GothamSchools Takes Sides, Ever So Innocently

If you had any doubt about whether Gotham Schools, the allegedly down-the-middle school news site, has an agenda, your doubts should be over. Take a look at this morning's Rise and Shine links.
In them, you will find four--count 'em--FOUR links to articles and opinion pieces in the New York Post alone that condemn teacher seniority. If that wasn't enough, they link to Daily News and Wall Street Journal articles that are basically the same trash, although not as blatant as the teacher-bashing Post.

Before you say "Oh, that's just a coincidence" take a look at what GS omitted. There was a piece in the NY Times yesterday that connected all the dots and $$$ between the anti-seniority players. It showed the ties between the Mayor4life, the Asshats4Education, "Chancellor" Black, DFER, and ERN. See also Reality Based Educator's excellent analysis of the piece.

So why didn't Gotham Schools consider that Times piece newsworthy, but found space for SIX anti-seniority, anti-teacher pieces from the billionaire-run tabloids?

You can connect the dots and $$$ on that one.

Bring our troops home. End the war. Secure our economy.

A man of real courage.

New UFT Ad: Thumbs Up or Down?

Personally, I'm giving Mulgrew a thumbs up on this one. I think it hits the right notes and give people a few simple ideas to think about. The deform movement has been masterful at controlling the discussion; I think this ad helps take some of that back. Billionaires not paying taxes, class sizes exploding, the snowstorm fiasco reminding people how much they hate Bloomie--good stuff. What do you think?

(UPDATE: I deleted the video as it was slowing this site down something awful. You can see the video here.)

A Cavalcade of AssHats

Just when you thought no one could take the crown of Asshattery away from Ruben Brosbe, up pops a contender extraordinaire. Her name is Michelle Costa, and she is an A4E who works at Aspirations Diploma Plus High School. I give her name and school in the interests of the free flow of information, not so you can send her nasty emails at her DOE address or call her scab when she walks by. Those things would be wrong.

Michelle wrote a piece in The Brooklyn Paper telling us that senior teachers should be fired before her (not in so many words, but you'll get the drift). She starts off by telling us that she did not get into teaching for the money or vacation, but for the kids. This, she seems to believe, separates her from other teachers, who only took the job so they could collect vast wealth that they could use to hobnob with Mayor4Life in Bermuda every weekend. Her technique of telling us what she is not is actually quite good--I taught that opening technique to my 8th graders last week, so we know she on top of her writing game.

She spews much of the usual A4E drivel--let's get rid of U rated teachers and ATRs, and then find a way to get rid of ineffective teachers, who Ms. Costa can apparently identify in her own building by osmosis or something. Not much new here.

I took the liberty of looking up some data on Ms. Costa (A4E people LOVE data) and I have one question: Why is it that people who can't teach their way out of a soggy lunch bag are always the ones who call for senior teachers to be fired? First we had Michelle Rhee, who claimed she moved her students from the 13th to the 90th percentile, when she clearly did no such thing. Then we have our old pal Ruben, who scored a pitiful 41% on his TDR report when compared with other brand new teachers. Now Ms. Costa steps up to the plate and calls for getting rid of teachers based on quality when her own school just scored an F on the city's report card. See for yourself.

Now, you may say that Ms. Costa can't be directly blamed for her school's pitiful scores, but there are only 261 students there, so she must have taught quite a number of them herself. And reform people, such as Rhee, Duncan, and Obama, whose water Ms. Costa gleefully carries, are clearly in favor of firing all the teachers in a failing schools and replacing them en masse. They did this in Central Falls, RI and they'd do it again if they could get away with it.

In all fairness, I'm sure Ms. Costa considers herself a wonderful teacher in spite of the dismal failure of her school and her students. Nevertheless, her school was rated F, and we'd have to say based upon that that her own rating should be unsatisfactory. Her combined rating, therefore, earns her a big F-U.

Black and Blues

Here's a new song, "Cathie Black", sung to the tune of "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones.

I'm your new "chancellor" and they call me Cathie Black.

I'm not an educator, just a corporate hack.

I'm here to lay you off and take your rights away,

U rated? ATRs? You'd better start to pray!

I see a high school and I want to see it shuttered,

The PEP will side with me, they know where their bread's buttered.

I'll shut down schools while doing crosswords on my phone,

Or check out sex positions while you bitch and moan!

Class overcrowding seems to me a real no-brainer.

Just put a condom on your paramour's John Boehner.

I'll steal your perks, your rights, your pensions, and the like,
Then belt some champagne down with my friend Mayor Mike!

If you want changes then I think that you should know,

I'm little more than a blond Joel Klein 2.0.

You say you want to take your old school system back?

You have no "Sophie's Choice"; you're stuck with Cathie Black!

(Fade to chorus, with band singing "Booooo" while Cathie sings "Ohhhhh!)

Just Sayin'

Ruben and Reubens. Coincidence? You decide.












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Best and Brightest???

Our old pal, Ruben Brosbe, has penned another blog entry calling for senior teachers to be laid off while he gets a raise. He says that this is the only way to recruit and keep "the best and brightest", among which Ruben presumably ranks himself.

But what does the DATA say? After all, data is god to Ruben and his A4E (Asshats4Educators) crew.

Ruben himself admits to dismal results on his Teacher Data Report, claiming a 41 percentile in ELA and and a 38 percentile in math. And that itself is misleading. Let's remember that teachers with 1-3 years of data are compared to each other, and not to veteran teachers. Had Ruben been compared to the veterans he excoriates, his scores would almost certainly been much lower.

Now consider his school. You can look at the results for the 4th grade, which Ruben teaches, for yourself. They dropped 17 percentage points in ELA, and a whopping 18% in math last year. Certainly Ruben must share some of the blame here considering his value-added (?) data.

So is Ruben one of the best and brightest? Certainly the data would say no. Of course, there may be extenuating circumstances. Perhaps he teaches in a high poverty school. Maybe there are homeless or abused kids in his class. It could be that the parents are largely uninvolved in the education of their children.

But as Ruben would be the first to tell you, having a great teacher in front of the class is the most important thing. A great teacher should be able to overcome all these hurdles. Children with no food? No problem! Great teachers can work miracles!

Unfortunately, the data gods have not smiled on Ruben. His numbers are lousy and there are no miracles in sight. If he really believes the best and brightest should be in the classroom, he should step down now and make some room for them.

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