Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Why Mayoral Control Needs to End (updated)

Lets tell the public we are giving them what they want.
Small Schools= In the press release we will say we are creating more schools but not tell the public just where they are going to be. What we will do is shove the small school into an already overcrowded school thus creating the illusion of small schools. Give some students relief at the expense of the others. Same rule of thumb applies to charters.

Test Scores= Lets tell the public that scores are up, by eliminating certain groups from the average. We won't tell anyone we did that but in our big power point presentation we will tell them things are great and when confronted with the facts we will lie and make up data.

Parent Surveys= We will at great expense hand out surveys to parents asking them just what they think of the schools their children attend. Then we shall lump together categories so it looks like parents want more test prep and additional testing, instead of small class size which was overwhelmingly chosen as the number ONE priority choice of parents.

Friends in High Places= lets ask our friends to donate to the cause. Ask them for money for our schemes (experiments) give them a large tax write off and a pat on the back.

$80 Million= Wow look we have $80 million dollars you know what we can do with this to increase student achievement. I have the greatest thing Joel look it is a computer lets call it ARIS. Principals and teachers will go into training to learn how to input all this data so we can track what students are doing. What help they might need.
We don't need to put it in the classroom at all. Then we can use the data to get rid of teachers and principals by saying that they are not helping the students.
We won't tell the public how stupid this idea is. How Principals have complaints about not being able to access the system, how passwords don't work, how Principals are calling to complain that it is not working and that we just send them more support.

Children First= Lets call this initiative Children First so it looks like we love children. Then in the middle of the school year we will yank money from the budget and tell Principals to suck it up and don't complain about it otherwise the parents might become riled up. After all it is an insignificant cut and is not going to hurt.

When questioned= go on the defensive and tell parents to shut up and belittle them further by saying that they don't know what they are talking about because we are educators er I mean lawyers.

3 comments:

NYC Educator said...

If mayoral control doesn't run, I think our only hope is to draft you to run for mayor. It's about time we had a mayor whose kids attended public schools. Once that happens, they ought to improve rapidly.

Pissed Off Mom said...

A friend told me that I would make a good politician because I am passionate about my cause and I don't back down.
The very least we should have a Chancellor that understands the impact they place on the schools. Not just saying they do and doing what the hell they want.
The policies they make should directly effect their child and then maybe something positive would happen.
But what the hell do I know? I am only a parent after all.

JUSTICE not "just us" said...

And don't forget how Mr. Klein quotes Dr. King and other civil rights leaders from the past in this quest to destroy public education making it all seem like they are the true civil rights proponents of the present!