I am grateful to Darcie Cimarusti, an activist public school mom in New Jersey who blogs as Mother Crusader.
I am grateful that she listened to Pitbull’s speech at the national charter school conference. The other keynotes were delivered by Arne Duncan and Joel Klein.
I am grateful she listened because now I don’t have to.
You too can read her blog and watch the video or just her summary. She has done the heavy lifting.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You weren’t just a little bit curious about it? 🙂 You didn’t want to check out his watch?
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Her report does not open. Marked Preview. ?? Help
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http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2013/07/pitbull-wants-to-be-just-like-bill.html
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Tried, but it makes me too sick to listen to it! I am a human being, I have a wife, I have a daughter–and, oh yes, I am a human being. This woman-abusing, woman-hating “celebrity” is disgusting in his own realm. Putting him with kids and schools is child abuse… You travel in a nice crowd, Arne.
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Intestine-twisting, isn’t it.
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O.M.G. I could only stomach the first few minutes. Charter schools are about freedom?
This guy is just out for himself. He should be
Concerned with the tethers placed on public schools by CCSS, Gates, testing, etc. If he truly believes in life long learning (God how I have grown to abhor that term…) then how about some spreading of the almighty dollar to the foster kids like himself in poverty and multiple placements in a year? Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore.
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Teachers are admonished not to have a cocktail in view on things like Facebook pictures from the family barbeque, etc. for fear of professional repercussions. Meanwhile, a guy with recent DUIs and admitted drug dealing in his past opens a charter school and shares a podium with the Secretary of Education.
I need a drink.
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So true. I know teachers who are deathly afraid of a picture with a beer bottle seen in the background. I guess the Dept of Ed. doesn’t have the same fears about job loss and punishment. Thank you Mother Crusader for your work. I’m sorry you had to suffer through it all. How has it come to this? I find it particularly disgusting that these people are building their own aristocracy through public tax dollars. How do the people of Florida not rise in revolt? It is nothing more than a racket.
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That is a good way to look at it; I hadn’t thought if it like that.
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YIkes! I stopped after his comment at 7:02 – I surely wouldn’t apply for a job at his school.
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I took a sneak peek…60 seconds……S L E A Z Y and just right for Arne….two peas in a pod.
How sad for our nation. What an absolute disgrace. 😦
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Darcie,
Thank you. I don’t think I can watch it….it will ruin my day. I am so tired of all this craziness. Thank you for your research and pulling it all together for us.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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Thank You Mother Crusader. Personally, I like hip hop. However, a guy who writes and sings the stuff he does no problem as a musician and that is it. But for the Sec. of Ed. to praise this guy is atrocious. This shows how low Duncan and Obama will go concerning pushing privatization and corporatization for max dollars and to hell with everyone else. Pitbull, go promote whatever in the outside business crook world but leave education of our youth alone. Maybe, you and Cortines should have a fling together. Why not? As I have been telling you the money is in the property and leases with the tax breaks and such being financed for free by us for their personal wealth. Hedge funds brag about doubling their money in 7 years instead of 12 years because of just what they are doing in Miami. Let us face it that town with their crazy anticastro nuts are controlling the foreign policy of the U.S. so this nut just fits in with the rest of their insanity there.
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I guess what use to confuse me about all these rich powerful people wanting to help education was why they weren’t just helping the public schools. Maybe buy a laptop lab. Now I see it is not about helping the public schools. This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.
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There’s something very disconcerting about watching him… his default facial expression seems to be a contemptuous sneer.
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Charter School corruption is rampant and unchecked, not just in Florida, but in copy cat Arizona too.
From an AZ Central editorial:
“[State] Sen. Yarbrough is the primary sponsor of the many revisions over the years to the state’s tuition tax-credit law, which directs dollar-for-dollar tax credits to private-school tuition payments. In 2010, the middle-man organizations created to manage the flow of money from taxpayer to student — groups known as school- tuition organizations, or STOs — collected $43 million.
Yarbrough also runs the second-largest STO in Arizona, the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization. And, by the law Yarbrough sponsored, his non-profit is allowed to take 10 percent of its tax-credit revenue for administration costs. There is no dollar-amount ceiling.
Via a bill sponsored, naturally, by Yarbrough, the Legislature this year has doubled the amount that individual taxpayers can direct toward tuition scholarships. Thus, Yarborough’s potential source of income doubles once again.”
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/20120305taxpayer-money-senate-finance.html#ixzz2Y4mue3xa
Very sad state of affairs. Other than us, who’s paying attention?
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Why is it that I feel like we are living in a cross between the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Stepford Wives”. Not enough people are paying attention. Creepy.
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And yet you are against privatization?
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No, I want Pitbull educating my children. Better yet how about a pitbull with lip service. (do you get the sarcasm)
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New Jersey’s great gifts to public education and informed discussion: JERSEY JAZZMAN, MOTHER CRUSADER, AND DOC BRUCE BAKER (School Finance 101)!
So sorry about CC & CC.
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I’m sorry and maybe I’ve been re-watching the Sopranos too much lately but this sure sound very similar to many of their money making schemes…do we really know who is behind this? and even if we do know (B.Gates, etc) we can, now, certainly see who has figured out a way to REALLY profit from it and it’s not the kids!
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