Party Like It's 1984!!!

OK, so my last attempt at telling the future hasn't exactly gone as planned. If you recall, I predicted a number of things, such as the return of mayoral control of schools, and that at least one of your admins would continue to be a dick. I admit, those were pretty safe predictions.

I did make one other prediction that came true in a big way, however. All the way back in February, when the mayor was having a hard time finding a political party that wanted him, I predicted that he'd start his own. I even suggested some possible names for his new party, such as:

The Napoleon Complex Party
The At Least I'm Not Joel Klein Party
The Screw The Workers Party

Today, my prediction came true. Uncle Mikey has decided to start his own party. In a move so transparent and Orwellian that even I couldn't have come up with it, Bloomberg named his party --wait for it---the Jobs and Education Party.

According to the News, "A Bloomberg campaign source called this 'a way for us to communicate with a voter about the mayor’s record and vision for the future when they’re making their decision'."

Really. If that's what they wanted to communicate, they could have come up with a better name, like:

The Sphincter Party
The Train the Masses for Long Boring Jobs Party
The Mayor for Life Party
The Test Prep and High Unemployment Party

If you have any ideas of your own, post them in the comments section. But I doubt you'll come up with anything funnier than the mayor.

A Question on Mayoral Control

Let's face it. Mayoral control is a done deal. A major reason we have it is that Randi Weingarten supported it in the first place, and never changed her tune. When the New York Post encourages you to give your last blessing to mayoral control before you pass on to the AFT presidency, you know you've sold out big time.

I've opposed mayoral control from the beginning, and I still do. I know that Randi initially supported it because she wanted a good contract and mistakenly thought she'd get someone like Bill Thompson in there who she might be able to manipulate. Mayor Moneybags, however, threw a monkey wrench in those plans when he decided that the will of the people who twice voted for term limits just didn't apply to rich fellows like him.

The point is, I am opposed to mayoral control, period. It doesn't matter whether it's Bloomie or Thompson or anyone else. No one should have that kind of power over the schools because if they mess it up even for one mayoral term, it will affect children for many, many years. When you get tyrannical screw-ups like Bloomberg and Klein running things, it's disastrous. Even Obama has to bow to checks and balances--it is the foundation of our society. But not in NY.

So, the question is, where are you on this issue? Are you opposed to mayoral control, or just to Bloomberg having it?

Ramblings

Sorry for not posting more regularly. Sometimes summer is the worst time. Other projects are going on and blogging sometimes takes a back seat. Still, there are a few things of note I wanted to mention.

Unbeknownst to me (mostly because I stopped reading the Pravda-like NY Teacher), Teacher's Choice was restored. For once, the UFT decided not to go ridiculously overboard in announcing they'd gotten something back that they had lost. If you read this blog regularly, you know how I feel about Teacher's Choice. Schools should have supplies, period. For this year, my principal has basically said that due to budget cuts, we shouldn't ask for copies of anything. They have no paper and can't afford any. This is insane.

The UFT did go overboard in announcing that they had "preserved" 55/22 (did anyone know it was on the table? I sure didn't) and got back our two days before Labor Day that they gave away in 2005. Of course, they gave away some of our upcoming raise for it, as well as agreeing to lower fixed annuity rates in the TDA from 8.25 to 7%. I calculated that this little agreement will cost me about $15000 over the next five years based upon the amount I have in TDA and lost salary. So the ten days I save will cost me $1500 each. Thanks, Randi!

There was a spirited debate over at NYC Educator about PCs vs Macs. I pointed out that Macs are PCs, and it's really a question of which OS you want to use. Personally, I refuse to pay a $500 or more premium for the privilege of using OS X on a Mac. Windows Vista works beautifully, and everyone who complains about it should just get over it already. It never crashes, it runs probably 50 times more software titles than the Mac, I can upgrade the computer myself, and I have never had a virus or a firewall breach in the last 15 years. I only bring up the discussion here because there were 20 responses to the post. I wish people would get as fired up about Bloomberg vs Thompson as they do PC vs Mac.

I'm now on the blog roll at Gotham Schools. I think this means I made the big time.

If Michael Mulgrew wants to make a splash, he will come out TODAY and state that tenure is absolutely off the table under any and all circumstances. And unlike Randi, he should mean it.

James Eterno is running for UFT president. He absolutely has my vote. And this kind of topic is the one that needs tons of discussion, no offence to PCs and Macs.

A New Kind of Mayoral Control

It looks as if the State senators will come out of hiding and pass the mayoral control bill back into law with few modifications. Then, if they see their shadows, we will have six more weeks of winter. No, that's Groundhog Day. The rodents in the state legislature portend five more years of dictatorial rule.

It no big surprise that the mayor's money talked. Billions of dollars together tend to speak pretty loudly. However, there is a sliver of hope that rarely gets talked about these days. While the mayor gets to control the schools, let's remember that we, the voters, control who the mayor is.

Voting Bloomberg out is the ultimate in mayoral control. I know some of you think he is invincible, but I think the cracks in the mayor's highly polished image are beginning to show. Witness how he angrily stared down a disabled man who had a difficult time turning off a tape recorder. Remember how he told parents that they should leave the teaching decisions to teachers (the very ones he cut out of the decision making process). Consider his silence as Eva Moskowitz plays Capture the Flag with PS 123. Think of the phony reconstituted BOE he stuffed with his own deputy mayors. Add in his power grab for a third term as mayor in defiance of the will of the people who twice voted for term limits. Finally, remember his moronic hyperbole in stating that there would be riots in the streets should one word of the mayoral control bill be changed.

So no, we probably can't stop the return of mayoral control. But we might be able to stop the return of Mayor Mike.

The Education Governor? You Betcha!

No one was more disappointed than me when Sarah Palin decided to call it quits as governor of Alaska, effectively skewering any chance she had of running for president in 2012. Her candidacy almost ensured a win by the Dems, so I am sorry to see her go.

What interested me most about her resignation, as a teacher and a blogger, was the speech itself. It was rambling and incoherent, yet spattered with enough catch phrases that the terminally stupid might actually believe it had substance. However, to really understand the shallowness of the Wasilla Wonder, you have to read the text of the speech. I ran across a brilliant piece by Paul Begala on HuffPo that dissected the text. He noted some disturbing writing issues displayed by the governor, such as her tendency to use random exclamation marks and to capitalize words inappropriately. The best sentence was this one, taken exactly as written in Palin's speech:

*((Gotta put First Things First))*

Now, I can see someone doing this on their own copy, for emphasis, perhaps. But to publish it on the governor's website for all too see?

Even the first sentence of her speech is riddled with errors that would make a middle schooler blush. Again, here it is, taken exactly as written from the governor's text (italics mine):

Hi Alaska, I appreciate speaking directly to you, the people I serve, as your Governor.

Besides the comma splice, she leaves out a comma and capitalizes Governor when using it as a common noun. Sheesh.

She bemoans having spent millions of the state's dollars defending her many ethics investigations, saying "...that’s money not going to fund teachers...". And in that, I agree with her. One thing she desperately needs is more and better teachers.

The irony is that she is getting paid millions to write a book. Heck, I'd give her 100 bucks just for writing a coherent sentence.

No, Not a Pun. It's a Palindrome!

Mayor Mike likes being a question on the Regents exam, so we thought we'd pose a question for him, ELA style:

Consider the following statement:

Changing one word of the current Assembly bill on mayoral control would "resurrect the Soviet Union" and "bring back chaos."

This statement can best be described as:

a. Hyperbole
b. Idiocy
c. Both a and b
d. Euphemism

The correct answer, of course, is c. That slab of idiocy is an example of the hyperbole Mayor Mike used to try to scare people into supporting mayoral control. But at today's press conference, when the mayor was asked to explain his bizarre comment, he said "It's a euphemism." So no perfect 4 on the ELA exam for the mayor. I say we make him attend 37.5 minutes until he gets these kinds of questions right.

In fact, the mayor's statement is about as far from a euphemism as you can get. For the record, a euphemism is the substitution of a mild statement for one that is harsh or troubling. For example, instead of saying mayoral control is dead, you might say that it "sunset". Isn't that nicer?

At least he didn't say it was a pun.

Would You Hire This Man?

Now that mayoral control has expired, there are already rumblings that Joel Klein should be fired. According to the Daily News, "Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. will name Dolores Fernandez to the board. Diaz said Klein is free to reapply for his job."

Am I gleeful that Klein will feel the same pangs that teachers feel when their jobs are in jeopardy, or that ATRs feel when they apply for jobs they should be entitled to? Yes.

The question is, if Klein is fired and reapplies for his job, who would hire him? At 62 years of age, he would have been put out to pasture as a teacher. And at a cool quarter million a year, 2.5 times to top teacher salary, he could be replaced by 5 shiny new chancellors, just as senior teachers are replaced to save money.

I don't want to grind Klein into the dust at this low point of his career as chancellor, so I'm going to help him out. Thanks to Joel, tens of thousands of teachers, including me, have had to constantly work on our resumes as the ax hovered over our heads. To show my gratitude, I'd like to offer Klein my services in helping polish his resume. If you're reading this, Mr. Klein, feel free to use any parts of it you think will help you in your quest to regain your position.

Joel I. Klein
Tweed Courthouse (for now)
New York, NY

Objective: To find a position as chancellor of a large school system so that I can lick the boots of a billionaire and do his bidding while rubbing elbows with the city's elite.

Experience: Spent seven years as Chancellor of the country's largest school system.

• Achieved continual declining approval ratings, thus taking the heat off the mayor who actually makes most of the bonehead decisions.
• Cut spending on frivolous items such as school buses for children in the middle of an arctic freeze.
• Created an atmosphere of fear and loathing among NYC teachers.
• Broke large schools into many smaller ones, thus increasing the number of administrators who can walk around with their clipboards while making $150,000 a year plus bonuses.
• Managed to maintain the highest class sizes in the area despite a lawsuit mandating and funding smaller class sizes.
• Filled holes in the school budget with money earmarked for lower class size.
• Gave lip service to listening to parental concerns through such methods as parent surveys. Implemented an online version of the survey as a way to save 6 tons of paper that no one would have ever read anyway.
  
• Cut the number of relevant stakeholders in the education system down to two (Bloomberg and myself), thus further streamlining the system.

Education: Who cares about education?

References: Available upon request. Contact Michelle Rhee, Al Sharpton, and Caroline Kennedy.