In Defense of Francesco Portelos, He Loves Kittens

I was away for the weekend. My son, who just turned 13, went to baseball camp for the week in

Pennsylvania and my wife decided to spend Sunday night in my old stomping grounds of Corning NY.

Oh, just as an aside, since I have mentioned my son playing baseball people are free to mention in comments in comments section here, or on Twitter, that my son plays baseball. So if one were to say (Paraphrasing Don Drysdale), "Hey I hope your son knows that when he is at bat the pitcher owns half the plate, but just won't tell which half he owns so he better not crowd the plate. If he does, he deserves to get plunked." Or, if someone says, "If he hits a dinger and shows up the pitcher, he'll get plunked in his next AB (Paraphrasing Bob Gibson).

And yes he will deserve it, and yes, it's part of the game and anyone saying this will not be wishing harm to my son my just stating fact. If I never mentioned my son and baseball no one will ever bring up crowding the plate, or since he is a catcher, no one will bring up not to block the plate and wind up like Buster Posey or Ray Fosse.

I bring my son up, he can be talked about. 

So back to today's topic.

I get up this morning and see that Francesco Portelos is shamed in both the Post and the Daily News for this tweet (Names redacted on advice of The Crack Team's Crack Legal Team)(Click to enlarge);

 For which Mona Davids replied;

@MrPortelos @MVOtter Did you just threaten my 6 year old son?
— NYC Parents Union (@NYCParentsUnion) July 7, 2014

Yes, we respect that Mona is a mother and protective, but her response was a bit hyperbolic. Francesco was in no way, no how threatening her child or anyone else's child. He was making a point.

If Mona is upset about children's names being used one wonders then why did she post the complaint on her website NYC Parents Union? There was absolutely no reason, other than a self-serving one, to post the complaint. If anyone wanted to read the complaint they would have had to schlep out to Staten Island to get a copy. And then, if the children's names were mentioned in a blog or twitter, then Mona would have a beef. But short of that, The Crack Team suggests either removing the complaint from the website or redacting the names of the children.

He was responding to a tweet in a sarcastic manner. Quite sarcastic. It was not a threat. If you think it was such a threat, call the cops, not the newspapers.

Portelos meant is that without tenure protection, which is is due process which Mona keeps forgetting is in the United State Constitution, a teacher seeing harm to a student, not physical harm, but harm in an educational manner, can be disinclined to speak out, disinclined to go on the record, disinclined to do the right thing.

Mona should be aware that without tenure I never would have spoken out against the abuses in my school 5 years ago.

Francesco never would have spoken out about his principal (Doesn't Mona find this reprehensible?)

We never would have known about the abuse in a Brooklyn middle school. Or this story, or this one, or this one. There are too many just from this blog alone, too many stories to share.

Start looking at the learning conditions, class size, lack of materials, the administrators, Tweed for poor learning conditions. Teachers serve what is prepared in the kitchen. We are the waiters. You wouldn't fix a failing restaurant by firing the wait staff, would you?

By the way Mona, some of the most crime riddled neighborhoods in New York City have some of the lowest income people. Are these people not entitled to live in a safe community? Why not start going after NYPD cops? They get their "tenure" after 18 months, they don't have to speak to investigators after a shooting for 48 hours, and have the same rights as teacher's if they are accused of something. They just don't call it tenure.

Maybe that is what we need to do. Change tenure to kittens.