We're Growing!

Secondcityteachers Getting Bigger
By Jim Vail


I'm pleased as punch to say this little news blog I started is starting to take notice all around.

I started Secondcityteachers.blogspot.com about half a year ago so that I could post daily the ins and outs of what's happening in the world of education and its politics in the city, the nation and the world (where our fine correspondent Stephen Wilson reports how the privatization of education is effecting the Russians).

I was just contacted and interviewed by an editor at the Columbia Chronicle about the crazy situation in our city schools.  She called specifically in reference to a story I posted about how awful some teachers feel about "legalized looting" of the closed schools, where teachers rush into the closed schools and take everything they can - books, whiteboards, projectors, etc.

Before that I was contacted by the son of Dr. Heimlich - inventor of the Heimlich maneuver - who wanted me to follow up on a corruption story about a charity called Safe a Life in which they scammed people into giving money to support a program, no longer used in the schools, to promote certain emergency aid techniques not properly followed.

Before I decided to jump to this blog site to post daily (well, I must admit I may skip a day or two which isn't nice to my readers), I had another site called Secondcityteachers.webs.com.  On that site, a story I wrote in which I questioned the endorsement process of President Obama in the Chicago Teachers Union was picked up by the townhall.com - the conservative version of the Huffington Post.

I do believe readers of all ages are getting more savvy in their search for good inside information on what is really happening inside the political establishment that is really screwing the people.

While the Sun-Times, the NY Times and other corporate entities provide some hard-hitting, good reporting - these are papers owned by the establishment.  They don't call out the hypocrisy of our political system that favors the 1%.  They tacitly endorse it, as life keeps getting worse for the rest of us.

The situation in the schools is not good.  While Gates and others are demanding SUPER STAR teachers to save our country - as they continue to loot it by off shoring jobs and downsizing their payrolls so their coffers fill up - teachers in the city keep getting bombarded with the REACH - REACH - REACH.

How would you like to be hired and right away hear lectures on a regular basis about how you are going to be evaluated over, and over and over again?

Boy - they're gonna watch my every move, to see if I make a mistake.  Heck, good old Gates himself is insisting on putting video cameras in classrooms.  So you need to hire more police!  

Maybe that's the next job growth opportunity - getting your license to badger teachers over and over again! 

Ooops!  Sorry, our administrations who are being forced to administer the REACH - REACH - REACH, are also under the gun and being evaluated for their performance.

Remember, we're all within a second of getting the axe, but that includes the so-called powerful at the top, who perhaps know more than most, how quickly this whole thing can turn.