Last Stand for Children First

Monday, May 20, 2013

Serial Trespasser's Arrest Brings Union Election Results into Doubt

Today, the Chicago Police Department was forced to arrest Chicago Teachers Union Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle after she refused to stop interfering with law abiding citizens who wished to use the elevators at Chicago City Hall. Her arrest brings shame not only to Kristine, but to the entire Chicago Teachers Union who recently elected this serial trespasser to another term running the union's membership and finances. I must think that had union membership realized they were electing a repeat offender, they might well have made a less controversial choice with their votes.

I mention that Ms. Mayle is a serial trespasser because this is not the first time she has been arrested. We have manged to obtain the following picture from a June 2011 incident where Ms. Mayle and several other union radicals blockaded the street in front of an innocent Hyatt Hotel. Shortly, after this picture was taken, Mayle was arrested:

I think we all must ask themselves what is a teacher like this going to teach students besides how to do their own prison tattoos (Mayle apparently has several), how to make a shank, or ferment their own Pruno from CPS orange juice and ketchup packets. Sadly, this is not even the only criminal CTU member. They have an organizer who loves to assault reporters by ridiculing their underdeveloped male equipment. For shame CTU. For Shame.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Last Stand for Children First Makes Endorsement in Chicago Teachers Union Election

Internal union politics is probably the last place that an education group like ourselves should be getting involved. However, sometimes a candidate or a group of candidates come along that you have no choice, but to proclaim your admiration and support for.   In the Chicago Teachers Union election, The Coalition to Save Our Union is just such a group.

We do not like activist teacher's unions.   They bother us and bring visions of future class warfare or something.   Karen Lewis seems to have the Chicago teachers protesting something every single week. We would much prefer a different type of leader, someone like Tanya Sanders-Wolff who knows that you don't have to open your mouth to let your voice be heard.

While CORE is all about confrontation, TCTSOU is more about compromise.   When the current teachers contract was negotiated, neither Saunders-Wolff nor Ochoa felt the need to say anything against it when they were on the bargaining team. They didn't have to. That's what power is all about.

Even know, one can look at the web page, the face book page, and twitter feed of The Coalition to Save Our Union and you won't find a policy statement.   Their concrete ideas are that Karen Lewis is a bad President and that they:

1. Believe in power in the Streets as well as the suites
2. Believe that CTU must both organize and service members
3. Believe that teachers and school staff know best about their schools

When your policy goals can fit onto a cocktail napkin or matchbook, you never have to worry about breaking a campaign promise and isn't that refreshing?

Finally, electing TCTSOU will make for a more democratic union. Look how CTU meetings were when PACT was the opposition and UPC was in charge:

That is Democracy in action. Everybody not only gets to speak, but everybody gets to speak at the same time. It is my hope that any teachers reading this will join with Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Tribune, and Last Stand for Children First and support The Coalition to Save Our Union

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

Teachers make such a difference in the lives of so many children. I know this first hand because I was a student in San Diego for nearly a year before coming to work at Last Stand for Children First. In that time, I was a truly and unsung hero and I remember it fondly. I had wanted to do a drive to have parents donate used mugs that we could clean and then present to teachers as our little way of saying thanks, but unfortunately I forgot about Teacher Appreciation Week until it was too late.

Teachers give so much of themselves to their students. I really wish there was a way to give them more money. Recently, Last Stand for Children First call a blue ribbon panel of experts in education reform together to look at ways we could better reward top performing teachers. After spending 18 months and $20,000,000 researching different approaches, we came up with a merit pay system that we thought would be a great way to make sure the best teachers are rewarded. Wouldn't you know it? Backed by their unions, district after district has rejected our plan.

In fact, teachers routinely block all the best things we have designed for them---from equipping students with dog collars that would alert a central computer when their focus drifted from their teacher to making sure that the best and cheapest teachers aren't automatically terminated when layoffs come. It just seems that the entire profession is given a black eye because of these few no good jerks who seek fancy retirements and $40,000 a year lifestyles at the expense of their children.

Keep in mind that this is a job where you work from 10-3 with every holiday off and 4 and a half months off in summer time.   We pay teachers an exorbitant salary. I know this because my job at Last Stand for Children First puts me in a very high tax bracket and I am astonished to see how much I get hit for in taxes and don't even get me started on property tax. I refuse to believe that adding a stables and a tennis court adds that much to a home's value.   Still, my taxes keep rising because I'm paying for these people to retire on easy street.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank Mrs. Ward who cheered me up in 4th grade when I'd go to her music class after Mr. Altino's math class. Wow! was Mr. Altino a jerk.   He always smelled of cheese, garlic, and onions and he was sooooo boring. I wouldn't have giving this guy a dog license let alone a teacher's license.   So many of my teachers were such losers.

So thank you for all that you do.   You are shaping are future and I think I speak for everybody in Last Stand for Children First when I say it's really appreciated.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Girl Arrested for Unauthorized Science

With all the attention that the Czechoslovakian terrorists in Boston received, it is very easy to forget about the homegrown terrorists that we have to contend with in this very country. Fortunately, police in Florida were on the case.   If you're not familiar with Florida, here's a great recap of some of the terrific education reform going on in the sunshine state.

At 7 a.m. Monday morning, it was one of those quiet April days that reminds you that Florida is God's waiting room.   The smell of citrus and orange blossom was in the air as 16 year old high school student Kiera Wilmot skulked towards Bartow High School. Unbeknownst to her classmates, the 16 year old terrorist in training was packing household chemicals and an 8 ounce plastic bottle. The label may have said "water", but it could have just as easily read, "death to America." When she arrived on campus, Miss Wimot wasted no time in mixing the household chemicals together in her bottle of death and putting the cap back on. Investigators later recalled, "the reaction caused a small explosion that caused the top to pop up and produced some smoke."

Police wasted no time in hustling Miss Wilmot to an undisclosed location where charged with possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device. She will be tried as an adult.

I for one do not approve of trying Miss Wilmot for this offense. It seems that when dealing with terrorists, our criminal justice system falls far short. What is to stop her from lawyering up before we find out if there was anybody else involved in her plot and why she hates our way of life so much. Surely, Guantanamo Bay is where this girl belongs.

There is no room for this kind of experimentation in school.   If students wish to learn science, there are approved text books for doing just that. Nobody has ever been arrested for taking a standardized test in science---administering, sure, but not taking.

There is no telling where this kind of behavior could end.   Chemistry is a gateway science.   If this girl is not incarcerated, next year she could be stealing neighborhood pets to direct before she ultimately destroys us all by creating a black hole in the middle of Florida.   I applaud the Bartow authorities for their quick and decisive action that no doubt saved countless lives.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Meet the Common Corps

We have been for a very long time now to bring meaningful reform to education with sadly mixed results. We've tried to set requirements for our schools' teachers to teach to standardized tests so that they all teach the same thing and we've created common core standards to even further bring the type of standardization to education that we've been craving since efficiency efforts first set their sights on education back at the beginning of the twentieth century.

However, it's never worked. Why? Simply put, you can give two McDonalds similar recipes and condiments, but if one is serving all beef patties and the other is serving burgers full of filler, they're just not going to turn out the same. The same is true of students who have radically different student bodies.

The Common Corps is our initiative to finally standardized the student bodies across all schools. Over the next 20 years, we propose to replace our public school student population with Common Corps members.

While not all Common Corps members are rich, they are all comfortably middle class, which means they exhibit none of the food insecurity or post traumatic stress the seem so prevalent among lower income students.
While not all Common Corps members are white, they are very familiar with majority culture and will not miss any reference found on state standardized tests.
All Common Corps members are from loving two parent households.
All Common Corps members are fluent in English
All Common Corps members are of above average intelligence and none will require special education services.
All Common Corps members have excellent conflict resolution skills and can solve all problems by simply discussing things like rational human beings.

By replacing the student body of all schools with Common Core members, we will finally be able to compare schools on an even playing field because they will have exactly the same type of students. This is an idea whose time has come and the final step in our efforts to improve education for all students by replacing those students.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Alternatively Certified Teachers Profile...Bonnie Kohler

Alternative certification routes are vital to attracting the best, brightest, and cheapest teachers to enter the classroom. Just because you are willing to devote your whole life to educating our country's children, it does not mean you are willing to spend 2 years taking methods classes to learn to teach. Please read this great essay by Last Stand for Children First Fellow Bonnie Kohler as she explains what being alternatively certified means to her.

In 2008, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Baraboo with a double major in social work and sociology. After graduating, I soon realized that the market for sociologists was roughly the same size as the job market for interpretive dance majors. I was hired by Starbucks corporation in the role of barista. I served in that position for 2 years before I broke up with my boyfriend and returned to UWB to attain my Masters Degree in Dairy Sciences.

I began work at a small dairy in Menomonie, but I longed to do something more with my life. Then it occurred to me, while watching Law and Order, that I could be a lawyer. Unfortunately, I needed something to make my application really stand out for law school recruiters. My college GPA was roughly as high as my blood alcohol level if you know what I mean.

That's when I heard about Last Stand for Children First. After just 3 weeks of training, I could be working as a real classroom teacher in a genuine inner city environment. I also learned, law school recruiters love to get applications form Last Stand for Children First Fellows.

Let me just say, it wasn't easy. The kids didn't care what my lesson plans said they were doing. If this was the day they decided to throw the waste basket out of the classroom window, there was nothing I could do to stop them. However, imagine my surprise when we got back our test scores that first year and I learned that my students improved their test scores by 150 percent. In fact, our whole school's test scores went through the roof. The assistant principal and my mentor assured me that they went through all my student's tests after school one Friday and that they could tell the kids did great and that my increases were legitimate. They also said, I shouldn't ask any questions abut it for some reason.

All my work teaching students how to fill in the bubbles on the test and how to make an educated guess and pace themselves pay off. I was a real teacher and to think without the alternative certification program, I never would have been able to impact these students’ and their families’ lives – but equally as important, they never would have had the chance to impact my life as well.

Next Fall, I will be attending law school and then hopefully, I will never have to see another 5th grader again, unless maybe I'm making education policy. I think I'd like that.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Arne Duncan Loves Many Things