Joe Williams' Blog
November 30, 2007
Mea Culpa: UFT Unfairly Bashes Mickey Mouse
Put this one in the "Grassy Knoll" file:
My recent tendency to stick up for teachers union leaders is biting me in the rump today. This morning I posted about UFT President Leo Casey's contention that he had been erased from the official registry of Disney teacher award winners because he organized a letter drive protesting John Stossel's Stupid In America.
I opined that it was a stupid move on the part of Disney. (I honestly couldn't understand why anyone at Disney would care at all what Leo's letter said.)
Continue reading "Mea Culpa: UFT Unfairly Bashes Mickey Mouse"....
Posted by Joe Williams on November 30, 2007 5:19 PM
Must Be Slow At Disneyland
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This post is based on facts which turned out to be completely bogus, and a mea culpa is posted here. I apologize for believing what I read on the official United Federation of Teachers blog by its Vice President. On behalf of DFER, I wish to apologize to cartoon characters everywhere for falling for the union's smear campaign.
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The UFT's Leo Casey has an amazing post over at EdWize about the decision that some thin-skinned Disney exec apparently made to deliberately remove Leo's name from the American Teacher Awards honor roll.
Leo, who won one of the awards for social studies in 1992, irked the Disney brass by organizing a public letter critical of ABC-TV's sponsorship of John Stossel's Stupid In America, which was very critical of the teacher unions.
How petty. Forget for a moment that the unions nationwide ended up providing a uniquely viral platform by which their collective anger effectively "promoted" the program to the average American who had never heard of it, this is just stupid.
If this is really a battle between Disney and Leo Casey, I have to say Casey wins hands down. What a stupid decision.
Posted by Joe Williams on November 30, 2007 9:21 AM
November 29, 2007
John Edwards on NCLB: Now and Then
Proud statesman in the Senate or a "hick" who doesn't know what's going on? You make the call.
This is what presidential candidate John Edwards said earlier this week in New Hampshire:
"That crowd inside the Beltway in Washington thinks they know everything. ... They think everybody else out here in the world - me included - we're just a bunch of hicks who don't know what's going on. Well, I got news for them: There's a lot of good, smart common sense out here in the real world. That crowd who thinks they know everything, those are the ones who said No Child Left Behind was going to be a wonderful, great panacea."
But this is what Edwards said about NCLB back in 2001, according to the Congressional Record:
Continue reading "John Edwards on NCLB: Now and Then"....
Posted by Joe Williams on November 29, 2007 1:37 PM
November 28, 2007
Hillary: The Education System Is Not Working
We have been extremely critical of the current crop of presidential candidates for largely failing to acknowledge the extent of our nation's education problem (much less offering interesting solutions for them) but our hat is off to Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking a giant leap for mankind on the education issue.
Speaking in South Carolina, Clinton issued a "put a man on the moon by the end of the decade" type pledge yesterday, promising to cut the drop-out rate for minority students in half within the next 10 years.
Yes, of course, there are all sorts of issues about details and how "drop-outs" are defined, etc. but unlike a lot of the education plans coming from people running for office at all levels, Clinton's starting point is based in reality. For a lone time, we Democrats, in particular, have refused to even acknowledge there is a problem - one of the reasons our education platform tends to be so impotent.
Listen to this remark from her press release:
"We know that the education system is not working when close to half of African American and Hispanic students will not receive high school diplomas with their class. Disparities in our education system mean poor and minority children receive an education that is often separate and rarely equal. And the consequences are devastating."
Amen! When we start by acknowledging the problem we at least have a shot at looking at possible solutions that come close to matching it.
Continue reading "Hillary: The Education System Is Not Working"....
Posted by Joe Williams on November 28, 2007 2:30 PM
November 26, 2007
Assemblyman Michael Benjamin: Friend Of Cupcakes
I've been meaning to post about this one for a while, but have been swamped with some of the fundraisers we've got coming up for elected officials: Jacob Gershman does a nice job writing up NY Assemblyman Michael Benjamin's quest to save cupcakes from the hands of fun-loathing educrats in Long Island.
DFER is a big fan of Benjamin's work and, cupcakes aside, we are thrilled to be working with him on education reform issues.
Posted by Joe Williams on November 26, 2007 8:39 PM
Klein To Teachers: Don't Worry, Be Happy
Hours before the UFT's candlelight vigil to protect the small numbers of really, really crummy teachers in the NYC schools, Chancellor Joel Klein sent the following letter to the city's 80,000 school teachers. (Best line, in my opinion: "I hope you have the same confidence in yourselves as professionals as I do.")
Full letter is after the jump.
Continue reading "Klein To Teachers: Don't Worry, Be Happy"....
Posted by Joe Williams on November 26, 2007 2:46 PM
More On Vigil To Protect City's Worst Teachers
I'm taking some ribbing from all sides on this post from over the weekend on the bizarrely anti- "quality public education" rally planned for this evening on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse.
One common refrain: The teachers union and its leaders don't really care about the issue but they have to make a public stink or the bad teachers will get angry and then all hell will break loose.
OK, but then we are supposed to assume that Randi Weingarten was winking and nodding when she said in this morning's newspaper that she had been beseiged by an "avalanche" of complaints from bad teachers who worried that their jobs might be taken from them?
It sure sounds like the UFT is serious.
Another: This really isn't that big a deal, since the city always has had teams of lawyers trying to get rid of incompetent teachers, that the vigil is just a little sideshow, etc.
Why do I think this is a big deal? Tonight's vigil, whether or not it is bogus, has the potential to shine a spotlight on a shocking level of dysfunction that pervades our city's education system that makes the New York Knicks look like a smoothly-run operation. If the public ever clues in on the fact that so much time and attention is spent dealing with all these bizarre cases involving the (extremely small) subset of ineffective and just plain wacky teachers, it doesn't exactly help the franchise.
I'm not exactly sure why the UFT wants to let the public in on the dirty little secret it helped create.
Meanwhile, the noose is tightening around public education's neck. The NY Observer, for instance, is accusing Weingarten of being in the "job-protection racket." Uh, yeah, that's sort of the point of paying dues, folks.
Make sure you bring an umbrella tonight, folks.
Posted by Joe Williams on November 26, 2007 11:25 AM
