Shameless.

Here is some truth: Every time some bureaucrat, administrator or principal comes up with some hair-brained scheme, they will justify it as being for the kids.

In fact, I will go a step further and say that if one of the above says what they are doing is for the kids, lock the kids up for their own protection. Something stupid is about to begin.

It’s like a dog whistle any teacher can hear.

A teacher will tell you this is true. A teacher can smell a dumb plan a mile away. And any teacher knows what will happen if they express disagreement.

Because the corollary is that if you disagree with their hair-brained scheme, you are not for the kids. For the status-quo. Afraid of change. Not good about moving the cheese.

And the newest one: You care more about adults than you care about children.

Shameless.

CPS CEO J.C. Brizard was not constrained.

The proposal to close more than a dozen Chicago schools was for the kids. Board members even proclaimed that closing schools was cause for celebration.

And those like Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Paul Jakes, Karen Lewis and a thousand parents who showed up at the board meeting to speak against the plan?
Not for the kids.

Sun-Times:

Union members and other critics say the resources put into “turn-around” schools built on the ashes of those the board closes should instead be spent on improving the failing schools.

Brizard said during the 3½ hours that parents and community activists addressed the board Wednesday, most of them pleading with board members not to close or reconstitute 17 schools, he never heard any of them mention students.

“Not once at the board meeting did I hear anyone talk about children,” Brizard said. “I kept hearing about adults. I kept hearing, ‘Don’t close my school. Don’t do anything.”

Not one mention of children?

“I don’t remember hearing that,” Brizard said. “I kept hearing other kinds of things about ‘Don’t displace people.’ Parents came in and said ‘Fix the schools.’ ”

Actually, some of the speakers said, video shows the speakers mentioned children over and over again and some students themselves spoke, arguing the closings would not help them.

The man is shameless.

Sunday links.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson wants an end to mayoral control of the Chicago schools.

In Chicago we get to vote on who runs the water reclamation facilities. But not for those who run our schools. Jesse Jackson, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union plan to change all that.

Here are five reasons why the NY teacher ratings can’t tell you much about teacher quality.

Media hog, Michelle Rhee, won’t talk to USA Today. Why not?

My brother Mike is no mathematician. But he thinks he knows what average is? However, they seem to do math differently in the NY DOE.

The problem isn’t that teachers have lifetime tenure. The problem is that politicians do.

Election day’s coming, so, naturally, I get a mailing from the Democratic Party, telling me who to vote for. Not that I’m going to be heeding their endorsements, even though I’m a lifelong Democrat.

I know, it’s confusing—more like a cry for help.

So let me explain….As you know, it’s written in my genetic code by my New Deal-era parents, that I’m prohibited under any circumstances from ever, ever voting for a candidate of the Republican Party.

As long as Rick Santorum’s in it. And Newt Gingrich. And the new Mitt Romney—as opposed to the old Mitt Romney. Actually, I’m not so sure about him either.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, I have a soft spot for. Except for the gold standard thing. And the opposition to the Civil War. I tell you, people, the man’s got a weird thing about the Civil War. Other than that—what a guy!

Anyway, the mailing from the Democrats….

Headlined “a new day is dawning,” it goes on to endorse a long list of incumbents, as well as Mayor Daley’s nephew.

So much for the dawning new day.

On the inside is a color glossy picture of our favorite mayor—Rahm Emanuel. That caught me by surprise. I didn’t know Mayor Rahm had returned to the Democratic Party. Must have happened when I wasn’t paying attention. Ben Joravsky

“It’s time to march again.”

At the Saturday morning meeting of Operation Push, the Reverend Jesse Jackson said that in response to the decision of the Chicago school board this week to close or turn around more than a dozen schools, “It is time to march again.”

Sun-Times:

The participants in a panel discussion, which included Jackson, his son Jonathan Jackson, who is Rainbow/PUSH spokesman, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, PUSH Education Director Janette Wilson, and Jitu Brown of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, argued that the failing schools had been set up for failure by the city and the school board and that CPS needs an elected, not appointed, school board, which would be more accountable to parents, teachers and the community.

Jackson, who after the decision by the CPS board said PUSH is contemplating filing federal complaints over resource disparities in the schools, as well as examining legal and legislative ways to bring Chicago an elected school board, told the crowd, some of whom were wearing CTU T-shirts, that “it’s time to march again!” He also said it was time for “litigation (and) demonstration.”

Lewis said the “vast inequities” in resources given to schools in the city amount to “sabotage” of the poor-performing schools.

She also said “there is a bias (in City Hall and the CPS board) against black and veteran teachers,” in part, at least, because of their higher salaries.

Those on the panel claimed that closures and turnarounds of poorly performing schools have not been proven to work better than the alternative of keeping the schools open and directing more resources to them. Brown, who is also a local school board member at Dyett High School, now due for phase-out, said the CPS board isn’t interested in research that shows “closing schools produces negative results.”

“They are intentionally destabilizing schools in our communities. Dyett has been the poster child for academic sabotage,” Brown said.

“They need to stop labeling our children as failures,” he said, noting that the children he knows who atttend Dyett are intelligent and “have a light in their eyes” when it comes to their education.

“Chicago Public Schools are actively working to diminish that light and we will not stand for it,” Brown said.

Saturday coffee.

Cartoon: Paul Schickler

The coffee just seemed extra good this morning. Maybe because it is so cold out.

Everyone seems to be blaming themselves for the wet sloppy three to four inches of snow that came through the north side of the city on Thursday. They blame themselves because everyone has been talking about how there has been no snow this winter. It amazes me that normal, rational people think that if you talk about something it actually has an impact on nature.

Then there appears to be normal, rational people who think that if you keep closing schools, schools will get better.

That’s what was explicit in the Chicago school board’s vote this week.

“This is cause for celebration,’ said one board member.

Did they notice that nobody was celebrating?

Rahm couldn’t even find somebody that he could pay to celebrate.

“Chicago is Little Rock, 1957,” said the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

That doesn’t exactly sound like a party theme.

Speaking of celebrations, my principal walks into a grade level team meeting this week and says, “Oh. By the way. I’ll be at Monday’s board meeting. They’re honoring our school for doing so well on the ISAT tests.”

Okay. Truth be told, even if she announced this on the intercom there wouldn’t be dancing in the hallways.

ISATs are mainly an instructional interruption. Not a source of information. Or a reason to celebrate.

But she didn’t think that the staff should be informed that the board was recognizing our building’s teachers?

No teachers would be invited by her to attend.

Have you ever found out about a party that you really didn’t want to go to, but were pissed off that you weren’t invited?

Monday night at the board meeting.