The Ackerman era begins this week and I for one would like to wish her well. It is perhaps ironically fortunate she experienced such a rude welcoming from an employee of the School District on Friday. A pervasive lack of respect is the embedded culture of the School District. It must change.
The attitude of the city must change as well. Education is everyone’s job, including the posters on this board. Education affects our property values, our insurance rates, our sense of safety and security. Without serious improvement in education, Philadelphia will never reach its potential as America’s next great city.
Ackerman has a strong resume as a teacher. She has actually been successful in the classroom. This experience is sorely needed at the School Reform Commission and hopefully garners her respect and opportunity.
She won’t get much time though. This is a contract year. Negotiating a contract in tough fiscal times, while she herself received a 25% increase in base pay above Vallas’s rate, is not going to be easy.
Jerry Jordan, the President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is one of the finest men in town, and a true role model. I know the negotiations will be conducted in an admirable way.
An educators contract has to benefit children. If teacher wages are not competitive, then it is difficult attract and maintain the high quality teachers we all want for our future citizens. Philly teachers working under more difficult conditions than suburban counterparts, make about 25% less than their suburban colleagues, which dramatically affects their retirement. The data reflects teachers leave Philadelphia Schools much more quickly than suburban schools.
Money is a factor, but so are working conditions. Our buildings aren’t air conditioned, heating systems are erratic, the elevators are often broken, there are no safe drinking fountains, the buildings are rodent and vermin infested, and as we all know, the inexplicable toleration of school violence by previous administrations has created an environment which is not safe for adults or children.
Stepping up to the plate and offering solutions is a brave Arlene Ackerman.
The lengthy hiring procedure and lack of fanfare suggests she does not have much political capital. While I know as an educator, I am not 100% in agreement with her past policy decisions; I offer her my respect for this demonstration of bravery and extend a welcome hand with an open mind.
A Warm Welcome to Arlene Ackerman
Submitted by Keith Newman on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 7:56am.
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Jerry Jordan Is A Fine Man...
Keith Newman:
Are you done polishing the apples of Arlene Ackerman and Jerry Jordan? You will get many browny points, Keith, for kissing the tucheses of your bosses.
A fine man? Jerry Jordan is a fine man?
Are you serious? This district has been brought to its knees by corruption and is no longer an effective school district.
With its less than fifty percent graduation rate, there is no room here for effusive praise for Joran nor for Ackerman.
Jerry Jordan is not a fine man and respresents a corrupt, do-nothing union.
Please save your tuches kissing for a private blog...
It makes me sick...
- Down In The Basement
Jerry Jordan Is A Fine Man...? Hahahahaha...
Down in the Basement:
Jerry Jordan is a fine man...? hahahaha...
NOT!
If ignorance is bliss then
If ignorance is bliss then down in the basement must be very happy person.
For others, I would agree there have been legitimate issues raised about corruption in the SRC when Nevels was its Chairman, but what does that have to do with the union? The union does not set policy or raise children. As a matter of fact I'd like to see a contract which stipulates children are taught at grade level, so a ninth grader must be capable of doing ninth grade work before entering ninth grade. If we are doing standardized tests to ascertain adequate yearly progress and another one to determine the merit of a high school diploma, then why not an end of year test for promotion?
Keith Newman: Are you in the
Keith Newman:
Are you in the district? Are you in the union?
Did you think you could polish Jordan's and Ackerman's apples and no-one would call you to task for that?
Sorry, you may be a wonderful person, but your gushing praise of Jordan would make any Philadelphia School District teacher puke.
Jordan is a buffoon and represents a pea in the pod called: The Philadelphia School District. The union is corrupt to the core and represents dishonesty and urban Tammany Hall-like politics...Jordan would be better served teaching in a classroom, like his members and seeing how horrible many of the district's schools are...
Please go on the Philly Notebook and start praising Jordan, there.
No, Jerry Jordan is the east bound end of a west bound horse. I don't respect Jordan one bit. In fact, I say he is a ne'er-do-well and a do-nothing.
He makes Ted Kirsch look good and that doesn't say much.
- Down in the Basement
Keith Newman
Keith Newman:
In case you didn't notice, the School Reform Commission, the School District of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers are the same fetid stink ball that they have been for 8 years. They all represent the same interests: fraud, corruption, double-dealing, and graft.
Did you just fall off the turnip trunk or what?
Keith?
- Down in the Basement
Guys
Honestly, I can barely even tell what sides of the argument you are on through the name calling. Its not a very effective way to put your various arguments across.
Mr. Luigi: What's on your
Mr. Luigi:
What's on your mind?
No name calling here...just trying to make an interesting conversation...
Luigi...what do you think of the world-class Philly School District?
- Down in the Basement
To say the School District
To say the School District and the Union are in the same cest pool ignores reality. If you would like to offer specifics instead of slander I'd be happy to respond. As for the Notebook, I don't recall negatives about Jerry in their articles.
Am I in the district or the union.......points out naivity. I'm in both.
Keith Newman: It appears
Keith Newman:
It appears that someone here is making ad hominums...I simply came on this site...and was taken a back reading someone post a comment that referred to Jerry Jordan, PFT president, as "being one of the finest men in town and a true role model..." Perhaps Jerry Jordan is the next Thomas Jefferson or Mohandas Gandhi...
Give me a break. I almost vomited when I read the effusive praise for someone I think is responsible for a lot of harm and badness.
Please let me ask my question again: Are you an administrator in the district?
Are you an administrator in the union?
If so, congratulations, you have a lot to toot your horn about...with a fifty percent minus graduation rate...
- Down in the Basement
Can someone tell me what a cest Pool is?
Can someone tell me what a cest pool is?
Somebody can't decline their Latin
Only when you tell me what an "ad hominum" is.
I hope I am not the only
I hope I am not the only William F. Buckley here...
An ad hominum is a verbal attack that is unwarranted...
An off the cuff remark that doesn't add to the conversation...
I don't think I have made any ad hominums...if I have...please cite them...
Thanks.
- Down in the Basement
Ease up, Friend
I think it's fair to raise your concerns. You're making them heard quite loudly. Just take it down a notch. This isn't a place for screeching at the top of your lungs how badly the District has hurt you. It's hurt a lot of people in a lot of different ways. So ease up on your indignation.
We're mostly on the same side here, after all. We're all looking for solutions and a way to dialogue among progressives about ways to bring change within institutions resistant to it. If you want to discuss the teacher abuse you've endured then by all means go ahead -- "fetid stink ball" might express how you feel but without backup it sounds a little out there.
But you make a mistake in pitting yourself against Keith and others on this blog who are trying to dialogue about education, build allies, raise awareness and consider alternative solutions to the usual "blow it up" garbage we get from folks who don't want to pick up the pieces afterward.
My pedantry
No, you made fun of Keith's typo ("cest pool"), so I was teasing you about yours. It's "ad hominem," with an "e." And more specifically it means an attack on the person making the statement rather than a consideration of the truth of the statement itself.
Isn't a Pedantrist Illegal in the USA?
Did I make fun? Did I tease? I don't have spellcheck on my Philly Politics blog...but my definition of ad hominem was pretty accurate...
By the way, Keith and I have smoked the peace pipe together...I believe Keith sympathizes in what I experienced by the Nazis down in South Philly...
Helen Gym Rocks!
Well, since it is Helen Gym, I will "ease up."
Perhaps, I am worked up because tomorrow is my workman's compensation hearing. I have invited your office to attend. It is a public hearing.
Yes, I was hurt. In my country, I was placed in a basement, in isolation, in a room that was unheated, in early April, below ground level, for over a half of a month, with bars on the windows. Anyone heard of Guantanamo? Yes, also,I was denied a lawyer.
If you want pictures, I will supply them to you.
I got into the basement because the principal, considered one of the worst by Jack Stollsteimer, in the district, lied and was angry because I called Stollsteimer's bogus Safe Schools Hotline. She was then determined to oust me from my job.
Yes, I get a little miffed when I see Jerry Jordan, who didn't do squat, and whose South Philly rep. said to me he would wash his hands of me like Pontius Pilate did with Jesus Christ, being called a great man and a wonderful contribution to our city.
That really irked me. Jerry Jordan represents everything bad that happened to me and has affected me so deeply.
However, I do respect you and your work and hope you keep in touch.
I don't know Keith from Adam, so no-one should think I have nothing but the highest regard for Keith.
Thanks. Godspeed.
- Down in the Basement
Sounds like you've had a
Sounds like you've had a rough go of it and I undrstand how that works. I don't know the details so I can't condem the union. My experience with them has been very different from yours. I certainly know about how principals ignore reality and fail to create environments where teaching and learning can happpen.
Keith, my friend, if you
Keith, my friend, if you want to know my story...please email me...
No, riddle, no rhyme, I will give you the time...
- Down in the Basement
And now for something completely different.
Keith, can you tell me why the new issue of The Notebook hasn't been distributed in the schools? Usually it hits the schools the same time it comes online?
Philly Notebook
When is the Philly Notebook coming out?
I need something to line my bird cage with...
It is the right size and I usually never need to read it, because it is the same old, same old...
The Philly Notebook is the "Pravda" for the School District of Philadelphia.
Anyone know what "Pravda" means in Russian?
- Down in the Basement
The NOtebook
The Notebook is available at both my school and my wife's. Why it is not available at your school I cannot answer but I would bring it to Paul Socular's attention.