Now NYC is thinking about adding a Chicago-style reform to its school system by dividing the power between two school system leaders rather than investing total control in the chancellor.
Educators in Chicago say not so fast:
Chicago principals have a tip for New York: Pick one schools chancellor with education experience.
As state Education Commissioner David Steiner mulls whether to allow magazine executive Cathie Black to manage city schools with the help of a seasoned educator, Chicago principals who have a similar arrangement are advising against it.
"It's very difficult to have two people with such vastly different backgrounds and responsibilities [lead schools together]," Clarice Berry, president of Chicago's principals union, told the Daily News.
"We haven't had a superintendent in 10 years and we've found that it has been a mistake," Berry added.
"There's been no huge improvement in Chicago. It's not been the magic bullet people thought it would be," she said.
Chicago has an educator and manager share responsibility of the school system, a plan Steiner has suggested he favors for city schools. An advisory panel recommended this week that he not give Black a needed waiver to run schools, citing her lack of education credentials.
If there has been no huge improvement in Chicago then why, pray tell, are we using Chicago as the blueprint model for school reform?
And if there has been huge improvement in Chicago, why are we listening to the guy who ran Chicago schools and giving him the power to radically alter how the public education system works?
Just asking.
In the fascist corporatocracy, if Big Brother says something is effective,it's effective. Big Brother is also The Press, which is owned by the same small group of oligarchs. If The Press doesn't drone on about it, it doesn't exist in the minds of the people. Instead we get the constant electronic hum on Lohan, Kanye, and ESPN...this is what's important. Not that America is completely bankrupt, and owned by Goldman Sachs, and foreign powers.
ReplyDeleteSee Taibbi's Griftopia article in RS:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/222206
Yes, the Taibbi article is spot on and scary. And I TOTALLY agree with you about the bread and circuses aspect of the culture. I normally don't watch TV much, but I was watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving last night for an hour and the commercials on ABC were just completely offensive. All Disneyfied crap.
ReplyDeleteThe Press won't tell the people that we're responsible directly or indirectly for the slaughter of over 100,000 maybe close to 200,000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some were kids just like their Johnny or Sue. Their wonderful "Free" government is not much different than any other totalitarian regime, no better than Hitler.
ReplyDeleteThat all of the bling they have us addicted to like crack...things like Ipods, IPads, cell phones, designer clothes, and all this other crap is made by slaves in sweat shops in Asia, and that these slaves have replaced THEM as America's wage earners. And that these slaves only serve the oligarchs here that we're told to worship, people like Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates, and Calvin Klein, or whomever the hot designers are these days. IN actuality, these pimps are sweatshop operators of the lowest order.
What we get instead is will Derek Jeter "accept" 15 million dollars a year. Is Alex Rodgriguez with Cameron Diaz, or not? And, of course the nightly police blotter with all of the gore necessary to keep those eyeballs glued to the screen.
Keep them scintillated and petrified simultaneously, something like a roller coaster ride-all the while robbing them blind.
In this type of place, it's very easy to overlook the fact that Obama and Arne's education model has not worked anywhere, that they are completely bullshitting you.
See, if they can get away with The Big Lies, the rest is "small potatas"