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nightcap

April 18, 2012

Remainders: Quinn’s teacher evals stance raises Randi’s brow

by Philissa Cramer, at 7:42 pm

Randi Weingarten was surprised by mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn’s evaluations stance. (Capital NY)
Newark schools chief (and ex-NYer) Cami Anderson makes a big list of 100 important people. (Time)
A principal who showed a comedian’s “Can’t Fix Stupid” clip to teachers was removed. (Get Schooled)
A Harvard U, Gates-funded project will help high schools track outcomes of their graduates. (HuffPo)
Brooklyn teachers are on an odyssey before starting a charter school. (Odyssey Initiative via SchoolBook)
Feedback about this year’s state tests is trickling in from teachers and principals. (NYC PS Parents)
A report says states seeking NCLB waivers don’t have good plans to add learning time. (Politics K-12)
A deeper look at a gifted school where parents are skeptical about special ed students. (Insideschools)
Grace Dodge High School’s mock trial team did well even as the school is set to close. (SchoolBook)
A prediction: The coming debate over the Common Core will be about what books get read. (Flypaper)
Stuyvesant’s comp-sci program is just one place where the tech world is looking to high schools. (Inc)

Larry Littlefield

Randi Weingarten. Ha!

In other parts of the country, teachers who contributed as much as 9.0% of their wages to their pensions, don’t get Social Security, and pay state income taxes on their pensions just like the serf wage earners are facing pension cuts and school cuts because the taxpayers didn’t kick in her share.

But here, we have the highest state and local tax burden, the highest school spending per student, and the highest taxpayer pension burden in the country. The teachers also get Social Security, and they don’t pay state income taxes on either that or their pensions. And pension funds are as underfunded, and our schools are being de-funded, as fast as Illinois or Rhode Island (and much worse than California) because of all the retroactive pension deals while Weingarten was here.

And yet when you read about the politcal arguments here and elsewhere, they are the same, with convenient amnesia about how we got in this place and who benefittied. I wonder if Weingarten is inhibited in defending teachers who are getting screwed for fear of someone there realizing and bringing up how much the children and future teachers were screwed in New York.

One thing for sure…the media won’t bring it up because Bloomberg signed off on it with the rest of the them, and they are in with him. And, of course, Bloomberg and the UFT won’t talk about it, although I had hoped that the battles on other issues would break that particular deal.

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