I can’t stand nanny Mike, either. But what does this teacher propose to improve the black and Latino statistics. Oh, that’s right, she won’t go into all that because we supposedly all know the problem. Double secret probation? Politically incorrect to address the issues behind the failure rates? The usual teachers’ union agenda? That is what promises more failure.
It’s not Bloomberg. It’s not the mayor before nor after Bloomberg. The failure rate of poor inner city welfare children who do not have fathers is promised, generation to generation and election to election. Any school harboring the dysfunctional mob will spend more time dealing with them than teaching children who are ready to learn.
Given this teacher probably is head of the class in desiring to protect the dysfunctional thug welfare culture that produces suffering and failure she’s blaming on Bloomberg, there is not much anyone can do about it. It’s a lifestyle choice. It serves the power of the Unions and the liberal political system there. They want it. They will fight for it like it is a precious thing.
I have to disagree with you. I have read this blog extensively and nowhere have I noticed liberal attitudes towards education with the author.
Take, for example, the high school "Workshop Model". You have 10 minutes to teach the students as a whole class, and then you must have them break up into cooperative learning groups for 20 minutes, where they learn nothing and just mess around. Then you must teach them for the remaining 10 minutes, including a summation. Woe to you if someone acts out and takes up the time, 'cos the clock is running. Woe to you if someone---gasp---asks a question and messes up your time schedule. Supervisors have actually brought TIMERS to classrooms to play gotcha with teachers.
Now there's also the uber-uber diagramming out of lessons. Not only must you take time to research and write a lesson (which is normal), but now you must diagram out the objective, what part of the Core Curriculum it fulfills, critical questions to be asked, what part of a larger unit it belongs to, and how many times students are allowed to breathe. Then you must post this diagrammed-to-hell lesson with new software so that all your colleagues and supervisors can critique it. How in the heck anyone has time to do all this (and most teachers have multiple classes in different subjects for which to write lessons) in an evening (on your OWN TIME) is incomprehensible to me.
Then, there is the pointed harassment of older teachers, deliberately giving them the worst classes, openly soliciting statements against those teachers from students, sending "gotcha squads" of deans or supervisors around to catch those teachers in the slightest point-of-ridiculous thing, etc. Oh, and let us not forget the refusal to grant tenure to new teachers, so that a large percentage of them leave after a couple of years. It takes 6-10 years to really develop professional teaching skills, and Bloomberg keeps running off both veteran teachers and newbie teachers as fast as he can in a continuous revolving door. I know for a fact that there are classes in high schools which still, in late October, lack permanent teachers for all their classes. The kids are taught by sub-of-the-week, so they are learning nothing.
Add to these stupid dysfunctional policies the non-motivated students from the inner city, with their myriad home environment problems and their adherence to a strong anti-academic culture, and you have a disaster.
The Union and the hapless teachers had nothing to do with these disastrous policies--that is 100% Bloomberg, may his name be cursed forever.