You can find me right over here.

…courtesy of Sol Stern on Eduwonk today.

Woke up and put on CNBC this morning like I do every weekday morning.

On Tuesday one of the “perma-bears” on the channel told me the market had bottomed and Tuesday was a wonderful day to buy, buy, buy. Oil was heading downward (it eventually fell from the mid-$140’s to the mid-$130’s this week), the battered financial sector was ripe for bottom-picking, the market was on the way up and all was well with America.

Yesterday the McCain campaign, echoing the CNBC perma-bears, dismissed the economic problems the country is facing as a “mental recession” and called Americans a “nation of whiners” for not seeing the silver lining in outsourcing, record high oil prices, record high food prices, record high health care costs, soaring inflation, a credit crisis, a tanking stock market, record foreclosures, and a housing market in depression.

You see, the problem is with your mindset, not the Bush financial policies of tax-cut and spend and business deregulation that brought so many of these problems to fruition in the first place.

And yet this morning when I turned on CNBC, all I heard was panic.

Here’s why:

Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two pillars of the nation’s housing market, continued to plummet yesterday as investors and federal officials contemplated the possibility that the giants of the mortgage business could require a federal bailout.

…

The failure of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac could be devastating, making it harder for people to buy and sell homes and sending ripple effects through the broader economy.

If Fannie and Freddie go under, you’re looking at a trillion dollar taxpayer bail-out that will make the Bear Sterns bailout look small.

If Fannie and Freddie go under and they aren’t bailed out, the housing market is REALLY going to get hammered.

The credit crisis has already choked off mortgage money for many borrowers; Fannie and Freddie have picked up the slack – but if they can’t lend, then very few people will be able to get home loans.

With home values already down 15% in many areas around the country, the bottom would fall out of the market and you’d have an awful lot of homeowners with upside down mortgages (owe more than the home is worth.)

That really would complicate the foreclosure problem, wouldn’t it?

Which would really complicate this “mental recession” so many of us are suffering from.

Couple the Fannie/Freddie panic with spiking oil prices (oil futures are back up to an all-time high – $146.90) and the Dow threatening to fall below the 11,000 support level this morning, and I get why the CNBCers sound so panicked.

But here’s what I don’t get. Throughout the economic problems of the last year and a half, from the failing hedge funds to the Bear Sterns bailout to the locking up of the credit markets to the dismal job numbers to the soaring commodity prices, so often I hear from the boys and girls who supposedly know about these things is “The worst is over, the markets have bottomed, this economy is the greatest story never told…“

And yet, isn’t it becoming increasingly clear that the worst is NOT over for either the main street economy, the housing market or Wall Street?

Now today’s CNBC panic may turn out to be nothing – lately every time there is a really bad crisis in the stock market or the economy, money has a funny way of finding it’s way where it’s needed (think Federal Reserve credit market infusions, think Bear Sterns) so I’m sure Hank Paulson is cranking up the currency printing press and Ben Bernanke is warming up the helicopter to start throwing money at the problem right now.

But what do you think all this newly-minted money is going to do to already record oil and food prices?

You got it – they’re going to continue to go up, up, up.

So maybe the CNBC perma-bears have got it right – maybe the worst is over and the market is on an upswing.

All you’ve got to do is ignore the plummeting home prices, the bear market at the Dow and the S&P, the soaring commodity prices, and the constant news about new write-downs at the banks related to the mortgage crisis which continue to complicate the foreclosure problem.

All you’ve got to do is believe in magic.

At the end of a long run of PR victories, NYC School Chancellor Joel Klein has established a truth squad. This will help ensure that the truth never gets in the way of the perceptions he and Mayor Bloomberg have worked so hard to establish. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg himself is appearing on a series of commercials trying to reinforce the notion that handpicked test score improvements have to do with his “reforms.”

But that’s not all Mr. Klein is doing:

…the Leadership Academy – created by Joel Klein, with Joel Klein chair of the board, Joel Klein who had selected the other board members, Joel Klein who had appointed the director, Joel Klein who had raised $75 million in private money to start it through the Fund for Public Schools, an organization which is also chaired by Joel Klein….had now been awarded a $50 million contract by Joel Klein…

This suggests that Mr. Klein (who left this Leadership Academy board a month ago, convincing the tabloids there’s no conflict of interest) will be able to extend his influence well beyond his actual tenure. The article suggests Mr. Klein may now simply grant himself a contract to control the schools for the next twenty years. That certainly jibes with the chancellor’s philosophy.

After all, the chancellor has been suggesting for years that we eradicate tenure and seniority rights for working teachers. UFT President Randi Weingarten likes this idea so much that she’s sponsoring a Green Dot charter school that does just that (no wonder Rod Paige adores her so).

If only individual teachers would follow in the Chancellor’s footsteps, there’s be no need for tenure. Teachers could simply negotiate multimillion dollar contracts with the city and stay on well after their ideas were welcome. And the whole “accountability” thing would be moot, as teachers could offer the city programs just as flawed as the Leadership Academy (or the 80-million dollar computer that doesn’t work, or the bus fiasco, or real test results, or massive overcrowding…) and make a neat profit for accomplishing nothing whatsoever.

It’s sad that most teachers with records as abysmal as Mr. Klein’s flee the profession. Mr. Klein has set a standard here, and working teachers hindered by a sense of responsibility will probably just continue to teach kids.

Some people just don’t know when to grab an opportunity.

Clever Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly hosts this weeks Carnival of Education.

Check it out.

Eduwonk has a very thoughtful post about the possibility of using adjunct teachers to help out where needed. I was leaning against this idea until he mentioned that a rational health care system might make it easier. With that, I couldn’t agree more. I happen to work as an adjunct, but I certainly couldn’t afford to do so in lieu of my regular gig, which provides me and my family with health insurance.

In fact, I know people who work as paraprofessionals not for the salary, but simply for the insurance. I was speaking with one and telling her she might do better as a teacher.

“Teach?” she said. “Who needs those headaches?” And if that’s how she feels, she shouldn’t do it. Of course, if she didn’t need the insurance she might be able to afford doing something she liked better.

Here’s my response to Eduwonk:

Amen to your notion of a rational health care system. I think if we were to have such a thing, we’d have a lot more common ground on educational issues. Many things would be possible in a country like that, and I hope we live in such a place one of these days.

The reality, though, is UFT President Randi Weingarten is looking at privatizing the NYC healthcare network, and her prime reservations seem to relate to how big a cut will reach union coffers and a very short-sighted temporary stop on turning over the company. It’s sad Ms. Weingarten feels she can’t operate her patronage mill on a piddling 80 million a year.

Still, it’s remarkable that her myopic vision indicates teachers need what the rest of the country has. Particularly in terms of health care, the rest of the country needs what teachers have, and the sooner the better.

Let’s say a prayer that Ms. Weingarten doesn’t get her way and sell us off for the usual pittance she manages to negotiate. I’d say more money to pay her propagandists and sycophants ought to receive the lowest possible priority from working teachers (who might get sick one of these days).

I always allow student teachers and observers in my classroom. Generally, my experiences are positive or unremarkable. But I remember one in particular who really surprised me. This occurred in an English immersion class at a public university.

I was discussing the lesson on the phone with the teacher, whom I’ll call Joseph. We’d been practicing using present progressive (She’s washing her hair.) in everyday conversation. I told Joseph, as part of his lesson, to bring in some pictures, and ask the students to describe what was happening.

Joseph followed my instructions. He prefaced his talk by saying “These are very old pictures,” then proceeded to show the class pictures of Jesus (He’s healing the sick….)and others (They’re kneeling before Jesus…).

I could not decide quickly enough how to deal with it–I felt if I’d stopped him, my class, 100% Christian, might determine I had something against Jesus.

When I told Joseph that he had no business bringing religion into my classroom, he suggested that my heathen ways were impeding his mission. I told him his mission would probably not be helped by his failing the course, which I assured him I’d recommend if the episode were repeated.

He seemed to understand that a little better. While my students found Joseph largely tedious, he did not do any further proselytizing in my classroom. He did stand outside the building before class distributing religious literature, though.

Last I heard, Joseph was planning to travel to a Muslim country with his wife and two daughters to convert the infidels.

-originally posted March 4, 2006

Dear GHI/HIP subscriber:

As you know, GHI and HIP have merged. Therefore, we’re delighted to be able to offer you the benefits of both companies. GHI subscribers will now be able to visit HIP doctors and hospitals with no copay, and HIP subscribers will now have access to the GHI network of providers if they wish to pay the copays.

Did you receive that letter? Me neither. That’s because this merger was not done to benefit subscribers. It’s the precursor to a “for-profit” status, or privatizing your health care. The benefits of privatization consist primarily of an IPO. This may bring cash to the UFT, which now has to squeak by on as little as 80 million a year. Heartbreaking though that may be, if your heart were to break, literally, you’d need to get it fixed on even less.

GHI/HIP privatization is the single most unconscionable and witless venture Ms. Weingarten and her merry patronage mill have ever embarked upon. It’s bound to hurt union members and their families if no one stops them. Check Save Our Health Care on a regular basis. Find out the status of the privatization grab, and find out where demonstrations will be held this Saturday, July 12th.

Why not just feign a heart attack?

Get a deck of playing cards with whatever photo you like on the back–your beautiful kid, your secret lover, Hannah Montana, your principal in a compromising position with a custodial aide named Raul–whatever you wish, for just 2.99 shipped.

Just click here and use coupon code PPC299. Valid till July 10th.