BREAKING NEWS!!!!! E4E ACTION ALERT!!!!! CODE RED!!!!

I am so touched. I feel so included, so special, I just could've plotzed.

In my email Saturday afternoon I got a special "E4E ACTION ALERT." Knowing it was important, I was able to ascertain this due to the very important name of the alert, I immediately left my family at Five Guys Burgers & Fries and headed home, where I knew action needed to be taken on this special action alert.

Once safely enconsed in my specially built man-action cave I clicked on the link afforded me by those heroes of wonderfullness Princess Sydney Morris and Little Evan Stone. I was taken to a special "Take Action" page in which I was directed to a link that would have me take action. Once on this page, after typing the prerequisite zip code, I was directed to yet another "action" page in which a pre-written form letter was awaiting me to my local New York State senator. The form letter was to remind my local state senator to help pass SB 3501, which is sponsored by Sen. Flanagan, which will, as the form letter states, "which will protect our students by keeping our best teachers in the classroom, regardless of how long they have been teaching." Yes, action needs to be taken.

The form letter is as written, with my comments in red;

As a New York City teacher and member of Educators 4 Excellence, an organization of over 1500 NY educators 1500 educators? This surely can be told by their FB page, and besides still less than 1% of all NYC teachers. Hell, I am a member of E4E about 5 times over, I know first-hand that the current system of "Last In, First Out" seniority-based layoffs will harm my school and my students. I strongly urge you to support SB 3501, which will protect our students by keeping our best teachers in the classroom, regardless of how long they have been teaching. This bill was written with the recommendations of current classroom teachers, current classroom teachers that have been teaching a total of about 4.9 years. and would change layoff decision-making to a set of objective criteria that is fair to teachers, but better for kids. Translation: Cheaper and more malleable. It's not about kids first, it is about what the elite want for themselves.

If we don't change this policy, we will lose great teachers. Says who? Research indicates that when districts make reduction-in-force decisions based on seniority alone, they end up firing some of their most effective educators. That is the price one must pay for a true, fair method. Even under E4E's way the same thing will happen. Furthermore, seniority-based layoffs disproportionately impact our highest-needs schools, where there is a concentration of newer teachers. In fact, some schools would lose more than 50% of their staff. Hey E4E, why not fight for no layoffs at all. Why not fight Bloomberg on his budget. You have the resources, you have the clout, fight with us instead of against us.

New Yorkers overwhelmingly support changing this law. A recent poll showed that 85% of New Yorkers favor doing layoffs by merit, rather than by seniority. How was the poll worded?What other options were given? Please

So what is a teacher to do about this? The crack team here at SBSB came up with a brilliant idea. We checked over at Ednotes and noticed that Norm has form letters that one can use to write their state senator. But wait, it does not stop there.

But the fun doesn't stop there. You can copy and then paste the "cool kids" form letter, and replace the E4E form letter quite easily. This way, it will appear in the mailboxes of the state senators as from E4E but fiendishly contradicting E4E.

Don't forget. Do it many times, with many sock puppets.