Thanks to readers for sending this YouTube video of the Philadelphia Student Union at “School Reform Commission” headquarters.
The students chanted “Philly is a union town! The SRC has got to go! Save our schools!”
Watch it and feel good about the future.
The students disrupted the showing of the anti-union, pro-charter, anti-public school film “Won’t Back Down,” which was produced by Walden Media. Walden Media also produced “Waiting for Superman.” It is owned by Philip Anschutz, a rightwing billionaire who has many corporate interests, including the nation’s largest film chain and a fracking business. Odd that the School Reform Commission was showing that particular film, which was a total bomb when it was released commercially. The union is evil in this film, and a teacher and parent combine to use the parent trigger to convert their public school into a charter school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Grasping at straws?
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Here’s the video described above:
Good news- Deasy is out in LA!
Stephen Ceasar @stephenceasarUTLA says Deasy’s departure shows “shift in the national debate around public education and how we improve schools.”
Wow this is truly inspiring, great to see the youth voice taking charge and can be more powerful than the adults.
I posted this before but I think that it needs to be on this thread as well.
A great song that speaks to these children
Crosby, Stills & Nash… Teach your Children
You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of the tender years can’t know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well, their children’s hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they fix,the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Reply
Their parents are afraid. Children teach your parents well….
Nice:)
“Won’t Back Down”
Tide is turning
Going out
Leaders learning
Of a rout
People rising
With a shout
Unionizing
Little doubt
Seeing Maggie Gyllenhal’s simpering mug on the screen brings back memories of the atrocity known as “WON’T BACK DOWN”
SALON’s Andrew O’Hehir wrote a great review, which I’ll excert here.
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/26/wont_back_down_why_do_teachers_unions_hate_america/
—————————————————————
ANDREW O’HEHIR:
“So teachers’ unions don’t care about kids. Oh, and luck is a foxy lady. This is what I took away from the inept and bizarre “WON’T BACK DOWN,” a set of right-wing anti-union talking points disguised (with very limited success) as a mainstream motion-picture-type product. Someone needs to launch an investigation into what combination of crimes, dares, alcoholic binges and lapses in judgment got Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal into this movie. Neither of them seems likely to sympathize with its thinly veiled labor-bashing agenda and, way more to the point, I thought they had better taste.
” … ”
“As presented in this script (written by Barnz and Brin Hill), the Pittsburgh teachers’ union has no goal beyond protecting the status quo at all costs, and no interest whatever – no altruistic interest, no self-interest and no public-relations interest — in improving the quality of public education.
“Most people still understand, I believe, that teachers work extremely hard for little pay and low social status in a thankless, no-win situation.
“But this is one of those areas where conservatives have been extremely successful in dividing the working class, which is precisely the agenda in “WON’T BACK DOWN.” Breeding hostility to unions in themselves, and occasionally insinuating that unionized teachers are a protected caste of incompetents who get three damn months off every single year, has been an effective tactic in what we might call postmodern Republican populism, especially in recent battles over public employee contracts in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
“It works something like this:
“1) Turn the resentment and frustration of people like (the working class main character) Jamie – people with crappy service-sector jobs and few benefits, whose kids are stuck in ‘failing’ schools – against the declining group of public employees who still have a decent deal.
“2) Strip away job security and collective bargaining; hand out beer and ukuleles instead.
“3) La la la la, tax cuts, tax cuts, I can’t hear you!”
How is it that the School District, and or the SRC can show such a blatantly subjective work of fiction, aligned with a very specific political agenda, in a public building?
Thanks for sharing this clip. These kids are an inspiration. We needed that today in Jeffco. We continue to be told that our schools are failing by our BOE majority, despite the fact that Jeffco had 7 schools in the top ranked list by US News & World Report and Dougco, who they are modeling our ‘reforms’ on had ZERO. Facts just don’t matter to these people.
“Failing Authoritarianism 101”
Failing teachers, failing schools
Students breaking all the rules
Exercising “civic right”
Sample of our current plight
The Philadelphia Student Union is demonstrating that they get it. It seems that some adults don’t give these young folk their just due. It is because the students have done their homework and know that unions (&, union members) have contributed and have built-up America. What unions have done, that might be objectionable to other workers, is demand due process and equity in the workplace.
I very proud of my Philadelphia compatriots. I graduated from the Philly school system, and it was an exceptional education with highly qualified teachers. Mrs. Candeub, you are still my hero. I became a teacher.