Tuesday, August 16, 2011

You Might Be An Ed Deformer If...

I read an interesting piece today called "You Might Be A Conservative If...". It got me thinking that there are a lot of ed deformer types who may not recognize themselves as such. Many E4E "members", for example, claim to be pro union even though they seem to want to destroy everything unions stand for. Those of you unsure of which side of the fence you're on should definitely give this a look.

You Might Be An Ed Deformer If...

1. You're asked whether you favor unions and you say people should be allowed to marry whomever they please.

2. You'd have to work 20 years in the system for your salary to equal what mummy and daddy paid for one year of your undergrad work.

3.  You believe that exorbitant teacher salaries and lavish pensions are wrecking this country's economy, so you spend millions of your hedge fund profits fighting them.

4. You chose your child's private school based upon low student teacher ratios, high tuition, and college acceptance rates, but you think public schools can be "fixed" by putting 50 poor kids in a room with a "quality" teacher.

5. You consider a teacher with three years of experience a veteran.

6. Your first day of teaching introduced you to the first black people you ever met who you didn't have to tip.

7.  You spend more on beard maintenance in a month than you received in Teacher's Choice last year.

8. You think that poverty, drug addicted parents, gang-infested neighborhoods, and hunger can all be defeated with a sharpened number 2 pencil.

9. You want to open up a chain of charter schools because everyone in your yacht club has one.

10. You've spent more time writing white papers than Cheech and Chong have spent rolling papers.

Any other signs you know of? Post 'em in the comments!

6 comments:

ASTRAKA said...

You think you have a right to destroy public education because you are a "philanthropist".!

zulma said...

You think by avoiding to teach to grades that would show your lousy TDR is the best move so as not to jeopardarize your scholarship to an ivy league college.

Curmudgeon said...

Ahem.

As a bearded gentleman, I take offense to number 7! Pistols at dawn, good Sir, and bring your Second.

Anonymous said...

You're a 23 year old living in Brooklyn. You went to an elite prep school followed by Columbia and you tell everyone you're an "activist."

Ms. Tsouris said...

You join your E4E colleagues in drunken revelry upon learning that the charter school of your choice just invaded the local public elementary school; that charter school just caused the school library to close its doors to the public school children.

High Arka said...

I think your list misses the (subtle?) point that the ed deformers are cognizant of what they're doing. Much like the apparent "hypocrisies" of the conservatives in the list that inspired you, continuing to respond to the movement as genuine and hypocritical rather than a deliberate assault will ever miss the mark.

After all, how successful has it been to spend decades snickering over poor red-staters' support to the death of their wealthy tyrant overlords' right to pay at a lower tax rate than they? Did it ever get the point across to them that they are really only hurting themselves? No? That's because what they actually want, even if they don't know it, is to be serfs ruled by tyrant overlords. Similarly, what the ed deformers actually want is the results they're getting. They're not "well meaning but consistently dumb." Rather, they're beating the pants off those of us who care because they have a goal and they're pursuing it.

(This one's post, nach, is itself ironic. Nonetheless, here we all speak.)