Sending the Amherst Select Board to a "social justice training session" is like requiring a professional All-Star baseball team to attend a Little League summer training camp. Talk about preaching to the converted. Yikes!
And some of you may remember Dr. Barbara Love, UMass School of Education, who in 2002, as Chair of the Amherst Regional School Committee, played the race card to defend the pedophile principal Steven Myers as incendiary news broke about his pernicious interaction with a 15-year-old Amherst student: "As a black woman, I am leery of jumping to conclusions and condemning and convicting an individual on the basis of circumstantial evidence."
That same year, when school officials were discussing whether to disregard the state mandate that will require students to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test to receive a diploma, the Daily Hampshire Gazette noted that " ... Chairwoman Barbara Love countered that it is equally important to teach students to defy laws they find unconscionable."
Yes, by all means, sit down in the middle of the road to protest the MCAS. God forbid we test students to see whether their expensive education instills learning or not.
The private Kellogg Foundation (those purveyors of the "breakfast of champions") provided the $300,000 "social justice" grant to Amherst over three years to fund this auspicious project, so no taxpayer money was involved. Unlike the $96,000 Amherst schools recently donated to the Umass School of Education for tips on how to teach.
The Denver Westword News reported:
"Teaching teams
ReplyDeleteStarting this spring, teams of teachers will start meeting regularly to decide what instructional practices they will initiate, maintain or discontinue, based on group dialogue, according to Rebecca Woodland, an associate professor at the School of Education, and the primary UMass liaison on the project. All team members will then take specific and coordinated actions in the classrooms, according to what the group decides. The teams then will collect and analyze information about the results with data collected by peer observation and analysis of classroom instruction, she said.
Chair surprised
Irv Rhodes, who chairs the Amherst School Committee, said he was surprised to learn about the project and its cost at a meeting in mid-November. Citing direct contributions to the schools by Amherst College, Rhodes said that he would have liked to see UMass share the cost of the project.
He also said that Woodland should have identified her professional relationship with Geryk when she spoke at a School Committee meeting in October and urged that the interim superintendent be given the permanent job."
Are you fucking kidding me?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!?
Can you say "rat's nest"?
I knew you could.
All of this is part of Ms. Geryk's very public "Maria for Superintendent" campaign, along with the frequent "free media" appearances on ACTV, now Amherst Media. So, while we don't know the names or qualifications of the other candidates being considered by the search firm, we know Maria is in the mix. It's a completely loaded process.
ReplyDeleteShe's doing a masterful job of using what the community gives her politically. And support from UMass-affiliated residents will be important. There may be blood all over the floor by the time she takes the permanent job, but, really now, who's going to stop her? A bunch of elitist parents?
Hey, a resume is only a resume. We know and love Maria. End of argument.
A hiring of Maria Geryk just might take out a couple of School Committee members, who might walk away in disgust.
ReplyDeleteAnother victory for Sustainable Amherst.
Good heavens! What did $100,000 per year buy? Do I like it?
ReplyDeleteWasn't it Musante and Co.'s idea to save the town from financial ruin by destroying the lives of the schools' food workers?
ReplyDeleteWeren't they easily picked off in that environment that looks down upon "their kind"?
Country music on the radio in the middle school kitchen?
May as well have been shark bait.
These elitist vipers will stop at NOTHING to get their organic mangoes, if you know what I mean.
Get in their way?
You're done.
"Voluntary resignation" ???
ReplyDeleteLOL
And maybe for old John-boy, it's history repeating itself?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=4616
"According to Higgins Northampton's City Solicitor, Janet Sheppard, Northampton's former Finance Director and the current Assistant Town Manager of Amherst, John Musante, and Northampton's current Human Resources Director, Glenda Stoddard, all played a role in crafting this policy. There is no state governing body that oversees the formulation of such policies due to home rule by charter provisions, therefore people are left to seek relief through the court system. If people cannot afford the legal fees in civil court they are effectively excluded from seeking just settlements.
Posted by Daryl G. LaFleur on 12.7.07 at 13:19"
Interviewer: Was it a carefully planned conspiracy to get rid of you?
ReplyDeleteInterviewee: You betcha.
LOL...What entertainment this blog is!! Of course sometimes I feel guilty spending time reading this blog because there is nothing of any substance here or worth a second of time reading. But oh, what entertainment!
ReplyDeleteI'd watch your back, though, Larry. Catherine Sanderson's blog is giving you a run for the money in the All Negative, All the Time category and also Totally Useless Information and Comments category!
No worries.
ReplyDeleteI--and I'm fairly sure Ms. Sanderson thinks the same--don't pay a whole lot of attention to critics who do not have the balls (or ovaries as the case may be) to sign their name.
This is the end of me eating Kellogg products. Much as I drive a Japanese car, is there a good brand of Japanese breakfast cereal???
ReplyDeleteYeah, sake.
ReplyDelete"I'd watch your back, though, Larry. Catherine Sanderson's blog is giving you a run for the money in the All Negative, All the Time category and also Totally Useless Information and Comments category!"
ReplyDeleteYou should really get that checked.
You sound like my grandmother just before she died of brain cancer.
Look at who Rebecca Woodland co-authored papers with under her maiden name. Yes, Andy Churchill - remember him?
ReplyDeleteSmall world, isn't it?
To December 10, 2010 12:58 AM
ReplyDeleteThat's the entire problem with the public schools here. UMass school of education polluting the schools with their inferior grads.
That's the entire problem with the public schools here. UMass school of education polluting the schools with their inferior grads.
ReplyDeleteNo, it actually is far more complicated than that. One of the basic principles of higher education is that you don't hire your own grads, that it is kinda like incest, that you want to have children with people who aren't closely related to you so as to diversify the bloodline.
The problem is not the UM School of Education per se but that there are no divergent viewpoints. EVERYONE is affiliated with everyone else, everyone has the same groupthink on all the philosophies of the profession, everyone co-authors each others articles and books.
In a word: incestuous.
And then look what happens when you have two outsiders come in - "fresh blood" so to speak. Economics and psychology is where all the new and interesting stuff in education is coming from (Dewey came from psychology - a point many neglect to remember) and you have the two outsiders -- Steve & Catherine.
And all h*** breaks loose. Everyone freaks out because there are strangers in our midst -- folks who aren't from the UM School of Education.
I am not saying that the SoE is good or bad -- I am part of it -- but you don't marry your sister. And it is not good -- for the Amherst schools or for the UM School of Education -- to have such an incesturous relationship of people who grew up here, went to college here, and never left the valley.
Steve Rivkin got his degrees from Michigan and California, Catherine Sanderson got her degrees from California and New Jersey -- we are talking about people who were educated outside of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, outside of the Pioneer Valley. I don't believe that either of them personally attended the Amherst public schools....
By contrast, we have a lot of people who have been here since the '80s (if not longer) and who have never seen anywhere else since then running the local schools. There is no diversity, no diversity of thought, no diversity of scholarship, no diversity of philosophical approaches to education. There is no new blood...
The UMass MEd Teacher Cert program is a very good program -- I say this as one who is both a certified teacher myself and who has taught in far more shoddy programs. As one who is impressed with the students they have in that program -- post '95 or so, they started producing quality graduates and good teachers.
However, I would not want my child taught by one for the same reason that I would not want my child to go to an all-white school. No diversity. Amherst needs to start hiring teachers from the rest of the country (or at least Boston) so as to promote something resembling diversity.
Otherwise, it not a "family tree" but a wreath...
That's the entire problem with the public schools here. UMass school of education polluting the schools with their inferior grads.
ReplyDeleteNo, it actually is far more complicated than that. One of the basic principles of higher education is that you don't hire your own grads, that it is kinda like incest, that you want to have children with people who aren't closely related to you so as to diversify the bloodline.
The problem is not the UM School of Education per se but that there are no divergent viewpoints. EVERYONE is affiliated with everyone else, everyone has the same groupthink on all the philosophies of the profession, everyone co-authors each others articles and books.
In a word: incestuous.
And then look what happens when you have two outsiders come in - "fresh blood" so to speak. Economics and psychology is where all the new and interesting stuff in education is coming from (Dewey came from psychology - a point many neglect to remember) and you have the two outsiders -- Steve & Catherine.
And all h*** breaks loose. Everyone freaks out because there are strangers in our midst -- folks who aren't from the UM School of Education.
I am not saying that the SoE is good or bad -- I am part of it -- but you don't marry your sister. And it is not good -- for the Amherst schools or for the UM School of Education -- to have such an incesturous relationship of people who grew up here, went to college here, and never left the valley.
1 of 2
2 of 2
ReplyDeleteSteve Rivkin got his degrees from Michigan and California, Catherine Sanderson got her degrees from California and New Jersey -- we are talking about people who were educated outside of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, outside of the Pioneer Valley. I don't believe that either of them personally attended the Amherst public schools....
By contrast, we have a lot of people who have been here since the '80s (if not longer) and who have never seen anywhere else since then running the local schools. There is no diversity, no diversity of thought, no diversity of scholarship, no diversity of philosophical approaches to education. There is no new blood...
The UMass MEd Teacher Cert program is a very good program -- I say this as one who is both a certified teacher myself and who has taught in far more shoddy programs. As one who is impressed with the students they have in that program -- post '95 or so, they started producing quality graduates and good teachers.
However, I would not want my child taught by one for the same reason that I would not want my child to go to an all-white school. No diversity. Amherst needs to start hiring teachers from the rest of the country (or at least Boston) so as to promote something resembling diversity.
Otherwise, it not a "family tree" but a wreath...
"Teaching teams
ReplyDeleteStarting this spring, teams of teachers will start meeting regularly to decide what instructional practices they will initiate, maintain or discontinue, based on group dialogue, according to Rebecca Woodland, an associate professor at the School of Education, and the primary UMass liaison on the project. All team members will then take specific and coordinated actions in the classrooms, according to what the group decides. The teams then will collect and analyze information about the results with data collected by peer observation and analysis of classroom instruction, she said."
"Look at who Rebecca Woodland co-authored papers with under her maiden name. Yes, Andy Churchill - remember him?
Small world, isn't it?"
The same maggot Andy Churchill who couldn't wait to get ride of those sub-human school food service workers saying:
"Fiscal circumstances have continued to tighten over the past five years. We wouldn't be discussing this course of action (getting rid of the food workers) if that weren't the case. With the failure of the override (ironically led by Hwei-Ling Greeney and others who are now protesting our resulting actions), we had to consider additional cuts. The superintendent and business manager tell us that we will save at least $100,000 per year by transferring food service workers to the vendor. We have already cut teachers, administrators, aides, textbooks, music and more. We need to keep our focus on funding our core educational mission - kids in classrooms with teachers."
I repeat:
"We wouldn't be discussing this course of action if that weren't the case. With the failure of the override (ironically led by Hwei-Ling Greeney and others who are now protesting our resulting actions)..."
Have I made myself clear?
Insiders protecting insiders while destroying outsiders.
These parasitic vipers MUST be stopped,
cold.
Social justice training? Is this a blog post or an excerpt from something by Orwell?
ReplyDeleteGeorge and I go W-A-Y back (circa 1984)
ReplyDeleteDecember 8, 2010 5:08 PM
ReplyDeleteKuddo's to U, what a memory, seems there might be something behind the "dummying" of Amherst via the water supply, LOL
Anyone who's been living in Amherst his entire life has been living with George Orwell the entire time.
ReplyDelete