Mr. de Blasio: Tear Up This Blacklist
I posted this last nite to the ed forum. New Yorkers in general should know about it. And they can also help: by signing the petition.
Lots of interesting stuff re. the multiple blacklists of the 1950s, also. Bill's dad was caught up in that. It broke him. Or at least HELP to do so.
So it goes.
"The past is never dead. In fact it's never even past."
Big Bill could and SHOULD make this petition unnecessary. Here's the story:
>>>Was Bill de Blasio’s dad blacklisted in the 1950s? Well it sure looks that way.
Long story short, Warren Wilhelm Sr., government analyst , was dragged before a McCarthy-era committee in 1950 and 1953, interrogated about suspect activities, interests, and affiliations, and then stripped of his security clearance.
the link:http://paulvhogan.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/mr-de-blasio-tear-up-this-blacklist/
“Over the next several years, the case resurfaced as Mr. Wilhelm was considered for promotions,” the New York Times reported in 2013.”
Apparently the promotions didn’t come. Bill’s dad, who’d been awarded a Purple Heart for his WWII battlefield heroics, didn’t talk much about his difficulties with the Loyalty Board to his family. But the Wilhelms left Washington for greener pastures after 1953, and he seemed to struggle thereafter in almost every way imaginable. It seems reasonable to assume, then, that Mayor Bill de Blasio understands, as few others can, the malignant power of the blacklist.
It’s a question of some immediate relevance . Currently making the rounds is an online petition asking that the Mayor’s schools chancellor put an end to a Bloomberg-era policy of blacklisting-for-life probationary teachers who are “discontinued” ( “fired”, in plain English) from their initial DOE assignment.
The petition makes the obvious point that school principals should base their decision to retain or to discontinue a new teacher on strictly *pedagogical* grounds. Yet, this does not happen often.
the petition:http://www.change.org/petitions/katherine-rodi-save-the-careers-of-discontinued-teachers
So, apart from pedagogy, what else would matter? Well, politics, for one; both in the local ( i.e. within the school) sense of the word and in the more general sense.
Religion, race, and ethnicity, for another. ( All of the “old reliables”; rolled into one, for clarity’s sake.)
Sexual orientation and gender. (“But there are LAWS against that sort of thing.” Yeah. Right. PROVE it.)
the rest at link :http://paulvhogan.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/mr-de-blasio-tear-up-this-blacklist/
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