The idiotic products of the Klein/Bloomberg "Leadership Academy" lead education over the cliff

[Hannah Bell]

This is the kind of idiot "leadership" the school deform movement is producing:

Inept Principal Buck is quintessence of Leadership Academy fake educator

Excellent comments at the New York Daily News' comments page, on how the ascent of inept Brooklyn Middle School for Art and Philosophy Principal Andrew Buck represents the terribly hasty fast-tracking of inept teachers under Michael Bloomberg / Joel Klein's Leadership Academy.

http://nycityeye.blogspot.com/2010/10/inept-principal-buck-in-quintessence-of.html


Writing-challenged principal Andrew Buck stands behind his idiotic letter

Background: Parents complained because there weren't enough textbooks in the school for all the students. The school doesn't have a library, & doesn't have a computer lab either.

In response, the principal, a graduate of the Klein/Bloomberg "Leadership Academy," responded thus:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxueWRuZG9jc3xneDoyMTdjY2M3ZWQzOWJlNDA0&pli=1



Principal Andrew Buck was remorseless when he told an eighth-grade English class at the Middle School for Art and Philosophy that getting an education was up to them.

"It's your teacher's responsibility and your responsibility and your parents' responsibility that you learn," Buck said, according to Debra McLain, the class' teacher.

Buck continued his lesson in stupidity by dodging questions from angry students who asked about yesterday's Daily News story on the dearth of textbooks at the school.

The baffling missive - which contained run-on sentences, misspellings and incoherent statements - said textbooks weren't necessary in the learning process. He added that some students wouldn't be able to read the books anyway. Buck even confessed in the email to an aversion to textbooks, noting they put him to sleep in college.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/10/23/2010-10-23_hey_im_write_says_principal.html#ixzz13Rm1NbXF



What's known is sketchy and discouraging: Buck went from an art teacher to art education administrator to interim principal, all through the back channels of school bureaucracy.

(Read between the lines & combine with BLOOM/KLEIN LEADERSHIP ACADEMY. Not just everyone gets to be a Bloom/Klein "leader". You have to be on board with ed deform & an ambitious toady.)

In 2008, Buck was branded Brooklyn's least trustworthy principal, according to a department survey in which 100% of responding teachers said they distrusted him, 80% of them strongly.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/10/23/2010-10-23_a_matter_of_principal_school_chief_andrew_buck_who_could_hardly_write_a_letter_m.html#ixzz13RuPMVKL



From the letter:

"But hold on a minute, before we get carried away & just go with the program, just because high schools and colleges use textbooks, does that mean we have to? Let's reflect critically on this...First, just because student have a textbook, doesn't mean she or she will be able to read it..."


Make no mistake: The school deform crowd is DELIBERATELY starving public schools of resources & putting incompetent toadies in charge to DESTROY PUBLIC SCHOOLING.

This is a black school in East Flatbush. Median household income in the area = $37K, Poverty rate = 16%.

To make my POV clear:

Parents wanted the school to provide enough textbooks for their children.

Rather than address that request, a very reasonable one, particularly in a school without a library or computers, the idiot babbles about the kids' learning being the responsibility of teachers & parents, about educational research (as if the school had some alternate high-class textbook-less learning program, which it doesn't), bad-mouths the kids, & generally disrespects everyone concerned.

He should be removed from his position.

[Angry Dragon]

1. He could be a campaign manager for

rand, angle, whitman and all the rest of them
he would fit right in

[maryf]

2. K&Rnt

"Make no mistake: The school deform crowd is DELIBERATELY starving public schools of resources & putting incompetent toadies in charge to DESTROY PUBLIC SCHOOLING."
So sad and true.

[Starry Messenger]

3. k & r

[TBF]

4. Recommend. nt

[Brickbat]

5. Holy crap. That letter is shockingly bad -- both in content and in execution.

He is clearly out of his depth.

I have to say that my kid goes to a school with a shortage of textbooks. When I found this out, I freaked. I called the principal and got a very nice e-mail from the teacher who said yes, she had 30 textbooks for 90 kids, but she allowed time in class to get homework done, and if kids needed to take books home, they could, but only after all the classes had cycled through her room for the day. While I'd prefer every kid to have a book, this solution was acceptable to me.

[Panaconda]

6. K&R