Yeah, the DOE does seem to be run by a bunch of imbeciles. So purports Chaz when he wrote about former Beacon High School science teacher Anna Poole. Anna Poole, you may recall, set several students ablaze in 2014 in a science experiment gone awry back in 2014.

Personally, Anna Poole used the resources available to her, as is her right, to keep her job. I do not have a problem with that. However I do have several issues.

If she had been a tenured teacher would SCI have gone harder on her and not left her discipline up to the chancellor? If this had been a tenured teacher is it not fair to say that E4esaid teacher would not only have been brought up on 3020-a charges but possibly criminal charges as well?

According to a commenter on Chaz's blog there were some irregularities in her right to representation. Is this not a right as teachers that we see as inalienable?

Again, Mona Davids (She's still around????) has to stick her ignorant nose where it should not be and as always without having full information to base her inane comments on...

“I think that’s outrageous and ludicrous. It’s actually insulting, but it’s typical DOE. That’s what they do, reward poor performance.”

Mona, while not condoning nor condemning Anna, there is a difference between an accident and poor performance. Mona claims she she's smart. Prove it.

The way the Daily News implied that she got rewarded with a raise...

...currently makes a $79,484 a year — up from $56,048 on the day of the explosion.

No, she got was was contractually due her. That is it. 

What I want to know is if Anna Poole has a rabbi within the DOE. Why did she get a nice cushy gig within Tweed? How did she get it? Why did she get it? I have speculated that she must be with Educators 4 Excellence or Teach for America. Maybe she's Teaching Fellows?

I have no problem with what Chaz wrote. I disagree with him somewhat, but I respect his opinion. What he wrote was on his blog. He was not going to the, for lack of a better phrase, through the MSM to bash a teacher (yeah, I know. I have done the same, but only to TFA, E4E, and other rats. Poole, as far as we know is not a rat). Chaz did not have to go through a reporter. He was adult enough to do it on his own. Some weren't.

It pained me to see another teacher, a teacher who purports to claim to be on the side of teachers, playing both sides of the fence.

Too many teachers have been brought up on BS charges for leaving pee on a toilet seat, to carrying a cup of coffee, to leaving the toilet seat up, to not passing gas according to the way mandated in Chancellor's Regulations.

I have no problem with Anna Poole staying employed by the DOE. I have a problem with how the DOE kept her. There is something just not right about this "promotion."

So Unity/UFT has a new pal in E4E's Michael Loeb. That's nice. It's always nice to have a pal. But a pal is not one who had knives out to destroy your profession and the teachers one claims to represent.

I will give Unity/UFT a kudo. They have yet to throw ATRUnitys completely under the bus. That day may come. They have come close. Unity/UFT have enabled the crap, either by design or neglect, ATR's are suffering through. But however small, ATR's, still have some voice. Maybe I am being kind?

But why pal around with E4E's Michael Loeb and allow him to play a prominent role in a DA or any type of UFT activities? Why would Unity/UFT be pals with someone that wants to destroy the careers up to 2,000 members who have done the pal no harm?

Unity/UFT has a short memory. Let's go over something. Michael Loeb no matter how you slice it is a card carrying member of Educators 4 Excellence. E4E's existence is predicated on destroying the teaching profession from within, whilst funded and supported by, Bill Gates, The Walton Family, Whitney Tilson and all the corporatist edtards and ediots out there.

Sure, let let the E4E wolf into the UFT hen house. Of course, nothing can go wrong.

The Crack Team came across what we here at SBSB consider nothing more than a death warrant for ATRs written as a policy paper back in May 2014. In essence E4E supports (Read it here on page 7)....

"Two hiring cycles strikes a balance between providing a fair opportunity for teachers to find a new teaching position and at the same time provides schools and the system the autonomy they need," said Jonathan Schleifer, executive director.

Yes, I know, that was written four years ago. Doesn't matter if it was four years or four hundred. This was, and still is, E4E's official policy. Yet, not only is E4E invited to the dance it gets to dance with, and probably go home with, Unity/UFT.

Yet, the "Loyal Opposition," MORE/New Action, continues to get shot down and shat upon at every Exec Board meeting and DA. MORE/New Action have have time and time again put their money where their mouth is. Whether or not you agree with their tactics they have been there time and time again for the teachers and communities of New York City.

If MORE/New Action are the "Loyal Opposition," what then is Michael Loeb and E4E? The "Disloyal Pal"?

E4E has shifted gears and basically put on some lipstick and tried to make itself look pretty. But lipstick on the E4E pig still makes it an E4E pig.

It is time that E4E lay down it's cards and show it's colors. It is time to renounce and retract it's statement of May 2014 concerning ATRs. It is time for Michael Loeb at the next DA to publicly announce his support for ATRs and denounce Unity/UFT for the way ATRs are being mishandled across the city.

No one will be holding their breath. 

 On February 6, Norm Scott over at his blog Ednotes posited some possible type of cooperation Educators 4 Excellence and Unity/UFT due to, well let's read Norm's words...
between

The resolution described below never came up at the meeting as there was a 6PM adjournment. No one from E4E handed out the reso but a stack was left on the UFT lit table, which we are always told is a no-no - they say they only want official UFT lit and if we try to leave Ed Notes or MORE lit there we get a hassle or even an attempt to throw the lit away.

This goes back to a DA in which an E4E hack, Michael Loeb, science teacher and chapter leader at the The Urban Institute Of Mathematics, put forth a resolution about restorative justice before the assembly and was received in a favorable light by the Priests presiding over the DA.

I have written about Michael Loeb in the past (here and here). But it appears that Michael is nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing. What or who is Michael Loeb?

Michael is a big macha (He's the treasurer!) in the E4E hierarchy as we can see here in the financials for 2016 of E4E. Does Unity/UFT know about this? Do his colleagues at UIM know about this?

Michael also seems to have passed muster with Unity/UFT in that New York Teacher felt Michael was a go to guy for a quote. Maybe the UFT knows of Michael's loyalties? Maybe it doesn't.

I am sure Campbell Brown and her crew at The 74 are well aware of Michael's loyalties. Michael was featured prominently in an article on Campbell Brown's teacher hating website.

One can question Michael's loyalties when a colleague of his at UIM that served our country admirably in the Marine Corps was besmirched. Funny how Michael wasn't quoted in this fray. (At press time The Crack Team is not sure if Michael was the CL at UIM at the time).

Heck, Michael make one wonder about the truth behind E4E's financials when he posted this plea for monies needed for E4E (Yes that is Michael doing his best Les Nessman imitation).

Michael claims (boldface mine)....

....E4E, with our over 10,000 New York and 16,000 national teachers, we take action to improve public education by meeting with elected officials, running for union leadership positions, and advocating for our education policy proposals to improve local schools. 

But what is worse, is Michael has no problem posting photos of his students at UIM and personal information such as names on his personal Twitter account (Find it yourself. I will not give Twitter handle nor link to it). For shame Michael. Putting identifying information of a student on your personal Twitter account as well as students faces.

Sometime ago, when talk of UFT Solidarity was in its infancy I had had a discussion on what it's
name should be, where to stand on the issues, and even what the logo should look like.

Yes, there was this air of militancy and looking out for teachers, but that side needed (In my opinion) to be offset with what would this new caucus do for the communities of NYC.

The name needed to be education friendly and not appear militant. Even the logo should be professionally done and include those that we serve every day as educators. Remember, though this upcoming UFT election is about us as educators in the long run what is most important is how this election and its results will effect the communities.

Teacher abuse, teachers as ATR's, teachers resigning, testing, APPR, teachers sent to the rubber room, Common Core©, etc... can all be---and should-- what we as teachers are fighting against. But, we can take every issue and easily make it how it affects the students of New York City.


But it was not to be. This is not how autocracy works.

But this is not how UFT Solidarity works.

It just seems about revenge, Revenge to right some perceived wrong on somebody's part. Yes, there are many a teacher who has blindly joined UFT Solidarity and listened to the words of Harold Hill. Why not? Not when you are told all these lofty promises that are to come. Not when you learn how to FOIL. But a question remains. What does UFT Solidarity promise our communities?

Looking at the UFT Solidarity Jedi Council and Committees page (Before the ubiquitous cries of trolling, hey it's like watching a train wreck, you don't want to look but feel you must)  one can see many a committee listed.

These include; Member Support, Integrity and Corruption, Outreach and Social Media, Union Democracy. One can surmise this is taken from E4E, but no, E4E only makes you sign a loyalty oath at an event, not online.

I am a great believer in what effects teachers does trickle down and effect the students. We can and should fight for our rights, but in the larger picture (Such as in an election) we need as teachers to articulate how our right, or our lack of rights, effects the students system wide.

We as educators are not in a vacuum. We are in this for our students and the communities we serve.

We can't be in this for ourselves only.

For those that have not been paying attention of late there is a new faux education advocacy group in town.

OK maybe not new but we here just found out about them last week just before the ELA exams began. This group, High Achievement New York, is one of those so-called, "Hey we are here for the kids and the families of NYC and we are just regular people and are down with everyone else," groups.

HANY has even being playing radio spots on WCBS-AM and WINS coercing and lying to those that do not have enough information that testing really is not a major disruption and...well you know what? Let's look at the script together;

I’m  Pat Sprinkle, and I am a  New York public school teacher. If your son or daughter is in the 3rd through  8th grade,  I  want  you to know this month’s state assessments are crucial for their future. Almost two - thirds of our students graduate from high school without being ready for college or a career.  These tests are designed to fix that  – they’re a check - up to make sure all our kids are getting the  problem - solving and critical thinking skills need ed to succeed . It’s a great investment for your children  – the rules guarantee they’ll spend less than 1% of the their time on  the tests each year. Let’s give all  our students a chance at a better life. Because they deserve it.

Where to start? We can start with the fact that Pat Sprinkle is a loyal, card carrying member, of Educators 4 Excellence.

These tests do not measure problem solving nor critical thinking skills. These tests are only measure how confused and stressed out our students get.

Maybe 1 percent of students time each year is spent on taking the tests, but how much time is spent each year preparing for the tests?

But what bothers us most is while the voice over at the end of the radio spot tells the listener that the spots were paid for by HANY nowhere do we hear a voice over that HANY is majorly financed by the Gates Foundation, the same financiers that breech birthed E4E.

Yes to a lay person it might seem cynical to imply that Gates monies are pulling the strings. We can give the benefit of the doubt and say that Gates donated to a true grass roots organization. We can. We shan't.

The Crack Team did a WhoIs search of HANY's url (Web address) and came up with bupkus. The information the WhoIs came up with showed many a layer hiding the true owners of the web address. Why?

We then googled the telephone # we found on the HANY blog, 212-681-1380 and found out that that is the main number for Mercury LLC a public affairs/lobbying firm in Manhattan.  Heck, Mercury LLC is the public affairs firm for Campbell Brown's Partnership for Educational Justice! Mercury is also a registered lobbyist in NYC.

It gets deeper.

When The Crack Team spoke with someone at Mercury LLC (More on this in a bit) we shared the address of the blog. Immediately this person read the blog. When The Crack Team checked on the blog's stat counter and the ISP comes from another public relations firm Porter Novelli which is part of the Omnicron Group.

When The Crack Team spoke with VP of Mercury LLC  Jon Weinstein the first question we asked him was who paid for the poll that is listed on HANY's blog that New Yorkers across the state are in favor of high stakes testing. Jon told The Crack Team that MercuryLLC "commissioned the survey." This is akin to McDonald's commissioning a poll to find out which fast food restaurant has better tasting burgers, McD's or Burger King only to find out McD's is the better tasting burger.

We thank Jon for his honesty but for some reason asked that the remind of question be written out in an email and he will respond. He did. But first the questions The Crack Team sent;

1. Is it possible to get a copy of the survey that is being touted by HANY?  

2. HANY appears to be coming off as a "grass roots" organization. Why hasn't HANY shared information that the Gates Foundation is it's main funder in the radio spots or the fact Mercury LLC is the force behind HANY?  

3. How many of the coalition members know that the Gates Foundation is your main funder?  

4. Is there any official relationship between HANY/Mercury and StudentsFirst, Educators 4 Excellence and Campbell Brown?  

5. When 212-630-1630 is googled why does Campbell Brown's "Partnership for Educational Justice" appear in the listings?  

6. Have any of the people who did the voice overs for the radio spots receive compensation and if so how much?  

7. Who other than the Gates Foundation has funded HANY? 

8. Has Mercury LLC done any lobbying in Albany, NYC, or Washington on behalf of Gates, StudentsFirst, DFER, PEJ, Campbell Brown, E4E, and other such organizations?

Jon replied promptly; 

High Achievement New York provides New York parents, teachers, business and community leaders with an organized platform to support the Common Core standards, which are essential for preparing our children for college and 21st century careers. 

We are transparent about where our funding comes from and who our coalition members are.
Our funders are listed in this press release, posted on our website: http://www.highachievementny.org/high_achievement_new_york_announces_stephen_sigmund_as_new_executive_director

Coalition members can be found listed at the bottom of each press release on this page: http://www.highachievementny.org/latest_news.

We are proud of the work we are doing to make sure that all of New York’s children are advancing together and learning the critical thinking and reasoning skills they need for success.

Finally, no one in our radio ads was compensated for offering their viewpoints. We appreciate your interest in High Achievement New York.

Jon didn't really answer the question did he? We emailed him back several times and he has yet to respond to what we asked him. As a former reporter for NY1 surely Jon didn't like BS and obfuscation when it was done to him.

Is it just possible that part of reason thousands of students statewide have opted out is that we are sick and tired of astro-turf groups telling us parents how our kids should be educated? Interfering with our local school boards, our teachers, our politicians? 

Time to go away HANY and all the astro-turf groups out there. Leave our children's education be. WE THE PARENTS AND THE COMMUNITES know what is best. You don't. 

You know who are the biggest losers in this opt-out movement? The so-called "(de)reformers" and their faux grassroots organizations like StudentsFirst, Education Reform Now, Success Academy, Educators4Excellence and Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

The irrelevance and slow death spiral of DFER was seen by all last week when DFER New York director Nicole Brisbane was quoted in the Journal News as saying;

"Schools are one of the biggest differentiators of value in the suburbs. How valuable will a house be in Scarsdale when it isn't clear that Scarsdale schools are doing any better than the rest of Westchester or even the state? Opting out of tests only robs parents of that crucial data,"

It really is quite simple. Look at SAT scores. Number of students going on to 4 year colleges. Number of students going to Ivy League colleges. Visit the school. Ask neighbors. Graduation rates. Teacher turnover. Home values. Really, there are so many reasons. In fact Nicole fails to grasp what did Scarsdale do before there were high stakes exams?

But please, don't listen to Nicole. Nicole claims she was somewhat misquoted and only using Scarsdale as an example, that her real thoughts were in a blog post on DFER that she had written ;

"Part of the draw of the suburbs is the high performance of local schools. How will suburban communities maintain their draw if there isn’t a measure of how the schools are actually doing in comparison to those across the state?"

Nicole, see above. But we here at SBSB suggest to Nicole that if she is really concerned about how others can measure up to one another to take Chevy Chase's advice.

Nicole does decide to deride the parents of not only Scarsdale, but of all affluent communities as well when she says on the DFER blog;

"The same parents are opting-in for other standardized tests like the ACT (not mandatory), the SAT (also not mandatory) and the Specialized High School Admissions Test (also not mandatory but absolutely necessary if you want your kid to go to a “choice” high school in New York City). Affluent parents aren’t opting out of optional tests, so why opt out of the state exams? Maybe it’s because the results aren’t what they wanted to hear."

See Nicole does not understand something here (And of course we can go into the the multitude of flaws with testing but we shan't tonight). These tests are a choice one makes for their child. These tests are not forced upon parents by a bully governor, a clueless chancellor of the Regents, or a faceless bureaucrat. The parents have ownership of their child's education. Such as my son made a choice to continue his Jewish education after his bar mitzvah after telling me and my wife for years he will stop once he became a bar mitzvah. HE HAD OWNERSHIP!

However after the missed opportunity at a testing analogy Nicole decided that it would be best to charm the parents of Scarsdale and all affluent communities by sharing;

"That their kids, or their kid’s teacher or their beloved (Emphasis by The Crack Team) neighborhood school isn’t performing as well as they expected."

What Nicole fails to realize, as the Journal News as reported, is that the vast majority of affluent communities (For this post will use Westchester County), Scarsdale, Chappaqua, Irvington, Bronxville, Ardsley, had quite low opt out numbers. WAY TO WIN OVER PARENTS NICOLE! KUDOS!

If you are left wondering who is this expert in education that is gracing the pages of this award winning blog we will share what The Crack Team has learned.

Nicole Brisbane is a former teacher, now a lawyer, and shared with The Crack Team that she was a reading specialist for 5 years at Allapattah Middle School in Miami.

Oddly, according to this link she only taught two years at Allapattah before entering law school. Only two years? Well, if you read the headline of that link she was with Teach for America.

So how can we believe anything she says, even when she told The Crack Team she won Rookie Teacher of the Year at Allapattah and in fact raised the grade level of her students (Who were 4 grades behind at the time of her ascension at Allapattah 2.5 grades in the very short time she was there?

We can't believe her even though we requested several times for some kind of verification or conformation to her outstanding teaching and her award. Is her story truth or fiction?

But according to Nicole, the affluent, or shall we stray into reality, the "regular people",  or strating from the test because,

"The people who are opting out of tests are largely those who already feel like their child has access to a high-quality education, and are doing so in a way that directly harms poor and minority students throughout New York. We should be supporting students and teachers throughout New York, whether they are in Scarsdale or the Bronx, and making sure all students have a fair shot at a quality education. Rather than maintain the status quo where wealth determines a quality education, data can and should highlight where the gaps are so we can invest in schools that need it the most. High property values shouldn't determine the quality of education for the neighborhood--and the way we are going to change that is through access to data that will allow us to make investments where they are needed"

 And she shares some links here, and here. Big deal. Hey Nicole, let's see how the students from Success flame out when they hit college, much the way they flamed out on tests for the NYC specialized high schools.

Nicole this is why the opt out movement is picking up steam. We are fed up. We are fed up with Albany and Washington DC deciding what is best for our children and our school districts. We are fed up with millions going to testing companies like Pearson. We are fed up seeing our babies go through 8 hours of testing when a bar exam is only 3 hours. We are fed up seeing our children stress out. We are fed up with the narrowed curriculum. We are fed up with teaching to the tests. We are fed up with our narrowed curriculum. We are fed up with Common Core. We are fed up with a governor that pockets $4.8 million from DFER and others like it instead of fixing our poverty and having the state pay its fair share to ALL school districts.

Mostly we are fed up with people of your ilk. You and yours are the modern day carpetbaggers, just this time it is education that you and yours needs to control. You truly believe that since you taught for two years this gives you some kind of street cred when it comes to education and the welfare of our children. You feel that you must share "stories" on how you raised students 2.5 grades and were Rookie of the Year. Guess what? Joe Charboneau was AL Rookie of the Year in 1980. What did it mean in the long run? Nothing. At least Charboneau can prove he was ROY.

Put your skills to good use. Sell Amway.

The Crack Team after all these years has finally mastered the Flux Capacitor and inserted it into a
1977 VW Beetle. We had decided to travel to the future to see what would happen if Governor Andy got his way with the draconian measures (5 years for tenure, 50% of evaluation tied to state exams, 35% tied to independent evaluator, 15% evaluated by principal, giving great teachers up to $20k, and more charters) he has proposed.

Even though we needed a carburetor in the Beetle we took it out on the Sprain Parkway at 1AM to be sure we had a enough room to get it up to 88 MPH. It took a few miles to do it but we did! We hit a few time periods over the ensuing ten years to see what will become of education in the formerly great State of New York.

2017

Having forsaken a run for president the previous year, Governor Andy readies himself for a third term run the following year and a possible presidential run in 2020. The New York Post has just reported that under Governor Andy's new evaluation system, 95% of teachers are rated effective or higher in New York City and statewide the total is 97%. One hundred thousand teachers across the state were considered excellent and each were awarded $20k, however not one teacher accepted the cash incentive, or those that did, donated it to their school districts to make up for the millions of dollars that Governor Andy has withheld.

The independent evaluators that Governor Andy touted so turned out to be college students found through CraigsList and were making $12/hr. When the New York Time reports this, Governor Andy misinterprets the fallout and decides that in the future that unpaid college interns will be the new independent evaluators saving districts across the state millions of dollars.

Eva Moskowitz opened her first Success Academy in tony Bronxville tweeting that rich, spoiled, white kids need saving #dontstealivyleaguepossible.

Early 2018

Getting ready to run for a third term as Governor Andy is yet again disappointed with his new state of the art education reformed he had announced the previous year. He decries that now 97% of NYC teachers and 98% of teachers statewide are rated effective or highly effective. Having substituted the $20k teaching bonus with $5 gift cards to Arby's for teachers of excellence he soon realizes it is all for naught. Teachers do not like Arby's. Also Governor Andy has decided that 80% of a teachers evaluation is to be based on state exams (Ten percent both for the outside evaluator and principal) and that there will be a new level of effective teacher. It will be known as "Really super duper effective."

However, a month after this is passed in the legislature a scandal erupts. Apparently, Educators4Excellence has morphed into a religious cult and it seems all the unpaid college interns are E4E members and worship Little Evan Stone. Little Evan soon skips the country with the interns in tow and they all arrive in Jonestown, Guyana where no one ever heard from them again.

Faced with no outside evaluators Governor Andy decides that evaluators can be found huddled together outside of all Home Depot's and Lowe's and only need to be paid a day rate of $10 plus transportation and a slice and a Coke.

Eva Moskowitz has now opened up another Success Academy in Scarsdale calling the schools there failing because 5 students were not accepted at an Ivy and must settle for SUNY instead.

When asked about all these changes, UFT President Mike Mulgrew says, "Well it could have been worse. Thank God we have a seat at the table."


January 2019

Governor Andy ran for a third term in November 2018. In race against Republican candidate Senator Dean Skelos Governor Andy received 40% of the vote versus Skelos' 25% and write in candidate "Inanimate Object" received 34%. Sadly, Governor Andy mistakenly believes he has a mandate.

In his state of the state speech Governor Andy says enough is enough with the state of education in New York State. He threatens the assembly to pass his comprehensive education plan or they will face loss of bathroom privileges in the capitol building and will instead have to find a restaurant on Pearl St to relieve themselves.

He is upset because all teachers in New York State have been deemed Really Super Duper Effective. Henceforth he declared all evaluations will be based on 99.99% of state exams. Teachers will not get paid unless they can prove to an independent evaluator paid for by the state and hired though Pearson (Which has incidentally donated millions of dollars to Governor Andy in 2018) that they can answer every question correctly on a newly proposed yearly teaching licensing exam. If one question is wrong on the test the teacher will be immediately fired and his or her name and photo sent to the New York Post.

Teachers who miss two questions will be summarily interred along with their families to re-education camps sponsored by News Corp where they will learn to see Governor Andy as a deity.

Tenure has now been extended to 25 years of being Really Super Duper Effective.

Students will be tested (through a new $7 billion testing contract to Pearson) 2 times a week--Mondays and Fridays-- so progress can be checked weekly.

Teachers are quitting in droves. By June of 2019 all but one teacher in the Alfred-Almond School District has resigned or retired. Governor Andy will announce in July of 2019 that he plans to clone himself so that he and he alone, will teach all subjects in all schools across the state.

He soon dumps Sandra Lee and brings in Eva Moskowitz and his new consort until he finds out that she is just a heartless and soulless artificial life form.

He calls in the state police to arrest each and every member of the legislature. He declares martial law across the state and arrests all members every school district statewide.

Soon, alone and friendless, sitting in his den in Mount Kisco friendless he soon hears a knock at the door. It is the spirit of Mario. Mario does what he should have done years earlier.

They call for a taxi which takes them down 684 to White Plains. They head east on I-287 and get off at exit 8 and come to New York Hospital. Mario's spirit helps check Governor Andy in...for a very, very long stay.

Soon education is saved. Teachers return from exile. The sun rises again. The birds sing and most importantly, our children are back to learning.

Meanwhile at 52 Broadway, Mike Mulgrew when asked by reporters about Governor Andy's convalescing says, "I like him, at least we had a seat at the table."

By now we should all know who Errol Louis of NY1 and the Daily News works for. Not for truth, but for
those that distort the truth.

I at one time had thought the Errol was above the fray, that he had integrity and wished to give both sides of the education debate equal time. I will never forget when he had Julie Cavanagh on his NY1 show debating Little Evan Stone of E4E in 2011. I watched and felt that Errol had sifted through the BS of Evan and allowed Julie to give her side.

But lately he has become a shill of the deformers. A badly misinformed shrill. I guess this is par for the course for someone who grew up in New Rochelle, went to a great high school, went to Harvard, Yale, and Brooklyn Law, and mingles with the hipsters in Park Slope. Yes, Errol is just oozing educational cred. Do we dare say that Errol is an elitist?

Errol this past Thursday wrote a column for the Daily News in which he shows just how clueless and ignorant he is when it comes to education.

Errol blabbers forth; Thursday’s sure-to-be raucous education rally, to be held within shouting distance of the Tweed building and City Hall, is a timely reminder of a civic force that many of the city’s progressive leaders seem incapable of understanding...

We here at SBSB believe they understand it. These aren't the parents that are forming these protests, nor is it the communities. These protests are led by inane, self-absorbed, me first, **cough cough** EVA MOSKOWITZ **cough cough**. When we see these parents clamoring for a better education ON THEIR OWN ACCORD, as the people protesting for democracy are doing in Hong Kong, or the students in Colorado clamoring for a real AP social studies curriculum  in Colorado, then we'll talk.

Errol says; Wednesday’s speech by Chancellor Carmen Fariña, centered on an announcement that the Education Department will scrap the old method of assigning letter grades to individual schools, could be a step in the right direction 

We here at SBSB are proud of Errol for not flying off the shrilling from the mountain top like ignorant others over at Mona Davids Parents Union.

...but the administration appears to be dragging its feet on attacking the urgent problem of turning around schools that are badly broken

Broken? How so? Specifics. Real specifics. Yes, the test scores suck, but why? Is it just the teachers or is it the crappy curriculum teachers are forced to deal with? Is it the cycle of poverty and mental health issues that never get addressed that our students have to deal with every day? Is it crime? Is it a lack of funding? Is it a lack of leadership at Tweed and at the schools? Tell us Errol in your own words, using your own investigatory facts, WHY ARE THE SCHOOLS BROKEN??

While Thursday’s rally isn’t pushing specific demands, it’s clear the organizers are warming up for a battle to raise the current limit on charter schools in the city.

That's what it is all about. Not the broken schools, not the teachers, just more and more and more and more charter schools and more and more and more and more halves against the have nots.

But the main thrust of the gathering is to show that there is a large and vocal number of New Yorkers fed up with poorly-performing schools and impatient with the litany of excuses for why we can’t do better.

But Errol just said the rally was all about charter schools, so why is he contradicting himself? Again, is this movement organic? NO!

The chatter from those defenders on social media sites and letters to the editor usually includes talking points about how poverty is the true culprit

Yeah it is. See above, it is one of many. Think about this Errol. Take the teachers Albert Leonard Middle School in New Rochelle and switch them out with teacher from IS 162 on 149th and St Ann's Ave in the Bronx. What do you think will happen? 

But Errol has more to say on this and he feels he must insult teachers; Those old arguments, repeated year after year, have grown stale. Most airline passengers don’t know how to fuel and fly a jet or run an air-traffic control tower. But they do know when plane after plane is dirty and cramped, arriving late at the wrong destination and occasionally crashing.

This isn't fair. My cat can take apart this argument. But what the hell.

Please do not compare what teachers do to fueling a jet plane. Yes, these guys work hard and I am sure there is a learning curve, but really? Now, if we were compared to these guys fueling a plane than I might say, "touché."

But how about this? Does Errol want a pilot or an air traffic controller that has had only 50 hours and five weeks of training when he is jet setting around the USA? Doubt it. Does he want constant turnover of air traffic controllers and pilots? Doubt it as well. 

But his argument that the public does know when a plane is dirty or cramped or late has a lot to do with how an airline is run, yes, the MANAGEMENT! Why not then does Errol and his ilk kvetch about WHO IS RUNNING THE SCHOOLS? And Errol is being quite specious with his last argument. Seriously, how often does a plane land at the wrong destination? And crashes? How many crashes of American commercial jets have there been the last ten years and what is the ratio of mechanical vs pilot errors?

What Errol fails to point out is that the people who fly our planes, design our planes, and guide our planes have training in planes. Also, flying, designing and guiding is evaluated by OBJECTIVE MEASURES, not the whim of some untrained, irrational human being. 

Come on Errol, tell us all how to fly a jet, or guide a jet over LaGuardia, or design one. Yeah, I hear crickets too.

And let's not forget that pilots, air traffic controllers, and flight attendants are all proud union members.

Families for Excellent Schools, the group organizing Thursday’s demonstration, has compiled a number of damning reports 

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We know, and we care. But see above arguments. Again, FES is a front organization for FormelyMichelleRheeFirst. Yet refuses to put into context and show how it came to this statement; 

A school where nine out of 10 kids can’t proficiently read or do math does not simply ‘need improvement,’

A recent Associated Press report notes that the nation’s top 10% of income earners have increased spending on their kids by 35% in recent years — pouring a fortune into private-school tuition, bidding up home prices in districts with high-performing schools and paying so much money for extra help that some SAT tutors now make over $50 an hour.

SAT tutors are only making $50 an hour? I guess the ones making that kind of dough are getting hosed. But I will like to see this AP report. Where is it? But if true, I can guarantee that the parents sending their kids to private schools are doing it to keep the Common Core away from them, to keep them from testing, and for smaller class size. Why isn't Errol advocating for what parents really want? For what Errol wants for his own kids yet won't admit it to others. 

I used to have respect for Errol. I thought he was objective and can see and respect both sides. But he has drank from the Kool-Aid trough for too long and is useless. Nothing more than a shrieking shrill.

One more thing. The problems Errol is whining about are the same problems that permeated the 12 years of the Bloomberg reign. Where was he during those 12 years? Bought off by Bloomberg? 

Everyone's favorite ed deformer, Campbell Brown is back in the Daily News today sharing her thoughts on the op-ed pages. This time she is attempting a new tact, claiming she is not attacking teachers at all but rather tenure. Yeah, sure. Let's have a looksee.

Campbell blabbers; The tenacious New York parents who are challenging the state in court have one goal in mind: ensuring that all of our public school children have good teachers.

Wasn't it in 2007 that Sam joined the CEC? What did he do in those seven years to help get incompetent teachers out of schools. (People who work in schools know that thousands without the required skills leave each year.)

I understand that Sam was at the forefront of the DOE mob trying to lynch Francisco Portelos, but the issue there was never competence. We should look at Sam's record on the CEC to determine if tenure or teacher competence was ever an issue, or if this lawsuit is just another stunt to keep his political hopes alive.

Little Evan Stone from Educators 4 Excellence has a new mouth piece. He is Josh Goodman of the SKDKnickerbocker. Josh wrote a press release with the usual E4E propaganda deriding the New York State legislature from putting the brakes on the Common Core©.
communications firm,



So much wrong with this statement The Crack Team was roiling on the floor laughing that EMS came and carted them away.

The Assembly bill introduced late last night would unnecessarily delay the complete implementation of the Common Core©, undermining the teaching standards supported by the vast majority of teachers. 

Who are these vast majority of teachers out there? To paraphrase General Zod from Superman II; 

"Who are these teachers? Where are they?" 

Teachers also support a multi-measure evaluation system, but this bill would effectively eliminate the ‘multi-measure’ component of such a system.

Again, where and who are these teachers?  But elimination is a must.

Educators would be subject to evaluation and termination almost entirely on the basis of their principals’ evaluation.

So teachers want the junk science that according to Newsday is FUBAR? Teachers, art teachers, gym teachers, etc... wish to be evaluated based on test scores of students they taught and in subjects in which they do not teach? Well I'll be darned!

Students, teachers, and principals have enough on their plates this year.

Funny, E4E never ever mentions the other stake holders in education, the parents. How about talking to Yvonne Gasperino of Westchester County? Good luck!

When E4E convened a group of teachers lackeys, sycophants, the ignorant to discuss this issue

Fixed. 

This Teacher Action Team will release a set of recommendations shortly that will detail how to support the implementation of the Common Core© without gutting it.

The team is awaiting to hear from it's lord and savior Bill Gates. Wants Bill speaks from the burning bush to direct his minions then the team shall release his words-on two tablets.

We are hopeful that the legislature and the Governor will continue to move forward on these needed changes

Nah. The assembly and senate are scared right now. They are looking to save their political butts. Governor Andy's approval rating is down to 42% and in all probability will get destroyed in Western New York, Upstate, and Long Island...where it just so happens the fight against the Common Core© is fiercest. Westchester might just go for Rob Astorino. What does Governor Andy have left? New York City. Why do you think he put on that shameless display Tuesday? 

Come to Westchester County. Travel to Buffalo. To Patchouge. To Saratoga. The parents do not want anything to do with the Common Core©! It is time to wake up and see and smell reality.

E4E, Little Evan Stone and his babe Princess Sydney Morris are addicts. They can't see what this addiction to Common Core© and the junk evaluation system is doing to them. As everything implodes around them all they can do is think that just one more hit, one more score, one more explanation will fix everything and all will be better. Bill Gates is their dealer and Governor Andy is their co-dependent.

It's time those that care for them have an intervention and send Little Evan and his babe Princess Sydney spend time at Dr Drew's for a very long time.

As Dr McCoy would say about the state of the Common Core©, "It's dead, Jim!"

Not only is Little Evan Stone of Educators 4 Excellence gracing these pages now for the third time this month, but he is being joined by his babe, Princes Sydney Morris. Why is Little Evan so
newsworthy of late?

Forbes Magazine named Little Evan and Princess Sydney two the 2014 list of wonderful, thoughtful, fake, stupendous 30 people under 30 in Education or something like that. Rah-rah.

According to the Forbes writer, or the PR hack in the employ of E4E; In 2010, these two former NYC public school teachers and Teach for America alumni founded this teacher-centric voice for public and policy debates in education

The question has yet to be asked. And won't as long as a compliant press continues not doing its job with these two. 

Simple, was this organic or was it created by those with the money? Yes, we all know that official E4E canon claims that the group was birthed over a kitchen table and sprang forth from those meetings. But was the group put together by agents of Bill Gates, Carnegie Foundation, and DFER? Little Evan Stone is still silent on this,

 E4E encourages... debates in education, including teacher evaluations and the Common Core State Standards. 

Yes, debates only with those that agree with it and won't rock the boat. All signs of dissent are scrubbed or not allowed.

But worse, a 50's era loyalty oath is required to be signed just to go a meeting!! Where are the debates??

It now has 13,000 members nationally

Big deal.  Badass Teachers as over 36,000 members. Mark Naison created it on his own volition without any money or outside influences. We don't see him in Prevention Magazine 70 under 70 Educators. And, there is no loyalty oath, except a bizarre initiation ritual that left me puzzled.

Little Evan blabs; "The future of education is dependent on our ability to elevate the role of the teacher as a leader in our schools, districts, and policy making conversations."

So the top down method of education reform that is so prevalent and which E4E's benefactors are encouraging is supposed to give teachers a voice? APPR and Common  Core being crammed down our throats is giving teachers a voice? We do have voices. We have collective bargaining. We have 36k Badass Teachers. We have New York BATs.

The opposite has happened. Name one teacher, a real teacher not some Ivy League TFA hack who has only taught two years, that has been involved in the shaping of any of the education disasters of the last ten years. None. Actually, kind of proof for why we need real teachers making policy. 

The jig is up for E4E. I don't blame Little Evan and his babe Princess Sydney. Each day that the sun rises they are becoming even more and more irrelevant than they have ever been.

The tide is turning out there and Little Evan and Princess Sydney are deaf to what THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK STATE want! As long as they get what they want; fame, fortune, and Forbes, that is all that matters to them. These two are more shallow than the left field line in the old Polo Grounds. 

I participated in the picketing of statewide news organizations today, showing my moxie along with
my educational brethren at News12 headquarters in Yonkers.

A goodly amount of educators, parents, and most importantly---children---were out in the near Arctic conditions letting those employed by News12 how we feel about the lack of media attention to the plight of nearly 20 million New Yorkers.

In the course of the picketing, I met a precocious set of siblings. I forget their names but the brother is 10 years old and his little sister is 7. After speaking with them for a bit I wanted to put forth to them a hypothesis queried on  these pages discussed yesterday. "Is Little Evan Stone of Educators 4 Excellence dumber than a middle school student?" or in this case, "Is a 10 year old boy and his 7 year old sister standing outside in near Arctic conditions smarter than a Yale educated, 30 year old elitist named Little Evan Stone?"

We began the experiment showing the brother and sister team the video in which Little Evan Stone blabbered these words:

"We've been talking a lot abut the common core standards and the new teacher evaluation system, which should be two of her (Farina) big priorities."

It is an understatement that brother and sister were aghast. The both questioned how a man, well he appears to be a man to them, who professes to put children first would want to be involved in something so damaging to children. It was at this point that the experiment went into its final stages. We needed proof that these two children were smarter than Little Evan Stone. Will our hypothesis pan out? Let's see.

There you have it, two more people are smarter than Little Evan Stone.

Wake up Little Evan, smell what the people of New York State demand. You're about to become even more irrelevant.

I originally wanted to mock Thomas Friedman and his inane, flat column in today's Times in which he stated the obvious, but not enough, on education. Seems to us here at SBSB that Tom is flip
flopping and trying to ride the wave away from what he has been spewing the last few years.

But unlike Friedman, and I will give him points for running from what he has written in the past, is everybody's favorite elitist, Little Evan Stone of Educators 4 Excellence. 

Today, on E4E's Facebook page, Little Evan announced to the world two opportunities for Carmen Farina;

 


Yes, Little Evan Stone, who had taught for about 3 years, is about 30 years old, and has had everything handed to him his entire life, is telling Chancellor Farina who has been in education for over 40 years how to run the NYCDOE. That my friends is chutzpah.




Please take note that Little Evan appears at about 2 minutes and 10 seconds into the video. Eyewitness News education reporter somehow was able to track Evan down (Or was it the other way) and probably had to twist Little Evan's arm to get a statement of him. Little Evan thus blabbered threateningly to Chancellor Farina;

"We've been talking a lot abut the common core standards and the new teacher evaluation system, which should be two of her (Farina) big priorities."

Little Evan, isn't that boat sinking? Do you have any other ideas? Be they original or someone paying you to parrot their ideas?

Look around New York State. The tide is turning against the Common Core and soon will be against the APPR (evaluation system). Does not Carol Burris know more than you and your ilk when it comes to teacher evaluating?

But I don't blame you. You are the messenger in actuality. As long as you accept monies from Bill Gates you are nothing more than a dumb, mindless little boy that will do anything, say anything, or believe anything that Billy Boy wants. Of the two of you, he is the smart one (But that is like saying Moe is the smartest of the 3 Stooges). He is your boss.

Why would dumb down yourself for this man who has said in the past,"we won't know if Common Core will work for at least ten years"? Does it not bother you that our children, my child, my neighbor's children are being experimented on? How would you like it when Princess Sydney Morris pushes out a few of your reproductions and the boarding school they attend is experimenting on them? Would you like it? Probably.

There is a groundswell of outrage by the parents of New York State, and across the country, against the Common Core. Wake up. We don't want you or yours involved in our children's education anymore. We, the parents and the communities of this state and this great nation, wish to decide what is best for our children. And we have no place for a juvenile mouthpiece of Bill Gates telling us what is best.

The same with APPR. Why is something being foisted upon the teachers of NYC and New York State that has been an unmitigated disaster for Microsoft? Tell us all Little Evan, how is this benefiting our children?

But there is hope out there. Like the TV show that asked if you are smarter than a 5th grader in the same video as Little Evan, in fact just before he blabbered, there was a middle school student that showed she is much, much, much smarter than Dumb Little Evan Stone. We shan't give her name, but will share her quote. When asked by Art McFarland about her views of Carmen Farina and testing;

"She's trying to stop the tests because she doesn't think it's right."

When asked how she feels about testing, the little girl responds;

"I don't like it."

Sorry little girl, Little Evan Stone does not care about you. Little Evan Stone is all about himself, his babe Princess Sydney Morris, E4E, and most important, Bill Gates. The little boy and girls of NYCDOE mean jack to him.

Little Evan Stone just gets dumberized time after time.