Charter School Hustling 101, Old School Miami Style

UPDATE:  Please sign the petition I created asking Arne Duncan to cancel his appearance at The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools Conference with Pitbull.

A few days ago I posted a picture I stumbled across when doing some research on the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools website.

Their conference starts tomorrow in DC, and the lineup of keynote speakers, as you can see above, is downright bizarre. Jersey Jazzman, musician that he is, took a look at Pitbull's lyrics, and it paints a pretty ugly picture of Pitbull's attitude towards women. In fact, I'd dare say it depicts him as a misogynist.

Being the researcher that I am, I dug a bit more to see if I could find anything to confirm that Pitbull's attitude toward the female gender is less than exemplary.

And I didn't have to look too far. If you care to watch the following short video from Pitbull's TV show la esquina, you will see a clip of an episode where Pitbull paraded contestants for his "Miss 305" pageant to his posse. It's a truly tasteless display, and makes quite clear that Pitbull sees women as sex objects and little else.

But the episode titled Hustling 101 really takes the cake.

It's book smarts vs. street smarts when Fademaster bets Chingo that he can sell more merchandise on the street – even if Chingo has the help of a college graduate with a marketing degree. (emphasis mine)

It starts at the 8:00 minute mark, and it's a PAINFUL six and a half minutes. The female "college graduate with the marketing degree" (who is seductively panned head to toe by the camera) attempts to help Chingo sell his wares by using marketing strategies to inform the public about his products.  

Fademaster just calls up a hot girl and has her dance. If you want her to keep dancing, you have to buy something. 

Fademaster wins.

Pitbull congratulates Fademaster, saying:

"He did it old school Miami style. 2 Live Crew, put them in a bathing suit and let them do what they do." (emphasis mine)

yeah, THAT 2 Live Crew

Women shouldn't bother with a college degree and charts and graphs. In Pitbull's estimation they should just put on a bathing suit and "do what they do."

It is simply mind boggling that Pitbull has been given a charter school in Miami.  It's called called SLAM! 

Sports Leadership and Management Charter Middle/High School’s mission is to provide an innovative, in-depth educational program preparing students for secondary studies and beyond through an emphasis of sports-related career preparation. 

The school philosophy is the mechanism through which the mission will be achieved. In order to produce college bound and career-oriented graduates, the school believes it must provide Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships in the educational program. (emphasis mine)

Relationships? His charter school will focus on relationships? Let's hope the folks tasked with running the day to day operations of this charter have more respect for young women than Pitbull, and don't also subscribe to doing things "old school Miami style." 

Pitbull is paving the way for a new kind of "street smart" hustler to cash in on charter schools.  Looks like he'll give the "book smart" Wall Street hustlers a real run for their money.

But as we know all too well, in the end it's the students and parents who really get hustled.

Arne Duncan should pull out of this conference IMMEDIATELY. For the Secretary of Education to share a stage with Pitbull as a  charter school founder and "civic leader" makes a mockery of the entire public education system.  

left: Pitbull's saintly photo to promote the conference

right: Pitbull's not so saintly photo after a 3:00 am arrest in Miami