Sunday Cartoon Fun: Scapegoats Edition

Michigan Boots 40 Teachers -- Occupy!!

Mid-year teacher layoffs in Pontiac shock

hundreds of elementary students

Join educators, parents at press conference Friday afternoon while laid-off teachers pack up their classrooms

PONTIAC, Mich., April 13, 2012 — On Wednesday, nearly 40 teachers in the Pontiac School District were informed they were being laid off.

Effective today.

Set aside the fact that this ignores contract language the district previously agreed to with its employees.

Set aside the fact that this move is happening in light of gross mismanagement of the Pontiac School District by administrators who are under criminal investigation for financial malfeasance.

Set aside the fact that the lives of educators – those laid off and those left behind – are being turned upside down with 48 hours of notice.

Look only at Pontiac’s students and the effect this is going to have on the final 45 days of their school year.

Elementary students – from kindergarten through 6th grade – having to move classrooms, leave classmates, and adjust to new teachers…all with just weeks to go in the school year.  Instantly skyrocketing class sizes – up to 32 in kindergarten and up to 39 in grades 1 through 6.

The Pontiac Education Association invites the media to a press conference at one of the Pontiac Elementary schools affected by these layoffs.  Please, come to see firsthand the impact these mid-year cuts will have on students, parents, educators and the community, as laid-off teachers pack up their classrooms and leave after just two days notice.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Friday, April 13 at 3:45 p.m.

(immediately after school dismissal)

In front of Owen Elementary School

1700 Baldwin Ave., Pontiac, Mich. 48340

(just south of Great Lakes Crossing Mall)

“The mission of the MEA is to ensure that the education of our students

and the working environments of our members are of the highest quality.”

Occupy NEA Run By Jerks, Updated

Occupy NEA is a newish Facebook Community Group asking for NEA folks to tell the leadership how to better serve their members.

They are doing this by banning people; they banned Sahila Changebringer and me, in a heartbeat.

They suck. If you "Liked" them you may have made a mistake.

The admin is a guy named Tommy Flanagan, and he's a hypocrite. Please lay it on thick and heavy over there and get this guy to open up his page, or we will try to shut it down.

Jerk.

Update: You can join the Actual Occupy NEA if you would rather.

The DOE Would Like To Ruin Public Schools: The Proof (Updated)

This document, from your government, basically enshrines the notion that teachers should be evaluated based on the scores of their students, that teacher certification is for fools (hire TFA instead), and unions and job security are bad ideas. Thank your President, Barack Obama for hiring the idiot Arne Duncan whose work we see below. The definition of "douche-bag" is "Arne Duncan."

SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE TEACHERS IN THE CLASSROOM 

THE PROBLEM:

The teacher quality policies under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) were intended to encourage better educators in schools. But in the 10 years since the law’s enactment, the “Highly Qualified Teacher” requirements have placed too much emphasis on a teacher’s credentials and tenure and imposed significant burdens on states and schools, while paying little attention to student learning.

When it comes to getting better teachers in our schools, these “Highly Qualified Teacher” provisions can do more harm than good. As former elementary school teacher Deborah Ball stated at a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, “Right now, teachers are considered qualified simply by participating in an approved program or completing an academic major. This means that being qualified does not depend on demonstrating that you can teach.”

THE SOLUTION:

Parents know the best teachers are the ones who keep students motivated and challenged in the classroom. Instead of relying on teacher credential or tenure requirements, which provide little information about teachers’ ability to help students excel in the classroom, the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act will ensure states and school districts have the tools necessary to effectively measure an educator’s influence on student achievement.


THE STUDENT SUCCESS ACT AND THE ENCOURAGING INNOVATION AND EFFECTIVE TEACHERS ACT

-Repeal federal "Highly Qualified Teacher" requirements.

-Support the development and implementation of teacher evaluation systems to ensure parents have the information they need to make decisions about their child’s education.

-Set broad parameters – including linkages to student achievement data – that must be included in any teacher evaluation system, but allows states and school districts to design their own systems.

-Require states and school districts to seek input from parents, teachers, school leaders, and other staff as they develop the evaluation system.

-Encourage states and school districts to make personnel decisions based on the evaluations, as determined by the school district.

-Consolidate teacher quality programs into a new Teacher and School Leader Flexible Grant, which supports creative approaches to recruit and retain effective educators.

Your Government

Update: I should not have said this was a DOE document. It's not. It's an Education and the Workforce Committee document, like the banner shows. I got ahead of myself.

Tim Furman (SchoolTechConnect) in the comments gently pointed that out to me. And he also made an interesting point--this came out of a Republican led committee and only Republicans voted for it. Still, it includes many of the things Duncan and Obama want. So why did it get published? Is it for, as Tim put it, a bad cop/worse cop scenario?

I put nothing past the reformers. Arne will love this document. It might as well be a DOE document. I predict, in large part it will become one anyway.

Why Does The Public Have So Little Faith In Teachers?

This is a comment by Dave Russell over at the SF FB page:

Michael - with all due respect, I have been following Rhee and her commentary from the launch and seeing first hand how her rhetoric and propaganda has been delivered to and received by the public. I have had scores of people talk to me about their perceptions of teachers and education. Soon after Rhee launched StudentsFirst, the flavor of the discussions changed with people I know becoming more embittered to teachers and naming them as the sole reason why American students are 20-whatever in the world. Nearly overnight I became a part of this ambiguous "status quo" and someone who has wrecked budgets and damaged kids because I am a member of a union. Nearly to the person, I heard word for word the same rhetoric and propaganda, nearly word for word, Rhee spouted on her national TV talk media launch blitz.

I wrote the following: " The reason why STEM teachers aren't jumping the broom is because (as we predicted) the smear campaign of StudentsFirst and other reformers against teachers and the institution as a whole has left a PR image of education as a cesspool of angry ineffective cronies who dance at the strings of unions and care nothing about kids or their learning or well being."

I believe if you objectively read the following posts from the standpoint of someone trying to evaluate the profession and determining a career choice/change, the following passages from Rhee blogs reinforce my point that StudentsFirst and other reformers have left a PR image of education as a cesspool and that the tone of these posts is not flattering, inviting and effectively paints the institution in a totally negative light fraught with insurmountable problems that only Rhee can champion and fix:

"Still, I could have done a better job of communicating. I did a particularly bad job letting the many good teachers know that I considered them to be the most important part of the equation. I totally fell down on doing that. As a result, my comments about ineffective teachers were often perceived as an attack on all teachers." "Some people believed I had disdain for the public. It’s not that I wasn’t listening; I just didn’t agree and went in a different direction. There’s no way you can please everyone." "The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively. The public-employee unions in D.C., including the teachers’ union, spent huge sums of money to defeat Fenty. The focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that. Conflict was necessary in order to move the agenda forward. There are some fundamental disagreements that exist right now about what kind of progress is possible and what strategies will be most effective. Right now, what we need to do is fight." 12/6/10 Newsweek.

"Ultimately, a great teacher is someone who gets results. If two students with similar backgrounds go to similar schools and take similar classes, and one of those students outperforms the other, it might seem fair to say that that student had a better teacher."

"We will fight to get rid of these bad policies and practices so that every child has an excellent teacher in his or her classroom."

"Challenge the status quo to always push for the right priorities, "

"I’m sure you hate it when your child gets an ineffective teacher, and you probably wonder why that teacher is still in the classroom. Often your school leaders feel the same way, but they usually don’t have full power to choose their workers. Second, some of the silent issues that never get talked about are eating away at your schools’ ability to be effective, like a trend toward central district bureaucracy."

"In the book version of Waiting for “Superman”, Michelle describes one overcrowded high school class where kids not even enrolled showed up every day because they felt this teacher offered them the best opportunity to learn, even though some of them would get no credit for the course."

"If we were to grade the academic performance of the world’s industrialized economies, Singapore, South Korea, and now Shanghai would get an A — the United States would get a C, at best, and in math we'd get an F.Background or socioeconomic status, while influential, is not the determining factor in how well a student can perform. And as I discussed in a blog post yesterday, great teaching can overcome the circumstances that put our kids behind those of other world powers.The bottom line: We need to fight to transform our underperforming education system, overcome the vested interests that stand in the way of progress, and work to ensure that our kids have the best schools in the world."
--------The clear implication and takeaway by the public is that the poor performance on the PISA is because of a lack of "great teachers."

"This week Mayor Villaraigosa called the LA Teachers’ Union to task for obstructing reform by defending an unacceptable status quo in the Los Angeles Public Schools. I’ve never been of the mind that unions shouldn’t exist. I was in one when I was a teacher, and I believe they can play a role in reform by compromising with the newly backed interests (like StudentsFirst) who are representing children. "

"Michelle gets to the heart of how the needs of teachers’ unions and students don't always align, and why America needs a strong counterweight to the special interest groups that have long dictated education policy."

"StudentsFirst scored its first Newsmaker interview to help explain the new study that finds a link between good teachers and good student test scores. Why should you care? StudentsFirst and other reform groups believe a significant part of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on how his or her students demonstrate progress on tests and this study seems to support that practice."

How Discussions Go At Students First

I find it interesting and frustrating commenting and reading comments at the Students First Facebook page. There are some thoughtful people there, some batshit crazy folks, and some genuinely curious people too. There is also a lot of ignorance and bias.

Here is an example of a not-so-typical exchange between MTV, who I think opposes much of the reform agenda, and me. She seems to think there is something schools can do to improve outcomes for impoverished children while ignoring the poverty itself. I try to explain how poverty and being poor are not the same thing, necessarily.

My Teacher Voice-

Well TFT-What do you propose then? I happen to believe education can go a long way-but there have to be other supports as well-community supports, family supports, and often something within the person (a fire). How do you propose we end poverty if we can't provide a good education without it? Do you propose we don't waste our time on the education piece until we end poverty? I happen to think that a proper education IS part of treating the problem not a symptom. How have others done it? How have others gotten out of poverty?

I can't honestly say how far back poverty goes in my family, but I can tell you this...my mother and my father came from extreme poverty-especially my mother. Yes, her father was a DC lawyer until he died when she was five, but considering the fact that her grandfather hated her mother and the children from that marriage to that "Indian woman" (yeah-very little Indian but Indian none the less)...my mother had next to nothing growing up (no indoor plumbing...often no electricity....a step dad who drove over her mother with a tractor on purpose....). She did (and does) have a drive. No matter what, you just keep going. She was smart. She went to school. She met my father....blah blah blah. She's not wealthy-but solid middle class.

My dad-the eighth of nine children born to an alcoholic father...again not sure of the education levels of my grandparents there (I know my grandfather comes from a long line of moonshiners in southwest Virginia....and many factory workers), but my grandmother was on top of it-so were my aunts and uncles when it came to my dad. Every single one of those children either went into the military, college, or both and all are quite comfortable financially. My father is more than comfortable, and he grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing for a very long time. His parents cleaned the church for a living.

(My parents are no longer together...hence the different financial situations). I feel the need to mention too that it isn't just about money...money comes and goes. I have very little money right now...I had quite a bit more before I was divorced....I'm still pretty much the same; I just have to budget. I realize my money issues are NOTHING compared to people who have no health insurance, etc....which as a college student with a baby I also had very little and no health insurance.

I know...I know....they were white.....for the record, I"m not accepting that excuse...too many people of color find themselves out of poverty. So that being said, what do we do?

That is a typical way of thinking for too many. My response:

Tee Eff Tee-

MTV, poverty isn't about just money. Generational poverty in the social sciences, which is what we are discussing and should be the assumed level of discourse around here, is more accurately described as socioeconomic status, or SES.

When you look at families with low SES, they are the ones who do poorly in school. Poor people can have high SES--look at Obama's childhood, or your grandfather the lawyer--and still be poor. My grandmother was one of the first women in Boston to become a lawyer. Her dirt-poor family came from Russia to Boston in about '06 [1906] and immediately set sights on advanced degrees. Why? High SES, even without money. My grandfather was also a lawyer. As are about 5 of my cousins. And there are dentists and academics in the family, and a couple teachers and professors, and a loser or two.

Socioeconomic status is the only correlate to student success that exists in the literature. Nothing else correlates. And the correlation is powerful and sustained. It meets the threshold of causation.

Here is a good example if you don't get put off by it: Jews (I am one) arrived in America penniless, as did most immigrants. Jews as a group have done very well for themselves in America. Why? They have high SES. They value education. They worship it. The word "Rabbi" means "teacher" as I assume most know. Each generation of Jew has wanted the next generation to be more educated than the last. Jews are disproportionately represented in academia because of their notions about learning and study--it's part and parcel of the culture and faith.

Don't conflate poor with impoverished. They are often bound together, but can be mutually exclusive too.

And that is why poverty stifles--one generation passes their non-education on to the next, devaluing it. Schools and school leaders do nothing to try to change that--school is punitive, not welcoming these days.

Low SES and boring classes do not a successful school career make.

There's lots more over there. They need your input. Go there and comment.

And then, because I blame poverty for the poor test outcomes for impoverished kids (the only ones getting low scores) I get questions like these:

Jane Howard-

TFT- Do you think that there is anything we can do short term to improve education then?

To which I answer like this:

Tee Eff Tee-

Jane, yes.

We can eliminate NCLB sanctions that scripted teachers and return autonomy to them.

We can eliminate high-stakes testing and its attendant teaching to the test mentality.

We can end zero tolerance policies for young kids.

We can make sure kids with IEPs and 504s are given what they need and deserve and are entitled to by law.

We can give teachers the time to work together to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable kids instead of ignoring them in favor of the 2s and 3s.

We can improve school libraries by bringing back librarians (books have the largest positive impact on impoverished students--and it's cheap as hell).

None of these cost extra money.

Then, on the out of school stuff (which has magnitudes more impact) we should have universal health care, free high quality early childhood education programs, easy access to good food in impoverished neighborhoods (enterprise zones were one way to deal with this) and fix the inner city schools that are in a shambles, showing the community the larger community actually gives a shit.

Who would argue against anything above? Mike? Ramona?

I thought I'd share since not enough of you are doing any debunking.

Mind you, these two quotes from MTV and Jane come from 2 people I actually like and respect over there.

SOS Videos From Damon, Ravitch, Kozol, And Stewart: Updated Again

Updates:

No, I Don't Work For You

Last night I was on Ken Pettigrew's radio show for an interview. It got ugly.

I was explaining the reform movement to these conservatives and they decided to say that since they were tax payers, I work for them. I told them I do not work for them, I work for a school district (I didn't bother to tell them I am out of the classroom now, but my points are about teachers and who they work for, not about me).

They then said no, I work for them.

So, I will do my best to explain my position on Monday July 11 at 3:30 Pacific time.

One angle is this: According to Ken's logic, the Secret Service also works for him. I am sure if they thought he was about to shoot the POTUS, they would shoot Ken, even though they work for him. Same with the MPs at the gate to any military base--if Ken wants to try to bust in, they'll either shoot him, or stop him, all the while "working" for him.

And if he were to come into a school uninvited and without checking in, the teachers would be right in surrounding him and stopping him until the police came (who also work for him).

It's a stupid angle, and one conservatives use all the time.

Do Principals Create Bad Teachers?

What if a Principal Allows Teachers to be "Bad"?

The rhetoric about "bad teachers" may never go away -- in part some teachers will always perform poorly, act irresponsibly, and so on (just as there are poor performers and irresponsible people in all professions and fields). That said, what bothers me most about the rhetoric is that it continually oversimplifies the problem. Too many commentators seem to assume that bad people magically pop up in schools to torture principals and belittle children. But reality is more complex.

One situation that has arisen in numerous anecdotes I've heard from teachers is that a Principal will allow selected teachers (often their friends) to behave irresponsibly or worse. Examples include showing up late, parking illegally, dressing inappropriately, eating meals with the Principal instead of teaching, leaving other people in charge of their class while they run errands, and, in at least one instance, abusing children.

Are "bad teachers" a problem in these schools? Absolutely -- and they should be dealt with -- but not following the script we normally read (teacher is bad, principal wants to fire him/her, union steps in). In these cases, the story I hear is that a "bad" principal allows a few teachers to do as they please while the rest of the teachers stew in outrage and cower in fear.

Did the Principal in these situations make these teachers bad? It's not quite that simple. But these Principals have certainly negatively impacted the performance of a few teachers while subsequently damaging the climate and performance of the school as a whole.

Situations like these are why I worry more about the extent of the damage done by irresponsible Principals than I do about the damage done by irresponsible teachers.

"Apologies to Our Nation's Teachers"

First they came for your integrity. They did it subtly and over time as they obfuscated our textbooks to reflect a narrow ideology rather than the whole truth.

Next they attacked the integrity of your profession. They did it by devising embarrassingly shallow and mandatory testing in order to hold you accountable for outcomes over which you have minimal control, all the while ignoring the many inadequacies of the society that contribute to student stress.

Then they devastated what you had hoped to give to your students. They did it by narrowing the curriculum to only those attributes they find suitable to provide compliant and narrowly trained workers, and by their unenlightened neglect of the multiple intelligences and learning styles and varied pace of learning that is present in all learners.

Then they reduced your ability to motivate students by limiting the availability of instructional supplies or making you purchase them yourselves. They did it by advocating for insufficient funding through regressive taxation.

Then they set out to diminish your hard earned salaries. They did it by pushing performance pay that has been long proven both ineffective and demeaning.

Then they attacked your pensions. They did it by blaming the sudden funding inadequacies thereof on you rather than on the greed and incompetence of Wall Street.

Then they assaulted your health care. They did it by ignoring the reduced wages you accepted in lieu of the growing costs of health insurance that is the fault of a greedy and heartless industry.

Then they undermined your right to join together in pursuit of your best interests and that of your profession. They did it by attacking your unions and associations while conveniently dismissing the powerful corporate and ideological institutions where those of opposing views organize to espouse their narrow interests.

Then they declared war on all that supports your valiant efforts by obstructing the general resources for your work. They do it by propagandizing to the unwitting public that taxes are too high while accepting tax rebates for the extremely wealthy, failing to accept that this is in reality a low tax nation, and providing for all sorts of unwarranted tax havens for business.

Then, finally, they seek to destroy all that our founders advocated by eliminating public education altogether. They do it by trumpeting the ill-conceived merits of privatization while ignoring the absence any record of its greater success or efficiency.

So I apologize for those of us who have not fought hard enough along side all of you as you struggle to mentor and inspire our children and grandchildren. Please forgive us for our inattentiveness and neglect. You deserve our utmost admiration and respect.

You see, they have done much of this to those of us in the private sector. And too many of us, duped by their stooges and know-nothings, have lashed out at you because we envy what you still have that we have lost. Arguably you are the last bastion against the corporate tyranny and selfish elitism that threatens our nation.

Thank you for all your efforts thus far. Please fight on. Please do not give up.

Robert Barkley, Jr., is a counselor in Systemic Education Reform, retired Executive Director of the Ohio Education Association, served as Interim Executive Director of the Maine Education Association, is a thirty-five year veteran of NEA and NEA affiliate staff work, long-term consultant to the KnowledgeWorks Foundation of Cincinnati, Ohio, one time teacher, coach, and local union president. He is the author of Quality in Education: A Primer for Collaborative Visionary Educational Leaders and Leadership In Education: A Handbook for School Superintendents and Teacher Union Presidents.

Robert Barkley, Jr. reprinted without permission. Couldn't resist.

Jon Stewart Sides With Teachers!

Finally, we get someone on our side. And, Diane Ravitch will be there on March 3rd!!!

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Saturday Cartoon Fun: Scapegoats Edition

Why Teachers Don't Deserve All The Vitriol

Their school is broke, their teaching staff is smaller than ever, and the last advanced placement course has been slashed from the master schedule.

But the two-member English department at Castlemont’s East Oakland School of the Arts decided to teach AP English anyway, before school and during an arts period.

...

Katy Murphy

Teachers Are Losing The Reform Battle

There. I said it. We are losing. As I read the blogs, newspaper articles, and comments left, I am seeing many folks resigned to the fact that reform, in the guise of charters, longer days, paternalistic pedagogy, and bribery, will continue until the last ounce of professional dignity among teachers is ground into bits by the boots of the oligarchs and their puppets in government.

I have no faith in the intelligence of those in charge. Look what they have done so far--hired a publisher as an educational leader for the largest school district in the country, published the names and rankings of teachers in L.A. of a widely regarded as crap measure of competence, fired hundreds of teachers, closed schools and replaced them with schools that are no better (how could they be?), and all led by a former b-baller turned top education officer in the richest country in the world(?).

I am finished with the reform movement. It is a scam, just like everything else rich people control.

It's time to take our schools away from those who are destroying them. It's time for a national strike.

I propose that no teacher return from Winter Break until some conditions are met:

1. End RTTT and NCLB.

2. Replace Arne Duncan with an educator.

3. Require charter schools to find their own buildings and not take them away from existing schools.

4. End high-stakes testing in favor of portfolios judged by teachers.

5. Raise starting pay of teachers to attract a better pool of talent--pay for it by taxing billionaires.

You with me?

Do Ed Schools Suck, Or Are They Not What You Think They Are?

By 2009, “Ed Schools” are a substantially different mix. Not only that, but look at the volume of degree production. Back in 1990, Ed Schools at respectable major universities were putting out about 600 master’s degrees in education related fields per year. They held on to similar rates in 2000 and still in 2009. But by 2009, Walden University and U. of Phoenix were each cranking out 4,500+ master’s degrees per year. Grand Canyon U. comes in next in line. These are the entrepreneurial up-starts that are the product of minimized regulation of teaching credentials.

schoolfinance101

Reformers and edupreneurs tout online learning as the way of the future, yet for ed schools, the future is here, and it is this current “future” that they are complaining about.

So, which is it, Duncan/Obama/Gates/Broad/VanderArk? Is online learning great and the way to go, or do online institutions put out garbage?

schoolfinance101's analysis pretty much proves the garbage part. Well done.

Dueling Manifestos: We Have A Winner

Rhee, Klein and other people for whom teaching and children seem to be a mystery put together an embarrassing document they are calling their Manifesto (which has been thoroughly trashed for its stupidity and lameness as well as its misinformed content).  Well, 20 years ago some folks thought a manifesto for education was necessary, and they wrote one.

From Teacher Ken:

The Myth Of The Bad Teacher

This myth is also seductive in its simplicity. It’s much easier to have a concrete – though vague – villain to blame for problems the school system faces. The fix seems easy, as well: all we need to do is fire the “Bad Teachers”, like controversial Washington DC school chancellor superstar Michelle Rhee has, and hire good ones, and students will learn. In this light, Gates’ effort to “fix” the bug riddled Public School Operating System by focusing on teacher development makes perfect sense. The logic feels hard to argue with: who would argue against making teachers better? And if as a teacher, if you do dare to, you must be “anti-student,” a “Bad Teacher” who is resistant to “reforms”, who is resistant to improvements, and thus must be out for himself, rather than the students.


The only problem with the “Bad Teacher” myth, as anyone involved with education is intimately aware of, is that problems in education are anything but simple. “The discourse of these so-called educational reformers is simplistic and polarizing,” as Henry A. Giroux claims in a recent, comprehensive essay on the subject in truthout. “It lacks any understanding of the real problems and strengths of public education, and it trades in authoritarian tactics and a discourse of demonization and humiliation.” The debate has been reduced to a superhero comic, a simplistic battle between good and evil, a cartoon version of a complex reality. The debate has been reduced to a minor plot point in this election cycle’s “anti-establishment” political narrative.

Adam Bessie at Daily Censored

A Desire To Do Moral Work In An Immoral World

Education is like love. You can give it all away and still have plenty. You can share all the knowledge you have and not lose anything - except if you're in a system where one school is being judged against another school, one classroom against another classroom, one state against another state. Well, then - I'm not giving you my shit. You go ahead and struggle on your own, because you and I are in a vicious fight for the Race to the Top money, for teacher jobs, for everything. That's a catastrophe for the reality of how teaching is done at its best.

I speak to young teacher groups all the time, and I often start by asking, "Are any of you going into teaching because you think you'll get rich?" And they laugh. And then I say, "Are any of you thinking you'll have the overwhelming respect of your community?" They laugh again. And then they tell me, "My parents, my brother, my sister, my partner all told me not to teach." So I say, "Why are you gonna do it? What's wrong with you?" And what's "wrong" with them is a desire to do moral work in an immoral world. Yet, we're putting a stake in their hearts.

Bill Ayers via truthout via FK

Los Angeles Teacher Commits Suicide

SOUTH GATE, Calif. (KABC) -- An elementary school teacher from South Gate who mysteriously disappeared last week was found dead about 9 a.m. Sunday in the Angeles National Forest, authorities have confirmed.

The Coroner confirmed the body found by a search and rescue team near Big Tujunga Canyon Road is that of Rigoberto Ruelas, 39, a fifth grade teacher at Miramonte Elementary School.

Authorities said it is a suicide, but did not say how he killed himself. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

A car matching the one driven by Ruelas was parked nearby.

Ruelas' family became concerned when he failed to show up to work last week.

A teacher ratings report by the Los Angeles Times did not score Ruelas well. Family members said the teacher evaluation scores may have caused him to go missing.

I am very sensitive to teachers and suicide. Got both in the family. My heart goes out to the family and friends of Mr. Ruelas.  And good luck to all you teachers during this difficult time.  You should join us at Miseducation Nation where we are trying to convince the world that poverty is the disease, failing schools are just a symptom.

Education Nation: The Controversy: Updated

Anthony Cody, Gary Stager and I, among others were banned from Education Nation's Facebook page.

As a result I created Miseducation Nation to counter the one-sided perspective being pushed by NBC, Oprah and Waiting For Superman.

The admin of their page asked to talk to me about the banning and about my counter-page.  He called me tonight and we talked for a long time about the need for teachers to be an integral part of the conversation, especially since they have, by actions, made it clear that they think teachers are the problem.

He told me he didn't want it to seem that way and that they (NBC news) are not biased. I told him bias is as bias does, and they're pumping out pretty biased crap!  It was then quiet for a minute.

I told him, since he asked, that I would not take down my Miseducation Nation page. I told him if I see evidence that Education Nation is making their production more level--by un-banning all of us and letting us post as we choose, even if others complain--would prompt me to say something about that on Miseducation Nation.

Were you banned?  Leave a comment and I will see what I can do.

We shall see.

Update: Anthony, Gary and I are back, and Education Nation has set their wall default to show every post.  Good for them!