Run over . . .

. . . . to Ednotesonline to read about the age discrimination lawsuit that went to jury trial on Sept. 8th.

Three of the seven Graphic Arts HS teachers won, and one of them wrote this:

"Let me verify that we have paid dearly from our own pockets to get there.... This is about justice and reputation, and our rights to teach as we have always enjoyed. It is also about getting fair pay and professional treatment for teachers who have studied and worked hard to earn senior tenure and status."

Where was Weingarten/Unity?

Where was Klein and all that "love" he showed us in his fake welcome letter earlier this month?

In his deconstruction of union minimalism, Scott quotes from his essay of a year ago on the Age Discrimination Lawsuit to Nowhere:

"The entire purpose was to deflect people from taking action on their own."

He thought then that the UFT's collaboration cum ineptitude cum procrastination could be turned into a song.

As another lawsuit on this same subject grinds its way through the DoE slime and the courts, I think it's rather more of a dirge.


Then continue running over to the post on NYC Educator about all the newbie teachers sitting around waiting to be placed:

According to today's Daily News, budget cuts notwithstanding, the city hired 5400 new teachers this year. They did so even as 1400 veteran teachers sat in the Absent Teacher Reserve. In fact, 229 of the new teachers have not even been placed yet. They were 'such good candidates' that the city could not risk losing them."

I'm thinking of the plural of a 7-letter word beginning with "b", the origins of which someone in cyberspace has laid out. It's not nice to use such words without scholarly back-up:

'one begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitmate or natural child' comes from the Old French bastard = 'fils de bast,' 'pack-saddle child,' f. 'bast' (see BAST + the pejorative suffix -ARD. C. BANTLING.

BAST is from O Fr. bast, medieval Latin bastum, 'pack-saddle' (used as a bed by muleteers in the inns) in phrase 'fils (homme, etc.) de bast,' literally 'pack-saddle child,' as opposed to a child of the marriage-bed, thus forming a tersely allusive epithet for illegitimate offspring.

-ARD is suffix... O Fr. -ard, -art, German -hart, -hard, 'hardy,' often forming part of personal names as in OHG Regin-hart (Raynard)...Used in Fr. as masculine formative...often pejorative...It appeared in Middle English in words from O Fr., as bastard, coward, mallard, wizard...and became at last a living formative of English derivatives, as in buzzard, drunkard, laggard, sluggard, with the sense of 'one who does to excess, or who does what is discreditable.

BANTLING is possibly from BAND, swathe + -LING, but considered by Mahn, with greater probability, a corruption of Ger 'bankling' bastard from 'bank' bench, i.e. 'a child begotten on the bench, and not in the marriage bed.'...used formerly as a synonym of 'bastard.'