THE OPERA AIN'T OVER UNTIL THE MAD SCENE IS ALL SCREAMED OUT

      Monday evening March 3, Mr. Deasy actually deigned to attend the Valley Education Action Committee Parent Partnership for Public Education at Portola Middle School in Tarzana.  The evening got off to a lackluster start with a press conference put on to publicize the Repairs not iPads campaign on facebook that United Teachers Los Angeles has been promoting.  This is certainly an important issue and one emblematic of the corruption that is the LAUSD, ignoring issues of health and safety and access to facilities in order to pay for pet projects that serve only to make the filthy rich richer and more filthy but not one word was mentioned of teacher jail. After speeches by Warren Fletcher, Matthew Kogan, David Lyell, Colleen Schwab, Lisa Karahalios and others we adjourned to the auditorium.

     The first part of the interview dealt with such mundane inanities such as Mr. Deasy's first job – paper route – and I think his favorite color and some other drivel.  I of course zoned out on this part because it is so obviously a waste of time to talk about the biography that we can read for ourselves online.

     Now comes the juicy part. Mr. Deasy was asked a question about what recourse a parent has in the situation where his/her child is bored in math class. It is a given that all children in Tarzana are gifted of course, one only has to look at census data for income to know that, so one expects such a question from concerned parents. After a rambling disposition on the mathematics course of study in high school (algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2 then a test or was it algebra 1 and 2 and trigonometry and statistics and? ...) Mr. Deasy, who used to teach high school mathematics, (!) was coaxed by our indefatigable mistress of ceremonies whose name I didn't catch because she mumbled, coaxed and prodded him back on topic. His summary was just as incomprehensible but no matter, things got better, more entertaining and more bizarre. 

      Mr. Deasy fielded a very reformy question about excessive testing of students in school and the use of test data in teacher evaluations. Again we were treated to a bizarre disputation on the need for some people to mind your own beeswax Dr. Diane Ravitch because you are just an education historian and leave the superintending to those who know how to superintend. Mr. Deasy was not done, digging even deeper into his own morass of newspeak, he reminded us that drivers, doctors and attorneys are tested and nobody says that this is too much. Huh??? We don't expect children to drive, treat the sick or practice law so where did this come from? We also don't tie teacher salaries to the bar exam, medical boards or the driving test.  En espanol se llama cantinflar pero el benemerito Mario Moreno made a lot more sense hasta cuando era borracho, pendejo.*

    Now comes the ugly part. Our indefatigable and sincere mistress of ceremonies asked about teacher jail. Mr. Deasy lied and said that 80-90% of us in teacher jail are there because the district was notified by law enforcement that they are being investigated. Bull shit. This is categorically untrue as anyone familiar with our situation knows that any story told by anybody can be used by an administrator to land a teacher in teacher jail. Mr. Deasy, digging an ever deeper hole with his own tongue, went on to say that the district has to wait for law enforcement to conclude its investigation before they can tell the teacher inmate anything and if law enforcement clears us then back to school.  Pure fabrication. The time that a teacher sits in jail before hearing of his/her charges is usually spent by the district trying to gather more perjured testimony. Que clase de pendejo cree en sus proprias mentiras?* Now it gets even better. Some jailed teachers yelled, “Liar!” At this Mr. Deasy started yelling “I don't go to your house and yell at you!!” I didn't know he lives in the Portola MS auditorium.  Maybe he hasn't come to my house  but he must think that the lie he tells about us every chance he gets makes it all okay. He screamed, “You don't have to look in the eyes of a child that has been sexually abused!!” 

     This is not just crazy talk, this is pure evil. He didn't come right out and call us child sexual predators but there is no difference in his message. He meant to tar us with the very same brush. This de-humanizing of teachers is how every great evil starts. If you paint Black men as a danger to white women or Mexicans as a danger to our way of life then what is to stop the progression to lynchings, racism, bigotry and even the gas chamber? All of the great evils of history begin like this and just as in this case they always have the love of money as their foundation. Racism allows the wealthy to exclude some people from fair wages and access to services and Mr. Deasy means to exclude us from our profession in order to make money available for his masters. 

NOTE FOR THOSE WHO DON'T SPEAK SPANGLISH;
1.  In Spanish it's called cantinflar (talk like Cantinflas) but the great Mario Moreno (the actor who played  Cantinflas) made more sense even when he was drunk, dummy. (Not Mario Moreno)
2.  What kind of fool believes his own lies?