Bruce Lowry, an editorial writer for The Record in New Jersey, writes here about the neglected public schools of Paterson, which have been under state control for more than 25 years.
Paterson is one of the state’s Abbott districts, an impoverished district that the courts ruled must get extra funding.
But layoffs have become an annual ritual, and no teacher knows how long her job will last.
The former state commissioner has announced he will work part-time in the district for $95 an hour. Nice.
Meanwhile, the consultants and overseers come and go, and the district has gained nothing from its long period of state control.
New Jersey has proved the futility of state control.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And the union president, John McEntee, is currently being brought up on tenure charges. His crime? Defending his members.
Crazy!
See below. This is off topic, but shows how out of our minds this country has become.
There is a “BOOT CAMP” for potty training. Can’t make this stuff up.
http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2017/05/bench-warrant-is-issued-for-ex-potty-boot-camp-operator/
Crazy!
Here’s something even crazier…”BOOT CAMP” for potty training. The operator in under investigation.
http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2017/05/bench-warrant-is-issued-for-ex-potty-boot-camp-operator/
Paterson is an example of what happens when a district is taken over by the state. The state appoints a whole bunch of pricey administrators and consultants and cuts the jobs of those that actually make a difference. This neglectful attitude stems from the leadership at the top, Chris Christie, a vile bully and Trump sycophant that even Trump rejected. We have never solved problems through state takeover or charters. Paterson used to offer dental and medical services in certain schools. I don’t know if this program is still in existence, but it is a step in the right direction.
I have often been accused by some on this blog of being against religion because I criticize Christian hypocrites and fanatics, and like the founding fathers, I believe in separation of church and state. The fact is I know Paterson well because of a church I attended. This little church did a great deal and continues to do a great deal for the people of Paterson. This little church provides a food pantry, a tutoring center, a summer vacation bible school, and a holiday toy sale for children from Paterson. The church also did several fundraisers to support the missions in Paterson. These are the Christians I admire. Those that can put their beliefs into practice to help their fellow man.
Christie prosecuted Kushner’s father. He was not rejected due to his personality short comings.
$95 an hour !?!?!?!?!
What a total lombungr.
Lombungr is Viking profanity for moron or idiot.
When I was still teaching and gave up my planning period (not often but to help out when a teacher died or was fired suddenly – yes the district actually fired new teachers before they could earn their due process rights and from what I heard, those few new teachers that lost their jobs all deserved to be fired especially one I remember that was teaching his English students how to cheat on tests like he cheated on tests in college) to teach an extra class. We veteran teachers who accepted the extra class were paid a flat fee of $25 for that one section that ran about an hour. That amount never changed in 30 years. Twenty-five dollars was also what teachers were paid by the hour (based on scheduled classroom time only) for teaching summer school, and then summer school wasn’t allowed to be counted in the formula for retirement that uses the number of years a teacher teaches to compute the amount one would earn in retirement. Since I taught summer school so I had enough money to survive financially each summer, that would have added several years to the CalSTRS formula.
When I retired from teaching, I took a 40-percent pay cut and left with no medical. The district offered us COBRA up until we were eligible for Medicare, but we had to pay about $1,500 a month for that COBRA (about the same amount Wal-Mart charges their employees for the health care plan Wal-Mart offers). That was almost half of my monthly retirement check from CalSTRS after being in the classroom for 30 years.
And now the Kremlin’s Agent Orange, that ignorant, evil GOP supported malignant narcissist slime-turd of a bastard in the White House, wants to dissolve the VA medical system (the VA hospitals and medical centers that will be handed to corporations like public school have been given away to corporate charter schools and the VA medical system is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and what do the combat vets with service-related disabilities get in return for Trump cutting taxes for the wealthiest 1-percent?
Trump will give combat vets who have medical care from the VA a limited amount VOUCHER so we have the free choice to go out and find a private sector doctor to take care of our combat related disabilities while cutting Medicare by hundreds of billions.
Trump also wants to repair roads through “private-public partnerships.” I suppose we will have to start paying a toll to go to the neighboring town. That’s after they use our tax dollars to help build the road. People will get to pay twice for the same road.
Ryan is also salivating over a horrible idea to privatize Medicare. He wants to force Medicare into crisis mode. The whole point of Medicare is the understanding that seniors cannot compete in the “market.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumpcare-raids-medicare-to-enrich-the-wealthy-and_us_58c994ace4b0537abd956d5f
And, more and more, hospitals and clinics in rural areas will have no funding and will thus close down so that having a “voucher” to “choose” your own medical care in those areas will be equal to having nothing.
That is already the case with Florida’s privatized Medicaid. Many doctors refuse to accept it, and poor people without transportation in the center of the state have found that the only participating doctor is hundreds of miles away.
Reblogged this on TechEducator1 and commented:
I teach nearby Paterson and the state control is only concerned about lining the pockets of friends who are in administration. Teachers are treated unprofessionally and what is worse the lack of consideration for the students and their needs.
Devos and choice advocates want state-level control so that any decisions are made by appointed officials or by elected state officials who are agile in distancing themselves from locally elected officials for a district and community activists, especially parents. Almost everything in the Trump/DeVos/Republican education budget is designed to boot the oversight of budget allocations to state officials.
Most of the local politicians in Essex County (NJ) are in bed with the governor. Therefore, it is a distinction without a difference.
And that is a dynamic to be remembered when you hear that x,y,z, plutocrat is a Democrat because he contributed to that party . Those contributions unlike the $27 contributions, were made to grease the skids for personal wealth, not because of ideology .
“The Great Society had a real chance to grow into a beautiful woman. I figured she’d be so big and beautiful that the American people couldn’t help but fall in love with her…but now Nixon has come along and everything I’ve worked for is ruined…She’s getting thinner and thinner and uglier and uglier all the time. The American people will refuse to look at her; they’ll stick her in a closet to hide her away and there she’ll die. And when she dies, I, too, will die.“
LBJ.