from Diane Ravitch’s blog | http://bit.ly/1OAtjRy
Diane Ravitch writes:
Living Large: A Glimpse of John Deasy’s Expense Account
John Deasy liked to dine in the best restaurants.
True, he didn’t bill for dinners at Per Se in Manhattan, where the average meal may cost $600 or more. (However, the list is just a small sampling of three years of expenses.)
Fortunately, Eli Broad and Casey Wasserman picked up many of these bills as a public service. Or maybe it was the taxpayers of Los Angeles.
It may be just a small sampling, but take a look at these swell meals.
Geronimo writes:
Let me offer a different opinion.
I never thought John Deasy was motivated by money, although his entire career is all about the perks of connection and knowing the right people.
It was being in those circles of individuals that Deasy thrived on. His acceptance by the rich and powerful that he was “their” guy. He was the dutiful knight to the castles of political and economic institutions of power who would slay their dragons.
John Deasy fancied himself a tough guy. In his narcissistic autobiography of his mind, Deasy believes that he was anointed to “save the children”. Thus he would “stand up” to the powerful interests…the teachers, the unions, the progressives who held the kids down. I keep coming back to his incessant use of Civil Rights language that he used as a cudgel against anyone who challenged him.
Yes he was incredible at bullying and humiliating a substitute teacher whose class he walks into on the second day of school…
…but speak up to anyone above him in true positions of power and influence?
To Millionaires?
To the political power structure?
To Arne Duncan? To Obama?
To Eli Broad? To the Wassermans? To the Waltons? To Gates?
It was always, “Yes sir!”
It was “What do you need?”
It was “What’s my next job, boss?”
And hilariously, on occasion, it was “Can you scholarship me?”
Well, Deasy’s ENTIRE life was one of asking these people to scholarship him.
He got scholarshipped by convicted education felon Robert Felner when he was his only disciple and graduate student.
He was scholarshipped by all the above gazillionaires.
He was scholarshipped by Mayor Villaraigosa.
He was scholarshipped by the LA TIMES editorial board.
He was scholarshipped continuously (and tragically) by LA’s very own Board of Ed.
No. John Deasy isn’t in the education game for the money. He’s in it because the people who love him are the people he thinks matters.
The tender caress of Bill Gates or an Arne Duncan confirms Deasy’s self worth as a person. That extraordinary personal connection and closeness and sense of duty to Eli Broad is something akin to patriotism of one’s country–it’s the psychology of a good solider who has sworn a sacred allegiance–and it’s a privilege and duty that money can’t buy.
smf opines:
The past tense is premature.
The ‘Doctor’ is, was. and will continue to be a sociopath.
KrazyTA writes:
Ah, the world of the heavyweights of self-styled “education reform” and their enablers and enforcers and hangers-on and the rest of that “diverse” group benefitting from the largesse called $tudent $ucce$$.
Where have I come across a vivid description of the crowd that John Deasy runs with?
Hmmmm…
Does the name “F. Scott Fitzgerald” ring a bell?
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”
- The Rich Boy is a short story by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was included in his 1926 collection All the Sad Young Men.
No comments:
Post a Comment