Ed Notes Online: On DeVos From One outraged principal who is a both a democrat and union man

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

On DeVos From One outraged principal who is a both a democrat and union man

A comment from a principal on Betsy Confirmed: We Won, We Won:

We all know Betsy DeVos is another Cathie Black. While she is obviously unqualified, she is also really kind of irrelevant.

What amuses me is that our very own DEMOCRAT Governor has come out saying he wants to eliminate the cap on charter schools in NYC and I haven't heard a word from any of the protestors who claim to be outraged by De Vos' policies, policies which Andrew CUOMO supports wholeheartedly.

Where is the outrage?

It is so blatantly obvious that this is a pre-planned, simplistic and boring "Never Trump" campaign. Trump was a harmless TV host / developer when DEMOCRATS OBAMA AND CUOMO DOUBLED CHARTER SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK.

They were also both in power when Democrat CUOMO Created Tier VI for new teachers who now have to work until 63. Can't blame Donald Trump for these things. So the thinking of many unionized educators was Since these "Democrats" are giving us republican policies, why not vote for a republican and at least get a tax cut?

Trump/ DeVos' policies could never do harm in New York if our legislature wasn't down with them. Unfortunately, more and more people elected by their constituents as democrats to the NYSA Senate are joining the IDC to get personal perks. The have sold out those of us in public worker unions and public education in general.

I myself long ago gave up on the "Democrat good, Republican bad" simplicity of the non thinking left.

We have EVIL right here at home and those elected DEMOCRATS are the clear and present danger to us in NY.

We know where most of the Republicans stand. They say straight out that they don't like us and will enact policies contrary to our well being. Fair enough, at least they are honest. However, many of these traitorous dems smile at us, take our union endorsements and then stab us in the back. And that's what hurts the most, when your "friends" do you wrong.

........One outraged principal who is a both a democrat and union man said...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: I'll say it again...until the democrats realize that most of us who tend to vote for the democratic candidates are willing to slit our own throats and vote for the republicans, they will never look out for us in any meaningful way. Why should they if they know we are unwilling to abandon them no matter how badly they treat us. This is why I voted for Trump. It didn't matter what he said or did, I had to vote for the Democratic Party’s enemy. I could have written the last two paragraphs of this principal's comment---it expresses exactly how I feel about the democrats. The democrats in Albany are our immediate threat. No matter who runs against Cuomo, he/she will have my revenge vote. I'd rather see the knife coming than have it stuck in my back. Putin or Dracula for governor? Fine by me. That's how far I am willing to go. If I was willing to vote for Trump, I'm basically willing to vote for anyone who is the enemy of the democrats. They have to know we are willing to destroy their party rather than begrudgingly accept them as they are. Roseanne McCosh; Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 12:18:00 PM EST
ed notes online said...: You're assuming the dems are capable of listening or changing. The real left doesn't see that as happening. Then what? Republicans are the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen enabling this lying thug with barely a whimper. They intend never to give up power and turn every state they can into Kansas. A disaster area. So we are caught between a rock and a hard place. Disaster capitalism as the republicans kill the environment and every reg they can cut until we all start getting sick from uninspected food. That is the future which is why I held my nose and voted hillary. I wouldn't cut my own throat which is what I think you did no matter how oissed you are at dems. Know how to screw them? Start showing up at every town hall where you live. Find and support a primary to challenge them in every venue.; Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 1:03:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Roseanne McCosh is my spirit animal!; Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 6:51:00 PM EST

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

On DeVos From One outraged principal who is a both a democrat and union man

3 comments: