I won’t say anything else about Joel Klein or the new corporate toady who replaced him, because unfortunately, allowing large urban school districts to be run by know-nothings from the business world isn’t news. But this video from GEMNYC demonstrates what his role as Chancellor was really about: destroying public schools, instead of supporting them. The manner in which school communities were targeted (often on the basis of faulty Data, when an attempt to justify the decision was even made), labeled, shamed, and slated for destructive action is sadly very familiar, especially here in Denver. When will we learn?
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Failing Schools
Thanks for sharing…LOVE IT!
Join parents, students, and teachers nationwide as we prepare to march in Washington in July.
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All so true. Bloomberg, Klein, and now Black are intent on destroying not only public education but also special education. We are presently in the middle of another fake reform of special education. If a high incidence student needs a program that his/her present school does not provide–tough. Schools will no longer be able to place a child outside of the school even if the program does not exist in his/her school. Instead, all the student will be able to get is a reconfigured part time service. It is one size fits all. What will happen? Sophisticated parents will go to impartial hearings and get a nonpublic school at public expense while less sophisticated parents will be forced to deal with less than adequate public special educational services.
@ the 3:45 mark–“cited”, not “sited”. Anything involving education should be spelled perfectly. Thanks!
I noticed it as well, but it’s not my video 🙂
As a recovering grammarian myself, I get where you’re coming from. But I do think that it’s more important that the meaning comes across than that everything be spelled & rendered perfectly. The point of language is to convey meaning, not to be perfect according to a given person’s or group’s set of standards. If the speaker/writer does that, then that’s what really matters.
I watched speaker after speaker get up and plead to save schools. Almost no one spoke in favor. I sat an entire night in one school auditorium and heard not one word of support for Klein’s people. They’d sit and look at their Blackberries under the table, trying desperately to ignore what they were supposedly there to consider.
Then they left, ignored everything they’d heard if indeed they were listening, and did whatever Joel Klein told them to do. It was maddening to see so many parents, teachers, clergy and community members roundly ignored by a government that clearly didn’t give a damn about them.
This year we’ll see much more of the same, but first they’ll pretend to listen to people at a community level so as to preclude future lawsuits from the union. The new so-called chancellor will make no difference at all.
I don’t know where to post this, but I just read your brilliant essay in Huff Post entitled, “What Does It Mean To Be Well-Educated?” I have posted it everywhere I can think. I don’t often see the phrase, “habits of mind”, but I think that is a beautiful and elegant way of describing one of your three purposes. It is a sunny November day in Michigan, and your essay just made it better.
Thanks! I’m glad you appreciated it 🙂
Answer this question for me. What rational reason is there for a “large urban school district?”
Why do these entities even exist?
Next up, what purpose does a school district even serve, other than to employ people (a lot of people) other than those who actually educate children?
The existing system can’t be reformed, and frankly doesn’t deserve to be, even if it could.
There shouldn’t be any Joel Kleins or Michelle Rhees. There should be 100% equal funding of every child, and that funding should follow that child to any educational product or service that meets that individual child’s needs.
The moment you allow for a “district,” you allow for an education bureaucracy, not an educated populace. Look at the divisions, anger, greed and waste created by these worthless entities. They can’t be part of any rational solution. The ARE the problem.
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my
comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not
writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to say excellent blog!
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/att-accuses-employees-of-using-malware-to-mass-unlock-phones/