It's Called "Culling the Herd"

There is nothing else that it can be called, this war against people who find themselves unemployed and underemployed because Congress and the White House won't do one goddamned thing about it.

So what do our worthless elected officials do? They demonize the unemployed in order to create class tensions between these "have-nots" and the "haves," who are employed. This merely directs attention away from the gangsters robbing the taxpayers blind.

The states are jumping on the bandwagon that the unemployed are a bunch of lazy leeches:

In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, “turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs.

Is there anything to this belief? The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax; some hammock. So anyone who imagines that unemployed workers are deliberately choosing to live a life of leisure has no idea what the experience of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, is really like. Still, there is some evidence that unemployment benefits make workers a bit more choosy in their job search. When the economy is booming, this extra choosiness may raise the “non-accelerating-inflation” unemployment rate — the unemployment rate at which inflation starts to rise, inducing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and choke off economic expansion.

But of course there are few jobs of ANY kind to be "choosy" about.

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It's All About Not Being Closely Supervised

Principals all around the country are getting away with murder because they aren't held accountable for anything.

This is NYC here, with an interesting statistic:

In the past three years, just two of 14 principals formally accused of misconduct have been fired — and not a single boss in the city’s 1,600 schools was charged with incompetence, officials told The Post.

The disciplinary deficiency raises questions when 217 elementary and middle schools received grades of F, D or consecutive C’s on the city’s latest report cards, and 31 high schools rated D or F.

“The numbers don’t add up to the Bloomberg administration’s goal to hold everybody accountable,” a veteran teacher said.

Once you're that far up the ladder in education, you become part of the "inner circle." It's damned difficult at that point to lose a job, or rather a school district career.

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Edcetera

There is no such thing as a "public charter school." Period. Lots and lots of private businesses get public money, but that doesn't make them public institutions. There is a lot more involved than just stealing taxpayer dollars.

Charter schools are private schools that are designed to steal taxpayer money in order to operate. They are NOT "public schools."
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Your principal CANNOT be your "ally" or friend. He or she can NEVER be trusted because his or her primary job is self-preservation.

If you stand in his or her way, it will be YOU who will be destroyed.
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If you want to be a principal, be wary of going to Dallas:

Speakers who supported Miles’ plan praised the administration’s new accountability measures for principals.

“Favoritism, cronyism and friendships will no longer be the criteria for selecting new principals,” said Bea Martinez, a former president of the North Texas LULAC chapter. “It’s not about adults, it’s about children.”

Miles has argued that in order for struggling schools to improve, they need new administrators. Some new principals come from the superintendent’s principal academy, which started in August and trained people how to run a school the way Miles wants.

Before Miles arrived in the Dallas Independent School District a year ago, few principals were placed on “growth plans” or had their contracts not renewed. Throughout this year, 68 principals were put on growth plans that identified weaknesses, proposed remedies and set a deadline for improvement.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if more principals around the country are fired outright, even in my old district.
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I wonder if this school principal is related to departed WCSD principal/Michigan embezzler Andrew Stansberry:

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |

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A shitcanned principal received a statewide principal of the year award:

Rock was served paperwork on May 29 informing her that her contract was not going to be renewed for the 2013-14 school year at the Central Consolidated School District alternative high school. The paperwork included a letter placing her on administrative leave and a resignation letter she was asked to sign by district officials. She declined.

The Daily Times reported in May that Rock voiced disagreement with a plan to close Career Prep due to lack of district funds, and that led to her contract not being renewed.

CCSD spokesman James Preminger said in an email the school district would like to congratulate Rock on being selected as secondary school principal of the year.

"The CCSD administration wholeheartedly supported her application, an essential part of the process, and we are very pleased she made it," Preminger said.

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NCTQ is Getting a Lot of Unwarranted Publicity

Of course its latest report on college and university teacher education programs is designed to undercut the very professionalism of teaching. Nevada is one of virtually all states that NCTQ trashes in its propaganda survey.

NCTQ doesn't believe in standards for teachers at all. Teaching should be relegated to what daycare has been for preschool staff. It isn't seen as a profession.

“I put absolutely no credence whatsoever in the report because the methodology is so lacking in empirical evidence,” Abba said.

“They relied on syllabi, and I loved the quote someone made that it is like judging the quality of food by just reading the menu,” she said.

The nonprofit National Opportunity to Learn Campaign criticized the report, saying the National Council on Teacher Quality has a “documented bias against university-based teacher preparation programs” because the organization was established “to promote alternative certification programs.”

NCTQ is full of shit, as always.

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A Ghost of the Past Returns

I am reading an eBook about disgraced cyclist and champion cheat Lance Armstrong written by David Walsh. Actually, the book is a reprint of a number of articles Walsh wrote about Armstrong beginning when rumors started swirling that his wins in the Tour de France were as a result of doping. It's a good roundup of articles, but I noted to my brother tonight that we really haven't heard anything from or about Lance since the Oprah interview a few months ago.

Well, I spoke too damned soon. You can take Lance Armstrong out of the Tour de France but you can't take the Tour de France out of Lance Armstrong. He has decided to attend the event despite being unwanted and uninvited.

Lance Armstrong made himself the uninvited guest at the Tour de France on Friday, coming back to haunt the 100th edition of the race and infuriating riders both past and present by talking at length in a newspaper interview about doping in the sport.

Armstrong told Le Monde that he still considers himself the record-holder for Tour victories, even though all seven of his titles from 1999-2005 were stripped from him last year for doping.

He said his life has been ruined by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation that exposed as lies his years of denials that he and his teammates doped. He also took another swipe at cycling’s top administrators, darkly suggesting they could be brought down by other skeletons in the sport’s closet.

Something the hell is wrong with this guy. The only person who ruined his life is him.

A few of the comments were pretty good:

Uninvited, unwanted guest. Just like in Austin. Go away Cheater.
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Ya can take the boy out of the trailer park but the trailer park will remain in the boy...
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The truth and the fact is Lance Armstrong isn't "news" any more unless he gets cell-photo'd dumpster diving or the like. But I can see why he'd show up at the opening festivities of the TDF. He enabled a lot of people to make a lot of $$$ off bicycle racing. Getting caught cheating has cost and continues to cost Armstrong a lot of $$$, but most of those who profited haven't paid back and never will, even those who were complicit with the dopers. This is just his mob-bully-mentality way of reminding them, "I know who you are and I saw what you did."
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Lance Dopestrong never failed a drug test and he cured cancer.
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only reason he'd be going to a Tour De France would be as a drug supplier....
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If this was the last article about Lance Armstrong, it didn't come soon enough.

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The Handwriting is on the Wall

It appears that among the countless new make-work jobs at Washoe County School District open for bid is something called an "employee management relations coordinator" which is supposed to assist the apparently newly-titled Director of Labor Relations to go after more employees, especially teachers, and railroad them out when the test scores aren't good enough. Then the district can call these teachers "incompetent" or accuse them of "inefficiency," to quote the language of NRS 391 and destroy their careers forever. (This link will last only until July 5.)

Translation: It's when the teachers are making "too much money."

It is even possible Martinez and company are expecting a whole rash of principal firings or forced resignations, and he wants to be prepared by hiring additional staff.

Here are the "duties" of this hatchet person, who will presumably be working under the corrupt former WEA official who knifed me in the back five years ago to take a job working directly under the person who spearheaded the destruction of my career:

The list of Essential Duties and Responsibilities is not exhaustive and may be supplemented.

Counsel staff on matters of management and employee rights, progressive discipline and appropriate courses of action, in accordance with contract provisions and good employer/employee relations practices. Mediate informal disputes between management and employees and provide counsel to management on appropriate course of action, in an attempt to resolve differences at the lowest possible level.

Consult with the Legal Office in the implementation of contract management and legal matters, as they pertain to staff.

Develops and maintains a collaborative relationship with bargaining unit and other group representatives.

Compiles and analyzes proposals, makes recommendations to Director of Labor Relations, the Chief Human Resource Officer and the District;

Develops bargain strategies and prepares proposals; analyzes impact of proposals and develops alternative proposals; analyzes impact of proposals and develops established parameters and prepares agreements for Board approval.

Provides for on-going labor contract administration; explains and interprets agreements; Ensures compliance terms and conditions of agreements

Provides leadership on labor committees formed to address labor relations and related employee issues;

Works with various parties to resolve misunderstandings and conflicts arising from applications of agreements; advises supervisors on preparing and responding to informal complaint meetings and on processing and responding to grievances; oversees grievance process and ensures coordination and facilitation of all grievance work.

Conducts or assists supervisors in conducting investigations into employee misconduct; determines facts and appropriate corrective action, ensuring that the action taken is consistent, appropriate, and defensible; drafts discipline and discharge letters.
Negotiates employee separation and settlement agreements; facilitates the negotiation and execution of settlement agreement with the various employee organizations and private attorneys.

Advises supervisors and administrators in Employee/Relations areas of human resources management, including wage and hour laws, disability law, District policy and procedures, contract interpretation, organization development, labor and employee law, sexual harassment and other laws that re applicable; prepares District response to equal employment opportunity or other employ-related complaints and assist with the defense of employment litigation matters.

Counsels employees and supervisors on a wide range of issues affecting employee performance; assists supervisors with the resolution of employees performance concerns; coordinates the distribution and collection of performance evaluations forms

Advises supervisors on the drafting of employee performance improvement plans; provides guidance during employee probationary periods, and assists with the development of new evaluation forms and instructions.

Investigates misconduct, complaints, violations of human resource-related laws and regulations; conducts employee interviews and meetings to gather or provide information; provides written reports of transactions and makes recommendations based on analysis of the information past practices and applicable laws, regulations, contract language and District procedures.

Provides Human Resources Department and district representation regarding human resources related issues on various committees and before special interest groups, citizens groups, and other public meetings.

Prepares and maintains appropriate reports and records of activities.

Presides at grievance meetings, investigative due process meetings, and suspension/dismissal appeal meetings, as assigned.

Assist in the enforcement of settlement agreement provisions, as they relate to employee discipline, employee pay issues, and other personnel matters.

Facilitate the implementation of employee discipline related to licensure matters.

Provide administrative support with seniority issues, overages, reduction in force and transfers and reassignments. Responsible for overage placement of ESPS and hourly employees.

Reviews investigations of employee applications and, in consultation with the legal office, determines the appropriate disciplinary action, if any.

Assist with District representation at review appeals and facilitate the preparation and organization of all supporting documentation for presentation at appeal meetings.

Represent the District in administrative hearings (grievances, suspension, licensure, dismissals, etc.).

Assist the Director of Labor Relations in all non-dismissal arbitrations.

Assist in the training of employee groups in supervisory, performance evaluation, disciplinary procedures, HR laws, procedures, processes and other areas, as assigned.

Coordinates with assigned staff to assist with the administration of performance evaluation systems for employee groups; works as a team and/or leads research projects to respond to inquiries; counsels employees and supervisors on processes, time lines, and preparation of evaluation forms; tracks receipt of performance improvement report forms, reviews forms for completeness and ensures that supervisors are informed.

Receives and processes production of document requests and subpoenas received regarding employee matters.

Perform other duties related to the position, as assigned.

It's a hatchet person.

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Just When You Think You've Seen It All

It appears more and more "Christians" are into sadomasochism or other such kinky shit, or else some men are using this as an excuse to abuse their wives:




Whatever.

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More WCSD Gossip

Now people may wonder why I am still posting about that goddamned terrible Washoe County School District. Well, school districts in Oregon are pretty damned dull and professional for the most part, and frankly, I like to see how the old district is doing under Martinez. The district always was in the shitter, but now it seems to be getting into more trouble by the day.

It's like a train wreck: You want to look away and move on, but you can't.

There continues to be more problems stemming from the situation with the parent who was ultimately arrested at the school district headquarters in Reno:

Dailey has filed complaints with the Nevada Department of Education said he wanted to present findings by the state where the district has violated federal and state mandates regarding children with special needs.

Dailey said he has tried to contact the district several times to get permission to appear at the June 11 school board meeting where Superintendent Pedro Martinez was being given a review. He said his requests were not answered.

Police officers told Dailey he could appear at a different school board meeting.

At a school board meeting on Tuesday night trustees said they were not aware of what was happening outside of the meeting where Dailey was arrested.

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Etc.

If you want to watch the live stream of the George Zimmerman trial, it is here among many places.

I am very, very, very slowly trying to catch up on this trial. I am still two days' behind.

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I don't know if it is for naught, but many faculty and students at the University of Minnesota are up in arms over TFA.
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This is from three years ago, but it still holds true now and all over the country: A principal who simply doesn't like you can kill your career with any kind of "unsatisfactory" rating or put you on a "plan of assistance." I had one mentally unstable principal who wrote me up on a bunch of bullshit while having had a history of cheating on his wife and banging subordinates, and the last one didn't do anything about it but kicked me to the curb to cover her ass.

To this day, I have no work at all in any field in any kind of stable employment.

I am currently applying for a training program for people over 55, which at least would start getting me a regular income. I can't rely on substitute teaching to fill the bill.

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He's King Midas in reverse: Everything he touches turns to shit.

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Etc.

Live stream of the George Zimmerman trial is here, among many places.

A person named "croakerqueen123" over at YouTube has uploaded all of the videos so far of the trial, just as she, like a number of others, uploaded the entire Jodi Arias trial for those who missed the live feed.
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The WSWS doesn't think much of the USSC's decision regarding the Voting Rights Act:

The Supreme Court decision targets the democratic rights not only of African Americans, but the entire working class. It removes a legal barrier to restrictions on the right to vote and encourages new efforts to curtail the franchise.

With consummate cynicism, Chief Justice John Roberts attempted to present his assault on the Voting Rights Act as a step, reluctantly taken, to pressure Congress to update the measure and bring it into conformity with present conditions. This pose of legalistic objectivity is belied by his role in the 1980s as President Reagan’s point man in attempting to weaken the act.

By effectively discarding the law’s enforcement mechanism, which requires Alaska and eight southern states, plus parts of seven other states, to pre-clear any changes in voting procedures with the federal government, Roberts gave these jurisdictions a green light to enact any changes they desire.

The Roberts court makes up shit, period.
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I agree the whole "gay marriage" issue is merely a diversion on both sides to keep attention away from the neoliberal assault on the masses in order to further enrich the elites:

The embrace of gay marriage by the Obama administration, large sections of the Democratic Party and even a growing number of Republicans and conservative business groups underscores the degree to which identity and lifestyle politics in its various forms—race, gender, sexual orientation—has become a vital element of bourgeois politics.

This serves as a mechanism for diverting attention from the assault on democratic rights, the expansion of war, the growth of poverty and the widening chasm between rich and poor.

Pro-Democratic Party organizations have promoted issues of identity and lifestyle as a means of obscuring these basic class issues, as a means of diverting attention from the reactionary policies of the Obama administration. The Democratic Party uses general support for equality to obscure its fundamental agreement with the Republicans on attacking the working class all down the line.

It is quite telling that bourgeois politicians and media are devoting so much attention to the Supreme Court’s gay rights rulings, while the court’s outrageous and wholesale attack on basic democratic rights, embodied in its decision striking down the Voting Rights Act earlier this week, garners dwindling attention.

I never understood all of the blather about the "right" to marry by gays anyway. Who gives a shit about a relatively inconsequential "right" when everything else is being destroyed?
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High heels should have died out for good after the early 1960s. The fact they have made a comeback proves many women really are stupid and will do anything to get the attention of men, and face it, that's why many women wear these torture devices.
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Washoe County School District is a Law Unto Itself

It's too damned bad the Board of Trustees, which is supposed to oversee the antics of the superintendent and company, is utterly clueless as to what is going on.

Video, of course:

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Etc.

If anybody cares to watch the live stream of the George Zimmerman trial, it can be viewed here among many places.

I haven't followed the case much at all; I am watching the replays of Day One.

What a contrast between the courtrooms here and in the Arias trial. The Zimmerman judge has control of her courtroom, and there is no showboating antics by either side. It's low-key to the point of being boring.

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LOL About WCSD

Thanks to a parent planning to file a lawsuit against Washoe County School District after having been arrested just outside the district offices, the district has decided to "change policies" regarding trespass:

The Washoe County School District will change its policies involving trespass warnings.

It comes two weeks after school district police upheld a trespass warning and arrested a parent who tried to testify at the school board meeting on June. 11.

The board has asked that the school district develop clear policies for individuals given trespass warnings to appeal and for the district to have deadlines by when it must respond to requests from people given warnings.

This is another instance of CYA.

Speaking of WCSD, it appears this reporter can't keep up with all of the shuffling going on with these lambs to the slaughter.

At least three principals who had been at WCSD have moved to other schools or school districts, and that's not counting the three who were put on administrative leave and either resigned or were fired this past year.

I am hoping the shitbag who fired me will be forced out herself because she will not be able to get those test scores up.

This new job she has is the fourth position she has held in five years.

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Score One for the LGBT Community

It looks like the LGBT community scored a big victory today when the USSC decided to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and at the same time declined to rule on California's Proposition 8, thus clearing the way for same-sex marriages to resume.

It's a big story. Of course it was 5-4.

Cynically speaking, this should help the Republicans in the next election cycle.

Or perhaps not, if they decide they have had enough with this issue and will focus on shitting on women's rights as a diversion while joining forces with "Democrats" to allow more pilfering of taxpayer money to benefit their rich backers.

The ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government must recognize the gay marriages deemed legal by the states — 12 plus the District of Columbia, before the California case was decided.

The law helps determine who is covered by more than 1,100 federal laws, programs and benefits, including Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights and family leave.

“DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,” the ruling said. It added that the law was invalid because there was no legitimate purpose for disparaging those whom states “sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”

You can read the decision here.

This had to do with an estate tax issue. It seems to make a lot of sense as this couple was together for some 44 years.

This appears to be the case where it doesn't mean same-sex marriage is legal everywhere--that's never gonna happen--but that if it is legal in some states, the federal government must recognize it.

It's almost saying state law trumps federal law.

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Cartoon of the Day

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Washoe County School District Gossip

Well, there is a reason the Reno City Attorney's office didn't take the trespassing case of the parent who wasn't allowed to go to a school board meeting a couple of weeks ago and was arrested at the district's headquarters, also known as the "green house": It's because the wife of one of the attorneys for the district works at the city attorney's office. She's a deputy city attorney.

Don't you just love that nepotism and good-ole-boy-network shit?

The case has been turned over to the Sparks City Attorney's office.

The case of is being sent to the Sparks City Attorney's office for possible prosecution. Dailey first received a trespass warning in February. The school district says he made significant and repeated threats, but so far, they have not been able to show any proof of that. He was arrested for violating that trespass warning when he showed up at the school board meeting on Jun. 11.

Meanwhile, the parent plans to sue the district.


Here's some video:

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Etc.

I guess this means our dysfunctional USSC has put the ball in Congress's court, so to speak regarding the Voting Rights Act.
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They did, however, uphold affirmative action, at least in principle.
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Surprise--NOT--they're junk.

More:

Charter schools in Nevada had the lowest test scores among the 5,000 charter schools surveyed nationally.

Nevada charter school students are losing a whopping 115 days of learning in reading and 137 days of learning in math each school year, according to the CREDO report. The average school year has 180 days.

This means that Nevada's charter school students are falling behind six to seven months each year, according to the report. “States like Nevada show that charter schools are not a guaranteed solution to educational challenges,” the report stated.

By the way, they are NOT public schools.

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It's Always at the End of the Contract Year,

never at the beginning, that determines whether a teacher gets "tenure," which doesn't mean one goddamned thing anyway. The district could give her the boot regardless.

No matter what the state statutes say, as long as there are administrators who are held to no standards of accountability, teachers are nothing but "at-will" employees who only have the "right" to a farce of a hearing where perjury, destruction of documents, tampering with witnesses, bribery of witnesses, and false documents are commonplace.

The chances of this woman ever getting her job back are zilch, and it doesn't appear she expects that will happen. She may be able to get a settlement large enough to pay off that student loan or make a dent in it.

Naturally since she was denied a continuing contract, she hasn't been able to get a teaching contract anywhere. She's lucky at her age she even has any kind of job, unlike me who has been relegated to substituting and can't make anywhere near enough to support myself.

“It was someone from human resources with a letter of termination,” Weiss says.

Weiss claims to have been going through a grievance process with the principal to establish a “more professional relationship with my superior,” but says she never expected the termination letter. The letter, signed by former SFPS Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez, said Weiss had 10 working days to request reasons for her termination. “The reasons do not provide a basis to contest your termination under the New Mexico School Personnel Act,” it added.

“I love teaching,” Weiss says. “And with this termination came the absolute end of my career. So I went from 50 going back to college and getting an education degree—which is useless—to teaching three years and being terminated. And now I’m 60.”

Weiss made the mistake of pissing off an administrator, who has the total power to kill her career, and she is paying the price.

The moral of the story is this: NEVER go into this field to begin with, and it is SUICIDAL to do it if you are over 50 because of rampant age discrimination.

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Bullying in the School Workplace

I wish NEA and AFT were a whole lot more aggressive with going after rogue principals and other administrators.

Currently, all too many "unions" are basically working for the school districts rather than the teachers they allegedly represent. That is what happened to me. My mistake was putting my faith in the wrong people.

After a year and a half of constant abuse, Werner took medical leave and reported her principal. She was covered by the district’s Bullying and Harassment policy, and while on leave, requested public records about complaints filed by other educators at her school.

“I soon discovered the horror other educators had experienced under his leadership,” Werner says. “I was shocked and sick inside. These were simply people who spoke up and addressed his intimidation tactics. They suffered greatly–both professionally and emotionally.”

Bullying leadership is often based upon fear, Werner says, and because bullying principals are scared they “disperse that fear throughout their schools.”

“They are afraid that some piece of bad news will ‘get out’ about their schools and so they manipulate people and data to meet their needs,” she says. “It’s happening throughout the nation.”

And if they aren't bullies, they are blithering incompetents who should never be in those jobs to begin with.

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Obituary: Richard Matheson

Obituary: Sci-fi novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson, 87, has died. I best remember him for his short story "Duel," which became a made-for-TV movie directed by future Hollywood powerhouse Stephen Spielberg, and for having written scripts for a number of Twilight Zone episodes, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," a classic of the series:

Author Richard Matheson, whose injection of humanity into science-fiction tales engaged audience for more than five decades, has died. Matheson's work included The Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, and numerous other movie and TV scripts, including episodes of The Twilight Zone.

One of my favorite TZ episodes ever:





In this video clip, Matheson talks about Rod Serling and the show:

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Some People Are Simply Slow Learners

The truth about this president was there for all to see before the 2008 election, but people were so blinded by disgust with George W. Bush and disgusted with the economy that they ignored the warning signs.

What gets me is people STILL voted for him despite there being few policy differences between him and Romney because they were afraid of Romney.

The man proves that there is no real two-party system anymore, that the last Democrat to have won the Democratic Party nomination was John Kerry in 2004.

The same thing is going to happen in 2016, especially if somebody like Cory Booker or Andrew Cuomo is on the national ticket.

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Things That Go Splat in the Night

Yeah, he did it.

I am of course referring to aerialist Nik Wallenda, great-grandson of Karl, who succeeded in crossing the Little Colorado River Gorge yesterday. He was up some 1,500 feet above the ground, and it took him about 22 minutes to complete the crossing. The gorge is near Grand Canyon National Park.

The National Park Service barred Wallenda from performing the stunt in the park itself.

You can view a clip of that walk here. There is a reason why Nik is a "born-again Christian": He needed all the help he could get walking that tightrope and in wind gusts as high as 35 mph.

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WEP/GPO: Get Rid of Them--NOW!!!!

There has been talk for years and years to repeal that horrendous WEP/GPO Social Security offsets for government employees who work in jobs not paying into Social Security, but not a damned thing has been done about it.

There is a bipartisan attempt this Congress to finally DO something about this legalized theft, but again it doesn't appear it will get out of committee in the near future.

Many of us are hurting now, and many more of us will be hurting in the near future if these onerous offsets aren't repealed.

Yours truly gets a whopping $300.40 from Nevada PERS, yet will get something like 50 to 60 a month stolen from the small Social Security that will have to be taken at 62 as long as there is no full-time work on the horizon.

Here are the stats of the current odds of the latest attempt:

3% chance of getting past committee.
2% chance of being enacted.

Only 11% of House bills made it past committee and only 3% were enacted in 2011–2013. [show factors | methodology]

The following factors helped this bill:

The sponsor is in the majority party and at least one third of the bill's cosponsors are from the minority party.

There is at least one cosponsor from the majority party and one cosponsor outside of the majority party.

A cosponsor in the majority party has a high leadership score.

The bill's companion S. 896 was sponsored by a member of the other party.

The following factors hurt this bill:

3-5 cosponsors serve on a committee to which the bill has been referred.

The following factors hurt this bill in getting past committee but help it on the floor:

The bill was referred to House Ways and Means.

Here is the actual House bill.

Four senators, two Democratic, two Republican, have introduced a Senate version of this bill:

We are very pleased to announce that a bi-partisan group of four Senators have introduced the Social Security Fairness Act of 2013 (S. 896) — Mark Begich of AK, Susan Collins of ME, Dean Heller of NV, and Elizabeth Warren of MA. This follows the introduction of HR 1795 in the House by Congressman Rodney Davis (IL) and Adam Schiff (CA). (A list of Members of Congress who have already signed on to co-sponsor this bill is at the foot of this email.) This is the work of lobbyists from our different employee associations, unions and retirement groups. We thank them!!

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Time for a Class-Action Lawsuit in Tennessee

Kevin Huffman is an asshole just like his ex-wife and her current husband, and he wants to lump teachers who merely don't get along with their principals, who can simply call these teachers "non-performing" or rig these teachers' classes with low-performing students so their test scores are low, with the perverts and the DUIs and have their licenses taken away.

Once your license is taken away, you can NEVER teach anywhere in the United States ever again. This is nothing but a witch hunt, and this witch hunt is based on something as unreliable as student test scores.

What happens, asshole, after nobody wants to teach anymore and you can't get anybody to work in Tennessee? Oh, I get it, we will turn all of these schools into online "academies" where "teachers" are living in China or India making pennies a day. Or, we will have charter schools where "teachers" can be hired right off the street have no education past high school, if that.

Are teachers in Tennessee that goddamned passive that they are going to take this assault on their profession? Or are they going to take to the streets?

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One Reason Not to Be a Fan of Private Schools

They can pretty much do what they want to teachers because teachers are "at-will" employees. Even if a teacher doesn't do anything wrong and is a domestic violence victim, it doesn't mean much when parents threaten to pull their kids out of a school and with it take the tuition the private school needs to operate.

Private schools want that money, and they will bend over backwards for parents to make sure they get that money.

This kind of thing would never happen in public schools because there is no money involved, unless you have a cowardly shitfaced principal who doesn't care about anything other than his or her image or is an abuser and bully like the ex.

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Culture of Apprehension

I wouldn't exactly call it "fear"--at least not yet--because morale is somewhat better at WCSD under Superintendent Pedro Martinez than it was under "superintendent of the year" Heath Morrison--but it is early yet in the regime. I wouldn't sit back and relax if a I were a principal there. Teachers, of course, live in fear because they are on the bottom of the pole and on the front lines.

The Reno Gazette-Journal presented more of those "findings" by the principals' "association," an association or union that shouldn't be allowed because principals are supervisory/management personnel.

Questions:

How would you rate overall morale?
On a personal level?
Poor 26 percent
OK 25 percent
Good 33.9 percent
Great 15 percent

On a building level?
Poor 20.5 percent
OK 30.7 percent
Good 37.8 percent
Great 11 percent

On a zone level?
Poor 36.8 percent
OK 39.2 percent
Good 22.4 percent
Great 1.6 percent

On a district level?
Poor 54 percent
OK 34.1 percent
Good 10.3 percent
Great 1.6 percent
Washoe School Principal Association survey of 127 principals, assistant principals, coordinators

Too bad teachers weren't asked. I bet those morale figures would be far more negative.

The "association's" president was upset because principals are being forced to account for themselves:

He said lack of due process and poor communication have some leading the district’s 93 schools scared and intimidated.

Principals of Double Diamond and Lemmon Valley elementary schools were put on administrative leave without explanation from the district. Both schools have new principals for the 2013-14 school year.

“I have principals call me and want me to sit in on their meetings,” Fullenwider said, citing a large transition under Martinez, including more than 20 schools with new principals.

Martinez said when he took over the district in August, one of the things he heard when he talked to staff was that there was a culture of fear.

He said things have improved.

More of them need to be FIRED, not just given the opportunity to resign or leave on their own accord, like one school principal did just recently to take a principal job in another state, despite questions that need to be raised over the circumstances of his departure from a school district he worked as an administrator prior to being hired at WCSD.

There needs to be some serious attempts at getting rid of incompetent or bad principals; unfortunately, many of them are still there. When they screw up, they still get moved from job to job.

"Lack of due process"? Please. They are protected to the hilt while teachers' careers are sacrificed.

The president is just mad Martinez isn't a good ol' boy dipshit like Paul Dugan was and let principals get away with murder. Martinez may be a dipshit, but he isn't a "good ol' boy" one.

What Martinez is actually doing is called "churn," and it is advocated by privatizers in order to create more instability in schools and create more pressures on teachers and even administrators for fear of being fired.

This is just the beginning there, and it will get substantially worse.

If some lazy, lousy, and rotten principals finally get fired, then there will be some good coming out of it.

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Etc. for the Day

Coming to a country near you: Abolition of the minimum wage:

The Bank of Spain has called for the elimination of the minimum wage, more flexibility in the labour market and other attacks on the working class.

Its annual report states, “The seriousness of the labour market advises maintaining and intensifying reform momentum through the adoption of additional measures to promote job creation in the short term and facilitate wage flexibility.”

It continues, “It would be worth exploring the possibility of establishing new formulas that would allow, in special cases, temporary departures from the conditions laid down in collective bargaining agreements, or exceptional mechanisms to prevent the minimum wage from acting as a constraint on specific groups of workers with most difficulties in terms of employability.”

These idiots don't understand or care that if you cut wages, nobody will buy anything, and that will cut into profits.

It's not "sustainable," to use a hackneyed phrase that I hate.
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What does it mean to have a "good job" anyway?

For a long time now, we have heard talk about creating “good” jobs, with manufacturing being at the top of the good jobs list. It almost implies that service- sector jobs — the primary replacement for disappearing manufacturing jobs in a post-industrial economy — are really bad jobs. Well, if the definition of a good job is one that pays a solid middle-class wage that allows one to live in dignity, this is probably true. - See more at: http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/blog/meaning-good-job?utm_content=bufferf4a8c&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.1ODmGSIk.dpuf

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Staff Morale is in the Toilet

at WCSD, and no wonder. Of course teacher morale nationwide is in the toilet, so WCSD is not exempt.

The good ol' boy club that existed when I worked there is slowly being eliminated, and new, meaner regimes are replacing it. No doubt some of these school leaders yearn for those days to return when they can sit on their asses all day in their offices, only to come out and bullshit during staff meetings about all of the "great" things they are doing for the schools while letting their useful idiots run amuck and do their dirty work. Some may yearn for the days when they could just shit all over teachers they didn't like and decide to railroad them out of "their" schools or set them up for failure.

WCSD needs change badly, but what would warm my heart is the day the person who railroaded me out, breaking the law in the process, finally gets hers.

My comment after the article about the survey:

Apart from the outrageous fact these principals are protected by an association when they are clearly supervisory or management, the REAL question that should be asked is if the principals are COMPETENT and not power-crazed idiots. The survey needs to be asked of TEACHERS, and anonymously since principals are known to retaliate for the most trivial of reasons, because teachers are the ones who know exactly what these principals are like. WCSD has long had a problem with incompetent, corrupt, vindictive administrators who have been nearly impossible to fire from the district. I really hope Martinez looks at personnel files to see if the people he puts into principal jobs have had NO disciplinary action of ANY KIND EVER. Unfortunately, he has put in at least one from the central office for this coming year, so I doubt he has looked at the files. I may be engaging in wishful thinking, but I sincerely hope those days of yore are over, when good ol' boy superintendents like Paul Dugan and those previous merely slapped wayward principals and other administrators on the wrist and looked the other way while railroading teachers out of careers and over nothing.

The survey:

Twenty six percent of the top school staff surveyed gave low marks when asked about personal morale. District wide, more than half said morale on a district level was poor.

Only 37 of 127 school leaders said morale was great on a personal, building, zone and district level.

More juicy details are supposed to follow tomorrow in that paper.

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The NCTQ is B.S. and Needs to Be Ignored

I think even writing a long piece like this, no matter how factual, just gives the far-right propaganda outfit National Council on Teacher Quality more publicity than it deserves.

It has been promoting some garbage rating teacher preparation programs, but NCTQ doesn't believe teachers should be educated professionals in the first place. It's all about LOWERING standards for teachers, not increasing them, and destroying their salaries and benefits.

I saw through that outfit a long time ago. They weren't about kids or about teachers at all; they are all about destroying public education in this country for private gain.

All one has to do is look at who funds it and is on its board of directors.

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"Only Suckers Play By the Rules"

Is that ever true these days. I truly believe the best days of America are already behind it; things began to go down the toilet the minute Ronald Reagan and his gang of Friedmanite cultists took power and started destroying the country's social and economic fabric, and this has continued to the present day.

No matter how much neoliberalism has been proven to be a failure and proven to be destructive in all countries where it has been tried, our politicians still continue with ruinous policies which are teetering this country on the brink of ruin.

The elites, of course, are doing better than ever, but they are doing better only because everybody else is doing worse.

It's all by design, not coincidence.

Washington politicians are really the enemies of the American people.

The large currents of the past generation – deindustrialisation, the flattening of average wages, the financialisation of the economy, income inequality, the growth of information technology, the flood of money into Washington, the rise of the political right – all had their origins in the late 70s. The US became more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic, more individualistic and less communitarian, more free and less equal, more tolerant and less fair. Banking and technology, concentrated on the coasts, turned into engines of wealth, replacing the world of stuff with the world of bits, but without creating broad prosperity, while the heartland hollowed out. The institutions that had been the foundation of middle-class democracy, from public schools and secure jobs to flourishing newspapers and functioning legislatures, were set on the course of a long decline. It as a period that I call the Unwinding.

In one view, the Unwinding is just a return to the normal state of American life. By this deterministic analysis, the US has always been a wide-open, free-wheeling country, with a high tolerance for big winners and big losers as the price of equal opportunity in a dynamic society. If the US brand of capitalism has rougher edges than that of other democracies, it is worth the trade-off for growth and mobility. There is nothing unusual about the six surviving heirs to the Walmart fortune possessing between them the same wealth as the bottom 42% of Americans – that's the country's default setting. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are the reincarnation of Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie, Steven Cohen is another JP Morgan, Jay-Z is Jay Gatsby.

However, the elites engineered this whole thing; it is not a natural order of things or the way things always were. It was important for them to create fake think tanks and buy up media in order to persuade people to vote against their own best interests. Now they own the politicians and they are trying to take over public education, though people are slowly waking up to the class war. Whether or not it is too late remains in question.

My feeling is the elites can't continue because they are far outnumbered, but once people have had enough, that will be it, but it may wind up being a bloodbath before things can ever be righted again.

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"Do Not Rehire" is the Scarlet Letter

in public education, and I truly hope those Denver Public Schools teachers affected by the non-renewals sue the district's ass off.

After all, "do not rehire" doesn't just apply to that particular district; it also makes it impossible for teachers to work at any other district anywhere else in the United States since HR departments weed these teachers out before they can ever make the cut for an interview.

The same is true for those infamous questions on the applications that want teachers to disclose anything "they" did in another district when nine times out of ten it is the lousy school district that is at fault.

He also said the district has already revised the “do not rehire” policy once at the request of the teacher’s union. Before the revision, teachers who landed on the blacklist were banned from DPS for life. Now they can be rehired after three years if they show improvement in another district.

However, the protesting teachers say that’s not good enough, mainly because teachers have difficulty being hired in any district after being placed on the DPS “do not rehire list.”

With that in mind, the teachers’ petition asked that, as a part of a new teacher evaluation system set to be implemented this coming school year, the “do not rehire” designation only be applied in extreme situations, or when criminal activity is involved.

Exactly. Only actions that would require a teacher to lose his or her license should a "do not rehire" apply. Other school districts wouldn't even have to do the check because it would show up on a licensure database anyway.

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Etc.

Arne Duncan needs to be impeached, not be allowed to basically be a dictator over public education in this country.
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One of Michael Vick's canine victims had to be put to sleep because of illness and age-related complications. He was estimated to be 13 years old, which is actually longer than average for pit bulls, fighting or not.
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There should be a whole lot more concern over the war being waged against public education in this country than some handwringing by the elites over the closing of more and more Catholic schools.

There is no reason for them to exist anymore; Catholics have long since been assimilated into the larger society.

They are also unable to compete with the scam charter school movement.
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The status conference in the Jodi Arias case has been delayed until July 18, which in turn will most likely be delayed until the first of next year thanks to scheduling conflicts with the attorneys involved in the case.

Video:

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Etc.

Obituary: Actor James Gandolfini, 51, star of the premium cable television show The Sopranos, a show that is supposed to be really good but I never saw it on HBO (didn't subscribe) and didn't see it rerun on A&E, of a massive heart attack in Italy. Way, way, way too young to die.

More:

Gandolfini won three Emmys for playing Tony Soprano, a beleaguered mob boss with mom issues. The actor specialized in playing brusque, intimidating guys whose big frames concealed generous hearts.

As Tony Soprano, he anchored a show that ushered in what many consider a new golden era of television. The series invited viewers to sympathize with the bad guy, and only Gandolfini's charm made it possible to root for Tony even as he cheated on his wife and betrayed his loved ones.

Gandolfini walked a tough line, asking us to understand Tony without necessarily liking him. But in spite of ourselves, we usually did.

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You can't trust the Democratic Party as far as you can throw it on public education now that it is infested with neoliberals.

Holy shit: Nitwit Arne Duncan as "national superintedent"? Who were the fuckheads who came up with that?

Obama is the worst president in the history of the United States because he is a neoliberal TOOL.

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CYA @ WCSD

I just LOVED this report from a Reno television station that basically caught Washoe County School District officials in a lie over the parent who was arrested a week ago at district headquarters:




Not a surprise, but why the lawyer told a whopper is a mystery to me.

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Obituary: Slim Whitman

Yodeler and country singer Slim Whitman, 90, has died. I didn't even know he was still alive--I thought he'd died years ago.

I need to pay more attention to this kind of thing.

Anyway, here is the link:

Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his son-in-law Roy Beagle said.

Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks -- and an inspiration for countless jokes -- thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records.

But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.

"Indian Love Call":



"Rose Marie":




He was definitely unique. His biggest years were in the 1950s, and his songs were played constantly at my house when I was growing up. The songs were and are classic "earworm" tunes.

In case you don't know what "earworm" is:

According to research by James Kellaris, 98% of individuals experience earworms. Women and men experience the phenomenon equally often, but earworms tend to last longer for women and irritate them more.[13] Kellaris produced statistics suggesting that songs with lyrics may account for 73.7% of earworms, whereas instrumental music may cause only 7.7%.[14]

In a 2006 book by Daniel Levitin entitled This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, he states that research has shown musicians and people with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) are more likely to suffer from earworm attacks. An attack usually involves a small portion of a song equal to or less than the capacity of one's auditory short-term memory. Levitin reports that capacity as usually 15 to 30 seconds. Simple tunes are more likely to get stuck than complex pieces of music. He also mentions that in some situations, OCD medications have been known to minimize the effects.[7] In 2010, published data in the British Journal of Psychology directly addressed the subject, and its results support earlier claims that earworms are usually 15 to 30 seconds in length.[9]

Scientists at Western Washington University found that engaging the working memory in moderately difficult tasks (such as anagrams, Sudoku puzzles, or reading a novel) was an effective way of stopping earworms and of reducing their recurrence.[15][16]

From Wikipedia, of course.

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The Numbers Racket

I probably will never stop writing about that damned district because sup Pedro Martinez keeps doing the same shit his predecessors have been doing.

He's deciding to manipulate the graduation rate numbers like ol' Heath did:

All of these numbers mean the district will see at least a 73 percent graduation rate. If the district is able to catch 100 students of the almost 500 who could graduate this summer, the district could see graduation numbers top 75 percent.

It is in line with Superintendent Pedro Martinez’s goal to hit an 80 percent graduation rate by 2015, something he said will be in line with graduation rates across the country.

It's all manipulation of how students are counted.

Manipulation of figures is one of the features of the Broad Academy.

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Trash on the Feet.

Those things ought to be banned from the workplace.

Women who wear those things often say they wear them because they are doing it for themselves or that they give them "power," but they will never admit the reason they wear them is to get male attention. High heels are considered a symbol of bondage, of sadomasochism. They also help make women more sexually available by restricting movement and by altering posture.

Women aren't kidding themselves when they wear this shit; they remind me of the old Chinese footbinding that restricted movement.

Here is yet another piece about shit called "shoes":

Wearing high heels can also cause inflammation of the connective tissue at the bottom of the foot, the plantar fascia. That can result in severe heel pain and the need for aggressive treatments such as oral anti-inflammatories, oral steroids, cortisone injections, walking boots and crutches.

All of these conditions can be incredibly painful, requiring corticosteroid shots and, ideally, flatter and wider shoes. His patients will take the shots, but give up the shoes?

Women, Liebow says, “will wear their high-heeled shoes until their feet are bloody stumps.”

Many women will do all kinds of stupid things to try and attract male attention.

You'd think after all these years and advances in women's rights, this shit would go out of style once and for all.

It did for years after the early 1960s. Stilettos were popular in the fifties, but then women got smart and went for comfort.

For some damned reason these garbage shoes came back into style. I have to admit I don't see the majority of women wearing them to any extent, which is a good thing, but far too many of them do.

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Blackballing Teachers Needs to Be Outlawed

Unfortunately, Denver Public Schools is still going to continue the practice of blackballing teachers "unless they can prove themselves 'successful' in another district for THREE YEARS.

You can't even GET a job in public education, let alone work three years in another district, if you are dismissed from employment because one, those disclosure questions on applications, and two, because of the reference checks to school districts to see if you are eligible for rehire. I wrote about the disclosure questions in a post on another board this morning:

What is tragic is it will follow you to almost all 15,000 school districts in the country because of the HR weeding out questions in job applications which ask whether you resigned in lieu of dismissal, were dismissed, forced to resign, denied continued employment, and all sorts of other questions. Sometimes those questions will actually be on state licensing questions although few teachers dumped by school districts have actually done anything wrong to deserve having to reveal dismissals and the like to state boards.

The assumption is you are a "bad teacher" if you check off "yes," no matter what the truth is. Ostensibly those questions are supposed to be designed to determine "fitness" to teach, but given how distorted the power balance is between principals, who are NEVER held truly accountable for their actions and have all of the power, and teachers, who have NO power and are easily canned, the questions are nothing more than blackballing questions. They should be illegal nationwide. The only things schools should be concerned with are matters that directly affect licensing. You check off "yes," you will never make the cut for an interview; if you lie and check off "no," there is a risk the district will find out and then have your license sanctioned. HR and hiring panels do not care about the reason; they won't even read it. You check that "yes" off, and it goes into the garbage can because those questions are actually used solely to reduce the number of applicants for jobs.

The questions are usually listed as "yes/no" questions and you check off one or the other, but I have seen districts that have "no/yes," so it's pretty obvious what they are doing. They eliminate all applications with "yes" checked off regardless of your qualifications and references.

Education is the only field I know where this systemwide blackballing occurs. The only situation remotely similar is being disbarred from practicing law, but the reasons for disbarment are far more likely to be true than the garbage that goes on with incompetent and vindictive principals.

At the very least you have to move out of state, but then you are going to have to start all over again with substituting and all of that other stuff in order to get any decent references if you don't have any already. You better find you whether you are eligible for rehire at the old district; if not, this will kill your career chances, and a lawyer might be necessary to go after the district with a "cease and desist" letter.

And yes, I DO know what the OP is going through, and it's been five years for me and counting. The dirtbag district administrator who should have been fired is still employed but is bounced from job to job to job. Totally worthless individual.

Nobody should have that much power to destroy your career and really your ability to earn a living.


This is what the fired DPS teachers are up against.

They need to sue big time.

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Stupidity Being Passed Off as "Science"

Some alleged "scientists" and researchers try to justify a preference some men--by all means not ALL of them or even most of them--of younger women by claiming that is the reason menopause exists.

As if men don't through the decline in fertility themselves; they do, and that decline has been linked to a host of birth defects, including autism.

What a bunch of utter bullshit, and it peddles the bullshit notion that women are "used up" by the time they hit fifty.

Menopause is a result of an increased lifespan, and an aging body cannot handle the stresses of childbirth.

It sounds like these morons want something to back up their OWN preferences.

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Etc.

It's a lot more common for school districts to violate FMLA laws and railroad teachers out illegally than it is for teachers to do what this one allegedly did.

All she had to do was ask for a sabbatical or leave of absence if there was something wrong.

Few teachers can afford to risk their careers and fake it.
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Detroit workers are being demonized and having their very standard of living destroyed thanks to a legalized dictatorship there, which is also called an "emergency manager."


link
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It's the Lack of Demand,

not a "skills shortage," or "technology," or any of the other bullshit reasons think tank propagandists and neoliberal politicians and economists claim is the reason the economy is in the toilet.

It's all about the ideology of an oversupply of workers and few jobs in an attempt to destroy living standards in the United States and in all industrialized countries in order for them to compete with third world countries in a race to the bottom while the rich continue to hoard all the wealth.

The end result would literally be a return to slavery--not that it has been completely eliminated worldwide, but it would make a fierce comeback, and it wouldn't be based on ethnic characteristics but on social class.

Neoliberalism will not work, it has never worked, and all it would lead to is bloodshed and revolution. We aren't that far away from that day if these worthless morons in Washington don't reverse course with their anti-government rhetoric and actually do what they are supposed to do, and that is fix this mess that they created.

From the editorial:

Corporate executives have valuable perspectives on the economy, but they also have an interest in promoting the notion of a skills gap. They want schools and, by extension, the government to take on more of the costs of training workers that used to be covered by companies as part of on-the-job employee development. They also want more immigration, both low and high skilled, because immigrants may be willing to work for less than their American counterparts.

There are many reasons to improve education, to welcome immigrants and to advance other policies aimed at transforming the work force and society. But a skills gap is not among them. Meeting today’s job challenges requires action to improve both the economy and pay, including government measures to create jobs, strengthen health and retirement systems, and raise the minimum wage. Fretting about a skills gap that does not exist will not help.

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Ed Etc.

If Charlotte Danielson is really serious about the misuse of her rubric, she needs to come forward and condemn the reformers for misusing it. She needs to sue if need be.

The Danielson rubric that was used at my old school district was always a fair rubric, and it made you reflect on your own teaching practice. Then you would talk about your evaluation of yourself with your principal. It was nice.

I don't know if it is the same one as is used now. Who the hell knows with the current reform garbage?
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Yeah, there are "challenges" alright for my old school district. The editorial from the Reno Gazette-Journal from a few days ago notes the obvious:

Martinez showed a willingness to shake things up earlier this year when he moved principals around in an attempt to put the best principals where they’re needed the most. It was primarily a principal shuffle, however, not a housecleaning. Principals at troubled schools were transferred to other schools, as so often happens in large organizations. Martinez has yet to show that he’ll remove principals who aren’t meeting standards when necessary. The next set of rankings may change that.

"Removed" in public education lingo doesn't mean fired or forced to resign, which it should. Teachers are lied about, ruined so they can never teach again, while the dolts who committed the wrongdoing are allowed to keep their careers in one capacity or another. They are just moved around, moved around, and moved around some more. The good old boy network that was in place from the time of Paul Dugan and before is still in place to a large extent. BTW, the "best" principals are NOT being moved to those schools; Martinez never bothered to look at the personnel files to see if all of the principals were without a history of disciplinary action. At least one should have been fired outright five years ago but her rear end was covered by Paul Dugan and company despite her flagrant, FLAGRANT negligence and incompetence, but she's being moved to another school from the central office despite the fact she is completely incompetent to lead. This new "job" is the fourth position she has had in five years. She should have been in the unemployment line instead.

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Charity Ripoffs

Before you think about parting with that dollar or two or more, take a look at this list.

Lots of children's charities and cancer charities.

I have very little money to spare, but even when I could, I basically limited my giving to local agencies.

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The Real Story

This editorial focuses on the unemployment mess in Nevada, but this problem is national and is a result of deliberate neoliberal policies designed to lower living standards in the United States to third world levels.

This is one of the reasons I have grown to literally HATE both political parties. Few people "elected" care one damned bit about the people who voted for them.

Of course the figures of the true jobless numbers are being hidden--we have a depression out here, and it is not getting better.

Politicians in both political parties will never do one thing about it because they are beholden to an ideology and to the financial elites also beholden to an ideology which says that to "compete in the global marketplace," the standard of living in the United States must be the same as in third world countries. They WANT a massive number of desperate, jobless people in order to drive wages and salaries down to Chinese levels while gutting every single program that benefits working people, the poor, retirees, and children, and refusing to institute job creation programs that would stimulate demand and create more jobs. These politicians, especially in Washington, are slaves to a neoliberal ideology that has been discredited and debunked everywhere in the world where it has been attempted. This country will not survive with a handful of rich and everybody else poor--that's how violent revolutions get started.

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Etc.

Assholes in both political parties are hellbent on waging war against the increasing number of poor people in this country, and they will lie to do it:

The full House is expected to present its version of the farm bill some time this summer, which must then be reconciled with the Senate bill. Any Democratic-Republican “compromise” legislation that emerges will serve to increase hunger and food insecurity among tens of millions of Americans who continue to struggle with poverty, job loss and under-employment five years into the economic downturn.

A bill introduced last month by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York that would have blocked any food stamp cuts received the support of only 25 of her Democratic Senate colleagues. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chair of the Senate Agriculture committee, defended the $4.1 billion in SNAP cuts in the bill that eventually passed, claiming the cutback was aimed at rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” in the food stamp program.

In reality, the Senate bill’s cutback to SNAP is largely the result of eliminating the “Heat and Eat” programs adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia, which allow states to coordinate food and energy assistance programs, eliminating the need for SNAP households to provide burdensome monthly documentation of their shelter and utility bills.

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I missed this equine obituary from April: Storm Cat, 30, once one of the leading sires in the United States, was euthanized when it was discovered he had cancer. He had lost a great deal of weight, but it was pointless to try and put him through any more pain given he was much older than the average thoroughbred horse.

He was a grandson of Secretariat through his dam Terlingua, and his sire was a Northern Dancer son, Storm Bird.

he 462 of his yearlings sold at public auction brought more than $319 million — for an average of more than $690,000. Of those, 91 yearlings brought $1 million or more, according to Overbrook.

Storm Cat produced 110 graded stakes winners, including winners of Preakness and Belmont stakes, the Kentucky Oaks, five Breeders’ Cup races and several top European stakes, according to Equineline.com and Overbrook. The Kentucky Derby winner’s circle eluded his progeny, with Bluegrass Cat’s 2006 second-place finishing being Storm Cat’s best showing in the Churchill Downs classic. In all his offspring have earned more than $128 million.

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Etc.

You never know about your neighbors.

By the time he is brought to trial, he will likely be dead.
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The world's oldest living man, who was actually the oldest verifiable man ever recorded, Jiroemon Kimura, 116, has died:

"Jiroemon Kimura was an exceptional person," said Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records. "As the only man to have ever lived for 116 years — and the oldest man whose age has been fully authenticated — he has a truly special place in world history."

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Nothing But a Publicity Stunt

Since SNAP benefits are designed to be supplemental benefits hence the name, this effort by some congresspeople is just a publicity stunt. Of course nobody can live on SNAP benefits alone because you are expected to make up the difference.

Many people don't have the money to make the difference, and many people do not collect the full food stamp benefit each month. It's all based on income and expenses. If you have no rent or utilities to pay, you are not going to get the full benefit. If you have any income at all and can't pay rent and utilities, you can't get the full benefit. If you make more than $1211 a month, hardly enough to get out of poverty, you will get either $16 a month or you will get nothing.

Many if not most adults who qualify for SNAP work, but they don't make enough they can't rely on it.

Lee detailed the tough decisions she made grocery shopping — butter and milk were outside her budget and a McDonalds value menu item will count as her midweek break — in a blog post. “What I’m thinking about most during this trip is that I’m shopping only for myself,” she wrote, comparing the difficult decisions now to when she needed public assistance as a single mother. “When I was a young, single mother, I was on public assistance. It was a bridge over troubled water, and without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I spent hours debating what to buy and what to skip, all the while keeping my sons in my mind.” Many Americans receiving SNAP benefits are under 18 years old and live in working households.

It's better for people to demonize SNAP recipients as "bums."

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Ed World

Well, Providence has proven it doesn't live up to its name.

I guess this is preparing special needs students for the job market of tomorrow.
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More Washoe County School District Shenanigans

Once again it looks like the district just makes up stuff as it goes along, in this case about the parent who was arrested the other night for "trespass." It appears he wasn't really threatening at all:

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The Blame Rests Squarely on Washington,

not with "unskilled" workers or, according to the new mantra peddled by Wall Street crooks and globalist cultists, technology has decimated the American workforce and nothing can be done about it. The politicians, including Obama, are so enamored with the discredited and debunked neoliberal ideology and have been so bought off by the crooks who benefit from it, they are willing to destroy the American economy to do it.

This economy is being deliberately killed by Washington politics. Period.

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Economic determinists — fatalists, really — assume that globalization and technological change must now condemn a large portion of the American workforce to under-unemployment and stagnant wages, while rewarding those with the best eductions and connections with ever higher wages and wealth. And therefore that the only way to get good jobs back and avoid widening inequality is to withdraw from the global economy and become neo-Luddites, destroying the new labor-saving technologies.

That’s dead wrong. Economic isolationism and neo-Ludditism would reduce everyone’s living standards. Most importantly, there are many ways to create good jobs and reduce inequality.

Other nations are doing it. Germany was generating higher real median wages until recently, before it was dragged down by austerity it imposed the European Union. Singapore and South Korea continue to do so. Chinese workers have been on a rapidly-rising tide of higher real wages for several decades. These nations are implementing national economic strategies to build good jobs and widespread prosperity. The United States is not.

Any why not? Both because we don’t have the political will to implement them, and we’re trapped in an ideological straightjacket that refuses to acknowledge the importance of such a strategy. The irony is we already have a national economic strategy but it’s been dictated largely by powerful global corporations and Wall Street. And, not surprisingly, rather than increase the jobs and wages of most Americans, that strategy has been increasing the global profits and stock prices of these giant corporations and Wall Street banks.

Robert Reich will have no seat at the "Democratic" administration table, let me tell you.

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Etc.

It's shedding season, and this dog of a billionaire decided his wife was a little bit too old for him.
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It's very obvious K-12 cyber schools are junk and designed to rip off taxpayers while denying students the needed face-to-face contact with teachers and fellow students.

People keep falling for this crap, but the operators of these scams know it is just about enriching themselves at taxpayer expense. It has nothing to do with helping students.

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Goodbye and Good Riddance

when Obama finally leaves for that fat payday the day he finally leaves the White House on January 20, 2017. I know I won't miss him one bit.

He's been a disaster in so many ways, I have lost count:

Lately I’ve been referring to the president as “Under the Bus Obama.” The list of those Obama has thrown under the runaway buses of neoliberal capitalism, military empire, and white supremacy is daunting. His resume of betrayal includes his maternal grandmother, his preacher, the labor movement (betrayed and abandoned on global trade, labor law reform, the Wisconsin rebellion, the wage- and job-slashing terms of the much-ballyhooed auto bailout and more); environmentalists (abandoned and betrayed on offshore drilling, hydraulic fracturing, global trade, global carbon emission reduction-efforts, nuclear power, clean coal and more), senior citizens (betrayed by the president’s ongoing effort to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits), immigrants (betrayed by a president who has actually increased the number of deportations) civil libertarians (abandoned and betrayed on Guantanamo, rendition, warrantless wiretaps, secret kills lists, whistleblower protection, domestic drones, the infiltration of protest organizations, and more), the mainstream press (recently betrayed by the president’s arch-authoritarian seizure of Associate Press phone records), nuclear disarmament advocates (recently betrayed by Obama’s $547 million request for the B61 nuclear gravity bomb in Europe), and the antiwar community (betrayed by Obama’s sick global drone war, the undeclared war on Libya, the escalating U.S. invasion of Africa, U.S. saber-rattling in relation to Iran, Syria, and East Asia and much more). Last but not least and of special interest to this panel, we have Black America, betrayed by a first technically black president who has said and done less about racial inequality than any American chief executive in recent memory.

Don't forget his education policies, which may be the very worst of all of his bad policies.

It took a real genius to peddle a black "Democrat" who would undo every single gain that party has made in the past century and trash the Democratic Party brand in doing so.

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Cory! Cory! Cory!

Cory Booker is as bad as anybody in American politics today, and that includes everybody in both wings of the same neoliberal political party.

He is rotten to the core, completely compromised by the far right and has been since the beginning of his dubious rise to prominence.

Remember that $100m donation to the Newark schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, promoted with its very own Oprah episode? The cash didn't go into the Newark school system; it's controlled by a non-governmental fund, with Booker on the board, and has been so unaccountable that the ACLU had to sue the city to learn what was going on. (Booker's office first denied that the emails the ACLU sought existed; when a judge ordered the emails to be made public, the Booker team released them on Christmas Eve.)

Add to this Booker's privatization of the Newark sanitation department, and his repeated attempts to do the same to the water supply, and the picture becomes clearer. In the world Booker and his cohort inhabit, there are no systemic problems and no class interests. There are only pesky inefficiencies, to be fixed with better data and more money from smart, happy, rich people who can spend their cash far more sensibly than the public sector.

Poor Frank Lautenberg. The so-called "swamp dog" was one of the great remaining liberals in the Senate, a quiet but committed defender of unions and the working class, and a constant advocate for progressive taxation. And New Jerseyans have a chance to vote for a successor in his mold. Two quite progressive House members, the long-serving Frank Pallone and the physicist-turned-politician Rush Holt, have both declared their candidacies.

But it seems far more likely that the next senator from New Jersey will be the anti-Lautenberg: a neoliberal egomaniac who sees government as nothing more than a charity for billionaires and corporations to support as they please. There may be no stopping the rise and rise of Cory Booker. But let's at least recognize his impending triumph for what it is: another victory for the men in the glass towers, enabled by a nonstop publicity campaign waged 140 characters at a time.

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Obituaries

Obituary: Famed British horse trainer Henry Cecil, 70, has died following a long battle against stomach cancer:

In 1985, Cecil's Oh So Sharp became the first filly since 1955 to win English racing's three classics - the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks and St. Leger.

American jockey Steve Cauthen rode Oh So Sharp to England's Triple Crown in 1985 at the start of their successful six-year partnership with Cecil.

"He was a super intelligent guy and really knew how to place his horses," Cauthen said. "He tried to have fun. The atmosphere during most of the time I was up at Warren Place was just fantastic.

"It was all due to him. It was a team effort but everyone looked to him. He was the one making decisions about where to run the horses."

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Soap opera actress Maxine Stuart, 94, has died of natural causes.

Twilight Zone fans like yours truly will always remember her role as one of the two "Janet Tylers" in the legendary 1960 episode "Eye of the Beholder." She played Janet under bandages, while Donna Douglas played the part revealed.

Many people thought this Rod Serling story was strictly about beauty or nonconformity, and one level it was. However, it is more likely this was about racism and segregation. All kinds of phrases familiar to yours truly used by racists were in the episode. Serling could never have written about this issue during the height of the civil rights era if he had told it "straight."

Here she talks about her role under bandages:




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In 1993, she joined the CBS daytime drama "The Young and the Restless" for a story line about an older couple. William J. Bell, the show's co-creator, cast Stuart after seeing her play an intern on "Murphy Brown."

"She epitomized what I wanted – someone who brought a feistiness, a vitality and energy with her, who's gregarious and fun-loving," Bell told The Times in 1993.

Stuart, then in her 70s, agreed that she still had plenty of energy. "When you're 20, you think, 'Oh, my God, if I ever get to be 30, I'll be so old.' But when you get to be this age, if you don't look in the mirror — or see yourself on TV — you don't know."

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More WCSD Stuff

Apparently the WCSD Board of Trustees meeting last night that gave Superintendent Pedro Martinez high marks didn't go without a hitch. A parent who also is a UNR professor was arrested for trespass. He wanted to voice his complaint about how the school district handles special education students' cases:

In February, Dailey was given a trespass warning by the school district after trying to meet with district officials about the handling of information about his daughter, who has autism.

He says the district, including Superintendent Pedro Martinez, has harassed and intimidated him and has refused to discuss patterns of issues he has had with the district and the handling of issues involving his daughter.

“Nothing is more important than the student, and I will do whatever is necessary to help that student,” Martinez said about the situation. He said he disagrees with points made by Dailey.

In recent findings by the State Department of Education, the state found the district was not complying with federal regulations and has 30 days to come up with new plans on how employees access personal information and track who looks at records.

It's supposed to be about the kids, but he should know better. It's all about the administrators and their "right" to feed at the taxpayer trough.

I learned that the hard way.

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Updated: Another video, this time with an interview with the parent in question:



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In other gossip, the principal who "won" his criminal complaint against a parent who threatened him did resign from the school district after being put on administrative leave.

No word yet on the Lemmon Valley ex-principal.

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