Leona Helmsley, the legendary “queen of mean,” wanted to leave her fortune to dogs. She didn’t care much for people. She left $12 million for the care of her beloved dog Trouble. Her estate is valued in the billions.
She cut her grandchildren out of her will.
Her Meanness—or rather the executors of her estate–are instead promoting the destruction of the teaching profession and the privatization of public education. They are giving munificent sums to Educators for Excellence and Stand for Children, two leading voices for the meanness that Leona believed in.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So ironic that someone with such a disdain for people would marry into the hospitality business. “Only the little puppies pay taxes.”
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Only the little people’s children don’t get educated.
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Helmsley estate also funds the Regents fellows at NYSED, along with the Tisch family and Gates, many of them hired from NYC DOE. These educrats are busily working on inBloom, common core, testing, and other policies damaging our schools.
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And now the ghost of Leona is still at it, still promoting herself:
“And now, introducing my very own product line of Helmsley charter schools. .. . where your child will be treated like me, the queen, as long as she performs well on the entrance exams. . . . . “
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In WA, Stand is promoting a bill, “Senate Bill 5242 – also called “Mutual Consent,” would require all districts in the state of Washington to adopt a policy that allows principals to hire the teachers that best match their school’s needs so they are not forced to hire a teacher that is not a good fit.” taken from http://stand.org/washington/blog/2013/05/22/let-principals-select-best-teachers-their-school. In fact, it would allow principals to displace teachers on their own whim and allow the district to fire those displaced teachers if they are not accepted by another principal into a permanent full-time position within 9 months. Stand is promoting this as a way to end the “forced placement of teachers.” They have even implied by calling it “Mutual Consent” that teachers would benefit from this.
They are posting memes with quotes like, “Did you know? 25% of a teacher’s effectiveness comes from how well they fit with their school.” and “85% of Washington voters want to end forced teacher placements.” However, the only sources they will cite for their statistics are their own blog posts which never include citations to actual research. When I really pushed for a source, I was told that “The number comes from a poll conducted by Strategies 360. As with all polls, a representative sample was taken (402 people in this case),” but they would not release the specific question(s) asked nor the demographic data about those polled.
What is it about Stand that is so convincing to so many of the general public. If teachers were to publicize information using statistics that were not backed by citations, we would be openly ridiculed. However, Stand does this with nearly every post and provides only citations from their own opinion pieces on their site and the only ones questioning anything (at least on the WA Stand FB page) are teachers.
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Shannon Ergun: I must admit I was a little skeptical when I first read the ‘good fit’ bit. Yet there it is in the piece you link to: “Twenty-five percent of a teacher’s effectiveness comes from how well they fit with their school.” This appears right under the bizarre subheading “THE PROBLEM WITH FORCED TEACHER PLACEMENTS.”
This creative statistic can rightfully claim its place with the best of the worst, and I include Michelle Rhee’s cagebusting achievement-gap busting claim [since dropped for utter lack of proof] that she took her students from the 13th to the 90th percentile.
I share your outrage at the sneering contempt these folks openly exhibit—they just make this stuff up and then expect us to unquestioningly accept every bit of it. They use “statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts, for support rather than illumination.” [Andrew Lang]
No wonder they want to turn public schools into compliance centers where only low-level skills are taught. Then they wouldn’t have to put up with people like you who ask if the emperor has any clothes.
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” [Eugene Ionesco]
Thank you for your posting.
🙂
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Shannon: Stand for Children was successful in getting a similar measure passed in Massachusetts last year. Thanks to their “grassroots” movement, we have a new law that prevents principals from taking teacher experience into account in the event of layoffs. What’s funny is that the measure includes all of the forced placement language you refer to but they hadn’t yet come up with “best fit” spin. http://stand.org/massachusetts/blog/2012/06/07/stand-children-massachusetts-and-mta-back-legislation-put-teacher. Stand was able to demonstrate public demand for the measure here the old fashioned way: by paying canvassers to stand out in front of grocer stores and collect signatures from people who supported “great teachers and great schools.”
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Fortunately, our new governor is opposed to the bill and has repeatedly said he would veto it. We’ll wait to see if he holds to his promise. My district was on strike last year over displacement language and we now have a new system that allows each teacher to submit a narrative of their professional experiences, contributions to the school community, demonstrated commitment to the school mission and initiatives, and teacher created student goals. These narratives are scored against a rubric by two elected building staff and one administrator working as a team. The staff member with the lowest score on the rubric is the one displaced. In the event of a tie, seniority is the tie-breaker. This allows each of us to show what we do and how we have made ourselves a part of the school community. Displacement is done by category (in the secondary schools this means department) and if your category has displacements and you would like to be the one displaced you can volunteer to be the person shifted. Displacement categories are determined by the building administrator. This process means teachers demonstrate their professionalism. There were some kinks in this first year of implementation but overall it worked well. This is the route that districts should be going. Our process will not necessarily work in other districts but something similar fitted to the needs and culture of another district would work. However, this bill in WA would nullify all the work we have done. It’s terribly frustrating.
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It’s important to watch not only the Republicans on this type of odious legislation, but a handful of “Shadow Privatizers”, like Reuven Carlyle, a slick, duplicitous “Democrat” who uses things like his enthusiastic support of gay marriage and opposition to capital punishment—literally, cost-free issues—as a means of distracting people from his egregious, backdoor efforts on behalf of Education Privatizers.
Rumors are that Carlyle is heavily tied to SFC and LEV—but has a “wink & nod” relationship with them to do their bidding, in any way they can.
Beware of the Reuven Carlyle types in YOUR state as well; they actually do more damage to progressives than the Republicans.
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Another Master of the Universe determining our children’s future:
http://helmsleytrust.org/grants/?keyword=&year=&program=5
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Leona Helmsely was a sly opportunist who found heart-disease-ridden Harry Helmsely and nursed his ego back to greed after he left his doily knitting Quaker wife.
Leona was a terrible employer who instilled fear into her low level entry position employees, and she was anything but a mitzvah maker. She and her late husband were the antithesis of Tikkun Olam. In fact, we find ourselves trying to repair the world they left behind. Of course, they alone are not responsible, but they were part of the oligarchs – a wide and diverse group I might add – who have wreaked havoc upon middle and working class people.
Leona, may you disintegrate in the Netherworld . . . May you get many chances to take Cerberus (almost three canines for the price of one) out for a night time stroll and may he consume you like a bowl of horsemeat.
There, I got it out of my system.
Leona Helmsley: add her to the long list of plutocrats, then and now
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Wonderfully stated Robert…but it seems The Helmsley may have morphed into The Pritzker who is now in charge of US Commerce, and who also is far from being big on Tikkun Olam..
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Don’t get me started on Penny Pritzker, star sugar mommy to Barack Obama . . . .
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Penny Pritzker is Leona Hemsley on 2013 steroids. Just as RTTT is NCLB on steroids, The global economy brings us to new heights of depraved.
We are in for a rough ride if the American public doesn’t look up from their devices and Kim Kardashian long enough to rub the sleep out of their eyes. It’s time.
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How do you explain a family that has had at least 5 different dogs in the past 10 years, one at a time? My neighbors will have one dog for a year or two and then it’s suddenly gone and replaced by another dog. I don’t know if they are exchanging their dog for a new one each time or what, but it’s very disturbing to me. The last dog was a persistent barker and the new dog is such a crier that I fear she will not be lasting very long. Who would one call about this or am I being an alarmist? It just doesn’t feel right to me.
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I am relieved to report that I just found out that the last dog is still there. I don’t know for how long that will be, since they’ve never had two dogs at once before, but I’m really hoping she still has a permanent home.
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