Terry Preuss Students Take on Time Magazine and Mr Welch- A Poem

RESPONSE TO TIME

Thoughts by Anonymous Students of Mz P – Terry Preuss, NBCT, Career Public Educator, Badass Teacher & Author, Voices in the Hall

 

Bad Apples?? Vergara vs. California in TIME Magazine - 2014

Mr. Welch...

Bad Apples you say?

You say you know the cost to a child of one bad teacher.

And, you say you spent millions to find this out.

And you say it's good that now my teachers must feel the threat of a lost law no longer there to protect them.

And you say, "Thank God for Gates and the Waltons!"

 Why do you thank God for them?

 

These are the guys my teachers blame for my schools losing federal and state money.

These are the guys they blame for our schools closing down art, and music, and home economics.

Do you even know what you are talking about?

Teachers won't even shop at Walmart!

Is it true that Walton and his Walmart underpays employees and teaches them to get on food stamps to supplement their income, and no union can help them?

You say thank God for him?

A lot of people are saying something else.

 

I hear that Bill Gates gives away a lot of money...

But if he gives money to people who take money from public education, then gains somehow himself...  Isn't that a conflict of interest for the richest, richest and most philanthropic man to have?

You say thank God for him because he says he wants to fix schools?

My teachers would beg to differ.

Who are you, Mr. Welch? Just who the HELL are you?

 

With your millions and your billions you could have given every kid in my neighborhood a new computer, good shoes, a few meals and school supplies.

But instead your millions and billions went to lawyers and lawsuits to target education tenure extinction, and go on teacher witch hunts.

I don’t get it.

Why would a Silicon Valley billionaire really care about schools when there are bigger problems to solve in this world?

Please tackle fossil fuel! 

Spend your millions there. 

PLEASE!

 

There is more to this than meets the eye, isn't there?

You’ve got lawyers, expensive lawyers, according to TIME magazine, finding loopholes and theoretical possibilities—hypothetical scenarios, and at last… after you mapped all of that out…  even real kids who came to say some stuff that made some teachers sound bad in a court of law.

And all of this because some superintendent somewhere said to you, "Give me control over my workforce?"

So this guy, this educator, tells you he can't fire bad teachers and you believe him.

Did it occur to you that it was a convenient answer, given the fact that in order to fire "bad teachers," documentation must occur over time?

Documentation that he and his people should have been doing.

It's called due process.  Something extinct in SilconValley, perhaps?

Due Process, Mr. Welch.

 

Sue the guy in charge of documenting when a teacher is really a "Bad Apple."

Sue that guy!

He must be sleeping on the job!

Teachers are fired all the time.

Get a life!

 

And, what about the other apples?

Like the great teachers I’ve had?

Look what you are doing to them and their profession.

My teachers are afraid.

Scared people can’t teach well, Mr. Welch.

 

You made them lose their rights and now others are copying your methods with a vengeance.

You are stealing them blind by taking our taxes to play your games on the poor. 

And now TIME says Campbell Brown is joining you by launching the same conjured teacher witch hunts trials in other states.

And you are okay with this-- and your cronies are, too?

Hmmmm?

I don’t get it.

 

Are you like Bush?

Do you want to make a law like No Child Left Behind?

Do you want to tell the uninformed American public that it will be good to test kids so we can know if they are learning?

Then proceed to enrich your family and friends by billions of dollars spent testing children of poverty?

 

Tell Americans they need to test children of poverty on one hand,

Pass those laws to make it happen, like Mr. Bush.

And on the other hand, your family takes in profits from all the ghetto kids bubbling in those multi-billion dollar tests you all invest in, and those charter schools you get to open because of them....

Ohhh!  The tests confirm.... Now you have an "F" school! 

Close it down!

 

Shame on you!

I see you.

You cannot hide from me

You have the public fooled but I am one smart ghetto kid whose eyes are opened

I see all of you!

 

Cha Ching for the Bushes

Cha Ching

Cha Ching for Pearson who writes and sells the tests

Cha Ching

Cha Ching for Eli Broad who trains pencil neck businessmen how to become education leaders in a weekend training.

A weekend?  Really!?

Cha Ching Eli Broad and his venture philanthropy.  Are you investing in that, too?

 

On my side of the tracks we know what it really is.

We call it "vulture philanthropy."

They help investors rake large profits from our education coffers.

That's the new gravy train.

Cha Ching

 

Cha Ching to all those "vulture philanthropists" who go far and wide in the neighborhoods of our poor to privatize public schools.

Then they purchase lots of software and testing prep materials that line some pockets. 

Whose pockets??? 

Not mine! 

 

Follow the money!

 

They make computer deals.  Yes computer deals... Silicon Valley.  

With our taxes.  

How interesting!

It sounds all too convenient to me!

Hey you....Silicon Valley Techie...  Mr. Welch...  what's in it for you?

 

They fail more than just a few "bad" teachers... 

They fail some schools and make them charters with taxpayer money.

Are you in on that?  Are your friends?

Cha Ching

Cha Ching to all those selling products for us ghetto kids, and urbanites and suburban fools who can't afford a private school.

Cha Ching

Cha Ching to Michelle Rhee and Students First, and Teach For America, and your own Student Matters

Cha Ching to Campbell Brown and Partnership for Educational Justice

Cha Ching , Cha Ching , Cha Ching

Such benign sounding names for the educational holocaust they bring upon us and our public schools.

Cha Ching

Us ghetto kids are watching!

 

I see you!

You say you care about us and you care about education

I think what you care about is that pot of gold coins you saw glistening in the coffers of my education fund.

Trillions of dollars for the taking, and you got yourself some savvy help to figure out just how to wipe it out.

 

You can't fool me with your fancy names that make people think you care about students. 

Students Matter?

Students First?

Teach for America?

Partnership for Educational Justice? 

LMAO!

You all saw the gold shine and you could not resist.

That's what I think.

 

Your greed defines your kind.

It always has.

Just look at history...

Wherever there was gold, silver, jewels or diamonds--there you were-- taking it as if it were your own!

Now is no different.

 

History repeats itself.

It always does.

 

You have gone mining in the schools of America --and in its courtrooms.

Just as your kind have gone mining in the mountains of Africa.

I see you!

Our students are the last gold rush you have left.

Cha Ching

 

You are so clever!

You are doing this in plain sight and making people think you want to make things better for education.

I see you.

 

You have always taken that which was not yours.

 

Panning for gold in American classrooms should be beneath you.

But it isn't.

 

Shame on you.

I see you.

WE see you.

 

WE are so many you cannot stop us.

One day soon I will come for you.

WE will come for you.

Cha Ching!