Comments for The G Bitch Spot

Comment on Hmm… by Mark Folse

Mark Folse — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:00:38 +0000

I don’t know they are TFA’s but for the last several year’s we’ve had some kids right out of school teaching. Putting senior teachers out to pasture raises all sorts of age discrimination problems. The last two principles (the current CEO/Headmaster included) seem to treat it like a private school. If I get pissed off enough I’m not going to bother with him. I’m going to go to Ryan at UNO (who is on the board) and say: do you want all this shit to hit the fan and land on your wall? Franklin should be able to attract and retain better based on its reputation. They should have the best teacher’s in the state crawling over each other to teach at a school that is broken out from the best 100 High Schools by U.S. News and World Report into a separate box of super-achiever schools.

Comment on Hmm… by G Bitch

G Bitch — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:52:06 +0000

Sorry to hear that. Franklin is The Girl’s single high school choice. And I am SO the kind of parent they don’t want…..TfAs at Franklin? We need to talk.

“wondering how exactly to address some of the issues I see or hear about without having myself escorted off the grounds by security at the direction of the “CEO/Headmaster” (which has happened to two parents I know) or my child booted out.”—this is not what Choice is supposed to bring. This is not Choice. This is some folks justifying any ends and any means. And what good is privatization/chartering if parents are muzzled, either with direct threats or fear of having to exercise that non-existent Choice when their kid is kicked out of a school? Do either of the Pauls, or Leslie Jacobs, care about the actualities of this “system”?

Let me answer my own question: Fuck no.

Comment on Hmm… by Mark Folse

Mark Folse — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:56:46 +0000

The number of applications means: don’t fuck with us, or your child is out of here. I am dealing with this right now as I watch Franklin crumble from the inside–bit things like teacher’s salaries cut as the front office staff balloons, older teacher’s laid off in favor of younger Teach For A Pittance in America sorts; small things like the school kicking the athletics boosters out of their concession booth so they lose their only source of income); wondering how exactly to address some of the issues I see or hear about without having myself escorted off the grounds by security at the direction of the “CEO/Headmaster” (which has happened to two parents I know) or my child booted out.

I tend to piss people off when I say this, but the deconstruction of public education in New Orleans will be remembered with the Tuskegee Experiment, a reckless exercise in the abstract principles of the free market with no regard for the children.

I’m thinking of filing an application to start The Ayn Rand Academy of the Invisible Hand. I will import my teachers from some English speaking third world country, and chain them in the basement at night. The students, who will double as custodians as a character building exercise and as a substitute for P.E., will be rigorously driven through a program of fear and group think based on the Maoist Cultural Revolution model to excel at the LEAP and SAT, and the outcomes will amaze the world.

Comment on Gaming, Cheating, Raising the Stakes and Justifying all Means by G Bitch

G Bitch — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:07:05 +0000

Cute rhyme but what are you implying, Will? The business-model, privatization push is actually the radical element, the one demanding what can often look like dismantling in the name of “saving” public education. Applying a capitalist, free-market model to education is what is radical. [I'm using the dictionary definition here, not "radical" as it is most often used, as an epithet to silence dissent.] The more conservative side in the “debate” is Ravitch’s position–no dismantling but serious overall reform based on analysis, research and best practices to save public schools not just for the bright, the calm, the middle class or well-positioned but for all children. We can’t have democracy with rampant functional illiteracy.

“Hard times”? We got that already, don’t we? And the business model put us here.

Comment on Gaming, Cheating, Raising the Stakes and Justifying all Means by Will

Will — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:16:09 +0000

“And even in the most radical of groups you will find,
that when you stray from the dogma, you’ll see hard times.”

Comment on Two Years and One Day Later by Five Years Later

Five Years Later — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 06:37:18 +0000

[...] Two Years and One Day Later—August 2007 [...]

Comment on A Howling in the Wires: Debut + Mimi’s = Thursday Night by Oldies but Goodies: from KD5QEL | Every Poet Needs A Patio

Oldies but Goodies: from KD5QEL | Every Poet Needs A Patio — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:14:36 +0000

[...] honor of the Rising Tide NOLA conference and the book launch for A Howling in the Wires, I’ll post a couple of tastes from my KD5QEL blog, born of the horrors of watching my home [...]

Comment on Hmm… by liprap

liprap — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:26:00 +0000

That’s “Tracie”. Damn fingers o’ mine.

Comment on Hmm… by liprap

liprap — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:25:40 +0000

Ummm, yeah, I would like to see Tracue’s letter.

Comment on Gaming, Cheating, Raising the Stakes and Justifying all Means by G Bitch

G Bitch — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:34:59 +0000

I am not surprised you don’t see value in Ravitch’s analysis, Will. You’re predictable that way.