Since the so-called major media doesn't cover the new Democratic trend in education, bloggers are taking over the task. I found a lot of good stuff and wry bitter humor at a blog called
NYC EducatorThis blogger most certainly gets it, and some of those commenting do also.
Close Public Schools, Fire Teachers, Open Charters and Make Big Bucks!
Well, when they told Jed Clampett Cali-for-nee-ah's the place you oughta be, they weren't kidding. Movie star/ politician Arnold Schwarzenegger's got a deal for parents in La-La Land, giving them all sorts of options to "improve" their schools:
Some of the options parents would have to choose from include: replacing the existing administration with a charter school, closing schools and replacing some or all of the existing staff.
Amazingly they are the same options that are available in Florida. Fire the teachers, close the schools, or turn them into something else...charters.
What the other options may be I have no idea, as the article didn't deem them worthy of mention. I can't help but notice that there's nothing there about supporting or improving the schools. Apparently they must either be closed, replaced, or the staff must be gotten rid of. I have to also assume that when the schools are closed or replaced with charters, it's bye-bye staff. There is no possibility, therefore, that the school's problems could emanate from anywhere but the schools unionized employees.
So this makes being a parent much easier. If my kid flunks out, there's clearly something wrong with the school and it must be closed or replaced by a charter. At the very least, we need to fire all the staff.
That does make it easier indeed. Just keep blaming the teachers for everything, take the onus from the parents and children.
The blogger cites an interesting event, I experienced similar ones before I retired.
Last year I covered a class for an absent AP. One kid was listening to an Ipod. I told him to put it away, and he did. The second time, I told him it would be my Ipod if I saw it again. The third time, I sent it to the dean's office. When I went to check up on what happened, I ran into the kid's mom. She told me it was his "enjoyment," and that I had no right to have taken it. She said she wanted to make sure he was never in my class.
lol sounds familiar.
Here is a very interesting comment from one of the posters at the site.
I'm in California and blogged about this new scorched-earth concept in education reform. Here's the excerpt:
"...if 50% of the parents in an elementary school, or 50% of the total parents in a middle or high school and that school’s feeder schools, sign a petition, destruction is wrought on the target school.
(Point of information: The Los Angeles organization Parent Revolution, which is behind this provision, is not an actual parent group. It’s an “Astroturf” (fake grassroots) organization run by a group of charter school operators, with a paid “organizer” in charge.)
Here is more about those
"grassroots" parents groups.Talk about a corporate power play?
One place to start looking at the tremendous growth of these seemingly grass-root groups of parents is in the city of Los Angeles where not only 250 schools have been given the bums rush out of the corridors of public management, but they are due to be thrown into the laps of non-profit outfits like Green Dot Public Schools or Alliance Public Schools, to name just a few. It is truly astounding, for in the case of the non-profit school systems that are emerging, these non-profit EMO’s are bent on creating a new, national retail chain of charter schools with outlets in as many states and school districts they can possibly get their hands on and their tactics are not unlike the ‘grass-root’ town hall health care meetings.
Corporate funded grassroots. Seems to be working well.
Unfortunately.
DU Donor
