Stupid in America - Call me John

I was watching the 20/20 show by John Stossel called Stupid in America. I was watching it on Youtube. If you are reading this in a DoE school you can't watch it because Youtube is blocked. It is also blocked to US troops in Iraq. I was watching it because he apparently mentioned the rubber room. Stossel started off by saying how it was impossible to get into a New York City public school to film, he then spoke about how in Washington DC the schools would only let him see the best classes. This is not a surprise. I remembered when I was in advertising that if we wanted to shoot an ad in a school we always went to the Catholic schools because the city would take so long to give you permission that you could never schedule an ad.

News shows such as 20/20 always have an agenda. The agenda in this particular show seemed to be that competition in education will make education better. That all students should have a dollar amount attached to them and be able to take this money any place they want to. In other words, vouchers. I have certain reservations about vouchers. I do not want to see a school system become segregated. I believe that public education is an important element in democracy. Having said that, I probably work in one of the most segregated school systems in the country.

Toward the end of the show, past the 30 minute mark, Stossel starts talking about the rubber room and what a waste of money it is. He says that the DoE will not let him go into one of the rubber rooms. He then turns around and interviews Joel Klein. Klein tells the story of a teacher accused of sexually inappropriate emails to a students who spends two years in the rubber room and is eventually sent back to his school. Stossel listens intently and shake his head in disbelief at how the UFT has corrupted education. Come on John. You said that Klein wouldn't let you into the rubber room and now you are willing to sit and believe everything he is telling you. Why didn't you ask him why he wouldn't let you into the rubber room. Why didn't you insist that he let you in before you would air his views. I like you John, but this is very sloppy reporting and you know it.

One of Stossel's points was that schools waste a lot of money on unnecessary things. The rubber room is considered a waste of money. John, everyone here agrees with you. If you want to talk to me I'll talk to you. I'll even get a bunch of other people in this room to talk to you provided you disguise us the same way you would disguise a Mafia informer. The DoE is probably more vindictive than the Mafia.

My name is Ed, this is different than Ed. with a period at the end. I seemed to have made this mistake on a previous blog. I was quoting from a blog called Ed. Blog. I think I forgot the period.



My wife accused me of ranting in my last blog. I may have been. I do feel passionately that the DoE has created a system that makes it difficult to be a good manager. The observation rules are just the beginning of this. There are a million things that the DoE asks us to do that leave us little time or energy to do what we should be doing. I believe that the really good managers in the system ignore many of these requirements.