Saturday coffee.
Another nice autumn weekend.
We had our first of three evening parent conferences on Thursday. Two more next week. They make for a long work day, especially in the art room. Only a few parents make their way down to my room. But we get the full week for Thanksgiving, so I’ll manage this coming week just fine.
Whitney Tilson breathes a sigh of relief over NY hedge fund managers’ acquittal.
Mike sent me this Youtube video this morning. Whitney Tilson, a hedge fund manager and major backer of Democrats for Education Reform, just loves vouchers, charters and the whole privatization school agenda. When two of his comrades on Wall Street beat the rap last week in a trial by jury, Whitney says he breathed a sigh of relief. He explained that on Wall Street there’s a thin line between being a criminal and doing everyday business. No kidding.
North Carolina principal resigns in test score selling scandal. Duncan next to go?
North Carolina principal, Suzie Shepherd, “retired” after being caught in a scheme where students could buy test score points by donating money to the school.
Shepherd explained, “I did it because I thought that funding schools based on test scores was the new national policy. Isn’t that what the Race to the Top is all about?”
Actually I made that last quote up.
Sweeping inconvenient evidence under the rug.
Leave it to Debbie Meier to observe the obvious and say the truth.
President Obama’s message throughout the campaign was a reiteration of the concept of the “common good,” at a time when we were experiencing the impact of a society built around “the more I get, the better.” But I agree with you, Diane. What we’re hearing now is rather different than what we expected. Neither Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s failure in Chicago, nor the mayor’s in N.Y.C., nor Michele Rhee’s in Washington, D.C., are on the table; it’s as though we can sweep that inconvenient evidence under the rug by a constant repetition of good PR.
