Putting the Screws to Free Speech

Dave Schmidt, Bay Area Nobel Laureate in Free Speech

April, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are lying. Lying. Lying is not the kind of ethics people need in school board members. I hope one of your opponents beats you. Nobody could be worse than are you. You are unfit to serve on a school board. I want you to define "appropriate" as in "appropriate comments."

Who's to decide? You are weaseling out of denying free speech, and you are not clever enough to disguise what you are doing. lee

Mr. Schmidt:

Whoopee. Keep up your blog.

The ROSSAC thugs have gone over your record with a fine-tooth comb, and they used negligible things they eked out to try to terrify and humiliate you and shut you up.

Don't let them. Just don't.

April has lied like a real ROSSAC habitué in her Times quotes. I was dumb enough to support her with money and encouragement when she ran. Live and learn.

La Griffin has rolled over and defected to the Dark Side.

Say the word, and you and I will go leaflet April's kickoff luau on Tuesday. We can put on the leaflet: "Lies to get a fellow fired and then lies about lying." Vote for one of her opponents.

Your treatment was much different from Principal Smith's whom Alafia parents would not have preside over their children's education any longer.

The superintendent gave Smith a pricey consultant to teach her how to be a human being. Ms. Elia tried to bribe the parents into keeping Smith by promising that the board would send Smith and her

vice-principal to Eckerd at $4500 a pop to take Eckerd's mind straightening-out course.

When the parents wouldn't budge, Ms. Elia created Smith a new job in the book depository at her principal's salary of $60,000 a year. April nor any board member protested this stain on equal-employment opportunity and budget probity.

In fact, April and Pole Girl Falliero went out to Alafia on a top-secret mission to charm Smith into resigning from Alafia with the carrot of being eased into a new job at the same salary. Elia didn't fire Smith as she should have done. Nor did she lower her salary as she did yours. She created this incompetent administrative critter a new job with a principal's salary intact.

The Public Affairs office could not give me the job description until Valdez had a couple of weeks to compose it; the Public Affairs office never answered my questions of "Who held this job before?" That response would have been "nobody" if truth were told.

Send me your blog address. Mine is leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

Blog on, Mr. Swartz. The ROSSAC sadists, mad to keep their jobs and the power that tax dollars lend them, have now backed themselves into the cul-de-sac of saying they don't oppose free speech. Liar, liar, pants on fire is my riposte to that. Free speech terrifies them. Somebody may tell the truth about what they do in the bowels of ROSSAC.

lee

Demoted but not silenced, Hillsborough School Board critic blogs on

By Tom Marshall, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, March 30, 2010

---

Dave Schmidt once managed a multimillion-dollar federal program in county schools. But he got a pay cut and a new job as a school bus inspector after a controversy. 

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TAMPA — Not so long ago, Dave Schmidt was something of an expert on refugee education in Florida.

For nearly 12 years he managed CARIBE, a federally funded program within the Hillsborough County school district that helps legal immigrants learn English and develop job skills on a budget of $2.3 million.

But in his free time, he had hobbies: running for a seat on the School Board, blogging for Republican causes, and calling out board members whom he'd opposed in past races. And he may have pushed the envelope a bit too hard.

This fall his pay was cut and he was demoted. His blogging may have drawn attention and complaints, but a subsequent investigation revealed he paid his son-in-law to design and maintain the program's Web site for around $16,000 beginning in the late 1990s, and never filled out the district's conflict-of-interest form.

These days he has a new job: school bus inspector. He spends his days making sure bus stops and ramps are safe, finding substitute drivers, and helping make sure the buses run on time.

District officials say Schmidt, 60, was demoted for failing to fill out the conflict-of-interest form, and that it had nothing to do with his blogging.

"As a result of your failure to comply with School Board policy, the district has determined that it is not in their best interest to continue you in your current or any future managerial position," professional standards manager Linda Kipley said in a letter.

Schmidt sees it differently.

"I always felt I was on safe, free speech ground," Schmidt said. " I think this whole thing was politically motivated. I think it's reprisal."

• • •

Schmidt's early career path showed few hints of politics. He worked for years as a factory foreman for defense contractors in the Tampa Bay area, supervising the production of jet fighter simulators and other components.

But those jobs moved offshore, and in 1998 he applied to manage the new CARIBE program.

It was far from glamorous, with offices in trailers outside the Erwin Technical Center building on East Hillsborough Avenue. On any given afternoon or evening in recent years, those trailers were often filled to capacity with adult students learning English at computers or in small groups.

Schmidt said he was proud of what he accomplished with CARIBE, growing the program from around 150 students to nearly 2,000.

"The purpose is developing economic self-sufficiency for everyone who comes through," he said. "And learning English is certainly part of that."

But the more he saw of the Hillsborough County School Board, the more he came to believe that he could do a better job than incumbents. In 2006 and 2008 he ran for a seat on the board, but fell short.

"I was not running for a job, I already had a job," Schmidt said. "I thought I could lend my expertise to raise high school graduation rates and reduce dropout rates."

He started his blog last winter, and immediately went after incumbents April Griffin and Susan Valdes.

"I must be doing something right by annoying the pro-Valdes and pro-Griffin folks," Schmidt wrote in an early posting. "Even a good friend suggested my Web address be sourgrapes.com. Oh, yeah. … well maybe. It is still fun telling the truth."

Not fun for everyone. In June, he learned that he was being investigated by the district for both the conflict of interest and for "inappropriate comments" made about School Board members on his blog.

"Things were brought to my attention, and I turned it in to the superintendent, as I would for anybody who works for the school district," said board member Griffin. "It was someone from within CARIBE that reported it to me. Someone who didn't like the fact that he gave a no-bid contract to his son-in-law."

She declined to comment on his blog postings, but defended his right to free speech.

"As someone who has and maintains a blog, I truly support a person's right to discuss whatever they want — whether it's positive or negative — about the district," Griffin said.

Schmidt told the district his supervisors had known he was employing his son-in-law, Thor Torgersen, but his bosses told investigators they had no such recollection. He said he hadn't been aware of the conflict form.

In her September report, Kipley said he wouldn't be punished for his blogging — as long as the information was accurate and he didn't speak for the district or as an employee.

"You are reminded of that obligation," Kipley wrote. "No further action will be taken based on this conduct."

Schmidt chose not to fight it. He's glad to have a job, even with the $10,000 pay cut to $27,546.

But he has no intention of ending his blog.

"I think a lot of the things I wrote were humorous," Schmidt said. "I never thought it would come back and bite me."

Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3400.

[Last modified: Mar 29, 2010 11:48 PM]

OBJECTIONS TO HB 7189

Keats' has left a new comment on your post "Once More into the Breach":

I’m a current law student and former high school teacher. I just read HB 7189 and would like to share some lesser known (but very dangerous) aspects of the bill.

Little Known Aspects of HB 7189

-Won't be able to attract teachers from other states because they will have the starting pay of a brand new teacher. Teachers from other states will be labeled "beginning teacher" and will get the same starting pay grade as brand new teachers.

Imagine telling a 20 year veteran teacher from New York that her starting salary is $32,000! This will only exacerbate the problem of finding good teachers. Additionally, teachers from other states won't want to move here because of the other general provisions of this bill.

-Restricts the teachers who can teach reading math, science and other critical shortage areas. Must be certified in the area, and cannot even teach out of field temporarily while getting certification in an area. While this *might* be a good idea in math or science, it will make it even more difficult to have enough reading teachers.

For example, a principal can no longer assign a English teacher to teach reading , even temporarily, while getting a teacher is getting the additional reading certification.

-Teacher cannot be rehired if students don't make gains in only 2 of 5 years! If, for some reason a teacher's student don't do well enough on a standardized test, the teacher cannot be rehired, no matter how good of a teacher he/she may be. We will lose some good teachers over this. This will make good teachers much less likely to teach high risk students.

-Makes it harder to get rid of bad teachers in first three years. The bill grants tenure protection to all new teachers, meaning that all new teachers may only be removed for "just cause" - which is really hard to do (gross incompetence, felonies, etc.)

-Reduced incentives for administrators. ALL administrators and non-instructional teachers will have 50% of their pay determined by others, the AVERAGE gains of the entire school! This also goes against the entire concept of incentives. What incentive does a non-instructional teacher have to do better, when his pay is affected by how well *OTHER* students do in *OTHER* classrooms do on average!

-Bill contradicts itself on National Board Certification. In one area of the bill it requires that school cannot consider National Board Certification in teacher pay, but then also leaves intact the Dale Hickam Excellent Teaching Program, which gives teachers a 10% bonus for completing National Board Certification. This bill is poorly drafted and poorly thought out.

-Schools are forbidden from financially recognizing a teacher of the year! We've heard a lot about how teachers cannot be recognized for years of service, National Board Certification or graduate degrees. Additionally, school boards are expressly forbidden from providing incentive pay to state or local teachers of the year! Talk about perverse incentives!

-Teacher retention must be based on standardized testing. If school boards have to cut back on teachers, (as many have had to do because of budget cuts) the board must base their decisions primarily on standardized tests scores. Of course, seniority is out the window, but note something even more pernicious--the school board has to ignore its own need for teachers in certain subject areas in the face of standardized test scores. For example, what if a school board has to let go of 10% of its teachers.

7189Let's say that students in math, ESOL or reading on average make less gains per year. Well, then the school board would be forced to let go all the teachers in that critical need subject area who are performing less on standardized tests, while other subject areas have a relevant surplus of teachers. This is just plain bad policy.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Keats' to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 4:54 PM

Once More into the Breach

Tell the Florida House: Stop SB 6/HB 7189

The Senate has rammed through legislation that will have a huge and immediate impact on the quality of classroom instruction, especially for the most at-risk kids. Teaching-to-the-test will be far more rampant, and we'll lose our best teachers. Tell the House to stop this bad bill now.

You can learn all the details about the legislation in this article.

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The Petition

Speaker Larry Cretul
Rep. Will Weatherford, Chair, House Education Policy Council
Rep. John Legg, Chair, House Pre-K-12 Policy Committee

Speaker Cretul, Rep. Weatherford, Rep. Legg, and all members of the Florida House:

The undersigned Floridians urge you not to pass Senate Bill 6 or House Bill 7189. We urge you not to refer it to committees, not to take it up on the floor, and not to allow its provisions to be passed as an amendment to another bill.

While many Floridians agree that we need a better system of accountability, this bill punishes all public school teachers and students, especially those children most at risk. Florida would be the first state in the nation to tie teacher compensation (and job security) so closely to standardized test results. Our kids won't be taught to think...they'll just be taught to pass a test. We don't want our classrooms transformed into test-prep factories.

How will we persuade good teachers to work in low-performing schools where they are needed most when they risk not just losing pay but losing their teaching certificate if those at-risk kids don't make sufficient gains on the test?

This bill also prohibits school districts from increasing the salary of teachers who seek graduate degrees. If we want better teachers, we should give them incentives to continue their training.

This bill takes control of our schools away from local communities, and it will hurt students and teachers. We oppose it and urge you to do the same.

Here's the House roster: copy all. lee

Will Weatherford Needs Your Wisdom

3/28/2010

Representative Weatherford:
via teamwill@willweatherford.com; will.weatherford@myfloridahouse.gov

I understand that you are for a bill that would destroy teachers' tenure eventually.

You are wrong to do such mischief, sir. You don't grasp the full implications of what you propose to do.

I was a professor for 26 years at Hillsborough Community College. The teachers the administration wanted to get rid of at HCC were the ones who challenged the administration's ruinous policies. Once I challenged the administration when I found out it was paying itself not to teach. I am not making this up.

The administration got the oblivious board of trustees to pass an agenda item that reasoned that since they were administrators, this status barred them from teachers part time; therefore, they deserved the pay that they missed from this opportunity of teaching parttime. They could easily have gotten through the concept that since they didn't have the training to be brain surgeons that they should get brain-surgeon pay for the lost opportunity.

This racket had been going on several months before I caught it and raised such a ruckus that the newspapers noticed, the board woke up, and the administration had to stop paying itself for not teaching.

These are the kind of people--administrators--who decide tenure.

And these are the administrator people whom you want to empower to decide whether a teacher keeps or loses his or her job. If you succeed, the teachers who will not lose tenure will be the docile, obedient, sycophantic ones whom the administration will treat as tame dogs. And such cowardly specimens will act like dogs to propitiate the administration. The administration will use your tenure bill to pick off the lively, outspoken teachers who challenge the administration's practices that I describe above. I could cite many more if you want them. Just say the word.

Tenure protects teachers from the hostility of the administration and the latter's destruction of teachers' jobs of those who don't play along with the administration's demand for unquestioning subjection.

When they graduate from college with some academically-empty degree, the administrators, who are the C students, head for the administration because that's where the money is; the A and B students head for the classrooms because they value learning and pass on this horde of information that has saved civilization time and again to the students. They teach students to be civilized people who can read and write.

Teachers don't get much pay in comparison to the bloated salaries the administration inveigles for its members, many of whom are as dumb as stumps. If these stumbled into a classroom, their heads are so bereft of learning that they would not have the requisite mental furniture to pass on anything to the children except how to take over a school system so as to milk bloated salaries and perquisites from the taxpayers.

In the Hillsborough County schools, the administration and board mistreat teachers already. They use the Professional Standards office to file charges against teachers for marginal mistakes or just plain made-up charges to terrify teachers by threatening their jobs. The administrators never turn up as defendents in the Professional Standards Abughraib.

Buddies, sycophants, and family members get hired into bloated-salary jobs by Superintendent Ms. Elia and Dr. Lennard before her. The result is that ill-prepared obtuse specimens bloat the administration at $150,000 a year; when these have a moderately difficult problem, they have to send out of town for pricey consultants to fly in to teach the administration C students with flash cards how to do their jobs.

Meanwhile, teachers are the ones who, as John Adams said, "affect eternity"; and you want to punish them beyond their meager salaries, so low that many take second jobs to make ends meet. For shame, Representative

These overpaid administrative dummies are the people your bill will empower to pick off teachers that administrators get it in for because they challenge administrative stupidity. Why don't you substitute the bill that Massachusetts has to weed out illiterates from becoming administrators in their Number-One- in-the-Nation schools? Before anybody can become an administrator in Massachusetts a bill says the person must pass the same English test that teachers must pass. I believe that test would disqualify about half of the $150,000 know-nothings in the Hillsborough County schools' adminstrative ranks. I think it might disqualify Ms. Elia, the $300,000 a year superintendent. I infer she has some literate person to help her write outside communications.

Your bill is not good for education; it is good for the administrative fascism in the schools that will ensue if it passes. You will remove the shield of protection that tenure gives teachers from obtuse, vindictive, sadistic administrators who have no check on their own stupidity and cupidity in leading the schools.

I suspect you are settling an old score against a teacher who in the past held your feet to the fire to learn your lessons instead of sitting in the back of the class throwing spit balls. You are not interested in improving education; you want to punish teachers by handing obtuse, insecure, vindictive administrators and board another weapon to use to diminish and harrass teachers and make things harder for the people that teach our children what they know that will advance and protect them in their life's journey. Shame on you, sir.

If you are eager to do something to improve education, stop the job rackets that Ms. Elia and other superintendents use to hire, family, sycophants, and hangers-on to bloated-salary administrative jobs paid by taxpayers who don't know what's going on. The board lowered the PhD requirement for superintendent to Ms. Elia's master's degree because a political understanding developed that Elia would not intervene in board prerequisites such as travel expenses by the board, with one's (Susan Valdes's) flying around the country on pretend school matters and spending $50,000 in one year on joyrides at taxpayer expense while poor county children couldn't afford supplies to participate in class work. Why don't you sponsor a bill doing away with useless board travel expenses? That bill would help the schools' children.

The board also put a fake nationwide ad out before hiring Elia in a pre-cooked deal. The ad cost $35,000 to cover the duplicitous board's behinds for not observing the equal opportunity laws. Did the taxpayers fork over the moneyh for that fake ad? Of course they did.

I examined the superintendent applicants' submissions. Elia was worst qualified, having in her one administrative local post overbuilt class rooms and failed to notice a real-estate scam going on under her nose that a St. Pete Times reporter walked in off the street, spotted, and wrote a series about. The candidates turned down, all superior to Elia, had Ph.D.s and rich experience. But they had no deal with the board not to interfere with the board's milking taxpayers for perquisites. Offer a bill that makes impossible such corruption of the hiring of school superintendents. What about a citizens' committee hiring the superintendent?

Your bill injures education, sir; this is a capricious made-for-election-time bill. Abandon it. Your bill will dilute education by punishing the people who deliver it to students in the schools and put more power in the hands of the C-student administration to fire teachers capriciously. The firing of good teachers will injure our children and grandchildren. And if your malignant bill passes, you will be responsible for that situation.

Lee Drury De Cesare
15316 Gulf Boulevard 802
Madeira Beach, FL 33708

c: All members Hillsborough County legislative delegation
All members of the Florida House of Representatives
Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education
Dr. Smith, Florida Secretary of Education
Marshall @sptimes.com
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patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com

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A Good Read for Teachers

Here's a good riposte to all the false charges filed by Ms. Elia and her ROSSAC goons against teachers in Professional Standards. It's a good comeback to board members who won't set aside a permanent time on the board agenda for teachers and students to speak on issues that concern them. These same board members pretend that the board doesn't know how the superintendent uses Professional Standards with the vile Linda Kipley's carrying out Elia's despicable plots against teachers to make them fear for their jobs.

It's especially apt for April Griffin, who's having her luau campaign kickoff this coming week. Maybe in remarks to her supporters she will explain why she told Professional- Standards-savaged teacher Steve Kemp at a meeting he asked her for to discuss his cooked-up Professional Standards charge that he should "keep quiet" about the meeting she granted him and that "good things were happening behind the scenes"--that is to say out of the sunshine in an atmosphere of closed government that violates the state's open government law.

And Griffin should explain to the luau attendees why she let Carol Kurdell and Candy Olson coerce her into ceasing asking for things to come off the out-of-the-sunshine agenda rolling by the board unexamined dealing with issues that demand board discussion for public enlightenment.

That's how democracy is supposed to work. Griffin let Kurdell and Olson intimidate her into silence by saying that her asking for a no-bid contract to come off the agenda for discussion by the board was "disloyal to the staff."

This Kurdell-Olson attack, which Griffin should have answered with, "I'm working for the voters and the schools, not the staff," Griffin has closed down on asking for the rolling agenda to stop for discussion of other controversial issues. Since the scare Kurdell and Olson gave Griffin, she has given up any sign of working for the schools, teachers, students, and voters." Griffin has let Olson and Kurdell cow her so that subsequent to this board dais attack from two board harpies, she has become one of Elia's most reiable android made-by-Mattel automotans, who pushes the green light for anything Elia says.

One of Griffin's four opponents should challenge her on these issues. They should leaflet her luau. Politics is not a garden party. The winning cadidate often

de Queensbury pattycake civilities. If he or she lacks the guts to leaflet April's luau with opposition information, then that prissiness is indicative that the guy or gal will be too timid to challenge the other board members in discussions and to confront Elia's dictatorship. lee

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.



One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued,

"What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in

life was to become a teacher?"



To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Barbara . Be

honest. What do you make?"



Barbara, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to

know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)



"Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.



I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor winner.



I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't

make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.



You want to know what I make? (She paused again and looked at each and every

person at the table)



I make kids wonder.



I make them question.



I make them apologize and mean it.



I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.



I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding isn't

everything.



I make them read, read, read.



I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not

the man-made calculator.



I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know

about English while preserving their unique cultural identity..



I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.



I make my students stand, placing their hand over their heart to say the

Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, One Nation Under God, because we live in

the United States of America.



Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given,

work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life ( Barbara paused

one last time and then continued.)



Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money

isn't everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because

they are ignorant.



You want to know what I make?



I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.



What do you make Mr.. CEO?



His jaw dropped, he went silent.



THIS IS WORTH SENDING TO EVERY TEACHER, EVERY CEO, EVERY PERSON YOU KNOW.



Even all your personal teachers like mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,

coaches and your spiritual leaders/teachers.



A profound answer!!!