Ed Notes Extended

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Some Thoughts



From Loretta on ICE mail:

When I saw the photo of the pilot and noted the gray hair, I thought that if Joel Klein ran American Airways the pilot's 40 years of experience would have landed him in the pilots equivalent of the teachers' rubber room– not safely on the Hudson. How lucky those 154 people were to be in the hands of experienced people.

Comment: Pilots are unionized. They have work rules. And seniority. Are there calls for 6 week summer training programs for pilots? In the heaps of praise from the press, these facts get lost by the wayside.


From Michael Fiorillo on ICE-mail in response to this headline:

16 Chicago schools to be closed, consolidated or relocated


It's the Shock Doctrine at work: the economic crisis being used as an opportunity to implement the plan to close, reorganize, charterize, privatize and de-unionize schools.

Not exactly what we thought we were voting for in November, although some of that was our own - meaning those of us who voted for Obama, myself included - self delusion, since Obama has never hidden his intentions to expand charters.

"Change We Can Deceive In"

Related
Chicago Fight Back on School Closings

10 comments:

  1. I also don't think Sullenberger resorted to the workshop approach, nor did he turn and talk with his co-pilot. No accountable talk, just accountable deeds.

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  2. Experience you can believe in.
    Sullenberger drew upon his expertise and past experience in a crisis.
    Can Obama do that?

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  3. Thank God there's no "Fly for America" pilots.

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  4. Bloomberg and Randi must go! They are much too experienced (At picking off teachers one by one).

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  5. Surely Klein's targeting of older people with gray hair is criminal. We need to start a class action lawsuit to have this practice stopped immediately. We should file in NY state appelate court and also down in Florida (they have a high percentage of older retired teachers living down there and they are very receptive to the plight faced by seniors).

    Simultaneously, we can also be proactive and stand in solidarity with our veteran teachers. Thinking outside of the box, many different jobs and organizations have an induction process. Perhaps we should require all new teachers to dye their hair gray within their first week of work. It might sound a bit strange but is it really that different then when the UFT asked all of us to wear black to our schools? It would illustrate our solidarity and I kind of remember reading that Lech Walesa did something similar in Poland (I can not take full credit for this idea).

    Also, anybody else wondering why Klein has not targeted bald people? I know one bald Chancellor I will target as UFT President.
    ___________________________________

    Ty Johnson; BBA, MS, MPIA, J.D., D.P.M., Future ICE UFT President, Future ICE AFT President, and personally recognized as a good samaritan by Judge Judy in 1998.

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  6. When I first heard the news I called one of my friends also an ATR like me. And I told him if this was the DOE the Airlines would have APR ( Absent Pilots in Reserve}. The pilot would have been replaced by a less experienced lower paid pilots and there would have been a loss of life.
    So to Randi's people who read this blog the pilots union has seniority that counts. In this case it saved 151 lives

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  7. I may have actually said something like "Change You Can Deceive In" in one of my more cynical comments on this blog, I believe. Bush was the decider, I'm hoping Duncan is not the deceiver. There is no doubt, however, that Klein is the Great Pretender, with profuse apologies to the Platters.

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  8. I ceratainly cannot claim title to that great line, although I did poach it, from whom I can't recall.

    Ms. Tsouris, if you were indeed the first to use it, congratulations and my apologies for not giving credit where it was due.

    Of course, it well have been premature to say that of Obama: our impressions are based on his transition to the presidency, not his actions while in office. Still, looking at the Duncan appointment makes me worry.

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  9. No problem, Mike F. I hope Duncan is not giving us the wrong impression about Obama's administration. I can say I was moved today just thinking about growing up in the '50's and '60's, and the civil rights movement itself. Today, the inauguration was exciting and historic. I hope the faith people have in Obama translates to positive decisions nationwide.

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  10. Re: School Closings...

    At what point is the school deemed unable to educate a child? And the implications for this?

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