Why teaching is a crazy thing to do

From KCCI in Des Moines:

BELMOND, Iowa -- A teacher at Belmond-Klemme High School has been found not guilty of charges that she had a sexual relationship an 18-year-old male student

A Wright County District Court jury took less than an hour Friday to return its verdict clearing Jodi Barrus, a high school teacher and softball coach. She was charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee.

Barrus' attorney made her accuser's history of making up stories a key part of the defense. In closing arguments, defense attorney Derek Johnson pointed out 50 inconsistencies in the teen's statements to police, friends and testimony in court.

Barrus said she now plans to file multiple civil lawsuits, adding that possible legal targets could include school employees. 

So this is what I think happened: The dude came on to her and she of course said no way. He decided to retaliate by making up a story. So the moral of the story is, well there is no moral because she did what she should have except that she might have noted down what he said and told someone, but in the craziness of a school day one more crazy thing can be put on the the back burner and then forgotten. The lawsuit against school employees is interesting because she is probably going to sue the principal and superintendent and the transcripts from those depositions will be really fascinating.  I hope personally that she breaks the bank of anyone who was a part of this mess.

A truly great post from NYC Educator.

First, a little background: Bloomberg ran for a third term based on the fact that test scores were going up in NYC. From the New York Times:

 When he ran for re-election in 2009, he boasted of state test scores that showed two-thirds of city students were passing English and 82 percent were passing math.

However now, apparently scores have (gasp!) dropped. Again from the New York Times:

Applying new, tougher standards, state education officials said Wednesday that more than half of public school students in New York City failed their English exams this year, and 54 percent of them passed in math. 

So did the kids who "passed" last year fail this year - I don't understand, and neither does the NYC Educator in their letter to NYC Principals. Good sarcasm is so rare these days. I'm glad NYC Educator has used it to full effect in the following post.

Dear Principals: 

As you know, the scores on state tests were drastically reduced.  Some kids failed and we didn't find out about it until a few days ago.  In fact, we didn't even offer them summer school.   We're going to double down our efforts to deal with this. 

To make sure we reach these kids, we're going to cut your budgets.  This way, you can offer them fewer services and larger class sizes.  But make no mistake, we believe in you.  That's why we take no responsibility when things go awry.  To show our continued good faith, we take no responsibility for this whole test thing either.  In fact, when shrill troublemakers like Diane Ravitch and Leonie Haimson questioned the results, we vehemently and repeatedly denied the scores were gamed.  Be assured the public forgot this long ago if they didn't simply ignore it in the first place.

I know that for many of us, it's dispiriting and disappointing to see so many more failures. But we must see this not as a roadblock, but as an important next step in our commitment to close every public school in New York City as soon as possible.  Once we do that, we can replace them with charter schools and you can fire all the teachers you like, for any reason, or for no reason at all.  We guarantee, whatever else happens, an abundance of scapegoats.

Sure, the lowered grades do not look good.  But they give me renewed faith we can blame the UFT for everything that's gone wrong over the last few years.  Clearly they are a bunch of saps who can't tell which way the wind blows.  First they invited Bill Gates to the AFT convention.  They applauded wildly for Bill, who along with our good friends at Wal-Mart, enabled all the school closings and test-score mania.  And now they're coming back to DC to ask for Race to the Top funds.   Make no mistake, neither Bill nor Wal-Mart will be holding us responsible for this humiliating episode.  Nor will the Daily News or the New York Post.

They will blame the teachers, and we'll solemnly nod our heads.  We'll spend all the 700 million writing tests designed to fire as many teachers as possible.  The 700 million won't be nearly enough, so we'll have to economize further.  We've already announced that teachers will not get a raise, and that will become a standing policy.  With the money we'd have wasted on teacher raises, we'll design even more tests so as to fire more teachers.  Eventually the entire work force will be non-union, and we can pay whatever we like, hire anyone we want, and they won't need no stinking degrees.  We can use DVDs instead of real teachers, and if kids don't learn we'll simply swap out the DVDs.  Then we'll swap out the kids.  If we do this frequently enough, no one will be able to follow what's going on, so results will make no difference.

I have the utmost confidence if we proceed in this fashion, the editorial pages will all say we're doing a great job, and New Yorkers will believe them.  After all, anyone with money sends their kids to private schools, as Mayor Bloomberg and I did, and those who can't afford private school work far too many hours to follow what goes on.

Otherwise, how would we have overturned their votes and gotten a third term based on test scores any thinking person could see were juked to the max? 

Amen 

Does Obama understand the monster Race to the Top is?

The Huffington Post reports on President Obama's Speech on education to the Urban League. Obama either does not understand that the current privatization model isn't working. he doesn't understand that basic tenets of Race to the Top (for example, turnovers) aren't working.

Test scores in New York City are collapsing because they made stuff up during previous years. Michelle Rhee fired over two hundred teachers, and then we learn that test scores in Washington D.C. actually dropped.

D.C. officials announced Tuesday that reading and math test scores declined in elementary schools this year, halting a two-year run of significant gains and dealing a setback to Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee as she seeks to overhaul city schools. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/dc-elementary-test-scores-show.html

And Daley, as he does every year for the past fifteen years, Daley announces that test scores have gone up (that and Steel Production is up 1000% as it is up every year in North Korea). Teachers are fired for no real reason while bureaucrats are hired at astronomical salaries.

So back to Obama's speech to the Urban League.

He says this about Race to the Top:

So, for anyone who wants to use Race to the Top to blame or punish teachers - you're missing the point. Our goal isn't to fire or admonish teachers. Our goal is accountability. It's to provide teachers with the support they need to be as effective as they can be.  It's to create a better environment for teachers and students alike. 

Hey Mr. President, your Secretary of State did this. New York is doing this. Washington D.C. is doing this. Chicago is doing this. Everyone is using Race to the Top as an excuse to do this. Obama either doesn't know what is going on in the schools, or he knows but is going La-la-la as loud as he can. No one is providing teachers with support. Everyone is punishing teachers (well admonishing and then firing). All of these firings have created a horrible environment in the schools. I don't understand the speech. It's as if Bill Gates wrote it - on second thought, that's a distinct possibility.

 

The First Post

It's a hot day in Logan Square. We missed the art festival on the square this weekend, but it sounded like it was fun. I'm starting to think about next year, but I don't really want to acknowledge that next year will come.I'm grateful that I still have a job. I shouldn't be grateful that I have a job - I never considered that the board would slash jobs in a manner that would harm children, but I never though that Ron Huberman, an ex police officer with an MBA from the U. of C. (where slash-and-burn supply side economics arose from the dark heart of Milton Friedman), would become the leader of the third largest school district in the country.

Daley and Huberman do not believe in Public Education. Their goal is to slowly dole out the Chicago Public Schools to private entities so that eventually the board of education becomes an office in City hall whose only job is to count heads and cut checks to the various mini-districts that are taking over (being given away by) District 299. A brand new school was just given to AUSL, the proprietary mini-district run by National Louis University and some really rich guy - I guess Huberman decided that new school was doomed to fail from the get-go.