John Kasich has been trying, along with Jeb Bush, to present himself as a moderate. Readers of this blog, especially those from Ohio, know that he is no moderate on the subject of education. Ohio is a state where wealthy charter operators pay with campaigb contributions to operate their low-performing schools without accountability. If it were up to Kasich, public education would be replaced with charters and vouchers, unions would be banned, and teachers would serve at-will.
Kasich blew his cover the other day. He said if he were king, he would eliminate teachers’ lounges, so that teachers could not congregate and complain. Free speech seems to be a problem for Kasich.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thus displaying a complete and utter ignorance of most of what goes on in a teachers common room (UK speak).
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I wonder if he’s ever been in a teachers’ lounge, much less a school.
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Bet not
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How about abolishing governors like Kasich? That would be a more substantive change to curb teacher “complaining” than superficial removal of a room in a building.
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We rarely have time to enter the so called Faculty “Lounge!” Most of us are wolfing down our lunches, scurrying around to make copies or procure materials, returning telephone calls to parents, and taking care of sick or injured students in the nurse’s office, since we rarely have a nurse on duty, and much more. If we do have a moment to actually sit down and “lounge,” my grade level and I are discussing lessons plans and strategies to help our students. And yes, once in awhile we might vent about something that we are frustrated about, but we are all there to support one another and come up with ideas to help our students. In fact, we try to encourage positive interactions while we “lounge” around for 10 or 15 minutes, if we are lucky. What a bonehead!
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So true. Those who seem to complain the loudest are those who haven’t visited a school either lately or at all.
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To Kasich:
Try shutting down social media so teachers can’t complain about wages, working conditions, benefits and bullying by a clueless politician. Teachers have access to a much wider audience using blogs and facebook than talking with a small number of professionals housed in a closet eating lunch in 20 minutes.
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Pearson should develop IQ tests for politicians.
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They don’t have to. Just re-name the 5th grade tests, and have politicians try to pass. I am willing to bet that very few would score at “meets standards”.
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Ha..Ha… Thank you so much for my belly laugh of the day!!! How funny, but true!!!!!
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I was looking for a “LIKE” button…you deserve it for the comment, Melissa!
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How would Pearson explain all the negative scores???
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I can’t comment on all teacher lounges, but the ones I am familiar with were not the least bit fashionable. They were noisy and crowded.
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Kasich has tongue firmly in cheek- let’s lighten up- FAR more serious issues to be concerned about with these dangerous clowns out there.
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This was no light-hearted comment.
It’s a direct challenge to teachers having any voice whatsoever.
Watch the video of this:
(… and that telegenic witch Campbell Brown laughs along at 1:48… anytime she ever says how much she loves teachers—just not their evil unions—remember this image of her laughing, salivating, and grinning ear-to-ear at the notion of teachers in fear of losing their jobs, their health benefits, etc.)
According to Kasich and the union-busting privatizers, the problem isn’t pay cuts for teachers, benefits-cuts for teachers, pension-cuts for teachers, all-out attacks on teachers, disrespect and abuse visited upon teachers.
No, no, none of that.
The only problem is teachers talking amongst themselves, and banding together to resist all of these outrages.
Why gosh-darn-it, if Kasich only had the omnipotent power to force those whiny teachers to just shut up about all of that, and simply remain muzzled, weak, isolated workers who are forbidden to talk to each other—as in the non-union charter school model—everything would be just fine.
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Well, if this Ohio teacher could be a Queen she would use her power to bring back Governor Strickland as Governor of Ohio. You can’t keep it secret for long that you are a fool. Case in point…Governor John Kasich. The shows are making so much fun of him. It is great knowing that Kasich has no chance to be President. What goes around always comes around. His hatred of teachers is bizarre.
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The teachers’ lounge, oh yeah, the place where teachers eat their lunches, those greedy thugs. Imagine that, teachers think they have the right to eat on the job. Oh wait, Kasich was just kidding, just using a metaphor, cough, cough, much like Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.
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Another key moment from the Education Summit…
In his discussion with Campbell Brown, New Jersey Governor Christie calls to abolish tenure, or any job protections whatsoever…. no hearings, no independent arbiter… just give leaders the absolute power to just fire teachers at will.
He then offered up this defense. Forget evaluations or hearings. It’s very easy to decide which teachers should be fired, and then separated from their students.
Why it takes all of ten minutes!
(21:13 – 21:54)
(21:13 – 21:54)
CHRISTIE (to the parents):
“Let me ask you a question, ’cause there’s a lot of people out here who care about education. When you go to ‘Back To School Night’, is there ever a doubt in your mind within ten minutes of getting in that classroom, whether that’s a good teacher or a bad teacher? Ever?
“You’re either in there going, ‘It’s gonna be a good year,’
” … or you’re… ‘Oh God. This is going to be a problem.’
“You don’t need a PhD in education to understand this (i.e. decide which teachers should be fired). If we (parents) can figure it out in ten minutes, then why can’t we have a tenure system that holds teacher to account, and that has parents understanding that they (parents) can have an impact on that, too.”
——————–
Could you imagine if you had a teacher saying the CONVERSE of this at a public forum… that a TEACHER can tell within ten minutes whether a PARENT is unfit, and thus, should have their child taken away by Child Services?
TEACHER: (to the teachers):
“Let me ask you a question, ’cause there’s a lot of people out here who care about parenting. When you go to “Back To School Night”, is there ever a doubt in your mind within ten minutes of meeting a parent whether that’s a good parent or a bad parent? Ever?
“You’re either in there going, ‘It’s gonna be a good year,’
” … or you’re… ‘Oh God. This is going to be be a problem.’
“You don’t need a PhD in child services or social work to understand this (i.e. decide which parent should have their children taken away). If we (teachers) can figure it out in ten minutes, then why can’t we have a child and family services system that holds parents to account, and that has teachers understanding that they (teachers) can have an impact on that, too.”
——————–
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So does not the majority of the world now realize what an idiot he is? I know they all pander to the 1%, but the 1%, while they can outspend the rest of us, can’t outvote us. Its time stop the nonsense. Parents need to get involved and get educated and get out and vote on the issues that matter most to us. I’d like to see Kasich and Christie get a swift kick to the crotch.
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“I’d like to see Kasich and Christie get a swift kick to the crotch.”
especially if Christie is wearing his baseball pants:
That’s an image you can never un-see.
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MY EYES! I’ve been blinded!
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My favorite quote (which I’ve probably repeated a few too many times here in Diane’s blog) is below. Fill in your favorite ed-reform villain in the blank (Christie, Kasich, Rhee…)
“Every time ________ says something clueless about public education, an angel gets punched in the crotch.”
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Jack, I haven’t been able to eat a cocktail weenie or pigs in a blanket since first seeing this on NJ.com.
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One imagines the hydra with the heads of Kasich, Christie, Walker, Jindal, Broad, DeVos, Rhee, Duncan, Emanuel, etc., ad nauseam.
The hydra possessed many heads (“more than the vase-painters could paint”) and, each time one was lost, it was replaced by two more. It had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly.
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Hang on, does this mean the chaise lounges, gravy fountains, and ice sculptures have to go out in the hallway?
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No, they want us to give up our fainting couches and psychotherapists.
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I was beyond shocked when I read this quote about Teacher’s Lounges. Consider this-how many presidential hopefuls are there right now? How often, with the exception of Trump, do they get any attention in such a crowded field like this? We have terrorism, income inequality,big issues and this guy is concerned about TEACHER’S LOUNGES??? Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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The politicians won’t dare speak on the big issues. They will continue to spoon feed the big bad teacher drivel to us. The are one-trick ponies.
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The Kasich Administration has been terrible for existing public schools in Ohio. I don’t get any sense that they value existing public schools or even have much interest in them, although 90% of Ohio children attend public schools.
I’m not clear on why I’m paying a huge batch of public employees to oppose public schools. I;m not really interested in their personal ideological preferences for privatized schools. I think they have a duty to serve the schools we have.
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Also, does anyone have a photograph of John Kasich in an Ohio public school? A verified sighting with evidence?
I don’t think he could find one of our schools with a map, let alone be familiar enough with them to be opining on “teachers lounges”.
I would have asked him why the state tax dollars we all faithfully send to Columbus never seem to trickle back down to public schools anymore. Our school funding seems to be disappearing into a black hole of crony contractors and consultants down there. We send it in and that’s the last we ever see of it.
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As I posted on Twitter,
“Last time I saw a teacher with TIME to sit around in the teachers’ lounge was before 1990. Think before speaking.”
My next Tweet is likely to be a more caustic snipe.
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I listened to the discussion and the most depressing part was not John Kasich’s uninformed and patronizing opinions on Ohio public school teachers.
The most depressing part was how he sounds exactly like President Obama and Arne Duncan. There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference among any of these people. They all recite the same lines, sometimes the same words and whole phrases.
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Can we send tweets to #teacherslounge?
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Aside from the teacher lounge folderol, “KING?” Did he really say if he were “KING?”
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The guy also wants to abolish the elected state school board and personally appoint minions, I mean members. Pesky democracy, and all.
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There are a lot of principals out there who don’t like those lounges either. They hate it when teachers get together and compare notes, especially since the complaining often centers on their management ( or lack of ) skills. Plus all those Union notices are posted there.
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I woke up this morning thinking about this. Perhaps Kasich could mandate they eat lunch around the men’s room urinals, because we all know that teachers barely get a chance to use the toilets during the school day, and the majority of elementary teachers are females – that’ll show ’em who the boss is~! You know what else? He is including those precious TFA and charter school teachers in his bashing too, correct? Those darlings TFA and charter school teachers, too, are lazy turds who don’t deserve a dime. Lets take away all the extra bells and whistles paid to and for those TFA darlings, can we? Can we take way the government grants to TFA–clearly those “teachers” don’t deserve any of it, and on THAT, we can find common ground to agree. Lets bring Wendy down. Lets have my taxpayer dollars actually go to the schools for, at the very least and very minimum, certified qualified, well-trained teachers.
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And if my history lessons are correct, the whole point of America was to get away from Kings and Queens, and one of our rights is Freedom of Assembly. The Teachers Lounge is used for eating lunch, not to work up ways to overthrow a nasty paranoid Ohio governor–but what a good idea, huh? Perhaps across New Jersey we could plot against Chris Christie too.
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I ate lunch at my desk surrounded by kids who needed help in some subject. I adored listening to their chatter and banter when I was relaxing with them. That said the Lou nge was great too. At break we could go over curriculum, students problems shop talk. Don’t remember politics of complaining, who has the energy. However, he’s afraid of teachers because we are a cut above . We can’t be bought, we are educated, independent thinkers who can see through stupid, egotists with one glance. P art of our job is reading people. He’s scared cause we aren’t a fan of his and were he in our classroom we’d call a parent conference to correct his anti social behavior. How do these yahoos get elected?
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Amazing. John Kasich has just come out against the First Amendment of the US Constitution:
http://tinyurl.com/q9qn9b9
Is Kasich just ignorant regarding his opposition or is he assuming no one will notice?
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