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Friday, February 28, 2014

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Byrd-Bennett goes postal. Boycott movement grows.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Byrd-Bennett goes postal. Boycott movement grows.:



Byrd-Bennett goes postal. Boycott movement grows.



Nice flight down to Austin this morning. It seemed like half the plane (slight exaggeration) was filled with Chicago, NPE Conference goers.  Hilarious -- there was $8 Wi-Fi available on Southwest and next thing I knew everyone on the plane was checking in on FB. I wound up sitting next to old friend Mike Charney, former Pres. of the Cleveland Teachers Union. Thanks Mike, for making the flight seem a lot shorter.

News out of Chicago is both grim and hopeful. Grim because schools CSO Byrd-Bennett has gone postal over the growing teacher/parent ISAT test boycott. She is threatening to yank certification (end the teaching career) of any teacher who takes part in the boycott or even (get this) "any employee who encourages a student not to take the ISAT or who advocates against the ISAT on work time." The Mayor wasted not time is backing up this idiocy, telling the press, "CPS simply cannot allow teachers to do their own thing."

In the words of the late Warren Zevon, "Send lawyers, guns and money. The shit has hit the