It’s not the ideology. It’s not the politics. It’s not the ego (see most recent HuffPost by Cami Anderson, the overpaid tsar of Newark education). It’s not the national pundits screaming at each other over the Internet.
It’s just plain incompetence and indifference to babies of all shades.
This is from a teacher and it’s a better blog than I or anyone else could write about the subject:
“I’m a special education teacher and my students do not have any math books. My children are low functioning so all the math workbooks are in color. Try making photocopies of colored books! I’ve contacted the union and they helped me to at least get the Teacher’s guides. Here it is March and my students have no books and probably won’t get them this year. I am private messaging you because I am fearful of Anderson. I am an experienced teacher at the top of the pay scale and I believe if I or my colleagues make waves she will close our happy little school so I will be forced to retire. The books are ordered by Anderson’s staff not at the school level. I can’t sit by anymore. To me it’s criminal not to give children what they need to learn.”
Does anyone really have to say anything more? Do we need charts and graphs and citations to educational journals?
In this and other spaces, we’re all arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and this teacher is trying to get through to children without the basic needs some backward third world country is probably providing and Newark is not.
Yeah, of course, there are other questions. Like–I wonder whether the publisher of these materials has given, is giving, or will give a job to Cami and/or one of her friends in the educational kleptocracy we like to call New Jersey.
Did Arne Duncan talk about this when he slipped into New Jersey last week to have a chat with Cami? When he’s getting off on common core standards, does he think whether one of his favorite disciples can’t get books to the kids or shovel the snow?
What’s the Joint Committee on Public Schools doing about that? What’s David Hespe doing about it? How about the state school board? How about that big bloviating clown named Chris Christie? He says he’s a Newark guy, well, c’mon Newark guy, use your considerable weight to get books to special education kids on whom you’ve turned your massive back.
But Bob, her kids are special ed kids. They will never score high on the tests. They are expendable. They don’t count, except in a negative way. They are dragging her numbers down. Why should she care? It’s all about the numbers. Be reasonable!
OMG, I don’t know whether to thank you Bob or not as I just clicked on your link to Cami’s “brave little me” self-serving pity party in the Huffington Post and I feel nauseated. We need to start organizing to get this woman out of Newark before more harm is done.
Thanks Bob for continuing to report on this since the mainstream media deosn’t seem to be willing to do real investigative journalism anymore.
Bob Braun: I am not sure who displayed the most fecklessness–HuffPost or Cami.
Bob – Could you check the steps this teacher took and the continuity from previous year to assure all “tools” required? I don’t know why the Union needs to be involved in basic supply issues!
My learning and thoughts about this develop from a little teaching time and having been married to teachers and a sister who was a special ed teacher.
Cami Anderson, Chris Christie and former education commissioner, Chris Cerf are and have been an embarrassment to anything related to the institution of education in the city of Newark and elsewhere! Even Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) knew and said, “The more you read the more you know.”
It’s laughable, in a really disappointing way. They can’t supply books for kids, but they can find the money to peddle those damned One Newark applications?
[…] https://bobbraunsledger.com/cami-where-are-the-books/ […]
Maybe Ms Anderson can “Literally, overnight . . . ” get this special ed teacher’s students “three new boats” and plane tickets to crew races.