Friday, January 25, 2013

The Ed Deform Movement Post-Bloomberg

The Post sends out the alarm:

Three mayoral wannabes are now openly promising to perpetuate failure in the schools. That’s right: Ex-Comptroller Bill Thompson, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and current Comptroller John Liu are vowing, if elected, not to shut failing schools.

They’re also pledging to make it harder for good schools — i.e., charters — to open.

No joke: Shutting schools is “an admission of failure,” Thompson says, vowing to ban the practice. Better, we guess, for folks to just hide their eyes, admit nothing and keep depriving kids of a decent education.

Love the straw man arguments they use.

Closing "failing schools" is always a good thing.

Nothing about how the city failed to support those schools or used them as dumping grounds when other schools were closed or systematically set the schools up for failure so that Eva Moskowitz or some other charter entrepreneur could have the space.

There's never any nuance in the Post or News editorials - it's always, shut the schools, stick charters in them, fire the unionized teachers and hire non-unionized ones.

That most of the "mayoral wannabe's" seem to be stepping back from those policies seems to scare the ed deformers.

Now I am under no illusions that whoever replaces Bloomberg won't be bought off by the hedge fundies and begin to pursue ed deform-friendly policies.

But you can see how scared the ed deformers are, because even if they are able to buy off whoever replaces Bloomberg, he/she won't be the true believer of the "Shut Schools/Fire Teachers" philosophy of education that Bloomberg is.

The ed deform movement has been very spoiled here in Bloomberg's NYC, and suddenly they're realizing that some of the gravy is going to come off their gravy train.

You can bet the propagandists at the News and Post (and Times too, for that matter) will work extra hard to sell their straw man arguments for ed deform policies.

The shrillness has already started - look no further than the b.s. in this Post editorial.

6 comments:

  1. I wish I could share your optimism, but while the next Mayor may not be as openly contemptuous of teachers, in the unlikely event that they might actually depart from so-called education reform orthodoxy, someone from the Partnership for NYC or some such power center is sure to give him the, "Look, Sonny Boy, this is how the world works" speech.

    In other words, things will continue to worsen until students, parents and teachers are in the streets together, refusing to be compliant.

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    Replies
    1. It's funny I was thinking of you when I was writing this, Michael, and I was thinking that you would comment on this post in the exact way you did. And I was thinking that you are right in what you are saying about this too. But then I was also thinking about all the shrillness that is emanating from the deformers as the sun starts to set on the Holy Roman Bloomberg and I started to think that while the deformers can probably pay for the same policies post-Bloomberg, they won't be able to pay for the same anti-teacher, anti-union vitriol that Bloomberg hs for us. And it's as if the Posties and the Daily Newsites and the Timesmen are upset that even if the policies don't change, the level of animosity will. This seems to disappoint them greatly. They don't just want to win on policy. They want to obliterate us, humiliate us, drive us into the dust. It's really disturbing, that they need that as part of their "victory". But they seem to need it.

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    2. Yes, they do need to crush and humiliate us, for we're all that's standing between them and those trillion dollar (nationally, measured over years) budgets.

      And the Bil De Blasio's - though, should he become Mayor, I imagine he'd be marginally better than Blomberg - of the world will do nothing about that.

      Delete
  2. Anyone else notice howthe Post has basically shut down the abililty to post responses to their hateful nonsense except through email?Apparently they were getting some responses not to their liking and changed policy accordingly.

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    Replies
    1. And I'm sure they read those emails...NOT!

      I guess that's one way to live in your own bubble. FOX News does it too.

      Delete
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