So let's have a bake sale and a car wash. Please, Neapolitans, buy, even if you don't need what we’re selling. We do. Most of our school taxes go to Tallahassee. And we are short changed. The system doesn’t work. So we have to appeal to you in the streets. I and my fellow high school English teachers have been allotted only 6 reams of paper each for the semester—that’s until after Christmas. Sorry, I forgot. Religion is outside our parameters. But we need paper. Horrors: our school spent over $12,000 last year for paper!!! How much is that as a percentage of the total budget? Too much. We've had no ink for our departmental color printer since last October. Who needs color anyway? Teachers are threatened with no pay raise and with constant surveillance of their performance and cooperation or their class assignments will be changed or, worse, they might lose their jobs to the hoards who wait in line to supplant them. What a way to start the year!!! No raises. Threats. Keep your head down and under the radar. Now! Everybody, get behind our new Superintendent and cheer. Forget the old one. We are going to conquer the NCLB benchmarks and achieve increased school ratings. We need to be part of the “team.” Performance is what counts. Oh. Dr. White already said that. And no thirty-six year olds on the team. What's wrong with this picture? No students? Oh! They're the primary focus; they have to keep their hats off and their pants on and pass the FCAT and shut up, especially on their i-phones. Maybe uniforms will help. What does the Superintendent have to do? How will he get it done? Crack that whip, Mr. Cracker. Get those slaves in line--a long grey line. Even though most teachers are white, we know that their economic enslavement makes them what? the N-word? Dasn't even suggest it, or you will be fired. The NAACP buried that word last summer. We're not even permitted to teach _Huckleberry Finn_ without risking our jobs. What about teaching our nascent artists, actors, musicians? Shut up and pass the FCAT. This is about accountability! Not people. Parking spaces, not learning the best that has been thought and written. What do we do with those in the school system who don't conform? Expulsion from the community. Lawyers, justice, the courts? Well, Padilla is guilty after all. Even though he didn’t have a dirty atomic bomb for Chicago. The justice department serves the executive nowadays. Way back, long ago, we used to say: People before Profits. But we do need your car wash and cookie money. Thanks to the few who support these street-front efforts. We desperately need you to support the band, the arts, the passing on of culture. And please buy a ticket to our plays and concerts.