This is frightening! I am a teacher that is dually certified in general ed. 1-6 and special ed. 1-6. You know, at times I have thought about leaving my teaching job in the Hudson Valley to go down to NYC where they are in need of certified teachers. I thought maybe I could use my expertise and possibly make a difference in the life of at least one child. After reading and listening to your updates, I would be CRAZY to go into that JUNGLE! It’s so sad for the teachers who are being unjustly punished. I still would like to know where is the union representation and why hasn’t NYS Education Dept. in Albany been called in to investigate.

Perhaps parents need to band together and go before the board. If this bully creep is allowed to continue who knows what will happen. He probably has been a bully his whole life because people are afraid. Never be afraid, how they can let him do that to 17 teachers is beyond me. All those teachers need to band together, go before the board and share their concerns about this bloated ego. If that doesn’t work then they can say they did everything they could then sue the pants off them. He sounds like a racist.

It’s things like this that cause teacher’s to leave in droves. It sounds like most of it is either racially motivated or by the age of the teachers. Either reason is inexcusable and needs to be corrected by the school system.

Perhaps the survey question should be restated: Why Aren’t Principals Being Sent to the Rubber Rooms? After all, it’s the Principals who are the ones who are finagling the monies, cooking the books, burying the skeletons, under reporting countless acts of vandalism and violence which occur in the schools on a daily basis. It’s the principals who control the flow of information. It’s the principals who create the false and phony perception of their schools’ performance in the mind of the public. It’s the principals who blow the smoke and hold up the mirrors. It’s the Principals who are sending those dedicated teachers with integrity to the rubber rooms for being courageous enough to speak out and report them for misconduct and corruption. It’s the Principals who retaliate against the teachers for doing the right thing and not wanting to become part of the conspiracy of silence which exists in nearly every school. It’s the Principals who blindly follow orders from Tweed to get rid of veteran tenured teachers by engineering and orchestrating false charges against teachers whose integrity, unwillingness to put up with lies and cover-ups, age, tenured status and salaries make them expendable.

Ever wonder why nearly 70% of students in the four largest public school districts in America aren’t reading at grade level? Ever wonder why unruly kids in American Public Schools are allowed to roam the halls and rule the classrooms? And when the teachers attempt to remove them for disrupting the teaching/learning process, the teachers are the ones who are brought up on trumped up 3020a charges and wind up in the rubber room. Ever wonder why in Asian culture and society where teachers are highly respected and revered, their students are leading the world in math and science achievement? Ever wonder why a corporate lawer with no background in education was chosen to be Chancellor of the largest school district in the world? Ever wonder why the Wall Street philosophy of turning management and staff against each other and creating adverserial relationships was brought into the school environment where the vast majority of students come from dysfunctional and broken homes, where close, congenial and collegial relationships between teachers and administrators are sine qua non for any positive change or successful student outcomes.

Ever wonder why the more things change, the more they remain the same?

You are doing a good job with the Stacy Peterson story. You should blog about the experience.

What is your gut feeling about the guy?

Re: Stacy Peterson Case

Drew Peterson is either telling the truth, or he is very confident nothing of Stacy will be found. Something very peculiar about all of this…..

Third wife apparently feared for her life (according to family members) and she has a $1,000.000.00 life insurance policy. Why? What did this woman do for a living? What was her income? When did she take out this life insurance policy?

She divorced Drew so that he can marry the pregnant 17-year-old Stacy, changes the beneficiary on the policy from Drew to the two children. Stacy later adopts those two children. Why? That would be an unusual thing for a very young woman to do especially since she has two toddlers of her own. Did this adoption in someway isolate those two kids from their maternal relatives? Did that give Drew control of their money?

Drew says that Stacy called him and said she was leaving and her car was in a parking lot at the airport. So, he goes and picks up the car. Who assisted him with the retrieval of the car, or did he walk? Do records confirm the call, or has anyone come forward that says they took Drew to the airport to pick up the car?

Was the car parked at the same airport where Drew keeps his private plane? Was that plane used at any time over that particular weekend?

I feel for the guy if this is a “runaway bride” situation, but there sure seems to be a whole lot of smoke surrounding this story.