Saturday Rants

OK...A few quickie rants. Here we go:

Mayor4Life said that teachers, firemen, and policemen should all be "out there defending the bankers" because they pay our salaries. Funny, but the last pay stub I looked at it seemed that I also pay for those things, and not one banker has defended me. But rather than appear an ingrate, I'll make the gesture. I'd like to thank the bankers for almost wrecking the economy so that they could get a huge government bailout with my tax dollars so they could continue to get 9 digit bonuses, the taxes on which help pay my salary. I'm more than happy to sacrifice my 4% raise so that I can rest easy in the knowedge that no bankers are going to bed hungry tonight. I'd also like to thank them for starting all those nice charter schools and for apparently trying to buy off politicians to get support for even more nice charter schools. "No Banker Left Behind" and "Race to the Public Trough" are alive and well in NYC.

Chapter leaders should act like defense lawyers. Your job is to defend the people in your chapter--period. Whether YOU think they are guilty or not doesn't matter. Murderers and child molesters are entitled to a decent defense--that is what keeps democracy running. Shouldn't teachers get the same benefit of the doubt? So to the CL who basicially sided with the admins the other day and claimed that the teachers in question were at fault, shame on you. Do your goddamned job.

There was a huge upswing in year-end U ratings in my school. I mean well above the 10% range, which must make Jack Welch smile, assuming he has any emotions besides greed. I'm wondering if this is part of a larger pattern citywide. It seems to me that if a principal wants to get someone on incompetence charges, they may feel rushed to do so now because the new evaluation system will require teachers to have two consecutive years in which they are rated "ineffective" before they can be terminated. It may be that principals are in a rush to terminate now because they don't know how the new system will shake out. If you have any info about the total number of U ratings in your school, please post that info in the comments section.

Is there anyway to stop the runaway train of the ed deformers? I want to get Obama out of the Oval Office, but what are the alternatives? Voting republican? Should we support Sarah Palin, whose only experience with education is that she went to more schools than the swine flu? How about Rand Paul, who'd likely repeal that pesky Civil Rights Act and remove all funding from education?

Or maybe we could vote for Bloomberg, who would doubtless make sure that the bankers had MUCH more money so that the little people like us could be even more grateful?

The Impossible Dream

A lot of people are pissed at the mayor and the chancellor for sitting on their hands during this entire flu epidemic. I know that neither of these guys is interested in mending fences, but there's an easy thing they could do to help patch things up.

My next door neighbor teacher went home with flu symptoms yesterday. She is at least the 20th teacher to catch this bug. Just so you know, this teacher never takes off. For as long as I've known her, which has been several years, she been out maybe two days, tops. So when she takes off, I know she must be deathly ill.

The point is that the flu started going around my school almost immediately after it spread through St. Francis Prep, which is quite a few weeks ago now. My fellow teacher got the flu because she is far too dedicated to take off, and for many weeks came into contact with obviously sick kids. Ditto with hundreds of teachers across the city.

Then there are those teachers who dragged themselves into school because they didn't have days in the bank or were afraid of getting LIFs for excessive absences if they took off. Many were truly sick but didn't stay home, as per the Mayor's grudging advice, because they knew they could be hammered for it. In the meantime, they helped the epidemic spread.

So my idea is that the mayor should grant amnesty to anyone who took off for a documented case of flu in the last three weeks by restoring the days in their sick banks. This would encourage truly sick teachers to stay at home where they belong when they are genuinely ill from a disease that clearly was spread through the schools. It would slow the spread of any future outbreaks of new strains of flu. The mayor could make clear that this is an exceptional case, and that for known flu strains, you should just get the flu shot. But in this case, teachers had no options. It's nothing they could have prevented.

Also, it's just plain not fair that teachers whose schools were closed got to stay home, healthy or not, but teachers whose schools were open had to go in or lose days, despite being sick or risking sickness.

I know this will never happen, but it should. It would buy the mayor much needed good will at almost no cost. It would encourage teachers to take off in the future when truly sick and prevent further spread of disease. But I know Mayor Quixote and Sancho Klein will never go for it.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have not had the flu so this wouldn't affect me one bit)

The New Centurion

This is my 100th blog post, or so claims Blogger. It doesn't seem like I've been at this so long, but I guess I have. I thought about some ways to celebrate, but as all of them involved heavy drinking, I thought I'd just do something I haven't done at all....post some random thoughts.

This flu epidemic seems like one long, endless snow day. The flu cases keep piling up and piling up, and we sit by the TV hoping to hear that the schools will close tomorrow as good sense dictates, and good sense takes another one on the chin.

Blogging is like being a meth addict. You're always looking for another fix. Any time anyone mentions schools in any context, I wonder how I can blog about it. There should be a 12 step program.

That centurion really isn't me. I am much cuter. Still, I wish I had a hat like that.

No one I know in real life is aware that I blog here, not even my wife. It's like having a secret identity, which is about as cool as I get these days.

Despite a few faults, I like my admins a lot. They are light years better than the morons in my previous school.

It's a bummer to get no comments when you work hard on a post. (Don't feel compelled to comment--I didn't work that hard on this one)

I actually think that Joel Klein may be, in fact, Professor Moriarty.

Randi Weingarten, on the other hand, is just Randi Weingarten. In response to a news item that a principal had punched a union rep at a corporal punishment hearing (oh, the irony), Randi said, "(Principals) have no right to harass or bully teachers, much less physically assault them." Attagirl. Take the tough stands.

The union rep reportedly did not fight back. Sayeth the CL: "Even though he's out of his mind, he's still my supervisor."

If I make it to 200 posts, I promise to think of something better. I'll try not to punch anyone.

Staying on Top of Things

Mayor Bloomberg, showing once again his great compassion for New York educators, commemorated the passing of Assistant Principal Mitchell Weiner by calling him "Michelle" at today's news conference to introduce the city's new health commissioner.

I'd like to express my own condolences to the family of Mr. Weiner.

Sucking Face with Joel Klein

The UFT, in another spectacular display off half-assedness, has placed 18 schools on a list to determine whether they should be closed due to swine flu, yet refuses to name the schools.

Apparently, these schools had a LOT of kids out last week due to illness, much like my school. So far, 6 schools have been closed.

Ron Davis of the UFT said that releasing the names of the schools would create a panic. Which begs the question, why would you create a list that you have no intention of using? Isn't it going to scare everyone to know that there are 18 schools out there that may well be spreading infection and not telling us which ones?

This is the usual modus operandi of the UFT. Remember when we were all asked to grade Joel Klein on the last day of school last year, when the results of the poll would be least effective? What ever happened to that poll? Has Randi demanded that the failing Chancellor be removed for the D- he received? No, she's too busy swapping spit with Mr. Klein to do that.

And remember, if you must swap spit with the chancellor, always use mouthwash afterward, as this is a potential means of spreading swine flu. And you can bet that your school won't be closed if you catch it. At most, you'll get on a list.

Flu-Gate

Must be that ole paranoia kicking in, but I'm suspecting a major cover-up over this swine flu mess. The city has just announced the closure of three schools following outbreaks of the disease. One AP is in critical condition and on a ventilator. According to the Times: Swine flu has been documented in four other students at I.S. 238, at 88-15 182nd Street, and more than 50 students with flu-like symptoms have been sent home from the school since May 6, the mayor said.

I don't know about your school, but in mine (also located in Queens), far more than 50 students have been sent home for flu-like symptoms in the past two weeks. There have been days when almost a third of my students have been out sick--and these are classes that normally have 100% attendance, or at most one or two students out at a time. These students were ill for an extended period of time--many of them for more than a week. Some had not missed a single day of school prior to this outbreak.


I'm not terribly worried at this point, because the worst seems to be over, and I've single-handedly boosted the bottom line of the Purell company. Still, I don't like this feeling that we're being lied to, and that this virus is far more widespread than any of us know. For a short period of time, when the students at my school were concerned about the virus, they stopped the usual teenage habits, such as kissing and hugging in the hallways. Many brought their own hand sanitizers, and students were suddenly concerned about covering their mouths when they coughed. That's all over now, and students have been dropping like flies.

So is there a cover-up, a Swine Flu-Gate, if you will? I don't know. But I sure don't trust the Bloomberg administration to close schools, not when they refused to close them after the biggest snowstorm in NY history.

Any flu stories out there? Has your school's attendance been affected, and what have you been told?