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Did anyone at the conference confront Bloomberg or his toady chancellor about the margins of error in these reports?

Did anyone ask Bloomberg (or  Emanuel, for that matter), if a political poll with a maximum MOE between 75% and 87% was acceptable for a political campaign?

Did anyone ask Bloomberg if he would accept financial reporting from a company with a maximum margin of error between 75% and 87%?

Did anyone confront Bloomberg when he said  ”We have closed the gap between black and Latino kids and white and Asian kids…We have cut it in half,” by noting that the achievement gap between black and Latino kids and white and Asian kids is as big now as when he grabbed sole control of the NYCDOE in 2002?

Because there are multiple measures that show that is so:

http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2011/08/04/bloomberg-and-the-achievement-gap/

Does Bloomberg just get to spew horsebleep without some member of the press calling him on it?

You know, the Bushies learned long ago that if you just keep repeating lies over and over, a compliant corporate press will repeat those lies without challenging the veracity of them and soon everyone will believe those lies and they will become conventional wisdom and indeed, truth.

Bloomberg does the same thing.

And other than a few journalists – most notably Juan Gonzalez, though there are a handful of others – the press just repeats his jive rather than challenging him right to his face on his lies, distortions and evasions.

It is almost comical reading this article.  Emperor Michael I, he that doesn’t believe term limit laws should apply to him despite the fact his subjects twice voted for a two term limit, doesn’t get it.  He is the captain in that song shouting out don’t be a nervous nellie.  All we need is a little determination, men let’s move on.  And we saw what happened to the captain which saved the rest of the platoon.

Mulgrew was on the John Gambling show this morning at 0700 (I am sure his remarks are on the WOR 710 web site).  He brought up how the Emperor had gone back on his word not to release the flawed ratings, how the union and the DOE had agreed this was a pilot program  He also brought up the 33 schools the mayor is trying to close and how the city and union had agreed to try out a new assessment system.  Of course one would think Gambling would bring these things up to the Emperor during this usual Friday appearance on the show.  Well since the Emperor was in Washington, he went on at 0900 instead and of course got the usual powder pull questions from Gambling.  Nobody has raised  the point of lack of integrity on the part of the Emperor in releasing these flawed results after the DOE agreed not to.

Finally there is the current Schools Chancellor.  AFter reading this articule, how anybody can come to the conclusion he is little more than a lackey for the Emperor is beyond me.  The more you read and listen to the Emperor, the more it becomes clear he has this obsession to break the UFT before he leaves office (uness eh thinks his money can buy a fourth term).  It’s just so sad.

Kind of remarkable and audacious, after ten years of abject failure, that Bloomberg would invoke that song. I’ve been following Pete Seegar since I was very young, and don’t recall the last time he lobbied for billionaire-sponsored reforms. I suggest Bloomberg start listening to Hank Williams Jr. Better him than me.

So who’s the big fool asking the troops to “push on” to their death?  Hopefully our schools will get a chance to turnaround b/f its too late.

It is pretty disturbing isn’t it? I think we need to have some media REFORMS pronto. We need to stop some of the more underhanded media tactics encountered so often today, including but not limited to lying by omission,  the outright perpetuation of misinformation to name a couple. I was taught that reporters, and journalists were supposed to report news objectively. Nowadays it’s rather hard to distinguish between a news report and an editorial isn’t it?

 I’m a little surprised Walcott expressed an opinion without first checking with Mayor Mike what it ought to be. That doesn’t happen often under mayoral control. Thank goodness. I thought for a moment we had a chancellor who represented the interests of schoolchildren rather than the caprices of the wealthiest man in New York.

This is exactly what I was thinking! Could he have picked a more ironic song to quote?

“And I know of no ways for a teacher to know whether they are getting through to the child and whether the child understands and is making progress without testing those children.”
Well Mike,
Why dont you ask the headmaster at Spence (where your daughters went to school) how much their faculty teach to the test? 

And we are taking away the birthright of our children…….Every time we allow these men to enforce policies as destructive as these.  They are taking their birthright to a childhood.  May their waters rise around them and they reap what they sow……

This has to be one of the top 3 Bloomberg education gaffes. I think I would order them

1.  “…it is in the best interest of our children for Cathie Black to succeed as chancellor.”

2.  “…double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.”

3. “…this business of teaching to the test is exactly what we should do, as long as the test reflects what we want them to learn.”

The sad fact is that the Union (by being too spineless to back Thompson), and the teachers (by choosing to live on Long Island) helped re-elect this blubbering fool to a third term. The supposedly liberal white people of Manhattan voted Bloomberg right across the board, and the minorities they’re so afraid of voted for Thompson. When has there ever been a mayor with a weekly magazine, a television channel, a multi-billion dollar business with their name on it? Is everybody brain dead?

I am so glad I graduated from school before all this teach to the test stuff took hold.  I had good and bad teachers – mostly above average, but I learned from all of them, and the term ‘bad’ is subjective because just being a bit boring doesn’t make a teacher ‘bad.’

But then again, in my generation, we didn’t need a rock star teacher in every class doing ‘differentiated,’ ‘project-based learning’ that was aligned to ‘common core curriculums’ and that addressed every type of ‘learning style’ and ‘multiple intelligence’ in a room that had to recognize ‘disparities,’ ‘oppression due to white priviledge’ and every culture as equal.

After 20 years of massive changes in this land.  Are we better off as a nation?  Have we been sufficiently ‘enriched?’  The ‘gap’ is as persistent as ever.  It is becoming increasingly clear that people of different cultures do NOT integrate together and that there are serious values differences across race, ethnicity, class and political outlook that seem to spell the doom of our once united nation.

Am I the only one who can peer into the future and make some somber conclusions?

Irony? Knee-deep and drowning. Sounds like his oversight and understanding of the schools. Don’t back down. Just double or triple down with a losing hand. Jeez. I’m wondering what is in the water that Bloomie is drinking? The song analogy is so poor, but so telling. It appears he doesn’t even understand the meaning of the song-hence his disconnect from how poorly he has run the NYC schools.Here’s hoping that things will change when he leaves office unless he goes for a fourth term. Not unlikely given his propensity for the spotlight and his delusions of grandeur. Hope you guys in NYC can keep it together until real change comes along. Hopefully when parents and students learn the real deal with what is going on.

Bloomberg’s words and actions are usually best seen through the framework of the finance and real estate interests he represents, rather than individual psychology, but his reference to “Big Muddy” made this irresistible:

From Wikipedia: “Psychological Projection: a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her attributes, thoughts and emotions (let’s not forget behavior, as well, MF), which are then ascribed to other people.”

The tests become easier to pass when he needs to appear as though he is making amazing progress with NYC schools!