If You're a Teacher and You Dare Challenge

anything your principal asks or tries to force you to do, you can lose your job, but if you're the Chancellor of the New York City public school system, you are a law unto yourself, and you can even defy a court order:

On Friday, Judge Joan Lobis of the New York State Supreme Court nullified Chancellor Klein's decisions to close 19 middle and high schools in New York City, ruling that his actions were illegal.

This court's judgement was an important step forward for the rule of law. It was also a confirmation of the necessity for a genuine public process to inform and improve arbitrary and rash decision-making at the NYC Department of Education.

Klein's proposals to close these schools has been met with tremendous protest from thousands of parents and teachers alike, because of the devastating effect on their children, their communities, and the public school system as a whole.

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Predictably, the Chancellor disagreed. As quoted in the NY Times, he said, "I think the process was robust...We literally met with thousands of people who expressed their views. We heard them, and in the end, we disagreed."

Despite the court decision, Klein said that none of the schools originally slated for closure would accept students, and he would send out high school admissions letters over the weekend, with none of these schools included.

Even those 8500 students who had listed these schools as one of their top choices would be assigned other schools, and would instead receive a letter, "stating that, should the schools remain open, they may select one of them."

By this action, the Chancellor signalled that he intends to close these schools down regardless, by starving them of students.

I'm sure "Democrats" Duncan and Obama are cheering this on.

The Education Wars: More Teacher Union Trashing

and shilling for the Obama administration's destructive Race to the Top nonsense. Naturally a know-nothing about education gets paid to write something he knows nothing about.

A remarkable thing happened in New York recently: the state legislature, in effect, turned down the chance to win $700 million in federal money. No one does that, except extremely conservative Southern governors (who inevitably relent and take the money) — oh, and occasionally teachers' unions. A few years ago, I wrote here about the Detroit union that forced the local government to reject a $200 million philanthropic gift to build 15 charter schools using a model that was already succeeding in the city. And now we have New York's United Federation of Teachers (UFT), a storied crew, thwarting the state's attempt to file an application that might have won $700 million in Race to the Top education funds — and again the issue is charter schools, with a substantial dollop of teacher accountability thrown in.

Some Commentary

What in the hell happened to Josh Marshall, and why did he sully himself to the point of being such a liar and sellout?

Short answer: It's the promise of riches, stupid. All of the other one-time amateur bloggers (excepting Huffington, who already WAS a paid pundit) had visions of one day becoming part of the punditocracy themselves, and with it, fame and fortune. If that meant lying about politicians like Al Gore or John McCain or Sarah Palin to hit the big time, all the better.

It's not hard to understand. The love of money is the root of all evil, just as the lack of money is also.
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Just how did somebody as unqualified as Obama get as far as he has? It's a result of the "post-political culture" infecting this country like a virus.
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Speaking of pundits or whatever, why is it Time's Joe Klein got kicked off the McCain campaign plane, and not while it was in the air, unfortunately?
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Could

Joe Klein make sense for once in his life?

The problem with having Gore or Edwards or both on the ticket is that this would still alienate the Clinton/Obama factions, but it may get to the point where the party has no choice at all but to nominate somebody else.

Of course, I would ask the party hacks as to WHY IN THE WORLD they thought they could run the wife of a former president who is term limited and an inexperienced black pol given the risks involved in it. Did they honestly think that because of the 2006 elections, they had the 2008 presidential election so in the bag they could afford to run a pair of risky candidates? Did they really believe the GOP was hopelessly divided? Guess what? The GOP lined up behind McCain in VERY short order after he got the nomination. The GOP may be ruthless, it may be divided, but the party members aren't stupid.

We're screwed if either becomes the nominee, as much as I like and admire Hillary Clinton, but Clinton has been so damaged by the filthy campaign Obama has run, she just can't overcome it to beat McCain if she were to go up against him. At least it would be close, though, unlike Obama, who is so absurd as a candidate.

I don't think Gore has the stomach to go through another presidential campaign. The fraud of 2000 was just too much of a heartbreak. I think he's glad to be out of it.

Pick Edwards and Biden for the national ticket, and then the talk of a unity ticket might actually make sense.