S. automakers to the tune of $17.4 billion, although that dough has been handed out with express instructions on how it must be spent and when it must be repaid:

According to a Fact Sheet issued by the White House, the automakers must provide the government with "warrants for non-voting stock," and agree to such conditions as "limits on executive compensation," the elimination of "perks such as corporate jets," and grant the government the power to "block any large transactions" over $100 million.

A series of "targets" are also listed, though it doesn't appear that they're mandatory. These include eliminating the controversial "jobs bank" that allows laid-off auto workers to continue receiving a portion of their salaries, and enacting both "work rules" and wages "that are competitive with those of transplant auto manufacturers by 12/31/09."

Ironic that the union workers who make cars have to take pay cuts in order for the government to help the car companies with bailout money while banks can borrow money at will, never say what they're doing with it and never have to pay it back.

Guess which industry has more juice (i.e., payoff money in the form of campaign contributions and cushy post-politics jobs for retired politicians) - U.S. automakers (and the union workers who make those cars) or the financial industry?

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that commercial real estate developers are about to go belly up from overleveraging and overbuilding and they too want bailout money from taxpayers:

With a record amount of commercial real-estate debt coming due, some of the country's biggest property developers have become the latest to go hat-in-hand to the government for assistance.

They're warning policymakers that thousands of office complexes, hotels, shopping centers and other commercial buildings are headed into defaults, foreclosures and bankruptcies. The reason: according to research firm Foresight Analytics LCC, $530 billion of commercial mortgages will be coming due for refinancing in the next three years -- with about $160 billion maturing in the next year. Credit, meanwhile, is practically nonexistent and cash flows from commercial property are siphoning off.

...

To head off some of the impending pain, the industry is asking to be included in a new $200 billion loan program initially created by the government to salvage the market for car loans, student loans and credit-card debt. This money is intended to go directly to help investors finance purchases of securities backed by these assets. If commercial real estate is included, banks might have an incentive to make more loans to developers since they'd be able to repackage and sell them more easily to investors with the assurance of government backing.

As part of their lobbying efforts, some industry representatives have asked lawmakers to explore the idea of setting up a separate program aimed at boosting lending to commercial real estate only.

"We've been urging Washington to put this as one of the top priorities in dealing with the economy," says Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, underscoring the need for the government to help spur commercial property lending either directly or indirectly.

I wonder if the same lawmakers happy to hand out the cash to their banking buddies but only grudgingly handing out money to the car companies after UAW workers agree to work for non-union wages and give up their health and pension benefits will suddenly revert to a "How Much Do You Need?" philosophy when it comes time to help the commercial real estate industry?

I guess it will come down to whether the CRE industry can take care of Washington lawmakers with campaign contributions and cushy post-politics jobs.

Overheard

Some things happen that really make you feel good, and sometimes those things actually happen to me. A foreign language teacher of my acquaintance heard a couple of her kids have this conversation:

"I don't know what I'm gonna do about the English Regents."

"You have to go to the department office and ask to be in Mr. Educator's class. It's horrible. You'll have to write every day and you'll hate it. But you'll pass the test."

It was very gratifying to hear that. And I agree with the kid's assessment that the class is awful. Honestly, I love teaching English to newcomers, and I really believe learning a language can be fun. On the other hand, I hate the English Regents because it doesn't actually test what I'm supposed to teach these kids. Not only that, but a good section of these kids haven't learned what I'd like them to know, having arrived in the US five minutes ago.

But someone has to help these kids pass this test, since they can't graduate high school without it. It might as well be me. It's no fun at all, but it's very gratifying that some kids have detected the method to my madness.

Bait and Switch

Given the way Governor David Patterson lies, cheats, and sticks it to working and middle class New Yorkers with a straight face, he really ought to be a Republican in the Bush administration or the Bloomberg administration.

Last week he announced draconian tax increases totaling $121 billion dollars for such items as ipod downloads, haircuts, clothing, soda (but not Mayor Bloomberg's favorite "health drink" - the highly sugared, highly corn syruped Snapple!!!), and lots of other things people in New York use on a daily basis.

He refused to raise taxes on people making over $200,000 a year, however.

It seems rich people are not making enough money these days, what with the stock market down 35% and financial companies like Citigroup, BoA, Goldman Sachs and others needing hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money in order for them to pay dividends to their stock holders and million dollar bonuses to their management level executives this Christmas.

But as for you working class and middle class New Yorkers - the governor thinks you need to carry more of the state's financial burden.

And that especially goes for you free-loading SUNY and CUNY college students and your families.

This week Patterson also announced that tuition at the State University of New York and the City University of New York would increase by almost $400 a year.

Patteron says that tuition has not increased at the state or city schools in over four years and now students at the schools and their families will have to shell out more to help the state in these dire times.

While it is true that tuition has not risen at CUNY or SUNY schools in the last four years, back door increases of "student fees," "activity fees" and "library fees" have ensured that students at the schools are paying hundreds of dollars more this year BEFORE the tuition increase than they were four years ago.

So the governor is full of it when he says students and their families need to carry their share of the revenue burden after enjoying four years of no increases.

Nonetheless Patterson announced new student loan programs that will help students cope with the tuition increases.

Isn't that nice?

The governor's buddies at Chase, Citigroup, BoA and other financial companies who make hundreds of thousands or millions a year not only DO NOT have to pay higher pay roll taxes at a time when the state needs higher revenue and the governor is asking middle and working class New Yorkers to carry much of that burden, they're going to get new business as students from low income families take on even more debt to finance their education.

It's a win-win for Patterson and his wealthy buddies on Wall Street.

With "Democrats" like David Patterson in charge of things these days, the rich and well-connected surely don't need Republicans anymore to stay rich and well-connected, do they?

Get on The Wire

Buy the complete series at Amazon for 89.99. Simply the best TV show ever.