In Trouble For Putting Kids First

The teachers’ union in Canada is considering punishment for one of their own — for merely devoting extra time to help his students succeed:

Jack Nahrgang, an English and history teacher at Forest Heights Collegiate in Kitchener, who won the Stewart Award for excellence in teaching this year, will be investigated for breaching union protocol during a work-to-rule campaign that lasted from February to mid-May.

In a June interview with the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Mr. Nahrgang admitted spending extra time helping his students after school — despite a union sanction only allowing teachers to provide extra assistance to students during a 15-minute window before or after class.

“My kids are always first,” Mr. Nahrgang said at the time.

John Ryrie, president of the Waterloo local of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said Mr. Nahrgang never would have faced any reprimand for his actions if he had not expressed them publicly, but the media attention left the union with no choice but to notify the OSSTF’s head office in Toronto.

Mr. Nahrgang’s case will go through a disciplinary hearing as early as August.

The hearing could lead to a variety of possible reprimands against Mr. Nahrgang, including a fine, Mr. Ryrie said.

“We need solidarity from our members in order to exert pressure [on the school board],” he explained.

It’s ironic that a teacher would get disciplined (by his own union, no less) for daring to help his students after school. If the NEA tried to pull such crap here, they’d be in for a smackdown.

(link via Joanne Jacobs)

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“Self-destruction, [we]‘re headed for self-destruction…”

From Walter Williams:

The bottom line is given the day-to-day destruction of education for black students at the primary and secondary levels of schooling, most will never be able to compete academically. The fact that the affirmative action crowd demands discriminatory admission practices for post-graduate education such as in law and medical schools confirms something else. Black performance on admittance exams, such as the LSAT, MCAT and GRE, is stark testament that four years of undergraduate education cannot erase the damage of 12 years of fraudulent primary and secondary education. [...]

Black politicians and civil rights organizations’ loyalty to the education establishment means academic doom to black youngsters. Washington, D.C,. politics and its schools, among the worse in the nation, are a case in point. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, along with most members of the Congressional Black Caucus, use private schools to educate their children. But, when D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams broke ranks with most black elected-officials and endorsed recently proposed education vouchers, Norton blasted him as being “a sell-out.”

Whom do you think Frederick Douglass would deem the sell-out: those who seek an alternative to rotten schools that cost taxpayers $13,000 a year per student or those who support the status quo?

Read the whole thing.

Related: Larry Elder weighs in on last week’s affirmative action ruling.

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More Justification For School Choice

Students at a Bay Area school district want Advanced English classes, but the school board in their infinite wisdom says no to their requests.

(link via Daily Pundit)

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News From The Alma Mater

The Center for Consumer Freedom reports:

Fallout continues to accumulate from a recent “Revolutionary Environmentalism” conference at Cal State Fresno. The February conclave featured classroom visits from violent radicals like convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado, anti-American terrorist “spokesperson” Craig Rosebraugh, and Animal Liberation Front evangelist Gary Yourofsky. At first, it appeared that the event’s harshest critics might be in the California legislature, where two state senators have threatened to withhold a portion of Fresno State’s funding. But now it looks like the university is also answering to a federal grand jury.

The Fresno Bee reported on Saturday that university officials, answering a grand jury subpoena, have turned over a video recording of at least one “Radical Environmentalism” conference session, which was closed to the public. Authorities aren’t saying exactly what they’re investigating, but this may be part of a wide-ranging criminal investigation that has triggered the defense mechanisms of several radical animal-rights groups in recent months.

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School Choice Redux

When it comes to freedom of choice in education, the left always prefers enslavement over liberty.

Those who buck the party line in the District of Columbia can expect to be branded as a sellout by Eleanor Holmes Norton.

The above is also DNC/NEA standard operating procedure in other states whenever anyone utters the words “school choice”, in their efforts to do what’s best for enslave The Children.

Michelle Malkin comments in depth, and Cal Thomas (whom I usually disagree with on numerous issues) tosses in some bonus material.

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Bad News From The Alma Mater

Fresno State, best known for its academic and athletic traditions, will soon be well-known for welcoming eco-terroists with open arms (and barring the public’s right to know).

Bruce Thornton and Bill Croke comment.

(links via InstaPundit and Critical Mass)

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Quote Of The Day

I’ve been led to believe that “crush the dissenters” was a right wing thing. Guess not.

–Michele Catalano

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More Education Union Corruption

From Michelle Malkin:

When corporate moguls get nabbed for ripping off shareholders, the media go ape-wild. Last year’s front-page headlines were filled with Big Business scandals and barrels of op-ed indignation about capitalist greed. But when teachers’ union officials plunder their members’ coffers in Enronic proportions, the media go . . . AWOL.

Of course they go AWOL, Michelle. Haven’t you heard? Capitalist greed is bad, but socialist greed is good — just as long as it’s being done “for the children”.

Another reminder why I quit the NEA.

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What Ms. Poniewaz Said

A letter to the local paper:

To the editor:

As a Clark County School District support staff employee, I would like to respond to Lisa Kim Bach’s Oct. 25 article on Bobby Mancuso, the former ESEA president arrested for solicitation.

All support staff should call for his termination instead of a 10-day suspension. What parent would want him as a bus driver for their child?

The district is doing the right thing finally by checking backgrounds, but he should get no special treatment just because he was president of ESEA.

Joe Furtado states that Mr. Mancuso did well as president. I beg to differ. We are out millions of tax dollars and got stuck with a crummy health insurance plan. I hope that support staff employees will realize that a co-worker in charge of our union is just that — a co-worker with no basic skills that qualify him to be in control of our lives, salaries or insurance.

I further hope the public will demand the district consider the safety of their children and the taxes they pay.

NANCY PONIEWAZ
LAS VEGAS

FIRE BOBBY MANCUSO.

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“We can win this.”

In about a month or so, my co-workers and I will be able to vote out the corrupted NEA affiliate, and give its national parent a swift kick to the groin while we’re at it.

Suffice it to say, I feel good today.

Damn good.

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NEA & Criticism

They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

Joanne Jacobs files her latest FOX News column:

In response to criticism, the National Education Association has pulled its Sept. 11 lesson on tolerance off its web site, reports the New York Times.

No more will the largest teachers’ union advise that it’s wrong to blame terrorists for terrorism. But the NEA official who ran the project, Jerald Newberry, director of the Health Information Network, blames “the far right” for cowardice and bigotry. Gee, I thought blaming was wrong.

That’s the NEA formula for blame. When things get tight, blame the right.

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