Mayor Bloomberg is frustrated that the New York City United Federation of Teachers does not agree with his plan to evaluate them by test scores. He has been berating the union, as have the city’s tabloids, for weeks.
But now he hit a new low.
He compared the teachers’ union to the National Rifle Association.
Coming only weeks after the Newtown massacre, this is especially gross.
This is reminiscent of the time many years ago when U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige referred to the NEA as “a terrorist organization.”
Paige had the good sense to apologize. So should Bloomberg.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t understand why the Union is going after Bloomberg on teacher evaluations (separate from the NRA comparison.)
RttT wasn’t Bloomberg’s idea — it’s the Obama administration. Sure, there’s mayoral control but the evaluations are part of the RttT deal.
I have been tweeting & now commenting here — teacher evaluations SHOULD NOT be based on students’ test scores. Students aren’t tested to evaluate teachers, it’s misuse of data. Why don’t the teachers say something about that?
I’d say NO to the $250M to exploit children. Protect the kids.
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Sheila,
The way I see it is that the teacher union is not signing off on the evaluations, for the reasons you state. Bloomburg is going after the teachers union for that reason and he refuses to negotiate.
It is pretty obvious that Bloomberg has an evaluation criteria set up(given to him) and will not negotiate that criteria. The criteria has to do with the % that the test scores will count towards the total evaluation of each teacher. Some schools that have settled received notice from the DOE that the other criteria must correlate with (correspond to) the test scores, which means basically that the test scores alone will determine the teacher’s ranking.
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Of course, you mean *is not permitted to* negotiate and some school *districts* that have settled received notice from *NYSED* (our state department)?’
The rumor from within is that the city department is not yet prepared to implement it and doesn’t seem to want to agree to it until it is. Just thought I’d share the (total) rumor.
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I thought I heard ( I could be wrong — could verify) that Bloomberg would not take the de-funded $250 M solely from education. It would be taken from other areas. Who knows — maybe data management & reporting they won’t have to use. I think not settling is in the best interest of students, but I tend to be narrow in my thinking about use of student data.
Isn’t there a state that said no to teacher evaluations? Utah? Sorry, I know this thread is about the NRA comment. I am not following that part.
Wasn’t the money from the state? That would be Cuomo? Cuomo should throw out Common Core & stop feeding innovative entrepreneurs student data (commodity) & put some money in the classroom. Oh yeah, that’s right. No money with Common Core unless you’re RttT.
All of this to stimulate the economy. RTTT is stimulus money. This isn’t about teachers, education or students. It’s about the economy. We are churning data.
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It’s not Utah. We just got a “new” state-wide evaluation system that is supposed to come on-line next fall, mandated by our redder-than-red legislature. The good news is that it doesn’t involve test scores–yet.
What you may be thinking of is that Utah recently pulled out of an assessment consortium for Common Core. Not because standardized testing is a rampant (it is), but because of some hyper-conservative fears that the Common Core will mean Utah gives up state control.
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Legend has it that the last time Mayor Bloomberg said he was sorry for anything, he was eight years old.
He tends to make comments like this on Fridays before he gets on his big private jet airplane and goes away for the weekend.
-There was the time he declared that 20,000 teachers would be laid off. (He returned to NY the following Monday and expressed surprise that anyone actually took him seriously (that’s a true story!).
-Then there was the time where he said that he’d like to lay off half of the teaching workforce because, you know, good teachers can teach a class double the size.
At least I think that was on a Friday. I lose track sometimes.
But I don’t think he’ll lose track of this one! As I recall, Rod Paige lost his job because of that comment, didn’t he? All the mayor could lose is a little credibility.
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The infamous “ex cathedra” statement was made in a talk with MIT students given on Tuesday, November 29, 2011.
Mulgrew probably feels personally betrayed by remarks like this. He made the UFT sit on the sidelines in 2009, for Pete’s sake!
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the mayor may find out, “you can’t always get what you want”
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I just read about his nasty, vile comments. We have endured his dictatorship for far too long in this great city. He is a disgusting little man, who does not care about children, families or quality of life for anyone not hugely rich. Unbelievable!
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Like all liberal elitists. I love it that you are repudiating him, but in repudiating him as a dictator, you must repudiate yourself. Public education is a tool of socialist dictatorship. Bloomberg is your mirror.
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Mayor Bloomberg, how I bet you hated being labeled because of your religion (I assume). Now you throw around your own labels because you cannot deal with the merits of the argument.
All these discussions should be like debates or court rooms. Only the facts.
If somebody punched you in the nose and called you one of those labels, the anti is up because it is now a hate crime. Let’s take the gloves off. No longer call it a hate crime. Let us persecute you because you belong to a certain group. A ah! Got your hackles up did I. Well, then stop doing it.
Now, stop making a fool out of yourself.
I’m a member of the NRA, finally, and purchased by first gun in 50 years. This is to protect myself from the way government has botched everything..
You want fewer guns, then make me feel safe. Make me feel safe and my gun will rust and be unusable.
Do yourself a favor. Go to a gun shop. They are calling numbers like it is a deli. People don’t feel safe. That is your job.
The only reason we don’t have 5,000 killings OR MORE a year by guns in this country like Mexico, is because they have better gun control than we do.
If you don’t think guns are necessary, then get rid of all your body guards. If I could afford one, I would gladly have a professional to protect me.
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Now there is a toss up for the most vile human waste in our country….The Rheeject or Bloomturd. How do people like this have any supporters? Ok…yeah, the money.
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This is an all time low for Bloomberg. This statement is so utterly distasteful and evil. His words will be the death of his dictatorship. All that comes to mind is “loose lips sink ships.” How dare he?!.
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Yes, Bloomberg is an idiot, but liberals say idiotic things like that all the time. I’m surprised you disown him. Aren’t you in support of the 16 oz. limit on soft drink cups?
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Heh, heh, heh, there. Let’s not malign the NRA. At least they are defending a constitutional right. There is no right to an education in the constitution.
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Harlan, you are a provocateur. Our action could thrive without guns but not without education. You know that.
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Not 100% clear what you mean by “our action”? And moreover I’m not entirely sure there is a legitimate archeological distinction between guns and education. All education is education for survival and war. Can we act without “weapons”? I don’t see how. Some people in a society must wield weapons. If the people are sovereign, then the people must have arms. Enslavers like to deprive their slaves of both education and arms. Perhaps I could come to support your position if you sold education as the arms of a free man or woman. Superficially, you are right, but at the deepest level perhaps not.
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Spam..to the trash, then delete. Goodbye garbage!
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Seriously?
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Just how do you think the Framers thought they’d deliver on this promise – not to mention have the experiment last for over two centuries without a public education?? (The only good thing about it not being in the Constitution is reason to shut down Ed.Gov except for civil rights and special education protection).
It may have taken more than a century for Brown v. Board, PL-94-142, Plyler v Doe, and Title IX … to get everyone in the classroom but all those Constitutional rights? They’re the ends. Public education is the means.
And – don’t be confused about that “common defense” part – I doubt they were thinking an individual would be armed with a weapon like an AK47 to defend us from the British not to mention common defense from movie goers, children in classrooms, and government employees in OKC.
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So, you are an originalist, Jere? Limit “arms” to muskets? An AR 15 is an “arm.” You can’t prohibit it and remain constitutionalist. The oath is to uphold the constitution. Do you repudiate that oath?
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The constituion says that anything not mentioned here is left to the states. The states have taken the duty of educating children-guaranteeing it in their constitutions. Also, the elastic clause in the constitution allows society to make the constitution change to it’s current needs. Education is definately one of those. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Education is part of all three) Why does the mayor make such childish attacks on the city’s teachers?
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Which is the “elastic clause”? Isn’t there another metaphor we could use? I wonder whether an education is really part of Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness, even though all 50 states do include it in the state constitution. What is guaranteed is negative duties, not to kill (life), not to imprison (liberty), not to take property (pursuit of liberty). If education or health care is a right, then someone has a corresponding duty to provide it. Duties to provide always entail coercion. What’s your response?
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I meant “not to take property” = “pursuit of happiness.”
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Rod Paige also left his job for being caught lying to obtain his job about the dropout rate of Houston. Funny, Duncan lied to California to push mayoral control (AB 1381) when superintendent of Chicago. Is this any different from Rod Paige?
Look at these education loser mayors like Daley, Emmanuel and Bloomburg. Bloomburg, brag about your personal profits not education. You sound like “King Tony”, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, bragging about transportation and education when in reality he has dramatically failed at both. Roosevelt High School, one of his schools, is a failure and the community is tired of him and the board president, Garcia. They have a large national steamroller behind them, anything can happen in the real world though. The “Subway to the Sea” also has a $10 billion overun in the EIR, when you look, that has been left out. This has been verified by three city council people in private. He also just lost a 1/2 cent sales tax for $90 billion until 2069 in the last election. Can you believe that there was only one paragraph of language for $90 billion? That is how arrogant they really are.
People like Bloomburg will say anything to push their personal and their friends agendas.
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Thanks for the correction, Jennifer. Should have gone with my first guess… Los Angeles.
Back to Bloomberg & teacher evaluations, I wonder if parents know their kids’ education record are being used & the confidentiality of the records is at greater risk as part of RttT teacher evaluation requirements. Very unnecessary.
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I wish I could predict that Mayor Bloomberg’s statement will be in the running for one of the most dishonorable statements by a public figure in 2013, but the year is still young…
Although not too late for Hari S to earn some cred by putting himself on the public record—and this blog—as unalterably opposed to this sort of vile and demeaning characterization of a whole class of hardworking people.
Hari, if you truly have the courage of your convictions, now is the time to speak up. Silence is consent.
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I would take Bloomberg’s comparison of the teachers to the NRA as a badge of honor.
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Originalist? Thanks but no thanks. Innovator? Ideas guy? Constructivist? System thinking model builder? I’ll take the compliment. But not originalist as you portray it or “literalist.” Musket… AK47… Handgrenade… Handheld Nuclear… all arms. You get the point. Right to bear all of those? Constitution said some men, and no women, were 3/5ths of man. I know, amendments. Bottom line from someone who is in the midst of this “armed guards/police/teacher” thing right now: Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
If your NRA had come out and said, “We agree. Our citizens have the right to carry that weapon that repeat 100 rounds in a minute and the 100 bodies in front of it, but there is no reason on this earth except in war that should be allowed so we will support legislation to get the assault weapons.” Heck, LaPierre could have been elected Mayor.
Or, wait, they could follow the lead of unions. I am superintendent and have my issues with unions. That’s no secret to the unions with whom I work; however I value the knowledge, skills and dedication of teachers and staff to kids and work and I get why they need to be in a union. And, they are willing to talk and collaborate whether we end up in the same place or not. But do they use “assault” weapons to stop work with hundreds of grievances, blocking any progress in teacher evaluation, marching out of meetings when the clock strikes 4, threats of strike (not legal here), outrageous statements of half-truths, hiding behind vague intentionally vague Constitutional words? No.
Sorry – for an elected official to invoke the likes of NRA rhetoric (of which I imagine many (?) most (?) NRA members were embarrassed) and comparing it to unions is like – well I better stop there – i’ll just say it’s stretch, a big, big unnecessary stretch.
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Jere, you post a clear, coherent, and passionate statement—with only a few verbal stretches. “Just because you have the right to do something does not make it the right thing to do.” A very pretty rhetorical figure, but not an argument of any substance. If one has a “right” to do something, then it is by definition “right” ethically. The right is possession, not a right to murder. Your figure obscures tendentiously the difference between defense and attack.
I’m glad to hear that some unions and administrations can work together in the interest of kids. As has been pointed out already, the public schools work pretty well for the top 80%, even unionized. More power to good education. Don’t bring down the building because the toilets are clogged, as Diane and others on this blog seem to want to do.
When the rhetoric of the game is ALL or nothing, who would blame the privatizers? Not the general public, who, educated in public schools, can’t see the identity of interest and that the contention is a zero sum game, at least in the rhetoric. But, go ahead, keep on fighting to defame the charters and voucherizers so that everyone in the country loses. Yuppers. Privatization is happening and will continue to happen as much because people unprotected by unions are sick and tired of progressive “Communist Teacher” smugness as because the general conservative population believes in the concept of “choice” (SO American, especially when it comes to abortion), freedom, individual determination. I’m just bored by the collectivistic rhetoric now 150 years old with a deucedly bad track record, USSR, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela. There isn’t a SINGLE communist country that has ever worked, and it won’t work here. I am pleased that Communist Teacher at least has the honesty to name himself unironically (I suspect). Even among thieves there is occasionally bravura truthfulness (though never honesty—communists are always elitists, like our current president.).
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Harlan, you make some absurd claims in your comments here. You seem to think that everyone who disagrees with your views is a Communist. I am not a Communist. Neither are 99% of the people who comment here. A decent, humane government should strive to secure the welfare of the public. People should not live in want in a rich society. Why don’t you google FDR’s 1944 State of the Union Address? He was not a Communist.
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Bloomberg is an idiot. Nothing he says surprises or shocks me anymore.
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The comparison was an insult to the NRA.
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Ravitch, Harlan never gave any indication in his post that he thought you were a Communist. And I didn’t find his posts absurd. Nor would the majority of informed Americans. If anyone disagrees with your posts, are they absurd? Does it offend you that the majority of Americans are pro-life?
Does it bother you that most parents want an armed security guard to protect their kids at school? Those massacres all happened in gun free zones. Chicago bans guns, yet they have a rather high rate of gun violence. Hitler banned guns. End of discussion.
BTW, FDR was against public employees having unions. Google that.
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I meant to write that Hitler banned guns in 1930s Germany. Many dictators banned guns before their people were slaughtered by the bad guys who had guns.
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