[I hope this post proves interesting. It was written by Edwize blogger Leo Casey, and previously posted on Edwize.]

On the Disney Company's corporate website, the reader will find a honor roll of teachers from across the United States who have been recognized by the American Teacher Awards, starting with the first class of 1990 and concluding with the last class of 2006. A close examination will reveal that there is no teacher listed as the 1992 honoree in the category of Social Studies. Two of the three Social Studies finalists are listed, but the teacher who was actually named Social Studies Teacher of the Year is missing.*

via the New York Post

Calling provisions in the state budget that could slow the opening of more charter schools "a disgrace," an irate Mayor Bloomberg yesterday teed off on

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"It is a disgrace that when you have such demand, there's anybody at any level of government who's trying to limit parents' options," Bloomberg said, vowing to single out elected officials he sees as obstacles to new charters.

"These are the same people who stand repeatedly and say, 'I'm for parents,' " the mayor said. "If they're not standing up for parents, I'm just going to point it out to everybody."legislators he claimed were trying to limit parental choice.

Dear Mr. Mayor:

I write this letter to ask for the resignation of Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and School Chancellor Joel Klein.

As I told you in Albany, in 2000 I was one of the only two Democratic elected officials who supported you for Mayor. I did that based upon your promise to me that you will be “The Education Mayor” and that the suffering, disadvantage, neglect, overcrowding, lack of material, lack of equipment – and that the discrimination toward Black and Hispanic children by the New York City Department of Education when it comes to assigning resources will end.

The New York City Public School system is not Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private plantation. It is obscene that any single man whether White, Black, Yellow or Green would feel that he has the right to announce sweeping, monumental changes in NYC public schools without first consulting parents of children, teachers, educational groups, elected representatives, community representatives, religious leaders and even children themselves. This is the kind of crude, contemptuous and disrespectful conduct that can only be expected of an arrogant, multi-billionaire whose success has been based on being a dictator.

Mayor Bloomberg has committed himself to innovation when it comes to our city's children. He has even been willing to rethink shortcomings in his own initial reforms. I applaud his desire to tackle teacher quality. I applaud him for giving principals the authority and freedom they so desperately deserve and for insisting that the money follows the child. I am still concerned, however, that the education bureaucracy is not adequately serving schools and that major deficiencies within the education system – like science education – have yet to be tackled. Our public schools are still not remotely customer service oriented. Parents have to fight as hard as ever to get their kids a good education. Mayoral control of the school system was a golden opportunity to get these things right, but time is running out.

In a prior post, I showed how far New York City lagged beyond the rest of New York State in public school spending in FY 2005, with a conservative cost of living adjustment applied to Downstate expenditures. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau for Fiscal Years (FY) 1997 and 2004, however, we find that inflation-adjusted per-student current expenditures for the city’s schools increased 46.7% from the former year to the latter. And whereas the city’s per child current spending was 2.3% below the national average in FY1997, it was 19.2% above average in FY2004. The spreadsheet is attached, and I'd rather have you download that than read the rest of this post. Once you have, to compare your explanations to mine, my overview of the breakdown by type of spending follows.

Let Stossel Teach

It wasn't so long ago that we reported on Randi's Pavlovian response to John Stossel's "Stupid in America" segment on ABC's 20/20.

After ABC aired this controversial piece, Randi brought out the troops to bash Stossel and ABC. But remarkably, Stossel responded by going outdoors to face the angry mob. At the protest, he also accepted what was then a very loud invitation to teach for a week at a school of the UFT's choosing.