Saturday, August 31, 2013

Nightcap

Teachers should love Educators 4 Excellence. (Gotham Schools)

Bill Gates says teacher pensions are a free lunch. (Fred Klonsky)

Joel Klein is a big success. (Gotham Schools)

Eva Moskowitz doesn't like Bill de Blasio. (Daily News)

DFER likes education reform. (Gotham Schools)

Hedge fund guys love education reform. (NY Times)

Friday, August 30, 2013

Gates Foundation Reforms the Guitar

In yet another unrivaled feat of brilliance, the Gates Foundation has revolutionized the entire music industry. Before, to play the guitar, a person had to use both hands. In the Gates model, he not only uses both hands, but also occupies his mouth. This way, music comes out of more places.

Under the old paradigm, a musician utilized only the hands, which is less than half of what a human can do. To add value, the engineers at the Gates Foundation innovated so that the mouth would also be involved. Gates has given a grant to preclude musicians from using old methods of playing guitar, which irritated Bill to no end as he could never learn.

The Gates Foundation plans to add pedals which are operated by individual toes, and find other ways for humans to manipulate the instrument until 100% of human capabilities are engaged.

"Music is in a crisis," said Gates. "Unless we improve it, we run the risk of falling behind other nations."

Gates attributed the failure to the musicians' union, and lamented all the hoops one had to go through to be a musician. "If a child can master Guitar Hero, why do we need regular guitars anyway?" Gates expects all guitars in the nation to be replaced by his model in the very near future. He suggested we need to fire the bottom 5-7% of musicians if we wish to become competitive in the global music marketplace.

New Teacher Group Forms

In a stunning development, a new teacher group, Educators4Whatever, formed today. We met the two teachers who run E4W, as they will be called. They are Becky Forthwith and Harold Withforth, and they have new proposals for the United Federation of Teachers.

"More work for less pay," said Harold. "That's the only way we will achieve Whatever we're looking for."

E4W was given a multi-million dollar grant by the Gates Foundation, but both Harold and Becky state that this will have no bearing whatsoever on their activism.

"We already supported more work for less pay," stated Becky.

"Whatever," replied Harold.

"This will not change our lives at all," said Becky.

"No, it won't," said Harold.

"Except we're quitting our teaching jobs," Becky pointed out.

"Well, if we have to show up and teach every day, we won't have time for Whatever. And Bill Gates strongly supports Whatever."

GothamCharterSchools is pleased to report that Educators4Whatever has a new petition supporting more work for less pay, and they say this is what teachers today want. In fact, this petition has an overwhelming 100 signatures, so we're fairly certain they are serious about this.

Educators4Whatever will be holding a big initiation party at the GothamCharterSchools office at 7 PM this evening, and will be offering free drinks to anyone who pledges to support Whatever. It is sure to be the party of the century. Teachers who are tired of actually working may ingratiate themselves to Becky and Harold, and if they're lucky they can also get jobs doing Whatever.

Be there or be square.

Rise and Shine

NY Post says charter schools are swell. (NY Post)

Educators4Excellence support value-added. (GothamSchools)

Daily News says charter schools are the best. (Daily News)

Educators4Excellence love merit pay. (GothamSchools)

Eva Moskowitz loves charter schools. (Eva Moskowitz Academy)

Arne Duncan also loves charter schools. (Washington Post)

Educators4Excellence wrote a paper. (GothamSchools)

There's a charter school named after Barack Obama (Barack Obama Charter School)

Amanda Ripley doesn't like Diane Ravitch (Amanda Ripley)

Educators4Excellence has drinks with Joel Klein. (GothamSchools)

Amanda Ripley likes charter schools. (Amanda Ripley)

Educators4Excellence love Won't Back Down (GothamSchools)