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Teacher's reason for controversial Cuba trip: I'm a communist
nypost.com ^ | July 20, 2010 | RICH CALDER

Posted on 07/20/2010 3:36:03 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

A Manhattan high school history teacher, who resigned under fire after taking students on a spring-break "Club Red" field trip to Cuba three years ago, is a self-proclaimed Communist who tried justifying the jaunt by telling Education officials he needed to see Fidel Castro one more time before the dictator died. ....

Turner, whose class walls were adorned with posters of Castro and Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, resigned in 2008. Besides placing full blame on Turner, 39, for violating federal restrictions for traveling to Cuba, the report also fully exonerates the school’s principal, Ruth Lacey. ....

Lacey, the report says, told Turner before he left for Cuba that he couldn’t take students on the 10-day trip and that he had to stop holding meetings about the excursion at the school. Turner responded by saying he had "to go to Cuba to see Castro one more time before he died."

"You know, Ms. Lacey. I’m a Communist," Turner told her, the report says. ....

Beacon students had previously gone to Cuba with the DOE’s blessing in 2003 and 2005. DOE now admits those trips should not have been approved.

The Post in 2007 first reported that then-Lt. Gov. David Paterson’s step daughter went on the 2005 trip under Turner’s supervision and that Paterson contacted DOE in 2007 urging officials to approve that trip as well.

Paterson’s step daughter, Ashley Dennis, was a freshman at Ithaca College in 2007 when she said she was contacted by a fellow Beacon alumnus who said DOE refused to authorize the Cuba trip and asked if Paterson could intervene. Paterson also wrote a letter of reference in 2007 for Turner and students to use if they ran into trouble while traveling.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: US: New York
KEYWORDS: paterson

1 posted on 07/20/2010 3:36:05 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

What makes someone a communist? Hate for competition in any field? Small penis syndrome?


2 posted on 07/20/2010 3:39:19 PM PDT by MrPiper
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To: Tailgunner Joe

He should then immigrate to Cuba and try it on for size and actually live it instead of reading about it in books. I guarantee we’ll see him in a boat somewhere, in the Florida straights, trying to make it back home!


3 posted on 07/20/2010 3:41:01 PM PDT by Allthegoodusernamesaregone
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To: Tailgunner Joe

“high school history teacher...is a self-proclaimed Communist”

Well dahhh, who do parents think teach in our public schools, Christians?


4 posted on 07/20/2010 3:42:53 PM PDT by BobL (The whole point of being human is knowing when the party's over.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
self-proclaimed Communist who tried justifying the jaunt by telling Education officials he needed to see Fidel Castro one more time before the dictator died. ....

Is this the Communist equivalent of a pilgrimage to Rome to get an audience with the Pope?
5 posted on 07/20/2010 3:44:11 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia (Forcing one person to pay for the irresponsibility of another is NOT social justice.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Next time, stay there teach! Try LIVING under communism.


6 posted on 07/20/2010 3:49:43 PM PDT by Clock King (Ellisworth Toohey was right: My head's gonna explode.)
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To: MrPiper

I dunno. I grew up in New York in the 1950s-60s and went mostly to public schools, and virtually all of my teachers were Red to the bone even at that time. The only ones who weren’t were a few Irish teachers who drank too much to be parochial school teachers.


7 posted on 07/20/2010 3:51:46 PM PDT by livius
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To: rightwingintelligentsia
Is this the Communist equivalent of a pilgrimage to Rome to get an audience with the Pope?

Kind a sorta... The only real problem I have with it is dragging other peoples' kids along...

the infowarrior

8 posted on 07/20/2010 4:47:44 PM PDT by infowarrior
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To: Tailgunner Joe

lulz....these freaks more and more coming out of the woodwork.......hey yo, easy to be a “communist” when you live ....... in the US......move to Cuba or some other communist state and we will get with ya after a decade or so and see how you like it then, idiot.


9 posted on 07/20/2010 5:05:41 PM PDT by cranked
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