School considers cancelling AP classes because too many white students are succeeding

wordpress ^ | August 25, 2012 | Dan from Squirrel Hill

[bobo1]

i read alot of vonnegut in HS and college, but never read Harrison Bergeron, thanks, i will go out and find a copy.

Blessings, bobo

[EinNYC]

Thanks, Cap Rhino.

No, the football captain never did a lick of work. He spent his days in class talking to one student or another so that neither did any work. He was never punished and I very strongly suspect that the failing grade I gave him was changed in a heartbeat by the principal the minute school was out.

After that piece of excrement girl assaulted me (she grabbed me by the hair while rubbing her crotch and breasts against mine, laughing and put her hand in the doorframe so I could not shut her out in the hall for fear of her offering her then-injured hand as "proof" of physical abuse by me), I had to raise holy hell to get her suspended even for a few days. She then returned to class crowing, "I'm baaack" and had no intention of improving her behavior. She was described as a POS by every other teacher she ever had, an animal. I can't contest that description, that's exactly what she was, bred from an animal mother (if you had ever met her mother, you'd agree).

My chairperson actually advised me NOT TO SHOW UP FOR SCHOOL THE LAST DAY. She feared for my safely. I had intended to do just that, but then a bout with a virus took up the sick day I'd intended to use to be absent the last day. Therefore, I was struck in the head by a thrown water bottle one period and struck in the head and face by a fistful of thrown Skittles in another period.

I should add that this school is 91% black and that I am not black.

The mentally disturbed mayor of NYC, in his third (and totally illegal) term, has targeted senior (read: $$$) teachers. They earn too much money, have tenure, and know their rights. Therefore, they have to go, as they interfere with his scheme to close all NYC public schools and turn them over to his millionaire friends as charter schools, by which they can then make hundreds of millions of dollars with Rent-a-Teachers. The minute a kid falls behind in these charter schools and threatens their passing stats, they are quietly thrown out the back door, back to public schools. THIS you never hear about when idiots write so glowingly of charter schools. The mayor's modus operandi is either to have administration actually come into your classroom and openly solicit your students to write statements against you (they even coach them on what to write) which they then turn into the Office of Special Investigations to get you up on bogus charges, or he deliberately starves schools in minority areas of resources so that they will definitely fail--so he can then turn them into charter schools for his buddies. I cannot tell you how many veteran teachers, a huge reservoir of brilliant minds and teaching experience, have been forced out of their classrooms by devious means so that a little noobie-doobie "Teach for America" instant teacher can take their place for half the salary and NONE of the tenure (you may have read about NYC not granting tenure much these days). At least half or more of the noobie-doobie young things leave teaching after 2 years, so there is a constant revolving door of noobie-doobies who never put in the 6-10 years it takes to really master teaching. So long as they give everyone 80s and 90s so that the principals get their $25,000 bonus for "great passing statistics", everything is fine.

I and 2,000 of my veteran colleagues will, instead of teaching our own classes, be traveling around from school to school every week as subs. The mayor's hope is that we will get disgusted and quit. Then he's won.

Can you imagine such a criminal waste of talent and dedication? Veteran teachers such as myself have been humiliated in front of their students, fined thousands of dollars for "crimes" we never committed, subjected to physical and verbal abuse by the students who KNOW that NOTHING will happen to them, whether they submit false charges or assault their teacher, and vilified in the press.

[Captain Rhino]

I am aghast at what you write and yet, unfortunately, not surprised.

A couple final questions:

1) As much as we Freepers trash them, I have to ask where is the NYC teacher's union in all of this?

2) Where does the crowd of social misfits you describe find employment after “graduation?”

3) During desegregation in the 1960s - 1970s South, whites established private schools and moved their children into them; essentially creating instant super majority black public school districts. As I understand it, the resulting public school districts have behavior problems similar to what you describe. Is this essentially the relationship you say Mayor Bloomberg is trying to establish between the charter and public schools in NYC; the children of well-off people (I assume all races are allowed if their parents can pay) in the charter schools and the poor and minorities in the public schools?

4) Are NYC public schools uniformly this bad in every borough of the city? (Perhaps an unfair question.)

[Chickensoup]

My two oldest took their jr and sr year at the local college. 6 to 8 credits per semester and the oppurtunity to earn credit in the summer program and the inter semester program. They cashed in and got the homeschool 2 for 1 deal for courses. One earned thirty credits and the both got to play in a better sandbox instead of listening to drivel.

[EinNYC]

Hi, Cap'n Rhino-- The NYC teacher union is a socialist/marxist holdover from the European Bundists. Their offices are plastered with Obama posters. They take about $1300 from me in "dues" directly from my paycheck and do darn little for their constituents. They DO manage to have "conferences" (read: parties) for delegates and "fact-finding missions" (read: junkets) to exotic vacation places to "compare school systems" or other such blatant crap. They virtually hang their teachers out to dry. This situation would never have gotten this bad if the union was up to the net on things. Only their complicity with Bloomturd has resulted in this. Their senior "leaders" are more interested in getting cabinet positions with Obamatrash than helping their teachers for which they are paid 20x what teachers earn.

Some of the "graduates" find employment at menial jobs. Some go to 3rd rate community colleges, but are touted at the schools as though accepted at Harvard. Then they surely have to spend their first several years at "college" taking high school level remedial courses--subsidized by taxpayers--because there is no way they can even communicate in standard English, trust me. Anything they write (if they even do any homework to turn in, which is very iffy) reads like pidgeon English as though written by some Island resident. Some of them of course end up dead or in jail because their aspirations for material goods exceed their ability to legitimately earn them.

In these charter schools, you do not pay. They take applications from parents. Obviously if the parents care enough to go and fill out an application, that's selective right off the bat. Many of the charter schools are specifically in minority areas. They can use disciplinary procedures not permitted in public schools AND they can just throw the misfits right out the back door if they like, same as parochial schools. That's one big reason why parochial schools tend to be successful. They don't have to keep the garbage in their school.

Yes, NYC schools have horrible schools like this throughout the system. As Bloomturd breaks up the large high schools and puts 4 small schools in the same building--often allocating space within those buildings to charter schools as well--traditions are destroyed. And, since you are basically getting the same students as you had before, how would that make the "new" school any more successful? They might bring in a bunch of SmartBoards and other technology, but that does not address the issue of the very strong anti-academic culture. It ain't cool to be smart, do your work or be respectful to teachers.

I have nothing to look forward to in a few days but a year of horrible verbal and physical abuse, with nothing happening to whoever does it to me.

[SuziQ]

The fact that people who subscribe to this ideology are in control of the public school system is terrifying.

This is Berzerkely, after all.

[muwarriors92]

You’ll enjoy it. Short story, might be able to find it on the internet. The fact of the matter is that we are all created equal in opportunity we are not all equal and that is the point of the story.

I can’t dunk a ball or throw it 100mph, but some guys can. I can’t have a baby, but I can do some things others can’t. Bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator is a recipe for societal collapse and that is what Harrison Bergeron is all about.

[bobo1]

thanks, i am truly going to look for it.

blessings to you.

bobo

[Captain Rhino]

In the past, the thought of being a teacher has occurred to me. However, I can’t see how I’d get through even one day putting up with the abuse teachers are required to endure as part of their working environment these days. (And I do understand that NYC public schools probably are among the worst of the worst.) If I did manage to survive the day, given my background as a retired Marine, I’d probably be in jail on serious assault charges (or worse) by the end of the first week. The fact that you have made a career while dealing with this....well, you have my respect.

Thanks for taking the time to write extended replies to my questions. Here’s hoping (perhaps against reason) that your coming school year will be safe and productive.

[bobo1]

actually, i don’t know how i missed that story.

first time i read vonnegut, was trout fishing in america, confederate general at big sur, and slaughterhouse 5.

i missed that some how. thanks for the heads up, i will pursue it.

thanks,

blessings, bobo

[EinNYC]

Thank you Cap'n Rhino.

I just got back from a trip to Israel, and you had best believe that I was praying fervently at the Western Wall for my health, a good livelihood, and a peaceful year. I had tears running down my cheeks from the emotion of finally getting to pray at The Wall, which had only ever been an icon for me in the pages of a book, and the yearning with every fiber of my being that my prayers be fulfilled.

May we all be written for a good year, which will start with the defeat of the Marxist pretender.

Praying for Peace

The young defenders of Israel

[Cruising For Freedom]

It is really odd how leftists really apply the zero-sum concept to nearly everything.

In their world, lowering someone’s IQ score raises someone else’s IQ score, not disciplining someone equals disciplining someone else, and so forth.

[Secret Agent Man]

Liberalism always boils down to the same thing, every time, every issue:

Liberalism is at war with everything natural.

There are people gifted differently and unequally. Some are more self-motivated than others. Liberals cannot stand this because this is the natural way things are in the world.

They try to create an artificial “balance” where they believe a problem exists. It’s why it never works. It’s why most people don’t buy into liberalism voluntarily. It’s why liberals are against choice if it means people can choose something other than the liberal option, and for choice when choice means getting a liberal option out on the table where it hasn’t been before.

As I said, the book has been started. I am writing it up as we chat.

[Cruising For Freedom]

Very interested in your book.

How far do you take “natural?” For instance, how do you reconcile this with the general liberal loathing for technology and reverence for things natural?

Or, conversely, what about the general tendency of conservatism to put man’s works and civilization above a more primitive state of affairs where power rules all?

I think you and Ayn Rand might be converging on similar trains of thought. Though there is something instinctively “correct” about her, I’ve never fully followed her train of thought back to her foundational statement that A = A, or that leftism is the antithesis of existence (and hence natural order).

Either way, ping me when published.

[dalereed]

“What about Asians? Or are they white too?”

When I was in school over 60 years ago they were called damn average raisers!!!!!

[Eva]

Equality of outcome = aiming for mediocrity.

In a commencement address that Obama gave two years ago, he stated that the country has been throwing money at education for years and still the White students out perform the Black and Hispanic students on standardized tests, and that it was time to try something different. That something different is to make 11th and 12th grades optional, giving under achieving, disinterested students a diploma at 15 or 16 and putting them directly into union apprenticeships and training programs. They plan to also start public school at 3 or 4 years old and still have 12 years of education. This would eliminate the advantage that middle class white students get from attending pre-schools, since all kids would be subjected to the same early age pre-school.

These statements are very close to the statements that Larry Summer once made about women, that they just don’t perform as well as men in math and science. Larry Summers got fired for his remarks, but the reaction at Harvard was very much the same as what Obama proposes, they dumbed down the curriculum and feminized the sciences, adding more environmental science to the classes.

[Secret Agent Man]

Like much they are hypocrites on just about everything.

Your technology example. They don’t mind using technology when it is a means to an end for them. They only dislike it in the fact that it is unfair not everyone can afford it, of course there’s always some nefarious Goldstein to blame for whatever inequities there are, in anything. They also dislike technology when it’s a technology that essentially cuts them out of a chain of power or reduces their power, or totally eliminates it.

[Eva]

I forgot an important part of the Obama education agenda.

Teachers unions are on the wrong side of Obama’s redistribution scale and once he gets his SEIU established and expanded to include the entire health care industry and first responders, teachers better watch out.

The first step to putting the teachers’ unions in their place is the move to eliminate pay differential for advanced degrees. Arnie Duncan says that studies show that most students don’t benefit from teachers with advanced degrees (after all minority students don’t take those AP classes, anyway) . They can hire several early learning teachers (for those all day pre-schools) for the cost of one tenured teacher with an advanced degree. Then, of course tenure will be the next to go. Oh, the Obama administration is talking about this right now, not before the election, but last year, we heard plenty about it.