- As traditionalist gift givers are no doubt aware, the tenth anniversary metal is tin. Last week, with a slew of ten-year retrospectives and events commemorating the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, a longtime reform critic traded in her responsible commentator’s hat for one of those nifty ones made from tin foil. Business journalist Andrea Gabor, who has spent years grinding an axe against school choice and high standards, attempted to bury it in the back of the New York Times with a breathless op-ed decrying the “myth” of the post-hurricane New Orleans schools revival. The Seventy Four quickly published a rebuttal of the simple factual inaccuracies in Gabor’s piece, and reform-friendly superintendent John White wrote a paean to the city’s charter district and the educators who work there. But the best response has come from liberal pundit Jonathan Chait, who defended high-achieving charters as “one of the most impressive triumphs of American social policy.” New Orleans still hasn’t completely turned around a school system that was irrevocably broken even before the storm. But after a decade of progress, it’s attracted allies from across the spectrum, and that’s something to celebrate.
- Franz Kafka is most famous for writing about supernaturally bureaucratic court systems and men mysteriously turning into cockroaches. But if he were alive today, the Gadfly is confident that he would reject stories from the New York City Department of Education HR department as way too far-fetched to base a story around. Earlier this week, the New York Post reported that English teacher Edward Morrissey spent a gobsmacking four years in the infamous “rubber room” while a hearing officer processed the verdict from his disciplinary case. Morrissey, who had been accused of striking one of his students back in the first year of the Obama presidency, was found guilty and terminated. So who’s the Josef K. in this scenario—the teacher, who spent four years in professional purgatory? The child he allegedly assaulted, who waited even longer than that for a simple complaint to result in an administrative decision? Or the sucker taxpayers who wrote the check for this nonsense?
- Ah, the hunger strike: Perhaps the most effective organizing tool for the twin goals of spurring social reform and building the ultimate revenge body. Popularized by moral leaders like Gandhi and Cesar Chavez—and, what the heck, IRA prisoners—the tactic has now been adopted by a group of Chicago parents who hope to transform their local school. The Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School has now entered the second week of a headline-grabbing demonstration that has attracted the support of both AFT chief Randi Weingarten and Jesse Jackson, a person who was reportedly famous at one time. First formed to prevent the closure of its namesake (which graduated a class of thirteen seniors in June), the organization now hopes to spearhead its revival as a leadership and technology academy. Civic engagement in local schooling is certainly to be applauded, but these parents might consider pursuing their agenda through more conventional means. They could even bring snacks.
Topics:
