Gloria Romero: Watching Out for the Kids

Romero is a bully. She's the fool that "authored" the ill-conceived "Parent Trigger" legislation & then forced it down the throats of the California legislature in a state of panic over the bone of Arne Duncan's ridiculous Rttt bribes. She actually called male legislators names attacking their manhood & bravery. She's a bully.

Romero has proven to be a tool of the right, organizations such as the Heartland Institute's school reform "expert", Bruno Behrend (who has never taught in a real school, but is an expert) & of the mercenary left, Ben Austin's "Parent Revolution," which is an astroturf front for the same speculators that tossed the economy into the toilet.

Romero doesn't care one whit for other people's kids, her interest is all about Gloria Romero, how to keep her name in the news, how to keep her toe in the game. She can't do anything else, a failure "teaching" she's hates those that can, so she attacks.

Romero, who easily had the greatest name recognition, lost in the primary stage of the State Superintendent race simply because Larry Aceves & Tom Torlakson didn't whore themselves out like she did. Serpentine Asbestos & lousy legislation.

She's the devil causing conflict, cast her out. She's a bully.

P.R. McDonald: "Romero recently became state director of the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a political action committee. Its goal: to financially back political candidates willing to fight first for the kids in classrooms, not the adults."

But exactly WHO is financing DFER?

To the uninformed folks out there... follow the money, because apparently Patrick and Jill won't be sharing this information with you any time soon.

You two should kick back and have a few drinks with the Jason Song over at the Times. Then the three of you can compare notes about how to write slanted articles to please your corporate, teacher-union-busting masters. Indeed... all of Jason's articles about the recent school board election make a point of Bennett Kayser having financial backing from the union, but---doncha know it?---Jason never gets around to telling where Luis Sanchez gets all of his backing.

Hmmmm.... must have just slipped his mind, like it has with corporate shills like Jill Stewart and Patrick Range McDonald.

A certain "Mizz Murphy", an LAUSD teacher/librarian who was just written about in the today's Washington Post, wrote this about the "reform" movement of which Ms. Romero is part, and for which Ms. Romero is handsomely compensated:

(link to this at: http://mizzmurphy.blogspot.com...

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"At the bottom of all of this is a political reality that I find so daunting, so dark, that to enter into a discussion of it strikes fear in my heart and nausea in my belly. I believe that this is part of a larger movement in our city (and state, and finally, nation) towards a for-profit education model that takes pressure off of elected officials and puts money in the pockets of clever financiers.

"Charter organizations are sweeping the nation, taking over school after school under the guise of a reform movement that doesn’t exist. I believe that LAUSD is in cahoots with this movement. Perhaps it is not LAUSD as a whole, but instead the unseen, rarely heard politicos that move the gears inside the machine, like the Wizard of Oz. The collapse of LAUSD will accomplish some big things for a few people.

"A Prediction in Ten Simple Steps:

"1. LAUSD proves that its teachers are awful and should be fired.

"2. The school board allows charter organizations to take a crack at running the schools.

"3. Charter organizations receive public funds meant to finance the education of children (just under $7,500 per student in 2009-2010), but are not required to fund libraries, provide special education services, or pay teachers union wages. This means that charter schools can pay for services that cost only three or four thousand dollars per student, let’s say, and pocket the rest.

"4. Charter organizations are allowed to remove students from their schools at their discretion, sending low-performing students back to the public schools just in time for state testing. What luck! Schools with no special education students, few English Language Learners, and the ability to remove low-performing students prior to state testing show, according to the only measures we seem to care about (tests), improvement and success, thus lending credibility to the reform ruse. (Note: Although people believe that charters’ test scores are higher than public schools, in many cases a direct comparison shows otherwise. Why aren’t they higher, I ask you?)

"5. Charter organizations (run largely by financiers, investment bankers, etc who are making a nice profit) gain legitimacy as an educational reform model, making inroads in districts across the nation.

"6. Mayors, governors, and other politicians get a nice break from answering for their failing school systems. "7. Qualified teachers move on to other careers, while inexperienced, underpaid teachers are worked to the bone and burn out after only a few years.

"8. This goes on and on for years. Few people notice, because few people think about schools unless they have school-age children. In a state where people elected not to pay an extra $18 on their car registration in order to fund state parks, who would expect any different?

"9. Consumers begin to wonder why the clerk at the Gap doesn’t understand how to calculate the 40% discount on last season’s khaki capris when her computer is down and her manager is on break. This seems outrageous. Eventually, people begin to take note that nearly half of the students entering college need remedial classes, teachers are leaving the profession after just a few years due to burnout, dropout rates increase, and students are faced with huge inequities from campus to campus.

"10. Finally, the public demands yet another overhaul of the school system. The charter organizations are evaluated using the same criteria they imposed on public schools years ago to prove their incompetence. The charters are proven incompetent. Local governments reestablish public school districts and states spend millions of dollars for intervention consultants, trainers, and curricula to swoop in and repair the state of affairs. Libraries are re-stocked and re-opened. New teachers are recruited and trained. And we begin again, from the beginning. "As this happens, I will be raising my own children. I will not be allowed to participate in these movements, and I will not be a teacher. I will grapple with how to educate my children and will be forced to forsake my belief in free education for the public,because that will no longer exist."