Mother Crusader, NJ parent blogger, has righteous rant about ed reformers. Good read.

[madfloridian]

This is a parent who got fed up with the way reformers are taking over New Jersey public education.

http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-foot-soldier-in-rhees-army-giving.html">A Foot Soldier In Rhee's Army Giving Orders To New Jersey

She speaks of the "sheer hubris and arrogance" of the reformers.

I was dragged into this ed reform cesspool almost 2 years ago now, when a group of people with little to no connection to the schools of my community attempted to open a charter school. Despite the lack of community support, they were able to get the backing of a demi-billionaire, the NJDOE and the USDOE. We had to fight like hell to keep "reforms" the majority of our parents and educators didn't want OUT of our district.

She writes about how Michelle Rhee and her group gave a report card in which New Jersey got a D in spite of Chris Christie's massive "reform" efforts. In fact the only two states which got Bs were Florida and Louisiana with the worst test scores and poorly paid teachers.

This morning, when I read John Mooney's NJ Spotlight piece, all of the anger I felt when outside forces were threatening to damage the great schools in my community, came right back up to the surface.

The piece is about the newly launched StudentsFirst rating system, which in reality is nothing more than Rhee throwing a Toddlers & Tiaras worthy temper tantrum that States aren't adopting the policies she advocates. Her rating system has already been decimated by Diane Ravitch and Jersey Jazzman as complete buffoonery.

Here is a link to the Mooney article referred to in the paragraph above.

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/01/07/nj-touts-education-reforms-but-earns-d-on-one-nationwide-report-card/">NJ Touts Educational Reforms But Earns D on One Nationwide Report Card

He had this to say about Rhee's report card:

“It’s clearly an ideological report and not about student achievement,” he continued. “If it was, we’d rank at the top. All it does is measure the Legislature’s willingness to follow Michelle Rhee’s agenda, and obviously that's not selling very well."

Scroll down to the end of the post. She has a picture of the head of the NJ chapter of Students First making gang hand signs. He posted them in an album on Facebook.

There is a post in the comments that sums up the stupidity of such an action.

I blacked out the identifying information, but the comment ON the photo is from the student IN the photo. Her comment is hysterical, and absolutely appropriate.

I hope you are not doing that on the streets, you'll get your ass shot.

It's a good read because parents are fed up now as well. Darcie Cimarusti is a strong and outspoken leader. True grassroots.