Does Ivanka do a more eerily accurate impersonation of Evita than Madonna did in the 1996 movie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8qauSHc0UU
Ivanka Trump Evita Peron
Here are the descamisados, then and now:
UPDATE April 20, 2017
The cult has begun:
Ivanka Trump Has Huge Chinese Fan Club Worshiping ‘Goddess Ivanka’
Eric Baculinao
NBC News
April 20, 2017
BEIJING — Ivanka Trump is fast becoming a cult
figure for many in China, her popularity spiking so much there is
already an online fan club dedicated to "Goddess Ivanka" with thousands
of followers.
The boost in the first daughter's appeal has
been such that her Chinese lawyers are currently filing several
trademark applications in her name in a bid to stop hundreds of copycat
Chinese companies cashing-in on her brand.
The applications in China have involved a
bewildering array of products, from jewelry and underwear, to mattresses
and formula milk powder — all filed in the name "Ivanka Trump" or
similar sounding names since her father became U.S. president...
A typical American school? This school doesn't want this parent to talk about what's going on in classrooms
As instructed by the school’s teachers, she checked to see if the children were working just on calligraphy and not other parts of the app. Curious about what her child was learning, she looked at some of the apps. She took screen shots so she could view them later at home. She noted what students were doing with the technology and took some photos of what was on their iPads without identifying any student.
She also asked her child’s teacher about the activity, chatted with another teacher who was a friend and, on her way out, stopped to talk to the librarian.
Despite 14 years of unpaid effort on behalf of the city’s schools, Dana was told by Jones she would no longer be allowed to volunteer if she did not mend her ways.
Dana has been a critic of Jones. Such tension between school leaders and active parents is common but rarely reported. School districts say they welcome outsider involvement. The Falls Church City school board’s mission statement says “our schools must be responsive and accountable to the community.” But parents like Dana often feel a chill if they ask too many questions.
In a statement, the school district said Jones warned Dana in part because “we are careful to protect student privacy and data.” It also bothered staff that Dana had asked to meet with staff members “on more than 20 occasions” during the school year and “wrote over 2,100 emails to 145 separate FCCPS email accounts,” according to the statement.
The best teachers I know like dealing with parents. A teacher who worked last year at an elementary school told me a majority of her colleagues “were thrilled that Melissa was asking questions.” Jamie Scharff, an International Baccalaureate teacher at George Mason High School, said he has “never met a parent as sincerely dedicated to helping the schools” as Dana.
Jones’s letter accused Dana of “attempting to log on inappropriately to at least one technology device, and taking random pictures not associated with tasks assigned to you in your role as a parent volunteer.” Dana said the charge of logging on inappropriately was “absolutely false” and “I was taking very specific pictures of the activity to which I was assigned.”
What bothers me most is the school district presenting her large number of emails as a sign of misbehavior. Dana told me she was concerned by teacher complaints of mismanagement and made hundreds of contacts with parents and teachers, plus school board members. What’s wrong with that? She said 234 people emailed her their support for a satisfaction survey she was advocating.
In May, several people, including Dana and her husband, formed a group called The Falls Church Way, seeking more input on school policy for parents, teachers and community members. The group wants the board to include staff, parents and community members in its evaluation of Jones this month. Jones has agreed to meet with the group every month.
School officials often consider such groups a nuisance. But asking questions can lead to meaningful change. Smart administrators know that and listen carefully to parents before threatening to ban them from volunteering.
"The best teachers I know like dealing with parents."
You must not know many teachers. The best teachers resist dealing with parents because parents want their snowflake to be given less work, or easier work, or to have their C bumped up to an A for no good reason. The sheer amount of nonsense parents ask for is outrageous. Bad teachers just succumb to it because they don't care.
You must not know many teachers. The best teachers resist dealing with parents because parents want their snowflake to be given less work, or easier work, or to have their C bumped up to an A for no good reason. The sheer amount of nonsense parents ask for is outrageous. Bad teachers just succumb to it because they don't care.
I
see the school district superintendent came from Oklahoma. You could
ask those parents if they were sad or glad to see her go. But who
tattled on the volunteer to start this mess? Looks to me like those
elementary school teachers need adult supervision themselves.
Teachers
are in the business of managing the education of children, not managing
adults. I don't think the average person in the public realizes how
little time teachers have to belabor the minutiae of school policy with
parents. Your child's teacher is usually dealing with 20-25 children and
their parents. That is one person serving as the contact point for
60-75 people, plus the demands of paperwork, planning and dealing with
whatever management throws at them.
Volunteers should volunteer. No teacher trying to assist 20 plus little children needs an adult volunteer who needs monitoring and attention. Would you walk into an ER and follow the staff around taking pictures and asking questions after a major car crash? By the way, a child's identity and image is private and schools are legally obliged to be discreet. Do you want a volunteer in your child's classroom to be wandering around and snapping pictures for unknown reasons? Think about it.
Most schools have steering committees that involve parents. This volunteer should join or start such a committee and stick to actually volunteering in the classroom.
Volunteers should volunteer. No teacher trying to assist 20 plus little children needs an adult volunteer who needs monitoring and attention. Would you walk into an ER and follow the staff around taking pictures and asking questions after a major car crash? By the way, a child's identity and image is private and schools are legally obliged to be discreet. Do you want a volunteer in your child's classroom to be wandering around and snapping pictures for unknown reasons? Think about it.
Most schools have steering committees that involve parents. This volunteer should join or start such a committee and stick to actually volunteering in the classroom.
The
risk for school administration is that involved parents and volunteers
can decide to run for the school board and become the administrator's
boss. It is far better for administration to answer questions than
risking inspiring a questioning person to run for the local school
board.
Sounds
like typical office politics to me. 'Office politics' means 'bullying
and pressure to fit in' really just worded in a more adult way for grown
ups who don't want to admit they act just like kids. But it's normal,
sadly, and what goes on in any work place or any place where many people
work together, unfortunately. It's just a part of life, and when
someone feels on edge because they worry you might threaten their
security, their job, or even their unaccounted for corruption, they will
retaliate most of the time. That's when you need to cross all your t's
and dot all your i's and sorry, but, snapping photos in a classroom
setting without permission is wrong. So of course they're going to use
it against someone when they're just looking for something to use
against you. They can't know for sure what she took a picture of, and
taking pictures of other children's phones and such, IS inappropriate.
What's Jones hiding?
3:20 PM PST [Edited]
She
sounds like a great employee to me. This is so common in schools and in
business, an employee does great work and their superiors get
threatened. Jones should be investigated.
Guilty of impersonating a real teacher, which today borders a crime.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Why should Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen operate charter schools on U.S. Military bases?
Who would have thought that an attempted coup in Turkey would be a wake-up call about private charter schools in the US? Fethullah Gulen's religious movement, also known as Hizmet, may have taken time out from building charter schools to help foment the attempted coup in Turkey.
When moderation masks a radical agenda
By Abraham R. Wagner
Washington Times
January 21, 2016
No one everwants a Cosby moment, a moment when all of one’s suspected bad deeds are exposed to the world. Fettulah Gulen, the undisputable leader of the Gulen Movement was recently provided such a Cosby Moment, compliments of the FBI. Mr. Gulen, a Muslim cleric from Turkey, with an elementary education only, is a mysterious fellow.
In cables divulged by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Department of State described Mr. Gulen as “a ‘radical Islamist’ whose moderate message cloaks a more sinister and radical agenda.” He is reputed to be worth roughly $25 billion, although no one seems to know from where he earned this tidy sum. Most notably and despite the Department of State’s perspective, he espouses principles of tolerance and multiculturalism.
Yet upon deeper investigation, he is a true, dyed-in-the-wool Islamist who wishes to transform the United States and Turkey into Shariah states. Mr. Gulen lives in the United States in self-imposed exile, a seat from which he runs a vast and questionable network of charter schools and overlapping nonprofit organizations and businesses, and, as evidence presented in U.S. and Turkish courts shows, actively agitates and plots the overthrow of the democratically-elected government in Turkey, one of the few stable allies the United States possesses in the Middle East, a NATO-member and the lynchpin to defeating ISIS and to bringing peace to Iraq and Syria.
As the proprietor of the largest network of charter schools in the United States, Mr. Gulen receives hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Active investigations into the financial malfeasance of the Gulen schools are ongoing in Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio and other states, this, in addition to an active investigation by the FBI. According to state and local law enforcement reports, the Gulen Movement, in collusion with various nonprofit organizations and companies directly linked to the Gulen Movement, are playing a sort of shell game with taxpayer funds. Gulen schools pay high rental fees on properties owned by Mr. Gulen, construction and renovations of Gulen facilities are performed by Gulen businesses and vast sums are spent on facilitating the entry of young Turkish men to the United States...
Why should Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen operate charter schools on U.S. Military bases?
March 31, 2016
The Hill
A secretive Islamic movement is trying to infiltrate the U.S. military by establishing and operating publicly-funded charter schools targeted toward children of American service personnel.
That charge may sound like a conspiracy theory from the lunatic fringe, but it is real and it is happening right now. The most immediate threat is in Nevada, where Coral Academy of Science Las Vegas (CASLV) is currently negotiating with the United States Air Force to locate a charter school at Nellis Air Force Base, with classes starting this fall. What is not widely known is that CASLV is part of a nationwide organization of charter schools and other businesses headed by Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, a reclusive but influential Imam living under self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania to avoid criminal prosecution in his native Turkey.
Our law firm has been engaged by the Republic of Turkey – a key NATO ally in a hotbed region – to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the operations and geopolitical influence of the Gülen organization, which is behind the Coral Academy of Science and over 140 other public charter schools scattered across 26 American states. Our investigation, still in its early stages, reveals that the Gülen organization uses charter schools and affiliated businesses in the U.S. to misappropriate and launder state and federal education dollars, which the organization then uses for its own benefit to develop political power in this country and globally...
Robert R. Amsterdam is founder of Amsterdam and Partners LLP, an international law firm based in Washington, DC and London.
What We Don't Know About Gulen-Linked Charter Schools, And Why That's a Problem
Jersey Jazzman
July 16, 2016
Given what's just happened, this lack of transparency is a real problem for our country's national security. If, in fact, Hizmet was one of the driving forces behind the attempted coup, the United States may well be complicit in allowing a charter network to grow in this country that provided de facto support for the attempted overthrow of one of our NATO allies' governments.
I don't have any expertise in Turkish politics. By most accounts, Erdogan is not a friend of democracy and freedom of the press, and that's very troubling. And Gulen denies any involvement with the coup attempt, even though Erdogan is now saying the US risks its continuing alliance with Turkey if it continues to harbor him.
At this point, we must ask: Has it been in America's best geopolitical interest to prop up Erdogan's primary political foe by allowing an aligned network of charter schools to grow across the country? Has the risk been worth what are, at best, marginal gains in test scores for student populations that, at least here in New Jersey, look nothing like the populations of their hosting public school districts?...
Monday, July 11, 2016
Why Poway Unified Fired Its Superintendent
Superintendent John Collins and the Poway Unified Board got along very well with Poway Federations of Teachers and its president Candace Smiley, even when the district notoriously took on $1 billion dollars of debt in CAB bonds.
Why Poway Unified Fired Its Superintendent
By Ashly McGlone
The Poway Unified School District board believes former Superintendent John Collins, who was fired Sunday, took hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized pay, according to dismissal charges obtained by Voice of San Diego and an audit report released by the district Monday.
According to the documents, Collins was also censured for filing litigation without the school board’s approval, and for interfering with the district’s investigation into his financial dealings.
The board could ask a court to force Collins to pay back as much as $345,000 – the amount forensic auditors flagged as unauthorized pay...
See more
Why Poway Unified Fired Its Superintendent
By Ashly McGlone
The Poway Unified School District board believes former Superintendent John Collins, who was fired Sunday, took hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized pay, according to dismissal charges obtained by Voice of San Diego and an audit report released by the district Monday.
According to the documents, Collins was also censured for filing litigation without the school board’s approval, and for interfering with the district’s investigation into his financial dealings.
The board could ask a court to force Collins to pay back as much as $345,000 – the amount forensic auditors flagged as unauthorized pay...
See more
Friday, July 08, 2016
Lawsuit Claims SDCOE Supt. Randy Ward Took Thousands in Illegal Pay
Lawsuit Claims County Superintendent Took Thousands in Illegal Pay
The lawsuit – filed Thursday in San Diego County Superior Court by the California Taxpayers Action Network, represented by San Diego attorney Cory Briggs – takes aim at several aspects of Ward’s compensation, including so-called “me-too” raises they say violate strict state conflict-of-interest laws.
Ward has served as the top executive of the San Diego County Office of Education since June 2006, and his pay has put him among the highest compensated K-12 public school employees in the state.
In June 2013, the elected five-member board added language to Ward’s contract that let him collect the same raises teachers get as long as he earned a satisfactory performance evaluation.
In June 2014, the board did away with the evaluation requirement and gave him the same raises as teachers automatically, without consideration of his performance. As a result, that year, Ward received a 5.1 percent raise worth $14,535, and has continued to receive guaranteed raises matching teachers ever since.
Me-too clauses can be legal, but California laws generally prohibit self-dealing to ensure that government officials’ responsibility to negotiate salaries in the best interest of taxpayers isn’t compromised by a personal financial incentive.
Since Ward negotiates with the teacher’s union and helps decide what raises teachers get, his actions could be considered self-dealing. If deemed illegal in court, at least $70,000 in payments could be voided and ordered repaid to the agency.
Another bone of contention raised in the lawsuit deals with an earlier raise granted to Ward before the “me-too” raises were put in place.
In 2008, the board gave Ward a 3.8 percent raise, but he postponed taking it. Then, two years later, he retroactively authorized it via an interoffice memorandum to the business department causing a windfall of up to $31,400.
Staff did not respond to questions asking whether the move could have spiked his pension – or improperly boosted his retirement benefits in violation of state rules. The impact on Ward’s pension is not discussed in the lawsuit.
The California Constitution generally prohibits non-union employees like Ward from getting paid long after work was performed, so the belated me-too pay bumps are also unconstitutional, the nonprofit taxpayer group says.
The lawsuit also names the County Office of Education’s longtime chief business officer, Lora Duzyk, claiming she too acted illegally and abused her office.
“Defendant Ward has no legal right to accept retroactive pay increases, and none of the Defendants has the legal authority to increase their compensation without first obtaining the BoE’s (board) approval,” the lawsuit says.
The group contends the board’s action adding me-too raises to Ward’s contract doesn’t mean the payments were legal.
A recent salary bump for Ward of 4 percent that took effect July 1 brought his base salary to $331,736 and is also being questioned by the group. Voice of San Diego also asked the County Office of Education for an explanation of the recent raise and has not yet heard back.
Ward just began the final year of a three-year superintendent employment contract that expires July 1, 2017.
Ward and Duzyk did not immediately respond to requests for comment...
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Who tells the truth? Disgruntled ex-employees like Gretchen Carlson of Fox News
Lawyers will tell you to ignore the blatherings of "disgruntled ex-employees". But who else will tell the truth? People trying to keep their jobs and their social standing in the workplace almost never expose dirty linen voluntarily, and often won't do it even when they are under oath.
Even retired people, who no longer need to fear the loss of their jobs, usually don't want to tell the truth if it reflects badly on their former employer.
I remember in the Danielle Coziahr v. CVESD case, the judge had to forcefully demand that a retired teacher show up as a witness. The testimony the teacher was afraid to give was hugely supportive of Cozaihr, who won a $1 million judgment. The witness was retired, but still reluctant to step out of line.
Gretchen Carlson of Fox News Files Suit Against Roger Ailes, Alleging Harassment
Even retired people, who no longer need to fear the loss of their jobs, usually don't want to tell the truth if it reflects badly on their former employer.
I remember in the Danielle Coziahr v. CVESD case, the judge had to forcefully demand that a retired teacher show up as a witness. The testimony the teacher was afraid to give was hugely supportive of Cozaihr, who won a $1 million judgment. The witness was retired, but still reluctant to step out of line.
Gretchen Carlson of Fox News Files Suit Against Roger Ailes, Alleging Harassment
Gretchen Carlson, the longtime Fox anchor, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday saying that Roger Ailes,
the powerful chairman of Fox News, fired her from the network last
month after she refused his sexual advances and complained to him about
discriminatory treatment in the newsroom.
The
startling accusations immediately transfixed the world of television
news, where Mr. Ailes is a hugely influential figure known for demanding
absolute loyalty from his employees.
The lawsuit
— filed in Superior Court in New Jersey, where Mr. Ailes maintains a
residence — portrays the Fox chairman as a loutish and serial sexual
harasser, accusing him of ogling Ms. Carlson in his office, calling her
“sexy” and making sexually charged comments about her physical
appearance.
Ms.
Carlson, who joined Fox in 2005, contends that during a meeting last
fall to discuss her concerns that she was not being treated fairly, Mr.
Ailes told her: “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship
a long time ago and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and
better.”
When
she rebuffed him, the lawsuit claims, Mr. Ailes retaliated by reducing
Ms. Carlson’s salary, curtailing her on-air appearances and, to her
surprise, declining to renew her contract last month.
In
a statement issued Wednesday evening through Fox News, Mr. Ailes
rebuffed Ms. Carlson’s accusations. “Gretchen Carlson’s allegations are
false,’’ he said, calling it “a retaliatory suit for the network’s
decision not to renew her contract.’’
“Ironically,
FOX News provided her with more on-air opportunities over her 11 year
tenure than any other employer in the industry, for which she thanked me
in her recent book,’’ he wrote. “This defamatory lawsuit is not only
offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously.”...