One of the blog’s regular contributors writes from California. I am sorry to say that I have never met him, but he can be counted on to write some of the wittiest comments on the blog, almost always punctuated by maxims and axioms gleaned from his reading. Everyone who is a regular reader knows his writings and commentary. Here are his thoughts on the brouhaha about salaries for school leaders:
KrazyTA writes:
I apologize in advance for the very long length of this comment.
For the residents of Planet Reality who visit this blog, The New Charter/Privatizer Math of RheeWorld, or A Lesson in Resisting Rheeality Distortion Fields.
Venality Added Measurement/Venality Added Modeling.
February 1, 2014 comments on this blog in order of appearance, with link below:
[start quote]
MS: Carmen Farina earns about as much as Eva Moskowitz annually but no one minds that. Yet another double standard perpetuated by the anti-choice extremists.
DR: Carmen Farina oversees the education of 1.1 million children
Eva M: 7,000.
Carmen has a 40-year pension.
Eva: $499,000 and she is not an educator.
No spin in this zone.
MS: Yet another double standard. Shocker. Carmen is earning $412,000 a year. Quite a payday, but that is ok, because she is part of the establishment, they have different rules. Only Reformers get criticizm for ‘excessive pay’.
DR: MS: Carmen Farina spent 40 years as an educator. She earned a pension. Now she is chancellor of a system with 1.1 million students.
Eva Moskowitz is a politician, not an educator. She runs a chain of charter schools with 7,000 or fewer students. She is paid $499,000, more than the president of the US. That is ridiculous.
Are you suggesting that their responsibilities are equivalent?
1.1 million is more than 7,000.
MS: I can honestly say I think Eva pays herself too much. It is too much of a political lightning rod to take that kind of salary in my view. I think she earns every penny of it, but given the politics, she should not take that much of a salary IMHO.
[end quote]
Next immediately following comment from February 2, 2014:
COSMIC TINKER: Charter schools are all about the children and union teachers are greedy? That is opposite world.
In NYC, “16 charter school CEOs earn as much as $500,000 a year.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/funds-drained-article-1.1578760
Eva Moskowitz: $499,000 a year and for the students, a number higher than the oft-repeated 5000, i.e., the above 7000. $499,000/7000 = approx. $71.29@student, which I will round down to $70@student. *Impressed with how “fair and balanced” I am?*
Carmen Fariña: $412,000 a year and for the students, a number lower than the above, 1 million students, proving once again that I am bending over backwards for Eva M., $412,000/1,000,000 = $0.412@student, which I will round up to 50¢@student. *”Fair and balance” am me.*
Now on to the Venality Added Modeling system to see how the two stack up against each other. $70/0.50 = $140. So for every 140 Benjamins that Eva M. is squeezing out of each and every one of her “most precious assets” [thank you, Michelle Rhee!] Carmen F. is getting 1. And they say you can’t measure the quality of venality by a quantity of $tudent $ucce$$?
Señor Swacker, even you must be taken aback by my VAManiacal adroitness. And Robert D. Shepherd, you must admit I’ve handily surpassed every benchmark set by the Potemkin Village metrics of the old Soviet Union. Chiara Duggan, if you gave 50¢ of voice for every $70 worth of choice that the charterites/privatizers bring into play…but I digress.
How can anyone possibly not understand by means of the above hard—we’re talking tempered steel!—data that Eva Moskowitz is worth 140 times more than Carmen Fariña? That Eva M punks Carmen F? That Eva M works 140 times harder, better and more efficiently than Carmen F?
As a noted theologian of the High Holy Church of Testolatry [charterite/privatizer denomination] has declared in no uncertain terms: “Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t.” [Dr. Steve Perry, “America’s Most Trusted Educator,” channeling rapper Jay-Z]
And just notice what Cosmic Tinker pointed out: EduExcellence as measured by the Venality Added Modeling system isn’t just confined to Eva M. It’s everywhere you can find a self-styled leader of the “new civil rights movement” of our time—except, of course, in those pathetic public schools aka factories of failure…
So remember, the next time someone criticizes data-drivel, er, data-driven instruction and management by the numbers and curricular bullet lists, just hit ‘em between the eyes with this indisputable meganumerical bomb—140 to 1 ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at, boobala.
The future is charters and vouchers and privatization because $tudent $ucce$$ is the ₵en¢ible tsunami that will swamp all opposition.
Rheeally!
Although on Planet Reality where Rheeality Distortion Fields don’t function nearly as well as they do on RheeWorld, there is a better than 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] chance of certainty that the future belongs to those struggling for a “better education for all.”
Really!
😎
“Laughter is poison to the pompous.”
And a healthy antidote to mathematical intimidation and artless obfuscation and delusional invention…
Diane Ravitch's blog 
OMG. Rolling off my chair laughing here. Thanks, Krazy. I needed that!!! 😛
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LOL!!!! “Rheely.”
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Oh, that’s so funny, and so effective too. Maybe Eva is doing 140 time better a job for each of her students than Carmen is doing for each of her students. And maybe, in terms of cost, we ought to add in the cost of Carmen’s attendant down town office staff.
We all like a laugh, especially at the expense of those actually trying to do something effective in the world.
KrazyTA’s approach to the issue is standard California liberal ridicule of the targeted person combined with false assumptions underlying the use of numbers, intended to crush the opposition without any serious attempt to deal with the actual issues. Better to puncture the pompous with fact rather cackling clown ridicule. Clowns are confined to circuses. They have no place in the real world.
Keep on KrazyTA. With your approach permeating liberal political circles and showing that such circles are totally un-serious about rational approaches to social problems, perhaps the tea party will actually have a chance.
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“I’ll tell you why the rush to eliminate public schools, even if they are community hubs. It’s the ONLY way to get rid of the 1/3 to 1/2 dead wood teachers who are in them.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/04/how-to-live-with-an-outrage/
I am sure you—and I refer all interested parties to click on the link—know whose hard-nosed carefully considered mathematical calculations informed the above quote.
My posting was meant to drive a stake through the pretensions of all those that employ such tom foolery in the mad dog pursuit and/or defense of $tudent $ucce$$ for the few at the expense of the many.
If charterites/privatizers and their edubully enforcers and edufraud enablers don’t like their own brand of “thinking” and “calculating” and “assessing” that is on vivid display in my posting—
Look in the mirror, bub! You’re gazing at your own reflection!
I think a not-so-long-ago dead English guy would come in handy at this point—
“A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.”
But given that he’s a furriner, let’s look for some homegrown wisdom—
“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps into it.” [John Steinbeck]
So for y’all that set, baited, and stepped into your own trap—
I needed a good laugh today and you came through with flying colors!
Many thanks/muchísimas gracias/domo arigatoo gozaimasu.
😎
P.S. An extra treat: your political characterization of me evoked a genuine belly laugh.
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Thank you my fav TA. Wish your kind of craziness would go viral.
Speaking as a “California liberal” educator who believes in your vast ability to “ridicule”…when will you be running for School Board? You already have my vote.
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All well and good, MS, but even in your calculation there is a faulty assumption, namely that if every kid were in a charter school, those charter schools could do as well with them as with their actually cherry picked current clientele. The essence of charter schools is their ability to get rid of kids who are not willing or able to be willing to learn, and who destroy the academic atmosphere of those charters. Now, I’m all for charters, but they won’t solve the problem of the socially damaged classes. Without the cesspool of the public schools to receive back the kids who drop out or are pushed out of the charters, they would have no where to go. Charters are not inherently elitist, but as they are conducted (in my experience), they NOT ‘therapeutic schools’ for the dumb or damaged. They ARE (again in my limited personal experience of them) clearly opportunity schools, but if the kid can’t or won’t fit in to the ‘opportunity’ he/she is shipped back out to the lower darkness. If they weren’t the charters would lose their support.
This blog assumes that’s anti-American, anti-equal, but Jefferson’s idea of universal common schools at the elementary level were intended to separate those who could actually benefit from time spent in education from the rest of the mass of children who could not or would not. Those with the talent were move up and on. Those without went to work.
Whether every child in the land, regardless of ‘background’ or family has an intrinsic RIGHT to be as successful in school as students with supportive families, is an almost metaphysical question. Many need a true ‘therapeutic education,’ what Diane Ravitch calls ‘wrap around services.’ Whether they have a RIGHT to such services from the state is a very deep question.
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Jefferson…”universal education….separate those who could not or would not benefit from school… would go to work”…
And by that he obviously meant his slaves whom he made sure would remain working in his fields for at very least his lifetime.
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Ah, playing the race card Ellen, when you can’t refute the fact.
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I think the key here is “…in my limited personal experience of them.” Read this before you use your “limited personal experience” to make broad generalizations.
http://credo.stanford.edu/reading-quality-curve/
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thank you mom/teacher
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Well here in NYC CREDO also did a study, the results were staggeringly in favor of the public charters. What they found was the average student in a charter would learn 5 years more math by the time they graduate and over a year more English than had they been in a zoned school!! Amazing right? So why would our mayor close down these amazing, high performing public charter schools? Becasue he does not care about the kids, in fact it’s worse, he specifically does not want them being educated as it would hurt the special interests that he is owned by.
Click to access CredoReport2013.pdf
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>Imgaine if every kid in the city was in a charter school, how much would we save than?<
Every kid, MS? Really.
Charters are notorious for de-facto selectivity. Its the only way they can operate. How about "every kid in the city" that meets the SA criteria, and no transfers either.
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Your math and critical thinking skills need some polish. The high “average cost per pupil” in NYC is skewed significantly by the large population of sped and ELL students. Since charters like SA tend to avoid having anything do with such troublesome clientele, you can probably cut that $45 mill in half. Lets make it a $24 million dollar saving, that 0.1% of the annual 24 billion dollar NYC school budget. An whopping $22 per student. Thanks but no thanks. Hope you’re not a math teacher, because that was a highly ineffective post.
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Acutally the average of IEP students in public charters is just 3% below that of zoned schools. The difference is 16% vs 13% . Interestingly enough the 13% have higher educational results via public charters than do the 16% of zoned schools. So even with IEPs charters are outperfroming zoned schools here in NY.
Click to access SpecialNeedsFactSheetApril2013.pdf
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Just counting all IEPs doesn’t work, though. IEPs can be for anywhere from mild learning disabilities to very severe disabilities. Charter schools simply do not have facilities or staff for severe disabilities in most cases, nor do they try to. More struggling students are left to the public schools, who must, by law, take all comers and must provide facilities and resources for them all. I have seen students who could not even enter charter schools because there are simply not teachers there that can help them, or leave after a few weeks because there are not specialists to help meet their needs.
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Heh, MS, still posing as a parent? Sounds like you have a playbook of skewed, out-of-context stastics. Until you answer my question if you are being remunerated or are connected someone being remunerated to speak here, it is advisable that no one engage your PR flak.
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Funny post, although my eyes start to bleed every time someone on this blog trots out something super duper clever like replacing the letter s with a dollar sign, or replacing “re” with “de” or “rhee”.
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$orry, CTee, but my Gate$ font doe$ that replacement automatically everything I type CC$$.
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Good stuff, Krazy; I always enjoy reading your comments.
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Krazy TA,
Great post! Keep on posting; I’ll keep on reading. Can’t get enough . . .
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MS has been shown to be a liar: he posed as the mother of an SA student, when in fact he is an executive in the financial services industry, with connections to SA (www.linkedin.com/matthew-still/15/343/6b4). The SA logo can be found on the bottom of his Linked In page.
His employer, Rabobank, was a creditor of AIG, and was thus saved when the Bush/Obama administration bailed out the banking industry, so I guess our tax dollars are subsidizing his “free market” interests twice over: first by bailing out his insolvent company, and second by subsidizing Eva’s cannibalistic private schools. According to his Linked In page, he worked in fixed income, so he’s presumably capable of advising Eva on future bond deals to expand her empire.
His links are intended to make it seem as if his trollings are supported by facts, when in fact they do nothing of the sort and are often irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Diane, presumably in the interest of free expression, seems to be willing to let him continue on here: more power to her. But that doesn’t mean we should take his bait: he should be shunned and ignored on this site, until he crawls back under his rock.
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Sorry, this comment should have appeared further down the thread.
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