{"id":186697,"date":"2013-11-14T01:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/11\/14\/these-rat-fs-keep-failing-up\/"},"modified":"2013-11-14T01:10:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T06:10:00","slug":"these-rat-fs-keep-failing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/11\/14\/these-rat-fs-keep-failing-up\/","title":{"rendered":"These Rat-F%$#s Keep Failing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that education privatization advocate (and general failure) Paul Vallas appears to be on the way out in Bridgeport (background <a href=\"http:\/\/40yrs.blogspot.com\/search?q=vallas&amp;max-results=20&amp;by-date=true\">here<\/a>), it looks like he will land on his feet.<\/p>\n<p>It appears that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn  will <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/11\/11\/michelle_rhees_revenge_illinois_democratic_governor_taps_top_union_foe_for_ticket\/\">have Vallas on the ticket as his Lieutenant Governor<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The nation\u2019s largest union panned the Friday afternoon announcement that Illinois\u2019 Democratic governor is tapping an education reform lightning rod to join his reelection ticket.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cWe are less than thrilled by the selection of Mr. Vallas,\u201d Illinois Education Association president Cinda Klickna told Salon in a Friday email. \u201cAs head of the Chicago Public School System, he was known as a top-down administrator who routinely chose confrontation with the Chicago Teachers Union over collaboration.\u201d Klickna\u2019s comments came in response to an inquiry to the IEA\u2019s parent union, the National Education Association. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who leads the country\u2019s other top teachers\u2019 union, sent Salon a three-word comment on Vallas\u2019 selection: \u201cWe were surprised.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">As I\u2019ve reported, Vallas is currently serving as superintendent of Bridgeport, Conn., schools, following past stints helming school districts in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Chicago \u2013 each marked by conflict with critics of the bipartisan education reform consensus. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2006 that Vallas was \u201cblasted\u201d by the majority of the School Reform Commission, the agency overseeing city schools, for \u201chis handling of a deficit that will force midyear cuts in the school system.\u201d In New Orleans, PBS noted in 2010, \u201ccharters have exploded\u201d from 2 percent to a majority of city schools. In Tuesday school board elections framed by activists as a referendum on the education agenda of Vallas and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, a dissident faction grew to a bare majority of the board\u2019s nine seats, putting Vallas\u2019 future there in jeopardy.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>People of Illinois, missing Rod Blagojevich yet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that education privatization advocate (and general failure) Paul Vallas appears to be on the way out in Bridgeport (background here), it looks like he will land on his feet. It appears that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn will have Vallas on the ticket as his Lieutenant Governor: The nation\u2019s largest union panned the Friday afternoon &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1000,969,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-elections","category-evil","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}