It’s called “school teacher underperforms lesson plan.” And it’s a felony" (Scott Horton)

[kpete]

Of Crime and Indifference

BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED February 14, 2008

..................

In Birmingham, Alabama, a politically ambitious U.S. attorney named Alice Martin has secured ten indictments of Democratic political figures and their allies. Martin keeps the indictments under seal, so she can release them drop by drop to suit the needs of a political plan, namely the campaign of her Republican compatriots to take control of the state’s legislature. And according to recent reports, Martin has grown so apprehensive that the public will grow wise to her schemes that now she has launched an effort to identify a Republican to charge, too. The offenses charged in these indictments can be summed up in the case she has brought against a 63-year-old retired social studies teacher named Sue Schmitz. The focal charge is that Schmitz had a contract to run a civics program and that she didn’t put in as many hours as she was required to because she was in Montgomery as a state legislator. No doubt it’s Schmitz’s service as a state legislator which provokes the prosecution. You see, Schmitz committed a very serious crime in Martin’s view. She is a Democrat.

So the Birmingham prosecutors have crafted a novel crime. It’s called “school teacher underperforms lesson plan.” And it’s a felony. I wonder how many school teachers have been prosecuted by federal prosecutors for underperforming their lesson plan? My bet is that we’re going to find this is a highly selective category, and all the school teachers selected for prosecution are Democratic legislators. And indeed, why stop with school teachers under a private contract? Why not focus on public office holders, like a U.S. attorney, who only seems to straggle into her office on days when she’s giving a press conference? Perhaps the public inspection of absenteeism should start with those leveling the charges. But all of this falls smack into the center of what Beccaria would call the abuse of law.

......................

The case of the school teacher in Huntsville is one example plucked from dozens of bogus, politically inspired “public integrity” prosecutions that the Bush Justice Department has concocted all around the country. In each of them we see a clear grand design, namely, to influence the elections process for the benefit of the Republican Party. So we see tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and massive resources being devoted to illegitimate and improper ends that in the end produce injustice and undermine public confidence in the Justice Department and its commitment to its principal mission.

more at:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002392

[lonestarnot]

1. Another OMG! Unbelievable. Stop them! Selective enforcement of an

outrageously stupid pug pile of crap! Where are the parents?

[LWolf]

2. We're already set up to enforce such a law at the lowest levels.

Under NCLB, the "accountability" piece looms large in all districts. Here are some of the pieces of accountability in place in the two districts I've taught in since NCLB became law:

Teachers lesson plans are turned in to the principal weekly; every lesson must clearly state the standard it is covering. (This means that teachers spend more time writing standards into the planbook than they do planning better ways to teach them.)

Standards for the day must be clearly posted.

Random room checks by principal and by roving bands of district enforcers: they come in and check the planbook, the walls, the bulletin boards to make sure that the district scripted programs, including standardized bulletin boards, are complied with, they check to make sure that the teacher is reading the script from the scripted program correctly and is following the "pacing schedule." (One principal in my former district told his teachers, "When I walk down the hallway, I'd better hear the same lesson coming from the every room at the same time, or you'll be written up.") Random students may be asked to stand and recite the standard they are currently working on.

Extra district-level testing in addition to the required state tests done every trimester. Teacher's whose classes don't measure up get assigned a mentor/watchdog and extra meetings/trainings for remedial purposes. Extra hours without pay.

A teacher who took extra time on a concept or skill that students were struggling with, who didn't keep to the "pacing schedule," could be "underperforming the lesson plan." Any teacher whose students didn't score well on the standardized tests, for any reason, could be "underperforming the lesson plan."

A teacher whose bulletin board was not up to date, or did not match the standardized district boards in some aspect could be charged with the same.

We're not, of course, Democratic legislators. We're just teachers, and perhaps don't, yet, rate the same treatment that those higher up the food chain do. :eyes:

[lonestarnot]

5. Parents need to do battle for our teachers! PTO, School Gov. Bds. etc pickets if necessary.

:hug: for all teachers. I am sorry that they are getting away with this.

[appal_jack]

9. wow, you have my heartfelt solidarity

I had contemplated teaching highschool science as a career option a few years back, just as NCLB was getting going, and that writing on the wall scared me off. Ten minutes after a principal started yammering to me like that, and I would've been out of a job anyway due to the inevitable verbal pushback that this sort of bureaucratic nonsense warrants.

It's an awful situation, and I hope that you teachers and parents find success in changing it. The teachers from whom I learned the most were the ones who tended to toss-out the rulebooks and teach their passions.

-app

[LWolf]

13. Thanks.

I know several teachers who DID jump ship. A few had spouses who made enough money to get by on a single income. A few took early retirement. At the large district where most of the above occurred, MANY beginning teachers went back to school. They changed their major, and planned to stay in the classroom long enough to support getting another degree attending classes nights and weekends, and then getting out of education.

One teacher quit, cashed in his retirement, went to culinary school, and went into gourmet cooking.

[appal_jack]

16. such a noble calling... ruined by such lowlife bureaucrats

My Dad taught in the NYC public schools for 33 years: junior high, high school, and a public GED program that gave tens of thousands of kids a second chance. He painted his own classrooms, built his own bookshelves, used his own initiative to set up a weightlifting gym in one of the schools he worked (and later when the gym had to move, he moved the weights to a public housing project community center). He used his own initiative in the classrooms (I remember him lesson-planning late into the night when I was a kid), and made sure his GED students had real reading comprehension skills, at least enough math to balance a checkbook, and enough history to know that our US Constitution is worth a thought or two. Oh, and most of his students passed, and many of those would return years or decades later to thank him (and also to tell me I was a lucky guy to be his son).

My Dad was also a proud union member. The NYC teachers union (UFT) struck three times (I think - it could have been more) during his career. Each time, the teachers were fined by the city: two days pay for every strike day: not an easy penalty when you are a young teacher, with a wife and two kids depending on you. But they all held tough, and made gains because of it. His only regrets from his union times were seeing the triangulation- corporatist- bureaucrats successfully invade the union's power structure. He and his brother tried to fight for integrity within the union as well, but their minority opposition was outmaneuvered from what I've been told. The settlement in that final strike (post- triangulation- corporatist- bureaucrat- takeover) created two tiers of union benefits: older teachers got to keep their good package, but newer hires got less. And ever since that time, the power of the teachers union has waned. Go figure.

By the time my Dad retired in 1997 (long before *'s pResidency and NCLBA), things were getting ever more bureaucratic and restrictive. The spirit was being ground out of their strong program by the higher-ups. After retirement, my Dad returned to sub at his old school a number of times, including a 6-month stint for a colleague on maternity leave. The bureaucracy and oppressiveness kept getting worse. By 2001 or so, my Dad had to tell his old teaching buddies that he wouldn't be coming back to sub any more. As I said above, I was contemplating a teaching career at the time, and my Dad warned me that such would be a bumpy ride at best. What a shame to have to discourage your own son from following in your footsteps. But I appreciate his advice, and am glad of the choices I have made.

All of you who have made the courageous choice to teach and really care about the next generation's learning are true heroes. Don't let the bastards get you down: this nonsense cannot possibly endure much longer.

-app

[LWolf]

19. I hold on to that hope,

that this nonsense won't endure, and continue to do my best to make real connections with my students and to help them learn and grow in spite of the current climate.

Your words of support mean much.

[roguevalley]

10. that's the ticket. beat teachers.

[drmeow]

12. I used to have a political cartoon on my office door

It was of 2 elephants sitting at a table. The young elephant says to the old elephant, "Are we going to continue the war on education?" The old elephant smacks him on the head and says, "Of course we are, that's have we got this far."

[LWolf]

20. I'd love to have that cartoon posted somewhere, myself.

Look at the changes we've seen in the last generation; changes in how the general culture views intellect, learning, school, and education.

Is it any wonder that so many people are so willing to be led by the media, when substantive learning and thinking is devalued in favor of the lowest drilling and killing for rote memorization and bubbling in correct votes answers?

[LWolf]

14. We're convenient scapegoats.

It's easy to scapegoat us as a tool to further non-educational agendas, rather than to look at the system as a whole, and the systemic changes that would be necessary to TRULY "leave no child behind."

[tbyg52]

22. I'm working under what you describe

but not applied the way you describe. The way my workplace does it, it hardly bothers us at all. Which may mean it's hardly the way BushCo intended.....

Some of the stuff in NCLB is good, but it has the potential to run amok. And the potential to be selectively applied for political/vengeance reasons. And the potential to be misused by people who haven't got a clue....

That's why I worry about anyone who advocates "performance pay" for teachers. I think it's virtually impossible to determine fairly and objectively who "deserves" what. It's not like we're turning out widgets here. Let's just pay us all more!

[LWolf]

24. The way something is implemented is key, I agree.

Many of those outrageous policies are in place, in a more fair-handed way, in my current district. That might be why I took a massive pay cut to teach here.

I also agree that we ought to have high standards, and that we ought to be focused on making sure that every student is able thrive, learn, and grow in public schools.

The achievement gap is already in place before children ever reach kindergarten. If we truly wanted to close that gap, I don't think we'd start in school. We'd start at home. We'd start by making sure that all children in the U.S. were born into safe communities, and that their families had access to affordable housing, health care, and jobs with a living wage. As a nation, we'd meet the needs at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy.

That would do more than any federal or state mandate or threat to close that gap.

The current mandates are easy political tools for other agendas that have nothing to do with student achievement.

[tbyg52]

25. Yep

It's the home attitude and resources and the *early* education. You know, the stuff the R's don't give a flip about, because it's about *control*, not results.

[Zodiak]

3. So what are the national Democrats doing about this?

Seriously...this is really out of hand.

Where is the investigation on the firing of the attorneys?

[acmavm]

4. They're busy busting steroid users past and present.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. People need to listen to this shit.

If the US Attorney's office is compromised politically, it would explain everything. I suspect something is up in Florida too, because there was an audio glitch on the channel line-up station which scrolls the t.v. schedules at the same time that it reports the news. Something is up in Florida because it mentioned something about 74 prosecutors and it didn't sound good.

[electprogdems]

7. So who is the Alice Martin

"a politically ambitious U.S. attorney named Alice Martin"

What is her horse in the race, other than blind ambition. Is she a fundy trying to overtake the government for Jesus? Or is she one of those Handmaiden Tale types that wants to keep abortion rights safe for the very rich and entitled only?

I wikipedia'd her and could not find too much.

edited for stupid typing.

[DCKit]

11. Just another rabid * appointee looking to grow the Republic party. n/t

[merh]

18. Check out this blog

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/

and read up on the Don Siegelman prosecution.

[electprogdems]

8. And another thing, this is just one more

reason why I get so upset with the Democratic party. As I have said in several other posts concerning Don Siegleman, if these vile evil people can do it him, they can do it to any Democrat. Do the "ten indictments of Democratic political figures and their allies" realize that this is the first step to their disappearance? Who is next, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich? Where is the national party on this? Fucking step up, and DEFEND YOUR OWN. Any Democrat, especially those on the progressive side should be shaking in their shoes, and should be joining up en mass to expose this.

[Rex]

15. How criminal! I hope it all backfires and SHE ends up in jail!

Repukes are out of control!

[McCamy Taylor]

17. When the DOJ is cleaned out and new federal attorneys appointed, Alice Martin will be

one of the few who will actually take a fall for the crimes of people like Karl Rove, IMO. The GOP likes to make sacrifices of women and minorities, since it conforms to their world view that these groups are incompetent or inferior. She will be left out be her lonesome, accused of doing it all by herself to curry favor with her higher ups. She will probably be disbarred and could face jail time (though probably not). Being a good little Republican, she will not name names. If she is lucky, Fox News will fix her up with a job.

That is assuming that Democrats keep lots of heat on her, of course. Make her name synonymous with partisan GOP hack. Should be easy enough to do.

[gollygee]

21. Another step toward fascism

this kind of thing reminds me of the Naomi Wolf book The End of America. She said that when Gonzo and Bush purged US attorneys, this type of thing was the goal. Find people who are opponents of yours, and trump up charges against them. It's all "legal" because you are and make the law as you see fit.

[tbyg52]

23. Please, does anyone have a link to the actual law?

I've been trying to research it on my dialup (slowly).

I've tried FindLaw and the Alabama website:
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeofAlabama/1975/coatoc.htm
with no success so far.

(The Alabama website doesn't have a search built in, but seems to be indexed by Google, as I got one hit for "lesson plan," not related to the law mentioned in the OP.)

[Smith_3]

26. Is "not teaching about evolution" also a punishable underperformance then? nt

[blondeatlast]

27. Who made the schools a political playpen? It wasn't the liberals, progressives, and Democrats.

It was Ronald Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and if we don't stop it, Bush III (pictured here):

[blondeatlast]

28. Justice Corruption has made a career out of prosecuting civil servants and justices. From her DoJ bi

Mrs. Martin organized the North Alabama Public Corruption Task Force in 2002 which was been responsible for significant corruption investigations involving the Jefferson County Sewer System (resulting in convictions of public employees and officials including Jewel Chris McNair); Jefferson County Commission (resulting in conviction of Commissioner Jeff Germany) and numerous officials including attorneys, a District Attorney, a Probate Judge, and other county elected officials.

When Karma finds her, I hope Karma's in a VERY foul mood...

Edit: DoJ link: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/aln/attorney.html

[scarletlib]

29. Great story & hope many more take time to read.

[blondeatlast]

30. Corrupt little sycophant rats hate exposure, so a big

:kick:

[sarcasmo]

31. Would anyone ever teach if this felony were really pushed?