Two NRA’rs commiserated about the vile things the general public were saying about assault weapons and wondered if this conversation could be suspended until the dead were buried.

The conversation of useless deaths in war are NEVER suspended until after the burials. The reason is that those who gave their lives were never called “duds”, “thugs”, “union goons”, “lazy incompetents”. The military always immediately investigates, and it is not shy to attach accountability and blame. The newspapers also jump in to it, speculating on who is at fault.

Mr. R’s blog post is: An accountability dodge for his movement.

Cowardly to the core.

We beat down our schools and murder our teachers.
We demand complete and perfect accountability from our teachers.
We forgive and forget mass shooters calling them mentally ill.
We forgive and forget the reckless, feckless, statements of our intellectual class and self appointed experts.

Some culture!

We call our teachers and their unions evil.
We love the smash mouth tactics of our NRA. We even bathe it in the flag and the bible.
Tell anyone you are here for “da kids” and then do as you please.

Forget the ban on assault weapons. Forget the hot talk about cops in schools.
What has happened to this nation?
WHY ARE WE BEHAVING THIS WAY?

I like to understand things. I have tried for two years now to understand the edu-reform movement. The harder I tried, and the more I read, the more confused I became. I consider myself a person who has worked their way through some pretty thorny issues with aplomb, reason, and distinction.

After my journey into the desert with the religious zealots of the edu-reform movement I returned to reason on my own. I sat down, folded my arms and ruminated.

Proselytizing is for the insane. The edu-reform movement is very concerned with the actions and motivations of others. Go read their websites: All moral encomiums. Policy framed in religious fervor. They have chosen their road to salvation and anyone that stands in the way or DOUBTS is given the tin foil hat.

I wore a piss cutter, not a tin foil hat, thank you. I am a mentor for TTT. TFA is trying to hijack that organization. But according to my friend, who is a regional director for TTT, there is no chance that will happen. TFA is struggling to be seen as something other than a resume padding industry for some rather arrogant young folks.

So, to you edu-reform zealots, I remain unconvinced. My arms are folded. You have not made your case. And in my line of work that kind of independent thought is encouraged just as long as it is backed up by sound reasoning.

TFA, and I wrap them up with the entire reform movement, has an image issue. Right now we love our assault weapons and hate our teachers. TFA finds themselves right in the middle of that.

No reformation ever ends well for those reformed. Please remember that this movement is about reforming others. And that is the ultimate act of arrogance.

There is simply no reason for the “outrage” surrounding Ravitch’s and Lewis’ remarks other than distraction from the very real consequences of education reform. This is not about TFA, but it is about the larger Ed Reform issues with which TFA is affliated. In Chicago, the ignorance and cruelty of Edreform has indeed cost children their lives.

As an educator who works directly with children who are being impacted by the terrible policies of neighborhood school disinvestment, school closings, and charter expansion, I feel it it is my duty to speak up. I work in a psychiatric hospital in Chicago. My students report fear of “getting jumped” on the way to schools across town after their school was shut down. Kids have come in to the hospital with massive anxiety, depression, and rage related to school policies. Kids feel abandoned as they lose the ties to trusted teachers and school staff. My kids with IEPs get shuffled around schools as the charters kick them out, delaying services. My kids have complained about teachers who “don’t get it” speaking about the unfair practice of putting teachers with no education experience and no understanding of their communities’ issues in their classrooms. These things all matter. Why can’t we talk about this? Where is the outrage about this type of impact on children?

A teacher (lawyer, physician, nurse, social worker, police officer, firefighter, etc.) will sometimes betray the trust that has been given to him or her and will commit a heinous crime against a child. For teachers, this is extremely rare and that’s why it almost always makes front page news. Sadly, though, it does happen. As I’ve said before, I came across this a few times in my career and all these people were gone from campus immediately. All were reported to police as required by law.

What is NOT rare in K-12 schools is false accusations against teachers, especially at the high school level. Almost on a daily basis (in some US school), teachers are falsely accused of things they did not do by angry or vindictive students or parents. Police tell us that “we get these false reports all the time.” Even in my last year of teaching, there were several reports at the local high school. Fortunately, the other students are witnesses and some will always come to the defense of the teacher to say that nothing happened. Most teachers are quickly exonerated (the student often feels guilty and will admit that he made it up) but all these teachers are traumatized when something like this happens and some will quit or retire on the spot.

In California the law that was defeated would have allowed superintendents and boards of education to dismiss a teacher who is SUSPECTED of sexual abuse of a child. Teachers fought this vigorously and successfully to protect INNOCENT teachers, not to protect the rare guilty ones. The guilty people are under the jurisdiction of the judicial system, and not the superintendent or the school boards. Basically, this law that did not pass would allow the district to dismiss a teacher based on gossip. As I said before, the district has no business making determinations regarding serious crimes but should immediately call police and let the judicial system handle it. Guilty teachers are automatically dismissed.

For those of you who are truly interested in improving schools, please know what you are saying before spreading false and malicious rumors. As we were reminded by Newtown, teachers are the PROTECTORS of children. May God bless them on this Christmas day.

George Bernard Shaw

Seeing both sides of an issue is a sign of intellect.

The edu-reform movement operates much like the NRA.

J.S Mill:

Where the law ends, public opprobrium begins.

TFA stands for “Take Full Advantage”. And you all do a very good job of that. You remind me of the NRA.