Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A Rant Against the DOE

I was going to post a long, angry rant against the DOE for their decision to trash hard working teachers by releasing the flawed Teacher Data Reports to the media. As readers of this blog may recall, I got a crappy score despite the hard work and care I put into my teaching. I'm sure I'm not alone.

What will the release of this data mean? Not much, other than a bunch of unhappy teachers and parents. It will do zero to improve education. It will create confusion and bad will in schools, which is precisely what Bloomberg and Klein want. Their only goal is the dismantling of public education and unionism as we know it. Bloomberg and Gates and Oprah and all their billionaire pals care nothing about education or teachers; their only concern is that they don't want their billions to help pay the cost of teacher salaries and pensions.

Not enough bad things can happen to these people, who think nothing of trying to wreck the lives and reputations of those who've dedicated their lives to educating children. They are reprehensible slugs and if they perished from the face of the earth tomorrow, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, due to the complicity of Randi and Mulgrew, who could have ousted Bloomberg in the last election when they had the chance, the only way we'll be rid of them is if they all fall off a cliff. Given the likelihood of that happening, I guess all we have to look forward to is the next Machiavellian scheme to destroy teachers that these bastards can devise.

I guess I wrote that rant after all.

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3 comments:

NYC Educator said...

You did, but it was well-deserved. I'll think about it, and write my own version on Friday. A good rant deserves a good long preliminary sulk.

reality-based educator said...

I agree that not enough bad things can happen to these people - Oprah, Bloomberg, Klein, Rhee, Obama, Duncan, Cuomo - I'd throw Randi, Mulgrew and the UFT leadership into that bucket too.

This stuff is ALL coordinated. It is NOT a mistake that these scores are coming out after Waiting for Superman, Oprah, and NBC have laid the groundwork for the "public" to be outraged over bad teachers. It is not a mistake that Klein, Rhee, et al. published their "manifesto" in the Kaplan Test Prep Post last week declaring teachers the only important influence on student achievement. It is not a mistake that these scores will be published after Obama declared the need for a national policy to fire bad teachers on NBC.

They will try and use these scores to rid the DOE of the bottom 20%, just as Rhee did in D.C. Little Andy Cuomo will definitely be up for that when he takes office, and if the current law doesn't allow for it (I think it actually does - two years declared "ineffective" and you're gone, yes?), Little Andy will work with Repubs and DFER's to make sure a new law says it.

This is the beginning of the end unless the UFT leadership wakes the f#$% up and realizes that they are on the ropes. With seniority and tenure under attack and liekly to fall under Cuomo and with these scores being published that have a MOE of 20% and a likelihood that EVERY teacher will eventually wind up on the bottom of the list no matter what, Kleinberg and whatever corporate whores replace them will have the means to turn teaching into a 3-5 year gig for everybody.

That's my rant tonight. I am outraged - both at Bloomberg and Klein and at Randi and the UFT. Hell, throw Oprah in as well.

OTE admin said...

These privatizers want to force teachers out of the profession if not fire them outright, and discourage college students from entering this field. That way, teaching can be deprofessionalized to the point that any idiot off the street, even with a high school or middle school education, can do the job with a few weeks of "training." After all, these people believe education is a waste of money and unions and teachers are a waste of money. Since few jobs require any skills beyond seventh or eighth grade, there is no point in hiring teachers will college degrees; the new ones can merely read from a script or the programs will be online and "taught" by somebody from India or China for pennies an hour. That's where it's headed, folks, because that is what the neoliberal World Bank WANTS. We better wake the hell up.