Jea Street says of school board elections::… “It’s the teachers!  They have a lock on it! They control ALL the school districts.  You gotta give the unions credit for being aggressive, assertive and effective. But on the other hand you can take the position that it is counter productive. If they control the board, is the board acting in the interests of the students, or the union?”

He then points to Christina School District. WHERE THE STATE WILL LIKELY REVOKE 2.3 MILLION IN RACE TO THE TOP MONEY because the administration and school board refuse to implement a teacher incentive program that matches state requirements. The state wants to promise the money and then find reasons not to give it; they can get results and pay nothing for them, whereas the Christina Board wants to break it down and give it to all the teachers inside those good schools meeting requirements and use it to improve the technology in struggling schools.

Jea Street was the character who wrote a letter demanding the superintendent and members of the school board resign, because they didn’t capitulate to his wishes…

The district responded with a letter of their own, to the parents of all district students, explaining how the boards use of money was infinitely superior to the use proposed by Markell and his toady, Jea Street.

Now I’m generally too busy to deal with the pomposity of those whose function in life is to be noticed…   However, they are often used as was Samuel Jackson’s character in Django, to do the bidding of others.  So they try to pretend they are independent actors, I find it very interesting to trace the strings back to their puppeteers, to see who is pulling them.

This was no mystery.  It was rather easy…   I’ll walk you through….

Notice how the tone is anti- union?  That is your clue.  Who hates unions?   The Delaware State Chamber of Congress for one.  Governor Markell and Alan Levine for two.  Wall Street for three…  i think it is safe to say, particularly in today’s economic climate, that if one is making under $60,000 a year, he or she is probably pro union….  The only people who hate unions, are those with money…  Whether Jea Street does or doesn’t matters little..  He is obviously a toady for one who does….

Jea Street has sold out.  He no longer represents the people in his town. He is looking for his golden ticket…  The true golden ticket for Wilmington’s inner city children, is a good education.  And if teachers didn’t have to test so damn much, those students could be getting a good education right now.  If there were no “strings” attached to RTTT money, those kids in Christina’s city school, could be on broadband today.

I used to think Jea Street was misguided.  With these words almost the exact parroting what one would hear around a Chamber of Commerce dinner, I know he is selling out.   He no longer represents any school child in Wilmington.  He is interested in his own survival.   Good luck to him, but the  children of Wilmington, as all of the Christina Board would attest, are far more valuable to Delaware, than whether Mr. Street hits or misses the “big time.”

Everybody knows that teachers are the front lines of education. No matter what tests RTTT funnels our way, without teachers nothing gets done.  Education completely shuts down.  There is nothing anyone can ever do to start it up, unless the teachers agree to be a part of it.  Jea Street, Governor Markell, Secretary Murphy, and Rich Heffron of the Delaware Chamber of Commerce,  are all working against teachers teaching.  Which means, they are working against the only one thing that can make things better,

Not a very smart strategy.

What is a great strategy, is to put enough teachers giving us an 11 to 1 student teacher ratio.  Then watch the results come in….