Wednesday Links

So, I guess you would be comfortable with the higher tax rate remaining in effect for people actually earning $1 million a year? Or for those earning $5 million?

The new standard that Bloomturd (and the various organizations he sponsors e.g. Teachers4Excellence) would like to establish is problematic. Although it has mostly been swept under the table by the media, his Leadership Academy principals have been instructed that they must go out as new supervisors and get rid of the “deadwood.” They head out there and strive to give out U’s; of course, the U’s go primarily to teachers who disagree with these fledgling principals. Later, when the principal is dismissed for total incompetence, as a number of them have, Bloomturd and his minions want to say these are bad teachers and should be fired. The fact that Bloomturd, who will never admit that he has ever done anything wrong or ever made a bad judgment, has been forced to sack new principals is evidence that the new DOE is totally corrupt. And a really poor manager of our city: $700 million and still counting for a $65 million dollar CityTime project that is years past due and which has racked up at least $80 million in fraudulent charges … and which Bloomturd was still defending and trumpeting only yesterday.

The real reason he wants to get rid of the older, supposedly lethargic and ineffective teachers is that they cost more than twice a new teacher. It was only 8 years ago that the DOE changed the system by which school positions were budgeted. Until then, schools paid “average teacher salary” for each new teacher, whether new or old. Subsequently, schools had to pay the ACTUAL salary of the teacher they proposed to hire. As a result, most principals did not even want to look at an experienced teacher. Why do that when you can hire two starting teachers (whom you can easily fire since they have very limited job protection before tenure) for the same price? That’s the primary reason for these ATRs who do work every day (primarily as substitutes) but who are not put on the actual school budget. And Bloomturd annually adds to this pool of ATRs when he decides to close “underperforming” schools and open new schools in their place.

The DOT report gave numbers and you can believe them as they are reported and come to the conclusion that everyone is “safer” — I do not believe the numbers as presented and have asked for fuller details on how they were gathered and the full report behind them.

I’m a financial analyst and the integrity and transparency of your data is critical — that would go for any study. I have lived on PPW for over 20yrs and have plenty of questions about how the speed of cars (cars “on average” not breaking the speed limit….as a user of PPW I can see that plus during congested hrs and that’s good but I honestly and seriously doubt that the 1/5 speeding ratio stands up when the lanes are less congested…), number of “accidents” pre and post, number of bikes pre and post — bikes on sidewalks, street, sidewalks in the park, bike path in the park, street in the park –, speed of bikes….time to travel PPW??????? Believe your numbers… Iraq had WMD too right? Talk about costly conclusion for policy.

I saw the one comment. I said to myself, I bet its Dave commenting on the teachers. Am I psychic or I am getting to know Dave all too well?