Big Education Ape

Saturday, October 17, 2020

An Originalist Reading of Public Schools | gadflyonthewallblog

An Originalist Reading of Public Schools

Let’s say you went to a restaurant and ordered a big ol’ meat sandwich only to find nothing but straw between two pieces of bread.

“Waiter!” You say, calling over a server.

“What’s wrong, Sir?”

“There’s no meat in my sandwich.”

“Oh, Sir?” He says smiling, examining your plate. “Here at Scalia’s Bar and Grill we adhere to a strict originalist interpretation of language.”

“What does that have to do with my sandwich?”

“Well, Sir, in Old English ‘meat’ meant any solid food, anything other than drink. As in ‘A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland’ (1775), Samuel Johnson noted, ‘Our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without rest or meat.’”

“But that’s not what I ordered!”

“Oh yes it is, Sir. You ordered CONTINUE READING: An Originalist Reading of Public Schools | gadflyonthewallblog

Albert Shanker and Michael Mulgrew: Tough Times Need Tough Leaders | Ed In The Apple

Albert Shanker and Michael Mulgrew: Tough Times Need Tough Leaders

Dr. Aragon: “Now this is the Central Parallel of the American Federation. This district is what you you’d probably call the Southwestern United States. That was before it was destroyed by the war.”

Miles Monroe (played by Woody Allen): “War?”

Aragon: “Yes. According to history, over 100 years ago, a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead.”–Sleeper (1973).

Well, perhaps a little harsh, Shanker’s reputation was a “take no prisoners” union leader who defended his members, within, a contentious union membership.

A little history: the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) emerged after decades of in-fighting among teacher activists in scores of teacher organizations. The Teachers Guild and the Teacher Unions were bitterly opposed to each other. In 1949 New York State enacted the Feinberg Law, requiring teachers to sign a loyalty oath, over 500 teachers were forced to defend themselves and several hundred teachers were fired. The law was challenged in the courts, all the way to the SCOTUS, who affirmed the law. (See Clarence Taylor, “Reds at the Blackboard,” 2012 here). The Guild and the High School Teachers Association merged into the United Federation of Teachers, a one-day recognition strike in 1960, a negotiated contract in 1961 with the remnants of the Teachers Union CONTINUE READING: Albert Shanker and Michael Mulgrew: Tough Times Need Tough Leaders | Ed In The Apple

CURMUDGUCATION: Today in Teacher Depreciation

Today in Teacher Depreciation

When you're in the work, the general noise from the chorus of teacher devaluators can become a faint background buzz. And then something happens, and you're reminded suddenly, "Oh, yeah. That's a thing."

Happened twice to me on Twitter in the past 24 hours. First, there was the noise surrounding the Trump thing on the teevee last night, including this little punch from Mercedes Schlapp, a senior advisor for the Trump/Pence campaign

This is obviously supposed to be an insult, but I live in western Pennsylvania, right up the road from Pittsburgh, where the international airport includes a whole display/play area devoted to one of Pittsburgh's most beloved sons, Fred Rogers (she spelled his name wrong). Mr. Rogers is a national treasure and one of the few icons who hasn't been outed as some sort of secretly terrible monster.

Why would anybody treat him as an insult punchline? Because they respect strength and cruelty and in Mr. Rogers, they see the twin "weaknesses" of being kind and gentle and of communicating with CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Today in Teacher Depreciation

AN UNQUENCHABLE HUBRIS – Dad Gone Wild

AN UNQUENCHABLE HUBRIS

“The irony of our culture is that people are constantly telling other people to go to hell, but no one tells them to go to heaven.”― Art Buchwald, Too Soon to Say Goodbye

Well, that didn’t take long – 2 half days and one full – to shut a school down due to COVID-19. Robert Churchwell ES will go virtual after 21 staff members and 1 student is forced into quarantine due to a staff member testing positive. In my honest opinion, if I was a staff member at the school, I’d be pissed.

For the next two weeks, schooling may be virtual for students, but each of those 21 staff’s lives will also be virtual, as they’ll be locked in their house waiting to see if they get sick or not. That means no visits to family, no visits to the grocery store, no trips to Target. That means, their family members are also at risk. Yet, we shrug and say, “Hey what do you expect? We knew there would be outbreaks.”

Indications are that Churchwell is not the only school that has a positive result. Per a letter sent home to parents from Belmont-Waverly’s principal,

As you may have heard, we have been notified of one individual who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was present at Waverly Belmont ES while potentially infectious. I would like to assure you that we, along with our local health department, immediately began an investigation to determine who may have been in close contact (within six feet for at least 15 minutes) with that individual. All who have been identified as close contacts have been notified and instructed to quarantine at home for 14 days from their last contact with that individual. Quarantined individuals are not allowed to return to school until the quarantine period has elapsed.

There is no indication of how widespread the school quarantine protocols will extend. But we have to ask, how many more schools are also infected? I do find this line from the email a little galling, and at the least downplays the serious health consequences that could possibly arrive through CONTINUE READING: AN UNQUENCHABLE HUBRIS – Dad Gone Wild

“When you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows” – Los Angeles Education Examiner

“When you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows”

Senator Whitehouse laid out beautifully on Tuesday the context surrounding Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings in Washington as the pushing and pulling of ‘actors inside the frame of a puppet theater.’ He argues that not only are outside forces controlling these actors in the main show but they are integral to the narrative of it. And some of the evidence for broadening focus beyond the proscenium is when characters in the drama adopt “the practice of claiming … moral standards or beliefs to which [their] own behavior does not conform”: hypocrisy.

Just so has Marilyn Koziatek – or the independent expenditure committee (IEC) from which she proudly accepts endorsement of her West San Fernando Valley campaign for school board in the LAUSD3 board district – swerved from insinuation of responsibility for scandals that occurred before his tenure, to antisemitism to anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice bigotry. Schmerelson’s defeated opponent who has endorsed Koziatek, has even hypocritically alluded to Scott Schmerelson’s former republican registration. Meanwhile, swearing brand new allegiance to a political party is precisely the maneuver employed by her endorsed-candidate, Koziatek. The hypocrisy is not without irony, because Koziatek’s unacknowledged switch is in suspicious temporal proximity to her bid for this non-partisan office. Schmerelson’s, on the other hand, is in sharp ethical contrast since CONTINUE READING: “When you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows” – Los Angeles Education Examiner