Good Luck, ICE/TJC!!!

The election results are due in today, and I wanted to wish all the ICE/TJC candidates good luck. I voted for the slate, and I convinced at least five others to do the same. Unfortunately, many teachers don't even understand the 3 (really 2 if you don't count New Action) party system. When I explained to some teachers in my building what was at stake, they said they'd vote for ICE. So that's 6 from me.

Ed Notes explains what is at stake. Even if they don't win, a good showing by ICE/TJC will serve to light a fire under Unity and Mulgrew.

Dr. King Bites Bloomberg in the Ass

In this case, Bloomberg's ass being Joel Klein.

If you recall, Bloomberg recently hijacked some of Dr. King's words as a means to try to bully the state into creating more charter schools. "A right delayed is a right denied," Bloomy told us, ignoring the fact that Dr. King would have proudly supported unionism and the concept of good public schools for everyone, not just the kids creamed off the top for schools run by education hacks like Eva Moscowitz. Dr. King would have been appalled that students are crammed into classes while Eva makes 400K a year under the proud eye of the billionaire mayor.

Mayor4Life sent his stooge Klein out to smear residents of the rubber rooms, and Klein chose to villify Alan Rosenfeld in an article in the Post, a rag run by fellow billionaire Murdoch. It appears that Rosenfeld was charged 10 years ago, and according to the ICE blog, charges were largely dropped against him, with the only penalty being a week suspension. Because he was initially charged with making lewd comments, Joel Klein decided that he was not fit to return to the classroom, and Rosenfeld has languished there ever since.

I'm 100% behind my fellow blogger NYC Educator when he says that if Rosenfeld is guilty, he should be bounced out on his ass. The problem is that he was found guilty of a minor offense, was given a punishment, and that should have been the end of the story. Instead, he has been in the rubber room for 10 years, collecting a salary for not teaching.

Klein is using this as a PR tool to say that we should fire all RR teachers. But the fact is that Rosenfeld was apparently given his day in court, most of the charges against him were thrown out, and he paid a small price for the infraction they felt they could make stick.

If Klein or the DOE had evidence against this man, they should have used it 7 years ago to get him out of the system. If they had no evidence against him, as it appears they did not, he should have been returned to the classroom. But for Klein sentence him to an interminable stretch in the RR in unconscionable.

Under state law, Rosenfeld had rights, and his rights have been delayed. And as BloomKlein should know, a right delayed is a right denied. And in this case, unlike Bloomberg's bogus charter school analogy, the phrase actually fits.