In Edwize, Randi Weingarten's internet mouthpiece Leo Casey accuses Joe Williams of calling Robert Jackson of CFE "a pimp." What Williams said, exactly, was, "courtesty of YouTube we get to watch a prominent NYC politician pimp himself on behalf of the lowest-performing teachers in the NYC schools..."Now there is a distinction to be made here. Apparently unbeknownst to Mr. Casey, English utilizes both nouns and verbs. Williams was using "pimp" in the new and trendy verb form, as in "Leo Casey pimped the worst contract I've ever seen," or "Randi Weingarten pimped mayoral control." Personally, I don't interpret Mr. Jackson's actions remotely as Joe Williams does, and I couldn't disagree with Williams more. But unlike Leo Casey, I tend to read things before I criticize them.
Frankly, I know some remarkably bad teachers who've never been targeted for anything. I've also seen the DoE place teachers in rubber rooms for using school fax machines to communicate with the press. I've seen people targeted on the basis of schoolyard battles with administrators on numerous occasions, I've seen teachers suspended without pay based on unsubstantiated ultimately false allegations, and I've seen Tweed invest public resources into vilifying its critics (like Diane Ravitch). I have no logical reason to believe the DoE we know and love will target incompetence when there are personal vendettas to be settled (and there are always personal vendettas). This administration, like its predecessor, loves incompetent teachers, as they keep the focus off of Tweed (whose top accountability officer literally runs from parents).
While this administration routinely breaks every promise it's ever made about class size (most recently reneging on a promise to take kids out of trailers), while it makes no progress whatsoever on test scores it can't manipulate, while it focuses more on making Mayor Bloomberg President Bloomberg than actually improving public schools, it's in dire need of a scapegoat. And that scapegoat is going to be unionized teachers, of course.
The fact is, without mayoral control, and the 05 contract that earned Ms. Weingarten the admiration of teacher basher/"Texas Miracle" hoaxter Rod Paige, we wouldn't have the anti-labor, anti-teacher monster that Tweed has become. Ms. Weingarten and her minions give Bloomberg and Klein everything for less than nothing, and repeatedly feign indignation when they come back and demand more. Why don't these people learn from their mistakes? In fact, in very predictable fashion, the so-called "gotcha" squad came about immediately after Ms. Weingarten gave the mayor merit pay.
When you throw a monster a piece of raw meat, it may stop it temporarily. But it will be hungry again tomorrow. Weingarten and company have been feeding the monster for years, and have yet to figure out it will always demand more.
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