Rahm Emanuel is at war with the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Not just a war over increased class size, high-stakes testing, funding for arts and music programs, benefits and pay, but a war over Nickelback.
And it’s getting ugly.
One frustrated protestor struck first:
Rahm Emanuel fired back with a “nuh-uh” (and some F-bombs, likely):
Chicago Mayor Emanuel doesn’t actually like Nickelback, despite a sign at the teachers strike that indicated otherwise.
When asked if the mayor is fond of the Canadian crooners, his spokeswoman Tarrah Cooper told RedEye in an e-mail “No.”
[read full post at ABLC]
Poopyman
Slow news day, eh?
dmsilev
I don’t have a link to the photo easily at hand, but that protestor taped over ‘Nickelback’ and replaced it with ‘Creed’.
I suppose the next step in the escalation is ‘Justin Beiber’.
arguingwithsignposts
Apparently, the same protester later had a sign accusing him of listening to Creed. Union thugs!
Zifnab
What kind of concert costs you $.45?
A fifty-cent concert followed by Nickel back!
SatanicPanic
As horrible as this is, it still wouldn’t be the worst thing about Rahm
Face
I bet he has showered with Nickleback.
Anonymous
Nickelback’s not for me, but it’s hard for me to see where all this internet disgust with them is coming from. Can anyone clarify?
burnspbesq
I take Rahm at his word when he says he doesn’t listen to Nickelback.
However, I imagine he thinks Chris Botti plays jazz.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
If he thinks that Kenny G plays jazz, then there is no hope for him whatsoever.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Call me back when the protester informs us that Rahm denies that Clapton is God.
Keith G
@Anonymous: I think there is a rotisserie collection if pop music acts that get targeted for ill will (Cold Play is another). The genesis of this may be that some just need to define their intellectual prowess more by what they dislike than what they like. Thank god that doesn’t happen here.
FridayNext
@Anonymous:
I can’t agree more. I could never understand how you can pick one pop act out of an embarrassment of riches in banal pop acts and hate it more. It’s like taking a handful of water out of the Pacific Ocean and saying you hate THIS salt water more than the rest. Methinks people doth protest too much. In 20 years there will be a Nickelback and/or Creed nostalgia fest and a broadway musical supported by all these people who publicly hated them now but secretly liked them. Just like what happened to Abba.
PeakVT
Rahm probably likes both bands so much he has seen them in concert on the same night.
arguingwithsignposts
@Villago Delenda Est: I agree with Pat Metheny.
ABL
@arguingwithsignposts: You should click through. I made a similar point. :)
SatanicPanic
@FridayNext: Comparing ABBA to Nickelback? I wasn’t around for when ABBA was popular, but can any oldsters comment on whether that’s fair?
ABL
@Anonymous: It is sort of an Internet tradition.
Lojasmo
@Anonymous:
Google something like “nicklesack same songs”
When you are brought to the point of arguing about if you like nicklesack or not, you have lost the narrative.
(heh, autocorrect to nicklesack)
Keith G
On additional though re: the strike –
If educational bureaucracies spent just a little time and money on a common sense based testing strategy, both the kids and the teachers would see great deal of benefit
1. Use a short 25-30 item test per class to assure that students are sitting in the correct level class room.
2. Within a week give the now correctly leveled students a fuller diagnostic test to determine strengths and weaknesses relating to each core academic discipline.
3. Use the above test to regroup as necessary and plot out instructional strategies
4. Compare test throughout the year with the original diagnostic test – Is the skill set growing?
5. A final test shows the growth of skills in each student.
6. Teacher evaluations will take into account their abilities to help students grow their individual skill set.
This can be done and it can be done easily. What’s more, it will make principals and school boards accountable to provide resource to remediate groups of student who are starting a year with skills not sufficient to their grade level.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Keith G: I’ll copy and paste what I posted on the end of that thread, just to kick around:
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink Says:
@Brachiator:
However, the basic question remains: how do you accurately assess student performance and teacher effectiveness? It’s not just about attacking teachers.
The best, ideal way to do it, in my limited experience (I worked as an English adjunct at a State U for several years before I left the US) is performance assessment. Papers. Projects. Presentations. That means that evaluating teachers is based on what you see from the students in those performances, and evaluating their curriculum designs, as well as classroom observations (random if necessary) and so on and so forth.
Designing performance tasks requires the students to demonstrate some understanding of the concepts being discussed, and how to work with them, apply them. Multiple choice tests are big favorites because you can run them through a scanner, and the results can be used to blame teachers when they’re bad or as a feather in your political cap if they’re good. And they’re cheap. Expert evaluation of performance-based curriculum is time intensive and expensive. It would require far more in terms of resources than the states or the country would ever be willing to put into it, I would wager.
I took a seminar on writing assessment that introduced this concept by putting a list of ten steps to make a pot of coffee on a sheet of paper. If you mess one up as an abstract academic exercise, hey, you get 90% on the assignment, that’s an A. But you don’t have coffee, do you?
To your point on diagnostics: I’m a fan, but at levels lower than post-secondary the sorting mechanisms have a whole variety of potential pitfalls that would require some attention.
Michael G
@Anonymous: This mp3, which features two nickelback songs played at the same time, one from the left speaker, one from the right, really cemented my contempt for the band.
MattR
@Lojasmo:
What I find amusing is that if the sign had said Emmanuel blew goats there probably would not have been a response, but Emmanuel had to make sure it was clear that he did not in fact like Nickelback.
@Michael G: Wait. Those are two different songs. That clears up some longstanding confusion :)
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Zifnab:
Still too expensive.
Keith G
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: I certainly agree that having as many methods of assessment as possible is a truly important goal. I loved grading portfolios and culminating projects. I certainly learned a great deal about my kiddoes using such assessments. As my student population grew from 90 to 140, I loved it a bit less (funny how my pay didn’t grow by 55% during that same time)
Sorting is an issue, but if teachers are going to be held accountable for developing an end-state skill set, having a group of students with similar needs seems very practical.
dewzke
I just wish one bull charging democrat (could’ve been Rahm) would take over the wheel and steer a progressive way. Am I confused? That is the only way I can frame it…out of the news a bit and going through other b.s. Que la chinga? Wake me up…when (…………) comes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY5KCVOKO4A
DougJ
KIM’S THE FIRST GIRL I KISSED
I WAS SO NERVOUS THAT I NEARLY MISSED
libarbarian
This is how
you remind me
of what an asshole I am!