This journalist found himself in the men’s room with Mayor Emanuel, then listened to him give a speech about how his policies are improving the lives of Chicago’s poorest children.
This is what he thinks he is doing by closing dozens of neighborhood schools. Against the will of their parents, he is tearing apart their lives and communities.
Just doing what Duncan did, and it catapulted him to national office.
Will Rahm’s reforms work for him too?
Whenever an article appears about schools or teaching, the comments that follow are often rants against both. Whence comes this rage? Why do so many people blame their teachers for whatever ails them? It doesn’t help that Race to the Top pushes the idea that teachers–not students–are the sole source of students’ test scores. If you don’t like the quality of schools, blame the teachers, not those in charge who control the resources.
This teacher says, as should we all, Enough! She is responding to Lisa Myer’s “A Teacher’s Letter to America.” By the way, that post went viral. It has been read by more than 30,000 people on this site alone and posted on Facebook more than 10,000 times.
“Lisa, I thought your post was very well written and certainly expressed how I’ve been feeling after 29 years of teaching. After reading many of the comments responding to your post, I find it very interesting that people who have never taught a day in their life seem to know everything there is to know about teaching. I would invite any one of them to spend a day with me in the classroom.
“For those of you who think teachers are overpaid, I am a professional. I have my master’s degree and have taught for 29 years. I serve on many committees at my school and in my district for which I am not given a stipend. We had 10 furlough days for which I was not paid. I spend hour upon hour outside of the classroom preparing materials and curriculum for my students, for which I am not paid. I do not get paid over the summer. I pay for part of my insurance and I have been contributing to my retirement since I began teaching.
“I would never presume to know enough about another profession since I have never walked in their shoes. Some of the comments I see here are straight from the 6:00 news or from the pages of newspapers, neither of which seem to be a friend to education these days. Please, before you throw out comments about the teaching profession and teachers, know the facts. I would invite any one of you who seem to know so much about being a teacher to walk one day in my shoes.”
Norm Scott, retired NYC teacher posted this on his website, Ed Notes Online:
We have Al Qaeda on the run but right now the biggest threat to our agenda is Karen Lewis and the Chicago Teachers Union,” said an Obama spokesperson.
“Our pal Rahm Emanuel has been forced to close 50 schools in retaliation for the strike led by Lewis and now suffers poll numbers so low they are getting close to the interest rate. He is actually being criticized for using money he saves by closing schools to put $100 million into building a new basketball arena where our president and Arne Duncan will be able to shoot hoops once their term in office is over. For that Rahm is being called the most loathsome politician in America? How dare they?”
“And some in the media have started ganging up on some of our allies like Michelle Rhee. And Arne Duncan’s poor record in running the Chicago schools for so many years has been re-examined due to the work of Karen Lewis’ union.
“And then to top it all our hand-picked crew to beat her in the election got only 20% of the vote despite being supported by our press pals at the Chicago Tribune, thus showing Chicago teachers will not go to the woodshed like the lambs being led by Randi Weingarten, our most important asset, who by the way we have supplied a military escort to protect, but let me point out that we are not using public money for Randi’s escort since Bill Gates is paying.”
“Getting Bin Laden was so much easier.”
Commissioner John King asked business leaders to help push Common Core implementation, despite the fact that teachers say they are not prepared. This is a flat-out rejection of Randi Weingarten’s request for a moratorium on linking test results to consequences. Randi told city and state leaders that curriculum and professional development should precede testing.
This is John King’s answer. If it’s John King’s answer, it is also Merryl Tisch’s answer. She is John King’s boss.
King thoughtfully wrote a pledge for business leaders to sign, agreeing to demand the Common Core, whether teachers are ready or not.
Robert Corcoran, president of the GE Foundation, agreed with King that delay is not an option:
“Some of those at Thursday’s talk downplayed the lack of prep time.
Corcoran, for example, maintained that there’s never enough time to fully prepare for a lot of endeavors, and that can become a trap leading to endless planning but no action.
Businesses, he said, frequently begin new initiatives before they are totally perfect.
“You launch it and you learn,” Corcoran said. “You can’t afford to wait.”
As Merryl Tisch memorably said, “It is time to jump into the deep end,” referring to the Common Core tests. Even the kids who can’t swim should jump into deep end.
This comment came from a member of UTLA:
“I think we all can celebrate. that Monica Ratliff won that election. The efforts of many UTLA members helped in that effort, and may have played a major role in her election.
“It is interesting though, to look at the article at utla.net about Monica’s victory–http://www.utla.net/ratliff
“Here is a quote in it from UTLA president Warren Fletcher:
“We are overjoyed that a working classroom teacher will be part of the School Board,” UTLA President Warren Fletcher said. “She has on-the-ground knowledge of the harmful policies and destructive mismanagement that have hurt our schools, and she will bring a perspective that is sorely needed.”
“I totally agree with everything he said above. But I have to wonder about that robocall from Fletcher we received on Monday, that spoke of “two fine candidates” for that school board election, implying that there was no difference between the two, and that both were equally good, when the facts were exactly the opposite.
“I also have to wonder about both Fletcher and UTLA Secretary David Lyell attending the David Sanchez (Ratliff’s opponent) “victory” party Tuesday night. https://twitter.com/LASchoolReport/status/337061961772716032
“I also have to wonder about a union president (Fletcher) who when appealed to personally by Diane Ravitch to fully support Monica Ratliff, never responded to her e-mail, and continued an absolutely ridiculous policy of “dual endorsement”.
“Another quote from that article:
“Monica Ratliff’s win continues a solid streak of success for UTLA-endorsed candidates.”
“What gall for UTLA leadership to take credit for the Ratliff win! (Many UTLA members deserve credit for helping Ratliff to win, but certainly not UTLA leadership, not one iota.) Do they so underestimate the intelligence of UTLA members, that they “endorse” both candidates in a two-way race so that they can claim “victory” no matter which of the two wins against the other? (I am sure they would also be claiming “victory” if Sanchez had won, although that would have been a great loss for the teachers and students of this school district..)
“Although most UTLA members are like myself, very happy with the Ratliff win, I don’t think we should therefore excuse the inexcusable behavior of UTLA leadership in this race. I think there should be an independent investigation of this, leading to a possible impeachment, recall, or vote of no confidence in some or all of current UTLA officers.
“I think their actions in this race were cowardly, dishonest, corrupt, and irresponsible.”
If you follow the money, you notice that Reed Hastings of Netflix is a major funder of corporate reform. He contributes to the campaigns of pro-privatization candidates across the nation.
His Wikipedia bio says: “Hastings is active in educational philanthropy and politics and one of the issues Hastings most strongly advocates is charter schools, publicly funded elementary or secondary schools that have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools, in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school’s charter. “If public schools don’t adopt the same principles of competition and accountability as exist in the private and nonprofit sectors, they will continue to deteriorate,” says Hastings. “One way to permanently impact the system would be to have 10 to 20 percent of California schoolchildren enrolled in charter schools. That would be critical mass, and enough of a force to induce a competitive dynamic in the system,” he added.”
Apparently his views on education reform get into the programming he sponsors.
This teacher noticed with chagrin that David Letterman invited ten Teach for America teachers to deliver his top ten reasons for Teacher Appreciation week. Somewhat in Letterman’s defense, I have to say that the top ten reasons, which were mostly sardonic and cynical, did not reflect much credit on teachers or on the kids who delivered the lines.
I conclude that David Letterman saw no reason to express appreciation for teachers.
Our elites have gone bonkers. How else can you explain their fascination with young college graduates who agree to teach for only two years as the very best way to improve education? Their “sacrifice” is only temporary; soon they will be in graduate school or law school or working for Goldman Sachs, leaving behind their measly teacher pay.
How would our elites (talking to you, Charlie Rose, and to you, editorial boards and corporate chieftains) feel about handing foreign policy over to the recruits in the Peace Corps instead of the seasoned diplomats in the Foreign Service? The kids are alright, but why are they celebrated instead of celebrating the three million plus women and men who make a career of teaching?
Anthony Cody describes the campaign to put mayors in charge of school districts and the reasons behind it.
The biggest supporter of mayoral control is Arne Duncan. When mayoral control was up for renewal in Néw York City, he weighed in to support it. He lobbied against any effort to give the mayor’s appointees set terms; he insisted they should serve at the pleasure of the mayor to give his absolute authority over every decision.
That allowed the mayor to ignore protests against school closing and charters, both of which are priorities for Duncan.
Who else supports mayoral control? The Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation. The billionaires don’t like democracy.
Unfortunately, mayoral control hasn’t worked out so well for Néw York City, Chicago, and D.C., but why let evidence get in the way of a desire for total power?
Chicago Public Schools voted to close down dozens of public schools. As many as 40,000 children are losing their schools, many of who are children with disabilities. The vast majority of the children are African American.
Will the President and Secretary of Education speak out against this willful destruction of public schools and communities?
This is a dire situation. It is time for our leaders to defend children, communities, and schools.
There are questions of equity here that should be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
There is no bright side to this ugly decision.
Just saw this amazing interview and could not resist posting it in full:
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An Interview with Paul Horton : What Goes on in Chicago—Should be exposed to the world?
[Paul Horton is a History teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School]
Posted by Michael Shaughnessy EducationViews Senior Columnist on May 18, 2013 in Commentaries, Daily, Editor’s Pick, Insights on Education, Teachers | 0 Comment
Michael F. Shaughnessy –
1) Paul briefly, what the hell is going on in Chicago?
54 schools are targeted for shut down and 90% are in African American communities within the city. As you may know, the public teachers in Chicago struck last year and made our mayor look bad. Most teachers think that this is payback now. Our County Commissioner, a former history teacher, just called the hearings to close the schools a charade. Our mayor has taken heavy campaign contributions from some people who are heavily invested in charter schools and they are starting to worry about the return on their investments.
Our Mayor is under heavy pressure to close schools if he wants to continue to raise money for his party and a possible future run for Illinois senator. Most political analysts are thinking that our mayor will run for President in the next cycle following a potential Clinton term.
He is very ambitious to make things happen to build a record of accomplishment. The problem is that his decisions about schools might not be the best for the kids of Chicago. He appoints Board Members for the city schools and he is their de facto dictator. He does his best to let his superintendent do the talking, though, to give the impression that he is not in charge.
The Superintendent, Barbara Byrd Bennett, is very good with handling the press. She has command of her Broad Foundation script, as she is a Broad Foundation Administrator School graduate, like her immediate predecessor and Arne Duncan. They are all well schooled in the Broad Foundation lingo:
Layered on top of this is a situation in the Woodlawn neighborhood (where I live) involving the encroachment of the University of Chicago into a neighborhood that it has an interest in gentrifying, located south of its campus. The University has purchased a lease on the best and biggest public school from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in the Woodlawn neighborhood, Wadsworth School.
The students from this school will be forced to attend a school five blocks to the southwest without a green space play area. The move will bring together students from three elementary schools and into a school packed as tight as sardines without adequate play space. The high school that the University is taking for its charter high school, on the other hand, has plenty of park space and several new playgrounds appropriate for elementary age kids. In another case, students will be asked to cross the most dangerous gang boundary in Chicago every morning and afternoon to accommodate a shutdown.
2) Tell us about the demonstration.
The demonstration bought together parents, teachers, and students from the neighborhood and all around the city. It was staged at a very busy intersection along the gang border where the kids next will have to cross next year to go to their new school. It was also staged after school and during the shift change of The University of Chicago Hospitals nearby. Thousands of people commute through this intersection to begin their after school commute. The apex of the protest involved students, teachers, and parents sitting down in the street with blood stained shirts to call attention to the violence potential at that intersection next year. Innocent people are often caught in gang gun battles in and around this intersection. A few months ago a two-month old child was shot and killed in gang crossfire in a child seat in a parked car near this intersection. We have a lot of worried parents who don’t like their kids crossing this intersection at any time.
3) Have you spoken off the record to any police—what do they have to say?
Most of the police I spoke to were very sympathetic to the protests because the mayor is hostile to unions in general. The only cop I talked to who did not share this opinion was the afternoon Grand Crossing Precinct Shift officer who responded with a “no comment.”
4) And our brave firefighters—what is Rahm Emmanuel proposing?
The firefighters I have talked to are upset that the safety corridor plan developed by the city to protect students making this and other commutes to new schools will move them away from their (fire) houses, and in some cases, trucks. They feel that this is a public safety issue and that it violates their contract. The firemen have suggested that the mayor hire more cops to take care of the safety corridors.
5) I heard you were interviewed. What happened?
I was picketing and representing my Union local, AFT 2063, at the protest and a TV reporter asked me for an interview, so I talked to him.
6) Do you have a link?
Here it is: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/video/8884241-police-arrest-demonstrators-protesting-school-closings/
7) What have I neglected to ask?
This is “the City of Broad Shoulders” and we aim to teach the Broad Foundation that they cannot steal our schools or harm our kids. The people of Chicago worked for a hundred years to build these buildings and the public needs to continue to invest in them. We don’t like the idea of private companies profiting from public property that we have invested in. We don’t like not having a say in how and why this happens. What we have here is classic machine politics. The aldermen will support the mayor because he controls who gets what and who doesn’t. The aldermen have been told to shut up, and with a few exceptions, they are shutting up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 