Carl Campanile Of The New York Post Questions The Integrity Of Mona Davids

So here I am yesterday giving the students busy work as I read that veritable bastion of journalistic integrity, The New York Post. Haha, only kidding. That entire first sentence was a lie. Let me start again.

So here I am yesterday afternoon cleaning up the hair balls that my cat had spewed forth whilst cleaning it up with that rag, The New York Post. As those hair balls are being collected I see an article entitled, "New parent group all $nug with UFT,"written by a "journalist" Carl Campanile. Upon further reading I spit out my Coke and my eyeballs shoot of their sockets, all in a stereotypical sign of surprise. This article much to my chagrin, not only mocks Mike Mulgrew, which I have no problem with, but mocks Mona Davids, which I do have a problem with.

Campanile insinuates that a donation of $10,000 from the UFT to Mona's organization, NYC Parents Union is a quid pro quo. Not just for giving a honor to Mulgrew, which he was not the only one, but to others as well. Worse, Campanile, forgetting that the first job of any journalist is to refrain from bias allows Democrats For Education Reform's Führer Joe Williams to be quoted in a style befitting someone who has discovered that Clark Kent and Superman are one in the same,

“It was always clear that the UFT was behind this organization, but now they aren’t even trying to pretend there is any separation,”

Shocking! Lest us not forget Joe Williams that DFER sugar daddy Rupert Murdoch, who happens to be the owner of The Post gave DFER's sister propaganda arm, Education Reform Now a fat check of $1 million.

Mona said she;

“welcomes and appreciates alliances with other individuals and organizations who share our interest in obtaining the highest-quality public education for all children in New York City.’’

We here at SBSB are appalled (just in case, this is sarcasm!) at Mona's wish that all individuals in New York City should have the best education, the best access to education, and not to quote Mona, but surely to paraphrase and echo her thoughts, an end to the bullshit that abounds at the highest levels of the NYC DOE, City Hall, and the deform movement that has developed and keeps a protective wall around all the misgivings brought forth on the parents of the children, and of course the children themselves, of New York City.

What subversive wishes does Mona and the New York City Parents Union have in mind? Let's have a looksee at their "demands."

1. Smaller Class Sizes
2. Excellent Community Public Schools for ALL Children
3. More Teaching – Less Testing
4. Parent and Teacher Empowerment and Leadership
5. Equitable Funding for ALL Schools
6. Moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations
7. Culturally Relevant Curriculum
8. Expand Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs
9. Qualified and Experienced Educators and Educational Leaders
10. Enforcement of the law requiring charters to recruit, retain and show their retention efforts of students with special needs and English Language Learners.  The practice of pushing/counseling out such students must end
11. An end to the granting of waivers for chancellor appointees who do not qualify under the law
12. An immediate end to mayoral control and the failed education policies of the past 9 years

How dare she!! How dare Mona and her organization want these things. For shame Mona, for shame. How can you sleep at night? But in all seriousness, what Mona is demanding, and let's stay out of the union politics for a moment, are what teachers everywhere throughout the five boroughs are demanding. That is except white, twenty somethings, from elite colleges, that plan to teach only a few years to pad their resumes.

We here at SBSB reached out to Carl Campanile between bites of his Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme to get his take on the article he written. He was asked if in light of what he had written in regards to the NYC Parents Union and Mona if he plans to write an expose on Educators4Excellence and the hundreds of thousands of dollars they have received from The Gates Foundation which has been laundered through DFER. His response was:

"The story speaks for itself."

OK. So we decided to speak to the story. The story in an on the record statement told Dennis from the crack team here at SBSB; 

"You need to forgive Carl. He at one time was an idealistic journalist but after years at the Post he has become nothing but a mindless, brainless robotron who does the bidding for his master Rupert Murdoch. Carl lost any independent thought and ethics long ago and has resigned himself to being some drone in the News Corp militia of hack reporters. Some have thought of saving Carl's journalistic integrity by having him spend a month with the 8th graders who put out Scarsdale Middle School's newspaper, but it was decided he was too far gone."

In the light of full disclosure, I must admit that today I bought two raffle tickets for a local church. These are considered donations. One can safely assume, using Carl Campanile's logic that I have now foresworn Judaism to be led now by Rome, or worse. To bring my beliefs now to the Catholic Church in which the first order of business will be to replace the Christmas dinner with brisket and latkes.