Summer Fun!

Cool off.  Go to Alaska.  Do a little Hunting with Palin! 

A Letter from the Chancellor

Dear Principals:

As you know, the scores on state tests were drastically reduced.  Some kids failed and we didn't find out about it until a few days ago.  In fact, we didn't even offer them summer school.   We're going to double down our efforts to deal with this.

To make sure we reach these kids, we're going to cut your budgets.  This way, you can offer them fewer services and larger class sizes.  But make no mistake, we believe in you.  That's why we take no responsibility when things go awry.  To show our continued good faith, we take no responsibility for this whole test thing either.  In fact, when shrill troublemakers like Diane Ravitch and Leonie Haimson questioned the results, we vehemently and repeatedly denied the scores were gamed.  Be assured the public forgot this long ago if they didn't simply ignore it in the first place.

I know that for many of us, it's dispiriting and disappointing to see so many more failures. But we must see this not as a roadblock, but as an important next step in our commitment to close every public school in New York City as soon as possible.  Once we do that, we can replace them with charter schools and you can fire all the teachers you like, for any reason, or for no reason at all.  We guarantee, whatever else happens, an abundance of scapegoats.

Sure, the lowered grades do not look good.  But they give me renewed faith we can blame the UFT for everything that's gone wrong over the last few years.  Clearly they are a bunch of saps who can't tell which way the wind blows.  First they invited Bill Gates to the AFT convention.  They applauded wildly for Bill, who along with our good friends at Wal-Mart, enabled all the school closings and test-score mania.  And now they're coming back to DC to ask for Race to the Top funds.   Make no mistake, neither Bill nor Wal-Mart will be holding us responsible for this humiliating episode.  Nor will the Daily News or the New York Post.

They will blame the teachers, and we'll solemnly nod our heads.  We'll spend all the 700 million writing tests designed to fire as many teachers as possible.  The 700 million won't be nearly enough, so we'll have to economize further.  We've already announced that teachers will not get a raise, and that will become a standing policy.  With the money we'd have wasted on teacher raises, we'll design even more tests so as to fire more teachers.  Eventually the entire work force will be non-union, and we can pay whatever we like, hire anyone we want, and they won't need no stinking degrees.  We can use DVDs instead of real teachers, and if kids don't learn we'll simply swap out the DVDs.  Then we'll swap out the kids.  If we do this frequently enough, no one will be able to follow what's going on, so results will make no difference.

I have the utmost confidence if we proceed in this fashion, the editorial pages will all say we're doing a great job, and New Yorkers will believe them.  After all, anyone with money sends their kids to private schools, as Mayor Bloomberg and I did, and those who can't afford private school work far too many hours to follow what goes on.

Otherwise, how would we have overturned their votes and gotten a third term based on test scores any thinking person could see were juked to the max?

Sorry the Drug Doesn't Work. Let's Double the Prescription

I'd have some trouble returning to a doctor who offered that advice.  Yet it's status quo in the USA.  We've just found out that Bloomberg's much-vaunted test gains are smoke and mirrors, which many of us have been saying for years. 

Still, if you look at the Daily News,  Bloomberg's illusory gains don't even merit a mention.  The important thing, according to their omniscient editorial writers, is we've raised the charter cap.  Who cares if charters don't represent any improvement over charter schools in our idiotic quest to make test scores the sole factor in whether or not schools succeed?  Who cares if their rates dropped even more than those of public schools?

What's crucial now, according to the News, is that we keep moving in the same direction that's gotten us nowhere.  In fact, we need to follow in the footsteps of Michelle Rhee, who's also produced no improvements, and start firing more teachers.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  Let's continue moving forward with this Race to the Top.  Even the UFT President supports it, so what's to question?

There are a few things, actually.  As Reality-Based Educator pointed out in chapter and verse yesterday, the same geniuses at the Daily News couldn't get enough of Bloomberg's phony test scores, and ridiculed those who questioned them.  These same folks now are not humbled in the least by their utter failure to see the obvious.

And they're just as wrong now as they were then, says Aaron Pallas.

...Washington, D.C. and New York City have failed to disclose the technical materials that describe the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen value-added technology. 

So teachers can be fired, but letting them know exactly why is top secret.  But that's not all.  The infallible Michelle Rhee has based her firings on a system that has some serious drawbacks:

There’s no polite way to say this: The procedures described in the DCPS IMPACT Guidebook for producing a value-added score are idiotic. These procedures warrant this harsh characterization because they make a preposterous assumption based on a misunderstanding of the properties of the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS). 

Stupid in, stupid out is one thing.  But stupid administrators whose policies result in hundreds of fired teachers is another thing entirely. That's where we're headed in NY too, with the recent deal between UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the state to bring value-added here.  This will be piloted in 11 "turnaround schools" in NYC, then brought everywhere.  Teachers branded ineffective two years in a row, based on student test scores, will be fired within 60 days.

Once that happens, the Daily News will praise the process.  When kids inevitably fail to benefit from it, they'll cry we didn't fire enough unionized teachers.  Will union presidents be rushing to Washington to hasten the process?

One would hope not.  The role of union leaders is to help working teachers.  Helping teachers, in fact, would help kids, parents and communities as well. 

Maybe it's time union leaders, like all Americans, began looking to sources other than Daily News editorials for information.

Support Public Schools...

....via this Facebook Page.

YOU DON'T SAY

Coming to you from the OMG RLY NO WAI??!!!?! desk here at NYC Educator is a link to this brilliant piece of research over at Education Week's Teacher Beat blog. Now I may not be a Harvard researcher, my friends, but I could have predicted the results of this study very easily. In a nutshell, the study finds that "Teach For America teachers who are assigned to teach more than one grade, subject, or out-of-field are more likely to leave their schools—or the profession altogether."

One's first year of teaching is always difficult. No teacher I know, and at this point in my career I know quite a few, has ever said their first year was enjoyable or easy. Everyone looks at it as a necessary step to be endured and survived so that one can come back and do a bit better the next year. The least that any semi-competent administrator can do for any first-year teacher, from Teach for America or otherwise, is to keep the responsibility burden a bit lighter during that first year.

Now that doesn't always happen. I taught three different subjects in my first year of teaching and had a student load that was around 150. One could argue that this was a fairly heavy load for a first-year teacher, but no one particularly cared. I dragged myself through, but thought about quitting plenty of times. If I were an administrator (not, as I've stated here many times, that I'd like to be, but still), I would avoid putting a first-year teacher of any stripe in that situation.

The study named above draws a necessary, if obvious, conclusion: first-year teachers are rarely, if ever, ready for a very rigorous teaching load. But the potentially harmful effect of this study is that administrators might assume that only nontraditionally certified teachers--i.e. TFAs, Teaching Fellows, and the liked--need a lighter load in that first year. I'd venture to say that every single teacher, no matter how superbly trained, needs an "apprenticeship" year that goes beyond student teaching with as light a load as is possible.

The other pernicious effect, of course, is that we have headline news screaming what should be blindingly obvious. But, in education, that's nothing new.

Reaping the Rewards

If you ask one of the 800 UFT members we sent to Seattle why on earth they invited Bill Gates to the convention, they'll say, "We need to be proactive and engage him."  That's what Randi Weingarten says, so that's what they say too.  I've heard that from her, I've heard it from commenters on this site, and I've also heard it from Peter Goodman in the comments at Gotham Schools. 

Engagement, though, entails conversation, give and take.  Inviting a person to be the featured speaker at your national convention, with no Q and A, is something else altogether.  That, frankly, appears more an endorsement.  The fact that you applaud this person wildly and ridicule anyone who'd question your choice serves to emphasize this position.  But nonetheless, you maintain it's engagement.  So now you've engaged the guy who's placed his billions of dollars behind, among other things, linking student test scores to teacher employment.  Perhaps you've told him that there is no research whatsoever to support this move.  Or perhaps not, since this "engagement" is not made public.

But since you're so modern-minded, and so engaging, you'd think there'd be some positive result.  Instead, hundreds of DC teachers are summarily fired.  And in NYC, the next experimentation ground for this "engagement strategy, the Daily News and the New York Post both call for more teachers to be fired, just as they were in DC.

Wow.  This "engagement" strategy is really paying off.  We've had no raise for three years, and we're facing firing for no good reason.  But as AFT leadership would certainly tell you, that's a small price to pay for making Randi Weingarten look like a new kind of union leader--the kind that doesn't trouble herself worrying over whether her members make more money or lose their jobs.

Who's Next?

By now, you're aware that Michelle Rhee fired about 6% of the teachers in DC.  In some cases, she did this because teachers failed to get their credentials, but in most it's because of their students' test scores.  Supposedly, there's a 22-point system scrupulously followed, but who really knows what Rhee is doing over there?  AFT President Randi Weingarten cries outrage, as this is not supposed to happen.  But what exactly is supposed to happen when you erode tenure and allow demagogues to judge teachers by test scores?

When you have contracts that judge teachers by test scores, and allow their firings based on test scores, isn't it logical to expect teachers will be fired based on test scores?   And if, as in the case of DC, you get no input into how the scores will be used, why do you agree to let them be used at all?  Is it wise to trust in the good graces of a Michelle Rhee?  Those are questions DC teachers should be asking union President George Parker, and it's tough to imagine he has satisfactory answers.  Perhaps that's why Parker, whose term has expired, has not permitted an election to take place.

Honestly, how could you vote for a person who's subjected you to job loss based on factors largely beyond your control?  Could Parker have anticipated that Rhee would use tests not designed to assess teachers and fire teachers on such a ridiculous basis?  Perhaps not.  But I certainly could have. 

Now it's entirely possible that Joel Klein is too principled to mess with people's livelihoods on such a frivolous basis.  But given that he specifically requested the ability to dismiss teachers on an "arbitrary and capricious" basis, I doubt it.  Supposedly, Mulgrew will have to negotiate how "value-added" is used to assess teachers.  But since there is no valid way to use it, how will he do that fairly?

Will he decline to do it at all?  One would hope, but wouldn't that make it look like we were anti-"reform?"  What would Bill Gates have to say about that?  More likely they'll work something out, and after two years of bad ratings, tenured teachers will be dismissed after 60 days.

But it's not all bad news.  On the brighter side, UFT employees at 52 Broadway will not be judged by test scores.  No matter how many city teachers are fired, they will continue doing whatever it is they do over there.

Someone Appreciates Teachers

More likely they appreciate our money, but you'd better hurry before Bill Gates figures out how to stop giving it to us altogether.  Until then, it appears some box stores are willing to not only sell you stuff, but also reduce the price first.

In some cases, they'll eliminate the price altogether.  When you consider inflation, shipping, tax, and the fact you haven't had a raise in three years, this seems very reasonable.

Office Max Event is supposed to be August 15 per my store {TX} - no further details given. Last year they had muffins, apples, a nice extra large magnetic paperclip, and a reusable shopping bag with discount coupon for 15% off everything you could fit in the bag.

Office Depot Event the dates vary - you can look them up here: Event Locator]. Supposed to have free breakfast and giveaways, and 10% off qualifying in-store purchases all week. In addition to that there will be 50% back in rewards for purchases of select brands {listed here} and $25 off Lexmark printers $199 and up. Looks like you must be a member of their STARTEACHER rewards program to qualify.

Staples Event the dates also vary - you can look them up here. Free thank you gift for the first 100 teachers {last year was a bag of school supplies, a pencil case, pencils, a highlighter} and breakfast.

Michaels - Teachers, treat yourself to extra credit on Fridays. Present your educator ID every Friday through September 24th and take an additional 10% off entire purchase including sale items. See a sales associate for details. Event on 7/30/2010 from 1pm to 8:45 pm - Create some fun for the classroom. Teachers and friends, join us for Teacher Appreciation Crop Event. Learn to create fun bulletin boards, bookmarks, signs and more. We provide the space and assortment of tools. Plus, we take care of the cleanup. Link

Big Lots - Saturday, August 14 is Big Lots Teacher Appreciation Day. To America's teachers and educators, we offer our sincere thanks. Join us for special discounts! Said to be 10% off.

Barnes and Noble is having Educator days - their their website for dates under store events. Free snacks from the cafe, raffles, and a free gift. 

(via)

Saturday Video

There's a lot of bad news this week.  I'm going to hold off on it for now and focus on some teachers at PS 193 in Brooklyn who lodged a unique protest.  This video is produced by Norm of Education Notes Online, from whom I stole it outright.  I hope it brings at least a little inspiration to your weekend:

Donors Choose Let Bill Gates and Wal-Mart Choose for You

I was surprised to read at Accountable Talk yesterday  that the Donors Choose program, ostensibly set up to help teachers with pet projects, was whoring itself out to the billionaires and hedge fund managers who want to destroy public education.  What will those wacky rich folks do next?  They've bought the President, NY State's Governor, NY State's likely next Governor, and now they've got their hands in this innocent-looking little program.

They want teachers to pledge to see the anti-union, anti-teacher documentary Waiting for Superman, which has left people like Roger Ebert stating that teacher unions are responsible for everything wrong with education.  Certainly this must be a very effective piece of propaganda.  Doubtless it's bought the line every editorial board in NYC has, that charters are magic and fix all the problems kids may have.

But it's reprehensible that it would bribe teachers into working against their own interests.  You won't be seeing me asking for money with Donors Choose.   You won't see anything on this page that goes against the interests of working teachers.

Feel free to send them a little note and tell them how you feel.  Their website says they "vet" every project submitted by teachers.  Too bad they can't be bothered to do the same with wealthy propagandists.  It says a lot, actually, about how little they trust or respect working teachers that those representing the Gates/ Wal-Mart POV can do whatever the hell they like.

What Can You Do with an iPad?

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what you can do, but watch this guy play Flight of the Bumblebee on one:

Why Don't Teachers Trust Joel Klein?

Sure the local editorial boards are mesmerized by the Chancellor's rhetoric.  First, several of them are in the mayor's pocket.  Some have unions of their own.  And none can be bothered to examine anything whatsoever beyond the relentless Tweed spin.

There are a number of reasons working teachers might feel otherwise.  As editorial boards don't bother speaking to working teachers, they have no notion of such things.

There's the year Klein denied sabbaticals to virtually everyone, against contract, until the UFT took him to court.  There's the fact that he rails against the ATR clause in the contract, though he's a signatory to the contract that enabled it.  There's the fact that he doesn't consult teachers when making decisions.  There's his boss, Mayor Bloomberg, who has respect for neither the courts nor the law.  There's the "fair student funding" boondoggle that blatantly discourages principals from hiring senior teachers.

But mostly it's that anyone who pays attention knows what Klein would do if he had his druthers.  For years, he's been complaining about tenure, seniority, and pay steps.  Everyone knows he'd do away with all three in a heartbeat.  Teachers would then be at-will employees, subject to being fired for any reason, or indeed no reason.  Raises would come at the discretion of Klein and his minions, who have been consistently hostile to teachers.  We'd be like a bunch of waitresses at a diner, hoping for tips.

In DC, we can see the results of "empowering" autocratic administrators like Michelle Rhee--apparently talented teachers fired at the whims of her staff.  In the test-prep factories these short-sighted tinhorn dictators envision for our children, love of learning is valued not at all.  Inconvenient personalities are dumped by the wayside and no respect whatsoever is given to wisdom or individuality.

Of course you need not travel to DC to find such thinking at work.  Right here in NY, the Merrick Charter School, facing unionization, simply fired rabble rousers who wanted to unionize.  UFT President Michael Mulgrew says he'll sue if he can prove that's why they did it.  Of course, Mulgrew sued to prevent the closure of schools, won, and then allowed Joel Klein to muscle his new schools into the "saved" buildings even as the incoming classes were so small the schools were clearly being phased out.  Klein clearly respects the court no more than Mayor Bloomberg does.

Perhaps Mulgrew was under the thrall of anti-teacher, anti-union Bill Gates when he decided to further appease Joel Klein, agreeing to colocations that will certainly leave hundreds of UFT members without regular positions.  Or perhaps he thought the appeasement strategy, having not worked when we gave the ATRs, the extra time, lunchroom duty, the extra class that isn't an extra class, the various iterations of merit pay that aren't merit pay, and all the givebacks we've wrapped up in a bow and given to Joel Klein, would succeed if given yet another chance.  Perhaps he thought this time, Klein would not simply turn around and make even further demands. Who knows?

But every deal Mulgrew makes with Klein is a display of confidence that the overwhelming majority of teachers I speak to do not share.   We all know Klein would just as soon step on us as look at us.  It's not as though he's coy about it.  His boss, after years of insisting on pattern bargaining, demanded we take less than half the pattern.  Then he unilaterally announced, to save jobs, he'd give us nothing.  Then, based on information he already had when he made that announcement, he said he might lay off teachers anyway.

In fact, until and unless we're offered a fair contract, it's unwise to give the chancellor anything at all.   And once we have a contract in hand, it still won't mean we can trust these folks.  The toxic atmosphere between administration and teachers is something they've created, something they prize, and it's clear to all who pay attention they'll do everything within their power to make things worse.

Joel Klein's vision is one that doesn't benefit teachers, and if our children don't happen to be independently wealthy, it clearly will not benefit them either.

Summer Reading

I tried, friends, I really did, to blog about the "release" of the NYS test scores. I call it "release" because apparently somebody somewhere has seen the scores, but when I log into ARIS, I got nothing. So I still have no idea how my students did, other than that they all passed. Therefore, it's hard for me to speculate on the reality (or, probably, non-reality) of this year's scores in relation to the achievement of my now-former darlings.

Instead, inspired by this post over in the heady environs of Core Knowledge, I thought I'd blog a bit about my summer reading and invite you to share yours. Following Pondiscio's lead, I'll start with Shakespeare. I need to brush up on my Macbeth this summer, probably while I'm waiting in line for tickets to The Merchant of Venice in Central Park; I may check out a summer camp performance of the "Scottish play" this weekend. Looking for something to wear to Shakespeare in the Park? I recently added this to my wardrobe; who can catch the reference? Post in the comments.

I'm a recent convert to Stephen King. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is among the most unforgettable stories I've ever read. I'm looking for recommendations from King fans of his less overt horror stories and more of the cerebral thriller that The Girl... was.

As usual, I'm reading some books aimed at the kiddies to have some things to talk about during reading time. The Rules of Survival was a National Book Award finalist for young people's literature, and that's the one I'm on at the moment. Click is a very cool read, having been written collaboratively by ten top-shelf YA and adult authors for a middle school audience. Also, I have New Moon in my Netflix queue, guiltily.

No, no edubooks, at least not yet. But if you haven't read The Death and Life of the Great American School System, you certainly should. Diane Ravitch's writing is enormously informative and revealing. And Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Thomas Newkirk is very comforting for literacy teachers who want to fight the good fight against endless test prep.

What are you all reading? Form a friendly circle for Miss Eyre's book club. Or something.

Don't Miss...

1. Bill Gates' third year review at Incongressional.

2. Curmudgeon's study of how charter supporters cook the statistics.

3. Ms. Cornelius--Sarah Palin is not only ignorant of her first language, but also darn proud of it.

Inside Bloomberg's Department of Education

As Mayor Bloomberg rapidly moves to close every school in New York City and convert them into now you see 'em, now you don't operations that can be closed, replaced or disappeared at the drop of a hat, the little peeks we get inside his operation become more and more surreal.  A few weeks ago, like a recalcitrant child, he complained about a court that followed the law, preventing him from closing schools whenever he liked.  Then, he said any parent who sent their kid to one of the schools he was ordered not to close needed an "education."

Of course, Bloomberg is sending so few students to those schools that, in effect,  they won't be open anyway.  And in a startling deal with the UFT, he's placing replacement schools in a bunch of them anyway.  It's incomprehensible to me that they've agreed not to file another lawsuit and are essentially allowing him to walk all over the one they managed to win.  But such is the transitory nature of victory when you have no follow-up strategy, I suppose.

Over the last few years Mayor Bloomberg has made some incredible remarks about which parts of education parents may and may not involved themselves with.  But one of the most telling happened just the other day.  Sure, it's shocking to hear DoE officials using racial epithets.  You'd hope educators would decline to perpetuate such things, but of course the DoE contains few educators--after all, what do educators know about education?

Even more shocking, I'd argue, is someone the DoE hired specifically to help parents, a "family advocate," plotting in public to exclude them.  What sort of training did this guy have that made him think this was acceptable?  Well, anyone who went to the school closing hearings last year saw communities up in arms, while arrogant DoE officials with no respect or interest for their positions sat for hours, ignored every word they said, played with their Blackberries, and recommended whatever Mayor Bloomberg told them to recommend.

It's not really shocking that this administration goes out of its way to ignore communities.  What's shocking is that they do it openly, with utter impunity.  Mayor Bloomberg is right that parents need an "education."  And God help him if, despite the nonsense that passes for editorials in NYC papers, enough of them get one.  He'll have to batten down the hatches as they rise up and storm City Hall with torches and pitchforks.

The Witch Hunt

I've been in and around Boston all week, and we just spent a day in Salem, Massachusetts, seeing the House of Seven Gables and listening to stories about the witch hysteria that caused the state-sanctioned murders of 20 people back in 1692.  This was largely due to the hysterical ravings of a few people who may or may not have known better.

But it's human nature to pick scapegoats and blame all the troubles of the universe on them.  After 9/11, of course we were angry.  We put unprecedented faith in our President, unelected galoot George W. Bush, and he repaid us by investing extraordinary powers in himself.  Thus, the government can now listen to us order pizza and keep records of our favorite toppings, to be used against us should it ever become necessary.  And hopey-changey Barack Obama supported more of the same.

GW let his good buds do whatever they liked.  Then he let us bail them out.  He took the disaster in New Orleans and let them supplant the school system with charters.  Barack Obama let his Education Secretary say Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to the school system, and I've yet to hear a reprimand, let along a contradiction. 

Now, due to the economic meltdown that was the legacy of GW Bush, we need someone to blame.  Is it GW himself?  The hopey-changey successor who continued his policies?  Is it the banks who benefited from our largess in making good their bad debts?  

Of course not.  That's so six months ago.  While the editorial writers haven't specifically called for unionized teachers to be hanged, their comments seem to suggest we deserve worse.  I doubt they'll call to burn us at the stake.  That's a European tradition, and I don't think they want us to focus too much on Europe.  Once we do that, we might notice Canada too. 

Look to places like that, and you'll see better options for working people.  Elsewhere people belong to real unions.  The unions demand better conditions for their members, and they strike when they don't get them.  People don't work 200-hour weeks in Europe.  Health care is for everyone, and no one pays $3,000 to visit an emergency room.  Retired working people can expect lives of dignity rather than scrounging.

Here, of course, that's vilified.  They call it "socialism" and spit on the ground.  With billionaires like Bill Gates setting the agenda, Americans don't demand European-style rights.  Instead, they demand teachers give up the few remaining perks of their profession.  Amazingly, in America, even union leaders participate, perhaps thinking they're protecting the dues money that pays for their parties and possessions.  Such thinking is counter-productive, and not only they, not only we, but all our children will pay for it.

It took about a quarter century before Salem repented of the witch hunt mentality for which it's remembered even now.  What will it take for us in America to come to our senses?

Recommended

Perdido Street School covers President Hopey-Changey's health care "improvements."

Bill Gates: Let Retired Teachers Eat Cat Food

Our good pal Bill Gates went to Seattle and told thousands of AFT delegates how much he valued teachers.  Being at a free convention, they applauded wildly.  After all, it cost more than a year's individual teacher dues to send a single Unity member there, and it would be kind of rude not to show their appreciation.  So cognizant of the awesome responsibility of spending our dues money were they, they didn't hesitate to sing, "Na, na, na, na, na, na" to those who failed to appreciate the brilliance and wisdom of the great Gates (whose influence is so vast and far-reaching that even now it's causing the schools of those very delegates to close).

Yet days later, to show how much he appreciates teachers, Bill Gates is telling the Wall Street Journal we're spending way too much on their retirement.  It's interesting to see someone with Gates' money complaining that elderly teachers are excessively living it up.  More interesting still is that he gets Randi Weingarten to publicly announce how smart she is to have dialogue with Gates, and he can't even wait a full week before turning around and throwing a pie in her face.

Fortunately, Ms. Weingarten likes pie.  She's determined to build a legacy as a new kind of labor leader.  She's not some cigar-chomping figure sitting in an office somewhere.  You don't see her out there demanding more money for her members.  Not only does she not demand better working conditions or less time at work, she often seeks precisely the opposite.  That's why she garners praise from folks like Rod "The NEA is a terrorist organization" Paige and Tim "Mutual benefits via firing ATR teachers" Daly.  That's why she makes jokes at her members' expense and casually chuckles over them with Bill Gates in front of thousands of teachers, and who knows how many YouTube viewers.

Make no mistake, an attack on teacher pensions is right in line with who Gates is and what he wants.  If you think America will be a better place by degrading the profession of teaching, if you want to be an at-will employee, if you think Americans don't need decent pensions (which few of us still have nowadays), if you think billionaires should dictate our terms of employment, then Bill Gates and Randi Weingarten are a match made in heaven.

After all, rich people simply know things we don't.   That's why they have so much money, and I suppose that's why Randi Weingarten wants to let them do to us exactly what they did to the American economy.

Only once that happens, who's gonna bail them out next time?  Certainly not retired teachers.  They'll be too busy collecting deposit bottles in stolen shopping carts.

Don't Miss...

...my favorite Perimeter Primate, Sharon Higgins, painting teachers hypnotized by Gates as lambs being led to the slaughter.

UFT Listens to Gates, Gives Up

Like many teachers, parents, and community members, I was elated when the UFT prevailed in its lawsuit against Joel Klein's Death Star, apparently saving 19 schools from oblivion, and hundreds of teachers from the scrap heap that is the Absent Teacher reserve.  Finally, I thought, someone is standing up to the criminals who run public hearings and ignore absolutely every word the public says.

In the months that followed, it became clear that Bloomberg was going to simply ignore the order, sending only 21 students as the 9th grade class to Beach Channel and 23 to Jamaica.  Furthermore, they were going full speed ahead with their plans to open new schools in the buildings slated for closure, judicial order or no.  Bloomberg stated his contempt for the law when the judge's decision was affirmed, as he knows what's best and laws largely don't apply to him.  In fact, to grab a third term, he simply had the law changed.

It was unclear whether or not Bloomberg had the right to open the new schools, but it seemed he did not, as they were designed to replace schools illegally slated for closure.  After all, the UFT could always file another lawsuit blocking their openings.  But then the UFT aristocracy went with their minions to Seattle, applauded Bill Gates, and heaped juvenile abuse on those had issues with his anti-union, anti-labor, anti-teacher pro-KIPP agenda.

Yesterday we learned that the UFT decided to fall down before it was pushed, agreeing that 9 of 16 of Joel Klein's new schools could "colocate" inside the buildings it "saved."  We also learned the DoE would provide no additional resources for the targeted schools, as the UFT apparently did not see this matter as worthy of including in the negotiation.  This does not bode well for the schools slated for closure, like Beach Channel and Jamaica, which will both house new schools next year.   In fact, it's entirely possible Klein and company will abide by the letter of the law next year, while still ignoring community sentiment, and close all the schools it wants to next year.

It's discouraging to watch the union so eagerly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  But they appear to be learning important lessons from Bill Gates--to do whatever the hell he wants and ignore the interests of teachers, parents, students, and communities.