Teachers are heroes, not villains, and it’s time to stop demonizing them.
It has become fashionable to blame all of society’s manifold sins and wickedness on “teachers unions,” as if it were possible to separate these supposedly evil organizations from the dedicated public servants who belong to them. News flash: Collective bargaining is not the problem, and taking that right away from teachers will not fix the schools.
It is true that teachers in Chicago have dug in their heels against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demands for “reform,” some of which are not unreasonable. I’d dig in, too, if I were constantly being lectured by self-righteous crusaders whose knowledge of the inner-city schools crisis comes from a Hollywood movie.
The problems that afflict public education go far beyond what George W. Bush memorably called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” They go beyond whatever measure of institutional sclerosis may be attributed to tenure, beyond the inevitable cases of burnout, beyond the fact that teachers in some jurisdictions actually earn halfway decent salaries.
The fact is that teachers are being saddled with absurdly high expectations. Some studies have shown a correlation between student performance and teacher “effectiveness,” depending how this elusive quality is measured. But there is a whole body of academic literature proving the stronger correlation between student performance and a much more important variable: family income.
Yes, I’m talking about poverty. Sorry to be so gauche, but when teachers point out the relationship between income and achievement, they’re not shirking responsibility. They’re just stating an inconvenient truth.
According to figures compiled by the College Board, students from families making more than $200,000 score more than 300 points higher on the SAT, on average, than students from families making less than $20,000 a year. There is, in fact, a clear relationship all the way along the scale: Each increment in higher family income translates into points on the test.
Sean Reardon of Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis concluded in a recent study that the achievement gap between high-income and low-income students is actually widening. It is unclear why this might be happening; maybe it is due to increased income inequality, maybe the relationship between income and achievement has somehow become stronger, maybe there is some other reason.
Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers.
The brie-and-chablis “reform” movement would have us believe that most of the teachers in low-income, low-performing schools are incompetent — and, by extension, that most of the teachers in upper-crust schools, where students perform well, are paragons of pedagogical virtue.
But some of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve ever met were working in “failing” inner-city schools. And yes, in award-winning schools where, as in Lake Wobegon, “all the children are above average,” I’ve met some unimaginative hacks who should never be allowed near a classroom.
It is reasonable to hold teachers accountable for their performance. But it is not reasonable — or, in the end, productive — to hold them accountable for factors that lie far beyond their control. It is fair to insist that teachers approach their jobs with the assumption that every single child, rich or poor, can succeed. It is not fair to expect teachers to correct all the imbalances and remedy all the pathologies that result from growing inequality in our society.
You didn’t see any of this reality in “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” the 2010 documentary that argued we should “solve” the education crisis by establishing more charter schools and, of course, stomping the teachers unions. You won’t see it later this month in “Won’t Back Down,” starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal, which argues for “parent trigger” laws designed to produce yet more charter schools and yet more teacher-bashing.
I’ve always considered myself an apostate from liberal orthodoxy on the subject of education. I have no fundamental objection to charter schools, as long as they produce results. I believe in the centrality and primacy of public education, but I believe it’s immoral to tell parents, in effect, “Too bad for your kids, but we’ll fix the schools someday.”
But portraying teachers as villains doesn’t help a single child. Ignoring the reasons for the education gap in this country is no way to close it. And there’s a better way to learn about the crisis than going to the movies. Visit a school instead.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 17, 2012
September 18, 2012
Posted by raemd95 |
Education | Charter Schools, Chicago, Collective Bargaining, Low Income, Poverty, Public Education, Rahm Emanuel, Teachers, Teachers Unions |
1 Comment
An “emergency manager” bill allowing a state-appointed executive to unilaterally fire city councils and school boards and cancel union contracts has drawn the ire of Michigan’s labor movement for months. Resistance to the measure, including rallies of a few thousand and a promising repeal effort, have united elements of the state’s labor movement.
The emergency manager law is just the beginning, however. Eighty-five bills now under consideration start from the view that Michigan’s economic problems are the fault of public employees and the poor, rather than driven by a merciless recession and the auto industry’s contraction.
While teachers relaxed over the summer, legislators attacked their tenure and seniority. School boards can now fire teachers for any reason during the first five years of employment. Districts have the power to fire tenured teachers for any reason, not only for “just cause.” Administrators also gained discretion over teacher layoffs and placement, based not on seniority but on “effectiveness.”
Another bill, introduced in October, would make dues checkoff illegal for teacher unions with more than 50,000 members, which means the Michigan Education Association.
MEA drew criticism from lawmakers in April for asking local affiliates whether enough support existed for a strike.
Public employees who use work email for union or political business are threatened with a thousand-dollar fine and a year in prison, under a bill moving through committees. Its author says the law would be enforced by workers reporting on each other.
A school privatization package would rescind the cap on charter schools. Another bill would take away domestic partner benefits for public employees, including those in union contracts.
Unions have staged several rallies, but look to Democrats to stem the tide.
The MEA issued a commercial and website titled “Stand up for kids, not CEOs,” that resembles a 2012 election ad. “It’s time we teach these Republican politicians a lesson,” declares the ad. Seven Democrats, however, voted for the provision facilitating teacher layoffs.
Attacks on workers and the poor go further than legislation. Michigan’s civil service has shrunk by 11,000 employees since 2001, and more devastating cuts to the social safety net are on the way.
Eleven thousand Michigan families will soon be cut off cash assistance, and a recent court ruling jeopardized heating subsidies for low-income households, just in time for winter.
A privatization effort in Grand Rapids has drawn scrutiny from veterans and public employee unions. Hundreds of workers at a state-run veterans’ home are being replaced by underpaid, undertrained contractors. Reports of incompetence and maltreatment are rolling in, and court hearings are scheduled.
Meanwhile, the emergency managers, appointed by the state to run cities and school districts operating in the red, continue to wreak havoc. In Ecorse, near Detroit, the manager forced 60 percent of firefighters to part-time schedules. They lost benefits and nearly half their pay with one day’s notice.
While two ambulances sat in the firehouse collecting dust, an emergency medical contractor took over.
Members of Firefighters Local 684 described an excruciating wait at the scene of a head injury, hearing the siren of the contractor’s ambulance as it searched up and down nearby streets for the location.
“They were holding the guy’s head together with a towel,” said President Scott Douglas. The contractor took more than 20 minutes to arrive. “I still don’t know if the guy made it.”
CIVIL RIGHTS LESSONS
There are signs of progress.
“We’re able to pull together in ways that we haven’t seen in a non-election year,” said Greg Bowens, AFSCME Council 25 spokesperson. Public employee unions entered joint negotiations with the state for the first time.
Community organizations and unions have come together to gather signatures for a fall 2012 referendum on repealing the emergency manager law.
Clergy in Detroit are organizing, too, holding three marches at the governor’s Detroit office ahead of October 1, when the new budget went into effect.
Pastor David Bullock of the Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in Highland Park is pulling together an anti-poverty summit. Bullock intends to go beyond lobbying to bring lessons from the civil rights movement to the 21st century.
“We lost the point of protesting,” Bullock said. “It’s to disrupt power centers and to challenge them directly.”
By: Evan Rohar, Labor Notes, October 26, 2011
October 31, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Collective Bargaining, Conservatives | American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Emergency Manager Law, Michigan, Michigan Education Association, Public Employees, Teachers, Unions, Workers |
1 Comment
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) yesterday jumped in the 2012 GOP presidential primary, saying that “it is time to get America working again.” “I will work every day to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your lives as I can, and free our families, small businesses and states from a burdensome and costly federal government so they can create, innovate and succeed,” he said. And Perry quickly picked up the endorsementof former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX):
Former senator and current banker Phil Gramm of Texas — well-connected to big donors but controversial for his role in preventing tighter regulation of Wall Street — told The Huffington Post yesterday that he is endorsing his former student and political protege, Texas Gov. Rick Perry...”I’m for Rick and I will do what I can to help,” Gramm said in an interview in Detroit. “He has been an effective governor. He is a determined guy from a small town who knows how to get things done.”
In 2008, Gramm, who was advising Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign (and was floated as McCain’s choice for Treasury Secretary) gained notoriety for saying that the country was “a nation of whiners” that was only in a “mental recession.”
But Gramm’s legacy goes much deeper than that. In 2001, he tucked the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into an unrelated, 11,000 page appropriations bill. That act ensured that the huge market in over-the-counter derivatives stayed unregulated, laying the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis (and the implosions of AIG and Lehman Brothers). He also believes there should be no minimum wage and has derided the working poor by saying, “we’re the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat.”
Perry was a student of Gramm’s at Texas A&M, and when Perry became governor “Gramm and his bank pushed a controversial proposal to allow the company to take out insurance polices on teachers and other workers, even though the workers themselves would not benefit.” If Gramm’s support is any indication, Perry’s zeal for financial deregulation will know no bounds.
By: Pat Garofalo, Think Progress, August 14, 2011
August 15, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Banks, Class Warfare, Conservatives, Corporations, Economic Recovery, Economy, Elections, GOP, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Income Gap, Jobs, Lobbyists, Middle Class, Politics, Regulations, Republicans, Right Wing, Teaparty, Unemployed, Voters, Wealthy | AIG, Campaign Financing, Commodity Futures Modernization Act, Derivatives, Federal Government, Financial Crisis, Financial Regulations, GOP Presidential Primaries, Gov Rick Perry, Lehman Brothers, Minimum Wage, Poor, Recession, Teachers |
Leave a comment
To make sense of the vitriol, lack of cooperative spirit and just bad manners being displayed on Capitol Hill, look no further than Massachusetts.
It’s not that the Bay State is unusually mean or even rude. Visitors flocking to the Cape, the Berkshires or Boston’s North End will surely find friendly people. But recent news in Massachusetts demonstrates just how high our tolerance for—even celebration of—bad behavior has become.
The Boston Globe informs us that the Boston School Committee is drafting rules for basic civility at its public meetings. This is not a response to shouting and disruption by children, who by definition are still learning how to behave in public and how to adjudicate disagreements with honor and mutual respect. No, the school committee’s actions are a sad response to the heckling and all-around disrespect shown by adults—parents and teachers—who have been unhappy with school closings and other matters before the committee. Disruptive students have been at the meetings, too, which makes it worse, since the lesson they are learning at the meetings is that it’s acceptable to shout and be rude to display one’s unhappiness with a public policy. One protestor last December yelled “liar” at Superintendent Carol R. Johnson. Was this individual merely parroting the behavior of Rep. Joe Wilson, who yelled, “You lie!” at the President of the United States during a live, nationally-televised speech in the House chamber?
Remarkably, some of the adult activists have not been shamed at the fact that they must be treated as recalcitrant children. The Globe quotes the teacher’s union president, Richard Stutman, jokingly comparing the decorum rules to Stalinist Russia. That’s not only an insult to the people who lived in the brutal dictatorial regime, but an insult to public education. Surely, teachers do not instruct their students that self-control and civility are akin to totalitarianism.
But if the school meetings aren’t distressing enough, Massachusetts can look to its professional football team, the New England Patriots. The team recently signed Albert Haynesworth, whose behavior, on and off the field, was so poor that the Washington Redskins couldn’t stomach him anymore. In sports, the bad boys are often given a pass if their on-field passes are complete. But Haynesworth—who was paid $35 million to play in 20 games and didn’t always show up for practice because he didn’t like the coach’s defense strategy—became just too much for the ‘Skins, who traded him to the Patriots for a fifth-round draft pick. At least Haynesworth won’t be a double burden to the Pats, since Randy Moss, another behavior problem, left the team last year and announced Tuesday he would retire from the sport. Defenders note that Patriots coach Bill Belichick whipped Moss into shape. Haynesworth could be a heavier list; at one point, he was juggling four different legal cases against him even as he feuded publically with his coach.
We should expect more from members of Congress, who have been through campaigns and theoretically should know better. But the public—even as they deride the dysfunction and bad manners in the Capitol—are enablers, rewarding malcontented lawmakers with campaign contributions. Republican Wilson and former Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, who famously accused Republicans of wanting people to die as a way of saving on health costs, were two of the biggest fundraisers last election cycle, with much of the cash coming from out of state. Grayson lost, but the message was clear: acting up is profitable. And both Democrats and Republicans are raising money off the recent uproar over Republican Rep. Allen West, a Tea Party movement favorite who sent an email to a colleague, Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, calling her “the most vile” member of the House. Wasserman Schultz had criticized West’s approach to Medicare, although she did not name him in the floor speech that led West to accuse Wasserman-Schultz of not acting like “a Lady.”
The Boston School Committee may be able to teach civility to adults who apparently never learned how to sit still and listen. And perhaps Belichick can control Haynesworth. Who will do the same for members of Congress?
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, August 2, 2011
August 2, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Congress, Conservatives, Democracy, Democrats, GOP, Government, Lawmakers, Politics, Public Opinion, Republicans, Right Wing, Teaparty | Alan Grayson, Albert Haynesworth, Bill Belichick, Boston Globe, Boston School Committee, Capitol Hill, Civility, Massachusetts, New England Patriots, Parents, Public Schools, Rep Allen West, Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rep Joe Wilson, Students, Teachers |
Leave a comment
National conservatives and Wisconsin Republicans have settled on a new talking point that they’re flogging relentlessly in the recall wars: Scott Walker’s proposal to bust public employee unions is already a success. Mere days after it became law.
In making this claim, it seems that Walker and conservative pundits are singing from the same sheet music. Walker made it on Face the Nation this Sunday; Rush Limbaugh has pushed it on his show; and Wisconsin GOP’ers facing recall campaigns are hammering away at it on the stump and in local media.
The notion that they’re pushing, however, is laughably bogus.
The basic claim focuses on a single school district out of hundreds — the Kaukauna School District, near Appleton, Wisconsin. After Scott Walker’s law went into effect last week, school officials announced new policies that they say will turn a deficit of $400,000 into a surplus of $1.5 million. Conservatives are claiming that this is because of Walker’s reforms to collective bargaining rules — the savings are the result, they say, of the fact that teachers and other school staff will pay more in health care costs and pension costs.
On Face the Nation this weekend, Walker amplified this claim, pointing to this specific school district as proof that his reforms had given schools and local governments the “tools” they need to turn their budgets around. “Those are the things we promised,” Walker exulted.
Limbaugh has also pushed this claim hard, arguing on his show recently that this proved Walker’s critics wrong. “Remember all of those fights, all of those protests, and all the bickering, and all the caterwauling, and all the complaining from these public employees in Wisconsin about taking their collective bargaining rights away?” Rush said. “That law goes into effect and immediately turns a $400,000 budget deficit into a one-and-a-half-million-dollar surplus in one school district.”
But here’s the thing: The collective bargaining ban, in and of itself, was not responsible for achieving these savings and this surplus. As the Appleton Post Crescent reports, the teachers union had already offered up financial concessions that would have produced almost identical savings and an almost identical surplus.
What’s more, the use of this one district to declare Walker’s policies a success is almost comical in its cherry-picking. There are 424 school districts in Wisconsin, and as the AP recently noted, Walker’s policies mean draconian budget cuts to 410 of them, with labor officials and school districts predicting increased class sizes and layoffs.
Walker’s premature declaration of victory — and the right wing echo chamber’s flacking of it — could look awfully silly when the full bill for his policies really comes due. And the notion that this one school district’s fiscal success is in any way a referendum on the most controversial aspect of Walker’s union busting proposal is laughable. This fight has never been about public employees’ unwillingness to make fiscal concessions — and always about stripping them of their rights.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, July 6, 2011
July 7, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Health Care Costs, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Media, Middle Class, Politics, Press, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Appleton WI, Kaukauna School District, Pensions, Teachers, Wisconsin Recall |
Leave a comment
Unknown Feed
mykeystrokes.com 