A few weeks ago, the New York Times published an editorial saying that teachers needed more carrots and sticks to make them work harder and produce higher test scores. The assumption is that they are not working hard now (a Gates-Scholastic survey in the spring said the typical teacher works an 11-hour day now); and that waving a bonus in front of them would raise student test scores (even though merit pay has never worked, even with a bonus of $15,000 for doing so); and that the threat of firing might move the needle (even though it is the kids who need to “produce,” and threats don’t produce better education).
Today the Times blames the Chicago teachers’ strike on the teachers and suggests it is all the fault of their leader, Karen Lewis, who is enjoying a power play. He thinks the teachers should accept evaluation based on student scores because everyone else is doing it.
But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe he didn’t have time to read the research that shows this method is junk science.
Maybe the Times missed the story about the strike having been authorized by more than 90% of the union’s membership.
Maybe the editorialist didn’t hear about classes of more than 40 children.
Maybe he didn’t know about the schools with no art teachers, no library, no social worker.
Maybe he was absent that day.
The “reformers” know that the average person doesn’t read research…doesn’t care about research…and doesn’t listen to research.
You give the editorial writer the benefit of the doubt…saying that maybe he/she didn’t know about the research. The opposite is also likely…that he/she DOES know about the research but chooses to ignore it because it provides the opportunity to bash teachers…the new national pastime. Politicians, pundits and policy makers (the PPPs) are not above lying to force their agenda on the nation…take a look at Robert Reich’s great article about lying politicians — http://robertreich.org/post/30413604638
Does it matter that the strike is about class sizes? lack of libraries? lack of the arts? poverty? the invalid practice of using test scores to evaluate teachers? No. What matters is the corporate line is repeated…that unions are bad, charters are “the answer” and the profit motive will save the country.
It’s an uphill fight, and after having spent quite a few years on my local’s negotiating team, I know that chances are the CTU will have to back off a bit — which, of course, will be hailed by the PPPs as a victory for the “reformers.”
Still, the CTU has given every hard working public school teacher in America a great lift…this is the audacity of hope that we need.
I personally place the denigration of teachers to sometime in the mid-70s. Anecdote: I was at a party where many of the folks worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer around 1976. I was talking to a reporter who asked me what I did (for a living was implied) and I said I taught art. “Oh.” he sniffed, like I’d said I carry cooties. He quickly found someone else to talk with and I realized that in his rarified world I wasn’t worth his time. That world view is now operating with a vengeance. We presumably are a very big target and have to figure out a way to deflect the barrage of blame coming our way.
The NY Times is going to promote whatever the 1% overlords tell them to promote. We no longer have mainstream news media, print or tv, telling us the truth. The only show accurately representing the side of the teachers is the Ed Show on MSNBC. The rest are pathetic. I don’t watch the news anymore; I read.
Cenk on the Young Turks on Current TV has had several pro-teacher segments. I would love to see Maddow take this on. BTW -Ed’s mom was a teacher.
“He thinks the teachers should accept evaluation based on student scores because everyone else is doing it.”
To use the old adage–Would you jump off a bridge if everyone else did it, too?
Hah! That was my first thought an hour ago when I read the editoral over breakfast, did his mother not tell him about jumping off bridges?
Or maybe the NYTimes doesn’t want to expose their editorial board’s fealty to the financial sector types who are gung ho for corporate school take overs.
NYT: “… partly a product of a personality clash between the blunt mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and the tough Chicago Teachers Union president, Karen Lewis.”
Which of the two has the better track record of working with civil society groups to address the human rights concerns that Chicagoans reported to CERD? Or the Koh memos on CERD?
Given the disparate affect on minority schoolchildren in Chicago, the UN OHCRH / CERD might prefer a single school district for all Cook County with guarantees that necessary resources meet the neediest kids and better socioeconomic integration. Perhaps all the teachers would be forced to re-apply for their jobs, with bonus payments for teachers serving the most at risk populations.
How many Cook County pols would prefer privatization to a scenario like that?
Or maybe the writer is an education expert like all the rest of today’s know-it-alls.
Check out what a philosophy blog has to say:
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/chicago-teachers-strike.html
Maybe the NY Times has a stake in charter schools? The NY Times, or more correctly the Ochs family, funded a school in my building in NYC about 20 years ago. I believe the Washington Post generates most of its profits from the Kaplan schools. These large media companies may well be part of large organizations that also run charter schools
John Kass’s column in the Chicago Tribune today shows a similr lack of understanding about the issues.
I stumbled on to this WBEZ91.5 timeline of the Rahm/CTU/Chicago relationship. The timeline tells the story of Rahm’s bullying better than even Diane Ravitch could tell it. Please take some time to read the whole story: http://www.wbez.org/news/timeline-mayor-rahm-emanuels-election-looming-teachers-strike-101908
Maybe he was absent, but I’m still held accountable for him
Absenteeism is no excuse. He needs to get the assignment and make up the work.
Perhaps we should hit them where it hurts…..quit buying the New York Times!
Champion of the poor, Nicholas Kristof, wrote an op-ed in in yesterday’s NY Times blaming the teachers as well. Me thinks he will receive a nice “merit pay” bonus for writing that one. The good news is that if you read the commenting section, 95% of the comments refute the authors and make them look like fools. Just because you write about it in the NY Times doesn’t make it true.
Time to cancel my subscription. Not reading that propaganda rag anymore. One would think they are owned by Bloomberg and/or Murdoch…maybe they are.
Mentioned your twitter-tiff with Kristof in my own expression of disappointment with his support of VAM in the opinion piece “Students Over Unions”: