Dennis Kucinich: US An ‘Orwellian State’

Some refreshing honesty from an American politician - well-worth watching:

H/t Disinformation

Administrative Hypocrisy

I came across this letter in The Hamilton Spectator yesterday. I consider the topic of feckless school administrators, operating without integrity, to be quite appropriate for this blog, given how it is yet another example of corruption and decay that undermines all institutions, perhaps most egregiously our political ones. But just as the latter's landscape is littered with those who crave power and influence to the detriment of the collective good, so too, far too often, is education, again to the ultimate detriment of everyone.

The issue revolves around a disciplinary hearing involving Matthew John Chiarot, a science teacher at Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School. You can read the details of the allegations against Chiarot here, but the most salient aspect is the assertion that the teacher inaccurately recorded grades following a final exam in January 2007. Hermon Mayers, the school principal, is reported to have earlier said, “It’s just fundamentally wrong to give a mark that’s not correct to a student.”

Given my own personal experience, before I retired, of young teachers being increasingly pressured by administration to raise students' marks so as not to have a high failure rate, I found this letter of particular note:

Artificially high marks are nothing new

Accused teacher’s performance ‘good’ (March 21) The statement, “It’s just fundamentally wrong to give a mark that’s not correct to a student,” caught my attention. The school administrator is admonishing the teacher for this. We don’t know what this teacher is accused of doing with the marks, but in my high school teaching career, teachers were routinely ordered, by school administrators or their board bosses’ directives, to artificially change students marks.

This practice has steadily increased since the 1990s. I can only speak to a public board’s practice. In the race to lower the bar to feed the positive PR machine, we were told we weren’t to fail more than 20 per cent of a class, even deservedly. Marks would have to be artificially raised. Students achieving a failing mark of 46 to 49 per cent would have marks raised to 50 per cent.

Now teachers face disciplinary action and potential loss of career for something previously accepted by principals and boards. Teachers face further castigation by the more recently created, already bloated and blinkered bureaucratic organization, the College of Teachers. For this principal to come out with such a statement without looking in the mirror first is hypocrisy of the highest order, if the Catholic boards follow similar practices to the public.

Don Harrington, Smithville

Cross Posted at Education and Its Discontents

A Message from Noam Chomsky

As usual, Noam Chomsky addresses issues whose existence others refuse to acknowledge.

Kafka, The Toronto Police, and Toronto Community Housing

"Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."

- The Trial, by Franz Kafka

Last evening, I made a brief post which included a quotation from George Orwell's 1984, linking it to a story from The Guardian that dealt with the suppression of freedom of expression rights being experienced by some British public servants. Today, he and another literary icon, Franz Kafka, came to mind as I read a story from the Star detailing a witch hunt conducted by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) that resulted in the suspension of six employees, four of whom were ultimately terminated. Indeed, if one were to substitute the word fired for arrested in the above Kafka quotation, one would have a perfect summary of what happened to these workers.

Their problems began in the aftermath of a much publicized incident of racial profiling in which two Toronto police officers, attached to the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), stopped four black youth, ages 15 and 16, in a public housing complex. Exercising his rights, one of the lads refused to answer any questions, and the situation quickly escalated to the point where one of the officers pulled a gun, and the teens were arrested. All of the trumped-up charges, including the standard resisting arrest charge police so frequently use against those who exercise their rights, were eventually dropped.

To the police department's chagrin, someone handed over a copy of the surveillance video to The Star that captured the events, which included an unprovoked assault on one of the youths by the police, as you will see in the video below:

The fact that this video and the original story of the police abuse of authority were published by The Star did not sit well with the resume builders and careerists at TCHC. In what I am sure they deemed a remarkably good use of their well-paid time, they set out to track down the heretics who had caused public embarrassment to the police, apparently more concerned with maintaining a cozy relationship with them than they were with the egregious violation of Charter Rights the video reveals.

To make a long story short, since you can read the details in the above links, interrogations took place, and despite an absence of evidence that anyone had leaked anything to The Star, (indeed, you will see stout denials in today's story by the putative 'culprits') terminations ensured.

The abuse of authority, whether at the hands of police, employers or individuals victimizing other individuals, has always outraged me. This case is no exception.

Score Another One For Orwell

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. - George Orwell

As always, the writer had exceptional clarity about where Western society was headed.

H/t Steve Collett

Two Messages For Tim Hudak

I have a bit of a busy morning ahead, so just a brief post for now. I have written many times about young Tim Hudak, the lad who aspires to become Premier of Ontario through rhetoric that demonizes the public sector, public sector pensions, and unions. Apparently, constructive policy and breadth of vision are beyond his ken.

Here are two letters from today's Star that nicely capture the severe moral and intellectual limitations the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party labours under:

Re: Hudak takes aim at public sector pensions, March 18

I assume Hudak’s ambition is to ensure that no one has any money when they retire, except the rich, and of course the political whores who do their bidding. Hudak is on the same race to the bottom that the Republican Tea-Baggers advocate in the States.

Gerry Brown, Toronto

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak shows so little interest in facts that I doubt he can be swayed by rational argument when it comes to public sector pensions. But the truth does matter, so here it is.

The pensions my members collect after a lifetime of work are far from lavish. In health care, the average retiree receives less than $19,100 a year. In the public service, it’s less than $21,800. In the colleges, it’s under $22,800. All three of these plans are in surplus. They have no unfunded liability.

Despite what Mr. Hudak says, talks between the government and pension plans cannot “fail” in our case, for the simple reason that they have already succeeded. The government asked us to keep premiums where they are over the medium term, and we were able to do that.

Public sector pension plans are a good deal for the citizens of Ontario. Through prudent investment, our plans provide more retirement security at less cost than private plans ever could.

Tim Hudak’s mistake is that he sees decent pensions as a problem when in fact they are a solution to the very real problem of seniors’ poverty. His attack on public plans masks the fact that he has no plan at all for retirement security for Ontarians — not even the private sector workers he claims to care about. Any fool can destroy a pension plan; it takes grown-up, long-term commitment to build one. Hudak should drop the right-wing blather and voice his support for expanding the best defined-benefit pension plan in the world, the Canada Pension Plan.

Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union

Please Forgive Me

Even though I am a man of mature years, I guess I'm really just a kid at heart. See if you can guess this ad's real purpose before you get to the 'end.' I am putting no tags on this post, so as not to give you any hints.