Sara Roos, aparent in Los Angeles whose children are no longer in school, muses about the major impact of the Teacher Revolt. It seems there is overwhelming public support for striking teachers (as there was last spring in Red states).

Remember the bad old days when Michelle Rhee, Campbell Brown, and Raj Chetty (not to mention their billionaire funders) were demonizing teachers? I recall a PBS interview with Melinda Gates in which she confidently asserted that “we” (she and Bill) knowhow to make better teachers.

Where are they all today?

How many of the Reformers arespeaking out for more funding and smaller classes?

Let me know if you find them.

Roos, the Red Queen in LA, writes:

To and from today’s tremendous rally in front of LA’s City Hall, you could feel overwhelming support from random people, everywhere. On the expo a stranger tosses out: “Good luck with your strike”. From bus drivers in uniform and lunch couriers in beat-up Hondas, waiting at every intersection from downtown to our neighborhoods blares the staccato horn of support. Professional cameramen trained to remain unfazed and neutral nevertheless emanate waves of sympathy. Business and car windows display signs of solidarity. Workers at City Hall open their windows to hear. Supersaturated among our populace is a pent-up frustration with where we’re at politically, and how to get ourselves heard.
This is Resistance writ huge. This is our women’s march, the march of our teachers. Our teachers are leading the way and giving We the People a voice here in LaLaLand.

These teachers are actually kinda the same old apple-faced Good People they always ever were. There hasn’t been some gigantic social evolution. It’s just the propaganda that’s changed; the underlying reality, not surprisingly, is robust, centered on social service for the betterment of us all. Our teachers haven’t changed, only the corporate, capitalist-centered narrative surrounding all of it has.

By the way, it turns out the long-sought after solution to LA’s traffic gridlock may be simply: stop sending kids far afield to some school of “Choice” and choose to value and invest in your own neighborhood. Anyone else notice how empty the streets have been all week long? When parents aren’t racing their kids hither and yon in a frenzy of Choosing Excellence, everyone’s lives get a little more deeply vested in their surrounds. It is everyone’s right to have the same excellent education as the next families’. But education isn’t a value added commodity to buy off the shelf whether the salesman peddles snake oil, false promises, educational spyware or a social panacea. Like democracy itself it’s a collective activity valued by the value which we each add.