I'm not surprised to see that the suspension rate has risen this year. I'm not surprised either that the cited article interviews not one single UFT member. Fortunately, they ask Mona David her opinion. David runs some parent group which, as far as I know, consists of at least her and some guy from Staten Island who wish to kill teacher tenure. Why bother asking teachers what they think?

The article cites reasons suspensions are given, though:

Students are suspended for such infractions as attacking staff or other students, destroying school property or bringing weapons to campus.

Fortunately, the city is looking to take a "restorative justice" approach to these matters. So if you or one of your students get the crap kicked out of you at school, the attacker will get to sit around and talk about just why he hit you over the head with that two by four. When we finally discover the root cause, you and your assaulter can hug it out. What's better than that?

Let's say that some student offers to kill your entire class. Doubtless he's misunderstood. You should talk to him, and find out why he feels that way. Let's say you respond, and he once again signals his intention to kill everyone. Clearly he's had some childhood trauma that put him in this unfortunate situation. There's a conflict between him and the entire class. The only thing to do is set up a mediation. He can explain why he wants to kill everyone while you and the rest of the class explain why you don't want to die.

Hidden and buried feelings are simply unhealthy. So it's important that you get them right out there in the open. As educators, it's important that we not just skim the surface. Now sure, this is not 100% effective. I mean, sometimes students actually show up to schools and kill everybody. But don't you want to be absolutely sure you've exhausted all restorative means at your disposal before you resort to something as drastic as suspension?

I'm kind of old school, so you can't really go by me. Once, I was teaching a class, and a student I'd never seen walked in. I told him he'd have to leave. He was offended by that, and thus he announced to the class that he was going to blow my head off with a 45. Clearly it was my fault. I should've taken the time to ask him why he felt he needed to come into my classroom, as opposed to whatever one he belonged in. Had I taken the time to understand him, perhaps he wouldn't have felt the need to threaten my life in front of 30 witnesses.

But that's not all I did. After the class, I ran around the whole building and sought to ascertain the identity of the kid. When I finally did, rather than apologize face to face for failing to understand his needs, I wrote him up to the dean. Not only that, but I followed up a few days later. I asked what happened, and the dean told me they had called the kid's parents. I asked why he wasn't suspended. He had problems, they told me.

Now here's how callous I am--I said if he had problems that caused him to threaten people's lives in public, he did not belong in the same building as my students. Can you imagine my level of insensitivity? Even now I feel wracked with guilt over my unreasonable requests.

Statistics show that students who are suspended graduate at lower rates than students who are not suspended. Clearly the suspensions are damaging to student self-esteem. Now I know there are Doubting Thomases out there who will say, "Hey, NYC Educator, don't they graduate at lower rates because they bring weapons to school, or run around assaulting people and threatening to kill them?"

To you doubters, I say this. Last Wednesday UFT passed a resolution for more restorative justice and less suspension. And they must be right, because E4E also supported it, and they're endorsed by Bill Gates.

What more evidence could anyone ask?

There are few things that upset me more than the pernicious influence of Bill Gates. Gates is why we have junk science as a regular part of our evaluation. Gates is why we moved toward small schools, which even he now admits was a bad idea. Gates is why the entire evaluation system was scrapped and why it's repainted and refurbished every year or two.

Of course leadership doesn't see this quite so clearly, and that's how Gates became a keynote speaker at an AFT Convention. Randi Weingarten seemed to embolden the troops as they ridiculed teachers who protested him. The Gates offshoot in the UFT is called Educators 4 Excellence, and it's run by a couple of newbies who gave up teaching almost immediately after forming it to do whatever it is they do on the Gates dime. If you want to know more about them, read Chalkbeat. E4E is their go to for quotes from teachers, or in the case of their leadership, ex-teachers.

Leadership got together with an E4E member and whipped up a resolution about incorporating innovative reactions to discipline as opposed to suspension. You see, a lot of people of color are suspended. A lot of homeless students are suspended. And in typical Gates fashion, we turn away from the root cause of of school issues, poverty.  Gates deems it too complicated to bother with, and focuses on school issues instead. Last night, we followed his lead and did the same. The fact that Gates has never done anything that actually worked is neither here nor there.

I'm all for using whatever works to solve issues. But the resolution we passed last night continues our longstanding policy of ignoring the issues and playing along with the reformies. This policy is precisely why teacher morale is so very abysmal. You don't really see that if you're spending all your time sitting around 52 Broadway.

I'm not E4E, and I wouldn't be in a million years. I'm merely one of half a dozen people elected by the high schools to represent them. Leadership's attitude toward the high schools, essentially, is go screw yourselves. I'm not particularly sure how they expect that to win members come Janus. For example, an issue near and dear to my heart is class size. While we alone can't address poverty, we could improve learning conditions for those who suffer from it. In stark contrast with the outlandish ideas Bill Gates pulls out of his wealthy ass, we know that more attention from teachers can actually help children.

I brought this up months ago. Howard Schoor said they'd be happy to meet with us. Despite reaching out multiple times, they were never happy enough to actually do it. A few weeks ago, at the Executive Board, we decided the hell with it and put up our resolution. We proposed that we push to follow the C4E law mandating smaller classes, as opposed to placing numbers in the contract.

UFT Unity chose to strike down the clauses in our class size resolution that focused on class size. The guy they sent up to propose the changes didn't appear to even understand what he was reading. They then voted, lockstep as always, as per loyalty oath, to remove those clauses. Why bother with voting your conscience, if you have one, or repping the members, as though they matter, when there are gigs to be had and conventions to attend?

Mulgrew was in a huge hurry to get through 7 resolutions in 20 minutes, and that's probably why he didn't even give me enough time to stand up when he was looking to debate the anti-suspension resolution. After I walked, they may have done the class size resolution. This one was last on the list, I believe. I'm not sure whether or not they considered it the least important, but I certainly did. Toothless as it was, it made no difference whatsoever. Maybe I'm going about things the wrong way. My approach was to run in a David and Goliath election for a seat I thought we had a shot at winning. When we won, I thought we'd be able to make a change.

One thing we do is stick member issues in their faces a few times each month. It's quite clear to me that Unity would sit around and do nothing but rubber stamp the leadership if we weren't there. Nonetheless, maybe running in democratic elections isn't the way to go if you want to influence leadership. Maybe, instead of fighting for rank and file teachers, we should just join E4E. Evidently, that's who leadership listens to these days.

Back before Chalkbeat went national, I used to write for it. That ended when I made outrageous assertions that Cathie Black, who was appointed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, represented billionaires. I also asserted that TFA courted people from Ivy colleges. Though these assertions were not even debatable, Chalkbeat had enough of my nonsense. This was kind of a relief because their editing process was like water torture.

Of course, even as I endured the third degree and found my voice edited beyond recognition, its resident E4E columnist voiced total nonsense with no restraint whatsoever. Reformy is as reformy does, I guess. I hear that person, who never managed to even get tenure as a teacher, got a nice gig somewhere as a school leader. Beats working, I guess.

Nonetheless they've moved past that, and no longer bother with pretense. Every time someone from E4E sneezes, they dutifully report it. If Eva Moskowitz stubs her toe, it's prominently featured. If UFT holds a rally, meh. Why bother reporting such trivialities? After all, UFT is only the largest teacher union in the country. It's not like they're Evan Stone and What's-Her-Name, the renowned former newbie teachers who run Gates-funded E4E.

Doubtless you're curious as to why this might be. Well, here's a small clue. Half a million bucks from the Gates Foundation. That's gotta keep a lot of lights on. Now Chalkbeat always insists that it's objective, but oh my gosh that's a lot of lettuce.

It's really disappointing Chalkbeat chose to go this route, but hey, it's the American Way. Chalkbeat NY is simply doing its part to Make America Great Again by practicing journalism and pretending that a huge donation from the reformiest man in the world is not a blatant conflict of interest.

That said, I can't vouch absolutely that Chalkbeat has gone to the highest bidder. I honestly don't know just how high Bill Gates is. But given his outrageous and outlandish ideas about education,  I can only conjecture that billionaires get the best drugs money can buy. I remember hearing somewhere that Jerry Lee Lewis said the only reason he survived while Elvis died was that he couldn't afford the drugs Elvis got.

I wonder how high I'd have to be to donate to Reformy Chalkbeat.

The NAACP is calling for a national moratorium on charter schools. This is an interesting development, and begs the question as to why the hell our union leadership is not doing so. It seems to me that leadership is so obsessed with that apocryphal seat at the table that they'll do absolutely anything to achieve it. Charter schools are now in direct competition with public schools, and they are designed that way.

Leadership sees this as a new paradigm, and I think they call it "solutions-driven unionism." That is, if Bill Gates likes charter schools, we'll support them. If charter schools colocate and destroy our public schools, we'll start a charter and do the same. We will presume, for no reason whatsoever, that union leadership can run a charter more successfully than the non-union ones who cheat, cherry pick, exclude and expel to inflate the test scores on which they are judged.

We will not only support Common Core, but also threaten to punch the faces of anyone who doesn't. We will send our President to help write the law that rates teachers by junk science. Not only that, but we will insult opponents of such outright nonsense by suggesting they wish to give more power to principals. We will ignore the fact that this law results in members being rated inffective based on junk science.

We will defend baseless and abusive testing by invoking civil rights organizations. We will say they support testing, and therefore we do. When a statewide movement causes our reformy and sellout governor Andrew Cuomo to pull back on testing in some small way, we will take credit and ignore the movement. Not only that, but we will also condemn it with an outrageously transparent and stupid argument. We will do this to discredit opponents of leadership to an audience that's largely bound by loyalty oath anyway.

This is a golden opportunity to open discussions with NAACP and help connect the dots to anyone who doesn't understand the connection between charters and testing. Both of these are used to vilify public schools and teachers, and testing in particular is used to close community schools, many of which are concentrated in communities of color.

I don't anticipate that happening anytime soon, as it seems vital to leadership to be five years behind the times. The leadership MO, sitting around and hoping for the best, seems to work for them. For example, if NAACP manages to influence other groups or make something happen, leadership can then take credit and attribute it to their "activism," or that of the loyalty oath signers who have the vision and discipline to do whatever the hell they're told. 

I was pretty surprised that Chalkbeat NY didn't deem this worthy of mention on Monday, so I passed it on to a writer, who passed it on to an editor, who did nothing whatsoever about it. That's because this story isn't worthy, I suppose. Who gives a crap what NAACP thinks when Families for Excellent Schools say charter schools are better than public schools, or E4E gathered 100 signatures saying teachers should do more work for less pay? Clearly Chalkbeat NY values the opinions of white billionaires who fund astroturf groups, and after all someone has to take a bold stand for white billionaires, otherwise it would be discriminatory.

Personally, I find it pretty sad that a preposterously small minority dominates the education conversation, entirely ignoring teachers, students and communities. But that's where we are in America circa summer 2016.

 I was pretty shocked when NY State Regents unanimously nominated MaryEllen Elia to be NY State Commissioner of Education. For one thing, I had heard Michael Mulgrew speak of the great hope he had in the Regents to modify the new and draconian APPR law. Given that, I was surprised they'd select someone with such enthusiasm for testing, junk science, and all things reformy. It makes me really wonder exactly how much interest (if any) the Regents have in doing the right thing.

It's true Elia gave lip service to being a teacher, and to seeing herself as a teacher. But every teacher I know abhors the new system that judges us, now even moreso, on student tests. It's not even a secret anymore that the state takes these tests and manipulates the cut scores so they show whatever it is the state feels like proving that week. The only teachers I know of who support this stuff at all are those in Educators 4 Excellence, you know, the ones who take Gates money just like Elia did in Florida. And while their leaders, Evan Stone and Whoever the Other One Is, were briefly teachers, they aren't anymore.

And that's exactly who Elia went to speak to yesterday. And let's be clear--that is a political statement. If Elia wanted to speak to teachers, she could have tried for an audience with NYSUT or UFT. There's certainly precedent for reformies getting audiences with unions, like Gates addressing the AFT. (When that happened, Randi Weingarten seemed to encourage the troops in ridiculing the protesters. Gates thanked AFT by trashing teacher pensions just days later.)

.@MaryEllenElia says she is a commissioner who will never bash teachers #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

That's great to hear. I hate it when politicians, op-eds and editorial boards bash teachers. I'm acutely aware of it because it happens almost every single day. Teachers don't want to be accountable because they object to having their jobs dependent on junk science. Teachers shouldn't talk to one another in teacher lounges. Teacher unions should be punched in the face.

Of course, the clever politicians who bash us often differentiate between teachers and teacher unions. "I would never bash teachers. I love teachers. My mother was a teacher. Yes, I had a mother." They blather on as though only Satanists are in teacher unions, and they only hate Satan. I suppose someone should inform those pols that teachers are in teacher unions, and that when they punch unions in the face they punch us in the face. Of course Elia hasn't yet broadcasted her intention to punch teacher unions in the face. Instead, she came up with this little gem:

.@MaryEllenElia says any teacher who encourages opt-out is unethical #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

Now, here's the thing about stereotypes--they are always hurtful, and they are always wrong. It doesn't even matter if they're positive. And make no mistake, Elia's statement is not positive at all. She's calling me and thousands of my brothers and sisters unethical. She's saying Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris, Jeanette Deuterman, Beth Dimino and Jia Lee are promoting evil. And yet it's Elia herself who takes a salary several times that of any working teacher to carry out an agenda based on junk science.

It's Elia who supports giving every child in New York the same test. It doesn't matter to Elia if that results in a developmentally inappropriate curriculum. If the kids have learning disabilities, if they don't speak English, if they're malnourished, if their parents both work 200 hours a week, if they live in rotating shelters, too bad for them. The State has spoken.

Just because you're selective about the group of teachers you bash, you're still a teacher-basher. And with all due respect, I've seen absolutely no evidence that MaryEllen Elia is in any position whatsoever to lecture anyone about ethics.

It must be great to be Frank Bruni. One day you're a food columnist, and the next you're an education expert. Today Frank is all upset about the teacher shortage. After all, his own paper wrote a big story about it. Nowhere did they bother acknowledging that teachers are pretty much under nationwide assault, but hey, why sweat the details when you're writing for the Paper of Record? The fact that they print the column should be good enough for anyone.

As it happens, Bruni himself is a prominent teacher basher. He believes passionately in junk science rating of teachers and can't be bothered to do the most fundamental research. Who cares if the American Statistical Association says teachers change test scores by a factor of 1-14%? What's the big deal if they say use of high stakes evaluation is counter-productive? He knows some guy who likes it and that should be good enough for anyone. Bruni does other important work, like spitting out press releases for Joel Klein's latest book.

But now he's amazed no one wants to be a teacher. Naturally, being a New York Times reporter who has access to pretty much anyone, he goes right to the source, the very best representative of teachers he can muster:

Teachers crave better opportunities for career growth. Evan Stone, one of the chief executives of Educators 4 Excellence, which represents about 17,000 teachers nationwide, called for “career ladders for teachers to move into specialist roles, master-teacher roles.”

“They’re worried that they’re going to be doing the same thing on Day 1 as they’ll be doing 30 years in,” he told me.

This is what Frank Bruni interprets as vision. Let's make one thing clear--Evan Stone is not a teacher. He was for a few excruciating and clearly unrewarding years. But once he learned all he could from that dead end job, he started this glitzy new E4E thing and got his hands on Gates money. Now he gets to make pronouncements to distinguished NY Times reporters like Bruni. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck actually teaching children. Naturally Bruni doesn't ask us what we think. After all, given our obvious lack of ambition, what could we possibly know?

Bruni has gala luncheons to attend, fois gras to critique, and he can't be bothered.  Still just because Evan Stone's E4E got 17, 000 people to sign papers in exchange for free drinks doesn't mean they actually represent those people. I happen to know, for example, a UFT official who signed the paper just to see what was going on at one of those meetings.

In fact, there's no evidence to indicate anything E4E says is based on anything beyond Bill Gates's druthers. Their support for junk science and calls to actually worsen already tough working conditions border on lunacy. Their acceptance of reformy money and embrace of a reformy agenda mean they do NOT represent working teachers.

Here's something no one told Frank Bruni--teachers who want to "get out of the classroom" make the very worst educational leaders there are. How many of us have worked under supervisors who don't love our job, who can't do our job, but who don't hesitate to tell us all the ways we do our job wrong? How many of us know the, "Do as I say, not as I do." mantra well enough it might be tattooed on our foreheads?

Yes, Frank Bruni, there is a teacher shortage. And yes, there are reasons for it. Some reasons are your BFFs like Joel Klein, Campbell Brown, and Gates-funded astroturf groups like E4E. They spout nonsense-based corporate ideas designed to destroy public education and union. You talk to them and can't be bothered with us.

Another big reason is mainstream media, which hires people like you. When people read nonsense like the stuff you write, they may not know that fundamental research is something you consider beyond the pale. They may not be aware that your piece does not entail talking to working teachers. They may think we don't love our jobs and we don't love working with and helping children. They may not know that merit pay, which E4E is pushing in one form or another, has been around for 100 years and has never worked. They may even think that Evan Stone knows what he's talking about.

But he doesn't, Frank. And neither do you. That's why you're a big part of the problem.

There's a lot of talk about testing nowadays, and when UFT wishes to discuss it in the union paper, the first person they go to is E4E member Starr Sackstein. Sackstein says she doesn't want to prepare kids for tests, but rather for college. And after all, college readiness is a hallmark of Common Core and all the reformy folk who say our schools are failing.

That's certainly the direction in which we're moving. Personally, I lost seven class days to a newly extended version of the NYSESLAT exam, ostensibly to determine the English level of my students. Having now given the oral part a million times, and having read the written part, I'd argue it's a better measure of just how Common Corey the kids are.

When I teach, I don't aim for test prep or college readiness. For one thing, so-called college readiness is based on a hodge-podge of minimum standardized test grades that likely indicate little. Studies show that teacher grades are, in fact, a much more accurate indicator of ensuing success of lack thereof in college. I teach kids how to speak, write and understand English. I'd argue this is fundamental not only for college, but for life. I'd argue setting up kids to be happy and successful prepares them for college, if they choose college, whether they like it or not.

Of course, I'm not E4E, which is just one reason you won't be finding pearls of wisdom from me in the pages of NY Teacher. The other, of course, is that my philosophy on education is aligned more closely with Diane Ravitch than Michael Mulgrew. Unlike Mulgrew, I oppose VAM absolutely. I don't think it's OK if you dust it off, dress it up and call it a "growth model." I believe the American Statistical Association when they say teachers only affect test scores by a factor of 1-14%, and that using VAM can be counter-productive to good education. I don't believe in mayoral control, or school closings, or charter schools, or two-tier due process, or having teachers work under conditions of abject terror. I believe an appropriate response to meaningless and time-wasting tests is opt-out.

UFT leadership, as is their right, disagrees. That's why the E4E member is pictured in the story, and that's why E4E POV gets top billing. When it comes to fighting for more work for less pay, UFT desperately wants that seat at the table. That's why they cannily negotiated to get money everyone else got in 2010 by 2020. Not only that, but they managed to negotiate this with someone reputed to be the most left-leaning mayor in decades. And as if that weren't enough, we still have no idea how much we'll be paying to help the city, now flush, with health care costs.

But leadership has other priorities. I often get upset with Chalkbeat NY for running idiocy like how E4E got 100 signatures for more effective means of firing teachers, or whatever Gates money has them pushing for this week. It's even more disappointing to see the official UFT paper giving them top billing. I thought one purpose of a union was to seek better working conditions for working people, a group that will soon include our children and students.

I don't think that's what E4E wants, and it's unconscionable that they are promoted in the pages of our union paper.

But I never know what the hell it is that union leadership wants. Yesterday, I got an invite to spend a weekend with Randi Weingarten, TFA's Wendy Kopp, and reps from the Gates Foundation for the low, low AFT price of 50 bucks. I hadn't planned to write about the UFT's E4E feature, but invites like that make me feel like leadership thinks we'd do just about anything for 50 bucks.

There are words for people who do anything for 50 bucks, and none of them describe my profession.

Not yet, anyway.

One of the interesting things about the corporate push to #SupportTheCore on Twitter was the E4E do-it-yourself page.

Not surprisingly, yesterdays #supportthecore media blitz was based largelyon scripted talking points and hand holding http://t.co/0NBpvD4ZYv
— Anna S. Sothvny (@SOTHVNY) August 13, 2014

It had all these wonderful suggestions. First it told you how to join Twitter, if you hadn't yet done so. Then it gave you formulas for writing tweets, like I #SupportTheCore because it helps my students think for themselves, or whatever. Because no one wants kids growing up depending on Gates-backed astroturf groups to know what to say, or how to say it.

And yet, the teachers of E4E, the supposed role models, are doing just that. How do you set an example for free thinking when you need help doing it yourself, even when your target is 140 characters? Even more frustrating is who their allies appear to be.

Of course, E4E took the page down, because the truth hurts. But I saw it. I can only assume to them, "excellence" entails following directions rather than thinking. And, I guess to them, those of us who model thinking aren't excellent at all.

@AFTteach @lechianese #supportthecore because AFT took Gates' money. The kids better support it, or Mulgrew will "punch them in the face".
— Mary Porter (@mport84chemtchr) August 12, 2014

It's disconcerting, to say the least, that our unions have taken Gates money just as E4E has. As you saw in both the NEA and AFT conventions, leaders of both support Common Core, though at least NEA isn't punching anyone in the face yet.

Later today, NYC results will be released. A slight improvement is predicted, and this is to be attributed to more Common Core instruction. But the fact that the results are determined in advance, as they were last year, ought to clue any thinking person into the fact that the game is rigged. Gates poured millions and millions into it, and couldn't be bothered with research or testing before dumping it on our children.

Parents of young children are horrified by CC results, and don't accept Arne Duncan's idiotic remark blaming their children for the abysmal results of his Gates-sponsored social experiment. Actually, parents were supposed to throw their arms up in horror, and decide their public schools suck. As a result, they would have demanded charter schools and made Eva Moskowitz even richer than she already is.

Remember that when people spout nonsense about the implementation. The only problem with the implementation was that thousands of parents independently determined the tests were the problem, rather than their kids or their schools. When the Gates program didn't resonate as predicted, when people independently rejected it, that was a problem.

The response, rather than scrapping the miserable program, was to plod on with it, make excuses, and hope no one would notice it was the same untested, unproven crap. Uber-advocates Gates, Obama, Cuomo, and King send their kids to private schools where they won't be subject to this nonsense. There's no excuse for them pushing programs for our kids they deem unfit for theirs.

Remember that when hearing from Gates-funded shills who can't even come up with 140 characters to push this nonsense. And remember, when our union leader needed an idea to push it, the best he could muster was punching us in the face and pushing us into the dirt.

We can do better.

NYC has woken up and come to its senses. After 20 years of GOP mayors who hated us and everything we stood for, the city has elected a progressive-minded mayor, a mayor who seems to value not only working people, but also the people who professionally serve the city. I went to see him speak in Brooklyn during the campaign, heard him say so, and have no reason to doubt his word.

We have a new chancellor, Carmen Fariña, who not only taught, but taught for decades. There will be no more talk about how tenure and seniority promote mediocrity, and no more fanatical ideologues in Tweed preaching privatization. Of course, no one is perfect, and Fariña has not yet come to her senses about Common Core. But she recognizes its miserable implementation, as does everyone on earth save those who actually implemented it, Reformy John King, Merryl Tisch, and their army of private interns who do not answer to we, the people.

The New York Post is horrified. De Blasio isn't opening any more charters! De Blasio may charge Eva Moskowitz rent! Gazillionaires may have to pay more taxes to support pre-K for the children of the bootless and unhorsed! I smile at every one of Murdoch's perceived outrages. It's about time we had a mayor who was concerned with helping our children rather than comforting the comfortable. Finally the UFT President has come around to support our new mayor's pre-K plan. AFT President Randi Weingarten, who once ridiculed the program, appears to have come to her senses as well.

Now Mayor de Blasio's prime obstacle is Governor Andrew Cuomo, self-described student lobbyist, who's helped our kids tremendously by funding most schools at a lower rate than six years ago. Cuomo's vision of saving the millionaires appears woefully inadequate. When you want to actually improve things, rather than simply give the appearance of doing so, you need to find a way to pay for said improvements. It appears the mayor, unlike the governor, has actually thought this through.

So we are at an impasse. We can follow the mayor and support his vision, or we can listen to our governor, the one who was elected based on promises of going after unions, and hope for the best. It's sad that a Democrat can run on a plank like this, but Andrew Cuomo is not fundamentally a Democrat. Like Michael Bloomberg, who overturned the twice-voiced will of the people to buy himself a third term, Cuomo is a relentless and unapologetic opportunist. His goal is to be President of the United States, and if that entails taking money from DFER and their sleazy corporate allies, so be it.

I'm glad UFT leadership has come to its senses and supported the mayor, albeit a little late. It now behooves us to stand up for what's best for the kids we serve. Unfortunately, "student lobbyist" Cuomo is not responsive to the public. For example, the public now opposes Common Core by a wide margin. Rather than stand up and risk the wrath of his corporate supporters, Cuomo has created yet another panel to study what we already know. Cuomo has seen fit to include not only a member of E4E, which in no way represents teachers, but also to have an IBM executive as chair.

It's pretty clear how much Governor Cuomo values teacher voice. When Reformy John King publicly declares public school parents and teachers to be "special interests," he offers not a whisper of rebuke.

But here's the thing--John King was right. We are most certainly special interests, and our special interest is the public school children of New York. It's an abject disgrace that neither John King nor Andrew Cuomo shares that special interest. But we will not waver in advocating for better education, reasonable standards, and developmentally appropriate treatment of our children.

If Cuomo and King do not share our vision, that's a shame. But it's not their job to agree with us. It's their job to help and serve us. And it's our job to make sure they do their job.

Intrepid Reality-Based Educator has the rundown on Governor Andy's Common Core panel.  I hear good things about teacher Todd Hathaway, who may perhaps counter the other teacher, E4E's Nick Lawrence. Presumably Lawrence supports whatever E4E's corporate overlords see fit. As someone who deals with real live teachers every day of my life, as someone who knows no teacher who supports E4E or its reprehensible policies, I find it outrageous that they get equal representation to that of real working teachers.

And yes, I know that Lawrence may be a working teacher but there is no way on God's green earth that his policies represent those of any more than a tiny fraction of teachers, particularly those of us encumbered with conscience. There are bright spots on the panel, like Linda Darling-Hammond, yet even she does not oppose Common Core. There is also Cathy Nolan, who was brilliant at the Grover Cleveland High School hearing, but who, alas, does not oppose Common Core.

I have not the foggiest notion how or why Michelle Rhee's brainchild, TNTP,  or even IBM represent the people of New York. I will grant they may represent, like E4E, the fine folks who funnel much-needed cash toward Andrew Cuomo's relentless ambition/ campaign funds. Senator John Flanagan, of course, is the man who sponsored legislation, on behalf of Emperor Bloomberg, to destroy seniority rights for NYC teachers only. (Perish forbid there should be blowback from the district the fine Senator actually represents.) It's acutely bizarre to see UFT boast of his inclusion on Cuomo's panel.

What can we expect from this panel? Will the one independently-minded educator be able to sway everyone else? Will they support a two-year moratorium on results from high-stakes testing, as some on the panel already do? And even if that comes to pass, how will that help parents with young children facing developmentally inappropriate tasks? Will there be any move to stop the idiocy from buffoons like Arne Duncan, who can't wait to slime suburban public schools and open up privatization opportunities for his BFFs?

And even if there is a two-year moratorium on teachers being judged by junk science, how have we determined that 2016 is a good year to initiate junk science evaluations? Isn't education something that ought to be based on reality, as opposed to the most expedient manner of enriching Eva Moskowitz? Isn't the optimal percentage of junk science in education precisely zero?

Personally, I find it borderline incredible I even need to discuss such things.

Sure it's barbaric to keep young children in padded cells. It's clearly a cruel way to treat a child, and it's very tough to see how that is not an abject violation of Chancellor's Regulations against corporal punishment and abuse. Of course, rules are for the little people. Were a UFT teacher to toss a kid in a padded cell, you'd better believe there'd be an investigation, and very likely a removal from the classroom.

But KIPP says they're gonna just keep on tossing kids into padded cells. If they can be believed, which given their ridiculous sense of priorities, I highly doubt, they've only tossed three kids into the padded cell so far. If, in fact, they've only used it three times, why on earth do they even need it? But let's say they're right.

It appears two of the three kids who they admit to placing in the cell are leaving their venerable institution. This means they're headed for public schools. So, basically, all KIPP needs to do to get rid of kids who are troublesome, or kids who don't get scores that make them look good, is to toss them into the handy padded cell. Then they'll be traumatized, their parents will pull them out, and the kids will go to public schools.

If there are problems with the kids, the papers can blame those awful unionized teachers who do nothing but complain. Not only is the KIPP school easier to manage, but whatever problems those kids have can be blamed on the public schools.

Legal expert Campbell Brown is all over the cases of teachers who've been vindicated, some of whom should never have faced charges in the first place. And yet, despite her feigned outrage over cases about which she knows little or nothing, she's spoken not a word about this. Where is her mysterious Transparency Project.

E4E and Students First and all the Astroturfers were out in force the other night, supporting Common Core, a program that's never been field tested anywhere. They were doing cartwheels in support of rating teachers via junk science, and even managed to get almost every speaking spot at King's forum the other night.

Yet they're also completely silent about this outrageous treatment of young children by a charter chain school. Public school teachers would never treat children like this. And never doubt for one moment who really places children first.

It is us, the parents and teachers of public school children, and we dedicate our lives to these kids. We don't take money from Bill Gates. We just love them. That's why we want the same treatment for our kids that John King buys for his, over at the Montessori school.