California Teachers Form Statwide Alliance to Fight for Real School Reform | Diane Ravitch's blog

California Teachers Form Statwide Alliance to Fight for Real School Reform | Diane Ravitch's blog:

California Teachers Form Statwide Alliance to Fight for Real School Reform

Teachers organizations from across the state of California have formed an alliance to fight for genuine School reform.

CALIFORNIA: 8 Teacher Union Locals Unite Against the Trump/DeVos Agenda, Fight for Public Schools through Collective Bargaining, Community Power

United around common struggles and a shared vision, The California Alliance for Community Schools is a groundbreaking coalition of educator unions from 8 of the largest cities in California, representing more than 50,000 educators. The alliance officially launches tomorrow, Thursday March 23 and includes: Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association, Oakland Education Association, San Bernardino Teachers Association, San Jose Teachers Association, San Diego Education Association, United Educators of San Francisco, United Teachers Los Angeles and United Teachers Richmond.

All 8 unions are uniting around statewide demands, through local bargaining as well as legislation, for more resources in schools, charter school accountability, lower class sizes and other critical improvements. Most of the locals are in contract bargaining or are interested in organizing around these key issues. The alliance plans to expand to include other labor and community partners.

As California faces a statewide teacher shortage, school districts issued more than 1,750 pink slips for educators last week. Trump released his proposed federal budget, which slashes funds for disadvantaged children, afterschool programs, teacher trainings and other vital services. Trump wants to spend $1.4 billion to expand vouchers, including private schools, and would pay for it from deep cuts to public schools. Voters in California have twice rejected voucher plans.

“We are reaching a state of emergency when it comes to our public schools,” said Hilda Rodriguez-Guzman, an Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment member and charter school parent since 1994. “We must support and reinvest in public education. I join educators in the fight for well-resourced, transparent, accountable, and democratically run schools, at the bargaining table and beyond.”

All 8 unions will use the power of bargaining and statewide organizing to fight for:

Lower class sizes

Resources for high-needs schools and students

Shared decision-making at local school sites, critical to student success

Charter school accountability

Safe and supportive school environments

The first significant step is the launch of the bargaining platform and petition, which includes statewide demands and specific contract demands for each local union. The petition reads:

“As educators in large urban school districts across California we face many of the same challenges. We are particularly concerned about California Teachers Form Statwide Alliance to Fight for Real School Reform | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Charter schools in line to get extra help despite Trump plan to slash education funding | EdSource

Charter schools in line to get extra help despite Trump plan to slash education funding | EdSource:

Charter schools in line to get extra help despite Trump plan to slash education funding

Charter schools in California and elsewhere stand to be a major beneficiary of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the coming year, even though he wants to slash $9.2 billion from many other federal education programs.

Trump called for $1.4 billion in new funding for a “school choice” program that includes an increase of $250 million to subsidize tuition for private schools and $168 million for expanding charter schools. An additional $1 billion is for a program that would allow students to attend a public school of their choice, which could include charter schools. Trump has provided no details for any of these programs.

The extra $168 million for charter schools represents a 50 percent expansion of the Charter Schools Program from its current level of $333 million. The bulk of the funds are shared with states to support new charter schools. Two other grants within the program support the expansion of charter networks and facilities costs. The funds given to states can be spent on purchasing classroom equipment, such as laptops for students and desks, informing parents that schools are opening and training school staff.

Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, welcomed the proposed increase. “The charter school movement is grateful for the president’s support,” she said in a statement. “We applaud his commitment to providing critically needed funding for the Charter Schools Program. This funding will allow more high-quality charter schools to open, expand and replicate – and will help finance facilities for charter schools – so that more students have access to the great Charter schools in line to get extra help despite Trump plan to slash education funding | EdSource:

Bev Johns testimony before Illinois House Task Force on the future of special education. | Fred Klonsky

Bev Johns testimony before Illinois House Task Force on the future of special education. | Fred Klonsky:

Bev Johns testimony before Illinois House Task Force on the future of special education

In Illinois we are engaged in a great debate over the future education and also of special education.

It is nasty, as Illinois politics often are.

The special education administrators in Illinois (IAASE) are supporting moving away from direct and dedicated funding for special education teachers and instead move to funding based on the number of General education students and provide State funding for Response to Intervention.

I was one of only 3 people invited to present testimony on special education funding (one of the 3 represented private special ed schools).

Here is my testimony.   BHJ

——————————

Testimony of Bev Johns, March 21, 2017

Illinois House Education Task Force

Leader Currie, Spokesperson Pritchard, Members of the Task Force –

I am Bev Johns and while I serve as Chair of the Illinois Special Education Coalition, am Immediate Past President of the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois, and now serve as Chair of Professional Development for the Illinois Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), this testimony is personal.

As you may know each student in special education has an Individualized Education Plan (an IEP). I have chaired over 8,000 IEP meetings over 20 years for 22 school districts in a special ed coop just west of here.

Then, I did something relatively rare – I started a public school – a public school for children with the most severe behavioral disorders.

It was so successful, that I was asked to write a book about it, and I have now written 18 books mostly about Learning Disabilities (LD) and Behavioral Disorders (BD) but also on Alternatives to Suspension, and on Adaptations for special ed students in Bev Johns testimony before Illinois House Task Force on the future of special education. | Fred Klonsky:

Key Democratic senator outlines a case against school vouchers - The Washington Post

Key Democratic senator outlines a case against school vouchers - The Washington Post:

Key Democratic senator outlines a case against school vouchers

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a key Democratic leader on education policy, made her case against private-school vouchers in a 20-page memo to her Senate colleagues Wednesday, arguing that “school choice” sounds good in theory but falls short in practice.

President Trump has promised to pour billions of dollars into expanding choice initiatives, including taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a longtime advocate for such efforts, arguing that they provide poor children with life-changing opportunities.

[DeVos tells big-city school superintendents she believes in ‘great public schools’ — but some remain skeptical]

But voucher programs too often fail to hold private schools accountable for their students’ performance, fail to serve children in rural areas, and fail to protect the rights of students with disabilities and other vulnerable young people, wrote Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

School choice is a “false choice,” she wrote, arguing that the way to provide children with a better education is to invest in public schools instead of private alternatives. “The only true student and family agenda is one that delivers on the idea that every child, parent, and family should have the choice to attend a high-quality public school.”

Murray, a former preschool teacher, has a strong record as a dealmaker who knows how to reach across the aisle, and she worked with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to negotiate a bipartisan revision of the nation’s main education law in 2015.

But that spirit of compromise in education has evaporated in recent months with Trump’s election and his nomination of DeVos to serve as education secretary. Murray accused Alexander of ramming DeVos’s nomination through the Senate without proper scrutiny. When Republican lawmakers voted this month to overturn an Obama-era education regulation, Murray said they had chosen a “retreat from bipartisanship.”

Now, the debate over vouchers — stoked by Trump’s proposal to invest $250 million in a new federal voucher program, even as he seeks to slash other education programs and domestic spending generally — is shaping up to be the latest in a long list of polarizing issues in Washington.

[Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice]

Democrats generally oppose vouchers, while Republicans tend to support them. Alexander, chairman of the education committee, has said that K-12 vouchers are no more objectionable than the popular G.I. Bill, which helps veterans pay for tuition at the college of their choice, including at private and religious institutions.

DeVos has argued that vouchers are one strategy to make sure that parents have access to whatever school will best meet their child’s needs. “Every child is different, with varying skills Key Democratic senator outlines a case against school vouchers - The Washington Post:

Say NO to the unfair Common Core SBAC testing scam - Wait What?

Say NO to the unfair Common Core SBAC testing scam - Wait What?:

Say NO to the unfair Common Core SBAC testing scam

SBAC testing season is, once again, taking shape across Connecticut.  Rather than focus on lessons and learning, Connecticut’s public schools will be wasting massive amounts of time and resources on the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test.  It is a scheme that not only wastes time and money but damages education by artificially labeling and judging children, teachers and public schools.

The responsible course of action it to refuse to allow your children to be used by the corporate education reform industry and those that are committed to their destructive strategies.

Opt your students out by telling your school that your child will not be taking the Common Core SBAC test this year.

Change the Stakes, a New York based pro-public education advocacy group, provides Eight Reasons to Opt Out of SBAC testing.  Change the Stakes explains;

1. When students, teachers and schools are rewarded for high test scores and punished for low ones, the tests themselves become the focus of education. Class time is devoted to test prep, which robs children of their natural desire to learn.
2. The state exams test only two subjects: English and math. That encourages schools to give less time to social studies, music, art, world languages, physical education, and even science.
3. High-stakes testing undermines important learning. In its 2011 report to Congress, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed America’s test-based accountability systems and concluded, “There are little to no positive effects of these systems overall on student learning and Say NO to the unfair Common Core SBAC testing scam - Wait What?:

Learning Myths And Realities From Brain Science : NPR Ed : NPR

Learning Myths And Realities From Brain Science : NPR Ed : NPR:

You Probably Believe Some Learning Myths: Take Our Quiz To Find Out

This blog post has some pretty useful information. So print it out; get out your highlighter and take off the cap.

Ready? Now throw it away, because highlighters don't really help people learn.

We all want for our kids to have optimal learning experiences and, for ourselves, to stay competitive with lifelong learning. But how well do you think you understand what good learning looks like?

Ulrich Boser says, probably not very well. His new research on learning shows that the public is largely ignorant of, well, research on learning. Boser runs the science of learning initiative at the left-leaning thinktank the Center for American Progress. He has a new book out, also about the science of learning, titled Learn Better.

He recently surveyed a representative sample of more than 3,000 Americans to test their beliefs about common learning myths.

"We wanted to document this gap between public perception and good practice," he told NPR Ed. "In our paper we call it the, 'Been there, done that' problem. People went to school, so they have a feeling they know what good teaching looks like."

But in fact, public opinion diverges from reality.

If you want to test your own knowledge, take our version of the Learning Myths quiz here. Then come back and read the rest of this post.

Here are some of the most striking results:Learning Myths And Realities From Brain Science : NPR Ed : NPR:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rauner appointment of Vallas will take CSU from frying pan into the fire.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rauner appointment of Vallas will take CSU from frying pan into the fire.:

Rauner appointment of Vallas will take CSU from frying pan into the fire.

“When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty.” ― Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

If you want to see how disaster capitalism works in real time, watch for shock-and-awe Gov. Bruce Rauner to appoint Paul Vallas as head of predominantly-black Chicago State University.

Vallas may have cost Quinn the election.

Driven to its knees after years of corrupt leadership and deprivation of adequate funding by state leaders, CSU is now set up for privatization, dismemberment and final burial by a governor bent on destroying everything public in public education. And who better to lead the way to the academic graveyard than Vallas, the master of disaster himself?

If it was up to the voters, he couldn't be elected dog-catcher. Vallas, the faux Democrat whose selection as Pat Quinn's running mate was a major factor in Quinn's loss to Rauner in the gov's race, is one of the most despised figures in the field of education. As I recall, he even lost his own primary run for governor to none other than Rod Blagojevich. From Chicago to Philly, to New Orleans, to Haiti, to Chile, and Bridgeport, he has left chaos, and division in his wake.

His top-down, school reform approach, pushing so-called "choice", privatization and busting teacher unions, puts him on par with Trump and Betsy DeVos. 

His appointment comes at a time when his former partner in Synesi Associates, Gary Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rauner appointment of Vallas will take CSU from frying pan into the fire.:

L.A. charter school network defends its founder's 2013 income of $471,842 - LA Times

L.A. charter school network defends its founder's 2013 income of $471,842 - LA Times:

L.A. charter school network defends its founder's 2013 income of $471,842

Los Angeles-based charter school network on Monday defended its spending practices — speaking out for the first time since The Times published a story documenting a history of potential conflicts of interest and questionable use of public money.

Leading up to the publication of the story, Celerity Educational Group’s founder and former CEO Vielka McFarlane declined to speak to reporters. When The Times sent Celerity and its lawyer a list of questions about its finances, the network said it was having difficulty providing answers because many of its computers and records had been seized when federal agents raided its offices in late January.

 The nonprofit organization, which currently runs seven schools in Los Angeles County and four in Louisiana, remains the subject of a federal inquiry. It is also under investigation by the inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District. No one at Celerity, including McFarlane, has been charged with a crime stemming from the schools’ operations.

On Monday evening, the network sent parents a newsletter with a detailed response that criticized the press coverage as full of “numerous errors and insinuations.”

The newsletter justified McFarlane’s 2013 income of $471,842 — about 35% more than the salary of the superintendent of L.A. Unified — as comparable with “peer organizations in the education world.”

It said that her base pay was $257,000, plus a $10,680 auto allowance, and that it had reached nearly half a million dollars because she had been paid for unused vacation time.

Celerity Educational Group’s credit card statements, which The Times obtained through a public records request, show that when McFarlane was the network’s CEO she paid for expensive meals and hotel stays with a credit card belonging to her nonprofit organization, which receives the bulk of its funding from the state. Asked if she ever repaid Celerity, McFarlane and Celerity’s lawyer did not comment.

Yet the network’s newsletter said that many of these expenses were “appropriate” and were paid for by Celerity Educational Group’s parent organization, Celerity Global Development, which McFarlane currently runs.

The newsletter conceded that some of these transactions “were personal expenses mistakenly put on the school credit card, which Ms. McFarlane paid back.” It offered no L.A. charter school network defends its founder's 2013 income of $471,842 - LA Times:

Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) - Overview

Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) - Overview:

Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) was conducted by NCES seven times between 1987 through 2011. SASS was an integrated study public and private school districts, schools, principals, and teachers designed to provide descriptive data on the context of elementary and secondary education. SASS covered a wide range of topics from teacher demand, teacher and principal characteristics, general conditions in schools, principals' and teachers' perceptions of school climate and problems in their schools, teacher compensation, district hiring and retention practices, to basic characteristics of the student population.

After 2011–12, NCES redesigned SASS and named it the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) to reflect the redesigned study's focus on the teacher and principal labor market and on the state of K-12 school staff. NCES first conducted NTPS in 2015–16. Learn more about NTPS here.

SASS had four core components: the School Questionnaire, the Teacher Questionnaire, the Principal Questionnaire, and the School District Questionnaire, which was known as the Teacher Demand and Shortage Questionnaire until the 1999–2000 SASS administration. These questionnaires were sent to respondents in public, private, and Bureau of Indian Education/tribal schools. In 1999–2000, public charter schools were also included in the sample. For the 2003–04, 2007–08, and 2011–12 SASS, a sample of public charter schools were included in the sample as part of the public school questionnaire.

Many of the same survey questions were used in each cross-sectional cycle of the survey, allowing researchers to investigate trends over time. Core survey items in the school, principal, and teacher questionnaires have been retained in the NTPS. The questionnaires for each of the seven rounds of SASS are available online and can be downloaded from the Questionnaires page.

Changes to SASS Questionnaires

Sample Selection

Types of Schools in SASS

The Principal Follow-Up Survey (PFS)

The Teacher Follow–up Survey (TFS)

Data Processing and Privacy Protection

Data Use and Publications

 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) - Overview:

How ALEC and Promoters of Privatization Are Helping Legislators Rip Off State Governments | janresseger

How ALEC and Promoters of Privatization Are Helping Legislators Rip Off State Governments | janresseger:

How ALEC and Promoters of Privatization Are Helping Legislators Rip Off State Governments

In her story on Iowa’s tuition tax credit program in yesterday’s NY Times, Dana Goldstein explains: “Iowa is one of 31 states where legislators have proposed creating or expanding school choice programs this year, without Washington even lifting a finger.”

Knowing that the U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is a great fan of school privatization through vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts and the expansion of unregulated charter schools, we might wonder how and why all this school choice expansion Goldstein describes is happening without any assistance at all from DeVos and Congress.

Goldstein mentions one of the primary factors, the American Legislative Exchange Council: “In 2013 and 2014, the most recent years for which financial disclosures are available, several organizations associated with Ms. DeVos invested over $7 million in school choice lobbying efforts in states now considering new bills.  Americans for Prosperity, the activist group founded by the Koch brothers, and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council are also pushing private school choice in statehouses across the country.”

One cannot possibly review too often the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in state politics. If your state legislature is one of the 31 states now considering some form of school vouchers, your representatives are probably considering one of ALEC’s model laws.  ALEC is what is known as a bill mill, a membership organization that pairs member state legislators with corporate member lobbyists and representatives of far-right advocacy organizations promoting school privatization; these people collaborate in writing model bills that can then be introduced by ALEC-members in the legislative chambers of the 50 states. Members of ALEC’s Education Committee have cooked up a number of model bills to choose from: the Special Needs Scholarship Act, the Foster Child Scholarship Program Act, How ALEC and Promoters of Privatization Are Helping Legislators Rip Off State Governments | janresseger:

A Teacher's Response to Booking.com's Anti-Teacher Commercial by Alana Milich - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association: A Teacher's Response to Booking.com's Anti-Teacher Commercial by Alana Milich:

A Teacher's Response to Booking.com's Anti-Teacher Commercial 

by Alana Milich

Here is a link where this author's letter was published: http://extracredit.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/03/22/pbc-teacher-blasts-booking-coms-teacher-bashing-commercial/

I know this is minor compared with what's going on in the DOE, but it irritated me enough to write to Booking.com about their commercial.

Here is the text of my email:

After watching your ad in which a kindergarten teacher is letting her class run wild with no supervision while she contemplates her vacation choices, I am moved to do something I've never done before- write a company to complain of the image they are portraying of my profession. As a 15 year veteran teacher, I can assure you that my stress does NOT come from the students in my classroom. My stress comes from endless meetings forcing me to enact tactics that do not help my students learn and achieve; my stress comes from not getting a cost of living raise in 10 years; my stress comes from national figures who know nothing of public education working to destabilize our system in favor of private, religious, and for-profit charter schools that are free to discriminate against differently-abled children with no penalties.

Isn't there enough teacher bashing without you adding to the myth of the inattentive, non-caring, child-hating teacher?

If you want to show a teacher needing a vacation, how about showing one burnt out on caring too much? Giving of her own time and money to her kids while an uncaring administration makes ridiculous demands on her? That would be relatable and not turn off the 3.1 million public school teachers in the US.

Thank you,

Alana Milich

Update - Here is the reply from Bookings.com:

Dear Dr. Alana Milich

Thanks for your feedback.

We’ll be sure to pass it on to those relevant. At [link removed] we value all 

 Badass Teachers Association: A Teacher's Response to Booking.com's Anti-Teacher Commercial by Alana Milich:

NYC Educator: When Students Step Up

NYC Educator: When Students Step Up:

When Students Step Up

When you have a co-teacher, a lot of things are different. You can immediately deal with a student issue by taking that student out in the hall and discussing whatever there is to discuss. Immediately things get better. Or worse. Or stay the same. But hey, at least you tried. Forgot that handout? You can go get it. Sent a student to the nurse's office and you suspect he's walking the halls having big fun? Go check.

There are some things that you do, and some things your co-teacher does. You develop a routine. You write a lesson, and she makes it look more Danielson than you would. Is that a good thing? Who knows? But if it's Danielson it's better when someone is observing, even if Danielson herself doesn't buy into that train of thought. Maybe your co-teacher decides she should take attendance, and maybe she does it better than you would. Maybe much better.

But if you're gonna be absent, you have to alert your co-teacher. You can't just leave her hanging. Are you the one who wrote the plan for the day? Will she be the one hanging in the wind when the Part 154 police come to make sure you're doing whatever the hell it is they want you to do? Regardless, you have to be careful. I haven't actually been absent this year, though I've had a few times I thought I would. But as chapter leader I have to go to meetings all the time, so she's been on her own on more than one occasion.

On the other hand, I hadn't taught solo since last year. I was actually pretty nervous one day last week when my co-teacher didn't show up. I didn't tell her that, of course. Don't worry, everything NYC Educator: When Students Step Up:

NC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework | deutsch29

NC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework | deutsch29:

NC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework

In (or after) March 2017, the North Carolina State Board of Education is supposed to decide whether or not to close Kestrel Heights High School. Information on Kestrel Heights was presented to the board on March 1 and 2, 2017. It seems that the state board has indeed decided to close the school.**

Kestrel Heights made the news in January 2017 following the release of an internal report by the Kestrel Heights board of directors.

It seems that over an eight-year time span, Kestrel Heights graduated 160 students who lacked all of the necessary coursework to graduate.

From the report:

In September of 2016, the Board of Directors (“The Board’) of Kestrel Heights, a public charter school located in Durham, North Carolina, currently providing K-12 education to 1,016 students, was informed of discrepancies in the transcripts of approximately 22 seniors in the graduating class of 2015-16. The discrepancies appeared to indicate that 22 of the 71 graduating seniors were missing at least one state-mandated core curriculum course required to graduate with a Future Ready Core designation on their transcript. The printed student transcripts disclosed that the student graduated with a Future Ready Core designation, but also disclosed that the student was missing one or more of the state mandated core curriculum courses, such as “English 4.”

Upon learning of the discrepancies, the Board ordered a subsequent review of the analysis conducted by staff for the 2015-16 graduating class. After receiving a verified report, the Board self-disclosed the discrepancies to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s (“DPI”) Office of Charter School (“OCS”) and scheduled an advisory meeting. At the meeting, the school disclosed the results of its initial investigation and a corrective action plan to the assembly of DPI staff, including representatives from Accountability, Instruction, OCS, and Legal. The staff of DPI was unable to provide any technical support or assistance during the meeting. The school was subsequently advised by the OCS to handle the matter in the best way it saw fit. The school undertook a second review of its corrective action plan by retaining the services of an outside education consulting firm. The outside education consulting firm assisted the school with the development of student centered options to address the transcript deficiencies in a timely and efficient manner.

In the interim, the Charter School Advisory Board (“CSAB”) met with the Board

NC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework | deutsch29:

NYC Public School Parents: Letter from the Public Advocate: Why the Renewal schools should not be closed - & how the closure of JHS 145 is illegal

NYC Public School Parents: Letter from the Public Advocate: Why the Renewal schools should not be closed - & how the closure of JHS 145 is illegal:

Letter from the Public Advocate: Why the Renewal schools should not be closed - & how the closure of JHS 145 is illegal

JHS 145 parents protesting against school's closure at the February PEP meeting  credit: NYC Lens

Tonight the Community Education Council in District 9 in the Bronx voted 7-1 against the closure of the zoned renewal school JHS 145.  If the Panel for Educational Policy votes tomorrow to close the school anyway it will be illegal, for the reasons stated below in the letter from the Public Advocate Tish James, Class Size Matters and Marilyn Espada, President of CEC9.. 

In any case, the members should vote against the closures of these six Renewal schools.  The DOE has refused to follow through in its promises to the state to reduce class size in the Renewal schools and to provide their students with sufficient bilingual teachers and classes.  It is the DOE which has failed and should be held accountable --  not these schools.

Public Advocate's 3.20.2017 Letter vs closing of Renewal Schools and JHS 145 by Leonie Haimson on Scribd

 NYC Public School Parents: Letter from the Public Advocate: Why the Renewal schools should not be closed - & how the closure of JHS 145 is illegal:

CURMUDGUCATION: Booking.com and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ad

CURMUDGUCATION: Booking.com and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ad:

Booking.com and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ad

The folks at booking.com put out this advertisement.

I've never established a Hall of Fame here, but if I did, this letter would go into it:

After watching your ad several times I am moved to do something I've never done before- write a company to complain of the image they are portraying of my profession. As a 15 year veteran teacher, I can assure you that my stress does NOT come from the students in my classroom. My stress comes from endless meetings forcing me to enact tactics that do not help my students learn and achieve; my stress comes from not getting a cost of living raise in 10 years; my stress comes from national figures who know nothing of public education working to destabilize our system in favor of private, religious, and for-profit charter schools that are free to discriminate against differently-abled children with no penalties. 

Isn't there enough teacher bashing without you adding to the myth of the inattentive, non-caring, child-hating teacher? 

If you want to show a teacher needing a vacation, how about showing one burnt out on caring too much? Giving of her own time and money to her kids while an uncaring administration makes ridiculous demands on her? That would be relatable and not turn off the 3.1 million public school teachers in the US. 

Thank you,

That letter is from Alana Milich, God bless her.

Because, yes, it's absolutely hilarious how this teacher is apparently incapable of doing her job is not very interested in trying, because children are awful wild malevolent creatures and teachers would certainly be doing anything else if they possibly could.

"There's nothing more important to me than my vacation"??!! Really? I'm pretty sure that teachers CURMUDGUCATION: Booking.com and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ad: