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Thursday, January 2, 2014

NYC Educator: The Exacting Standards at Gotham Schools

NYC Educator: The Exacting Standards at Gotham Schools:

The Exacting Standards at Gotham Schools

I used to write for Gotham Schools. They called me at home, and asked if I would do it. I said fine. The first post I wrote was about a Harlem public school experiencing an invasion by Eva Moskowitz. I quoted a person who spoke at the rally who said Eva was taking kids rated 3 and 4, but not those who scored lower. This proved not to be true. But I accurately reported what I heard.

After that, things were different, and my writing was subject to a pretty severe editing process. I was sometimes upset by this, as their E4E writer could post any outlandish assertion he saw fit. The last piece I wrote for them was about Cathie Black, and entitled Heckuva Job Blackie. This was a play on words, referring to GW's "Heckuva Job Brownie" quote. I insisted on retaining the title, and our discussions got pretty contentious. The next piece I wrote for them was this one.

Gotham objected that I called E4E, ERN, and Cathie Black billionaire-sponsored, even though that isn't even debatable. They also objected to my implication that an Ivy League was helpful to getting into TFA, even though a whole lot of Ivy League students went to TFA. There was a third problem they had, and I don't remember what it was, but I sent the piece to Huffington Post, where they highlighted it and it received over a hundred