Here is EduShyster, with her usual irreverence, telling us how to achieve true excellence:
Close public schools.
Close so many public schools that the public gives up and gets used to it.
Make grand promises.
As they sing in Chicago (not only the Broadway musical and the movie, but the actual city): “Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle, razzle-dazzle ’em.”
Learn the tricks of the school-closing trade.
Fool the public.
It works every time.
I must begin by saying this is satire.
If I don’t, some readers will take it seriously.
It was written by Paul Karrer, an elementary teacher in California.
He is responding to the demand from some quarters that teachers should be armed.
Read here and see what Paul thinks.
What is happening in education today is so hard to believe, so completely outrageous, that it is hard to write satire.
Twenty years ago, suppose you read a story about school officials closing down public schools and handing them over to private entrepreneurs. You would think that was really funny, right?
Suppose you read a story about for-profit schools getting public money. Ridiculous, right?
Suppose you read something predicting that Wall Street hedge fund managers had a plan to reform public education. You would laugh out loud.
No one is laughing now. It is all happening.
But here is a satire about a teacher who dares to assign a book.
Is this funny or ridiculous?
Watch this, get a good laugh, and go to sleep!
We see similar nonsense in the mainstream media every day, but this one is funny.
Crazy Crawfish is after Jindal and White again.
And who can blame him?
These guys are almost beyond parody.
They have another wacky idea about education that will make someone very rich.
The kids–not so much.
EduShyster has discovered a brilliant program for highly effective teachers who don’t plan to hang around for very long. Read it and get a good laugh, as you always do when you read EduShyster.
Here is the sales pitch:
Do you dream of CRUSHING the achievement gap but aren’t sure that a 14 hour work day is right for you? Are you MAD passionate about training the next generation of test takers but worry that you lack the hand gestures to keep a large class of minority students on task? Reader: I’ve got excellent news. Thanks to our excellent and innovative friends atMATCH Education you can test drive your dream with absolutely no obligation to buy.
EduShyster, that merry prankster of edu-reform offers her predictions for the New Year.
She says 2013 will be the year of the edupreneur.
This is a new genus americanus, the ultimate result of turning the public education system into an emerging market.
This is a wonderful gift catalogue that will give you laughs and solace on this special day.
EduShyster has created some priceless selections for the discerning shopper of edu-shlock.
A reader who is a veteran teacher suggests incorporating the Mayan calendar into VAM evaluations.
It could be one of the multiple measures that everyone talks about and would very likely improve the overall accuracy of the VAM ratings.
Anyone who writes on a computer–as almost everyone does these days–is subject to two kinds of dangers.
One is auto-correct. This feature, which I frankly loathe, will take a minor spelling error made in haste and substitute completely different language that changes the meaning of what you wrote.
The other is that if you make a mistake and leave out a letter, the word may make sense yet be embarrassingly wrong.
The most common spelling error for anyone who writes often about education is to type the word “public” as in “public school” and leave out the letter L.
If you don’t proofread carefully, you are likely to be embarrassed.
That is an appropriate punishment for failure to proofread.
Since I have made many inadvertent spelling errors on this blog, due to haste, I am careful not to sneer at others who do the same. My excuse, such as it is, is that I have no editorial staff, no assistant, no one to check out what I wrote before I post.
When you do have a professional staff, it is truly embarrassing when a big error goes by unnoticed.
Look at this ad in a Tacoma, Washington, newspaper for a “pubic charter school.”
This perhaps calls attention to the fact that many people consider charter schools to be a form of privatization.
Maybe someone deleted that L on purpose.
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