Valerie Strauss recapitulates the TIME magazine cover story. She notes that the AFT petition in opposition to the TIME cover has collected 50,000 signatures ( it is now up to 70,000). Strauss compares this current cover to the one featuring Michelle Rhee as the one who was likely to “transform education.” She didn’t. The achievement gap in D.C. remains the one of the largest (possibly THE largest) in urban America. And she also proved that it is not impossible to fire tenured teachers; she fired hundreds of teachers and principals.
Why pick on teachers? Is it because it is a female-dominated profession? Is it part of the tech millionaires’ dream of replacing live teachers with laptops and tablets?
TIME agreed to print some responses.
One was written by Randi Weingarten of the AFT, and I think she got it exactly right. We need to focus on recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. Schools in stressed districts are not getting the funding they need for the children they serve. We must do more to combat and reduce poverty and segregation.
Another was written by Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the NEA, and it has just the right tone of amazement and outrage:
A fabulous friend recently said to me, “I’m just so tired of the new national pastime – Beat up a Teacher.” She had seen the nasty cover of Time with a court gavel about to smash an apple (a good one by the way). She had seen the title she knew was a lie: It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. But I think what pushed her over the edge was the subheading: A group of Silicon Valley investors wants to change that.
The irony drips. The Wolves of Wall Street woke up one day and decided simultaneously that all the problems with American education could be solved by…firing teachers. Seriously? My dear friend could not even muster outrage. She was just tired. She saw prestigious Time as next up to bat in a long line of cheap swings at teachers. Time could have written about any number of ways to improve our schools–restoring school funding, actually ensuring equity, and ending the insane and costly No Child Left Behind testing regime, which has replaced real classroom instruction with tests, tests, and more tests. Instead, Time decided to write about tenure. They came to the astonishing conclusion that the one critical reform we must make is to make it easier to fire teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is the NEA’s response to TIME magazine’s teacher bashing.
http://lilysblackboard.org/2014/10/letter-editor-time-magazine-teacher-tenure/
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You really have to read The Teacher Wars to get that this is nothing new. Teachers have long been low hanging fruit. And cheap labor.
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I agree.
Reading that book actually made me feel a little better about things in the bigger picture—-that teachers have always been an easy target. It didn’t make me want to stop standing up for the profession, but it made me feel less isolated or upset.
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Apparently, our labor is not cheap enough…
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Oh Wow. The Corporate Owned Media has come out swinging its hammer for Corporate Owned Education, and we’re all amazed …
You line, Mr. Rains …
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The NEA and OFT should contact Time’s advertisers, also.
If the magazine’s objective, was to identify a systemic input problem for U.S. GDP growth, the magazine would have focused on the abysmal record of the financial sector, particularly hedge funds. Their objective, instead, was to serve plutocrats, who want to take tax dollars from communities. The adverse publicity the magazine receives will, with hope, reduce their circulation. A magazine, without readers, can’t serve advertisers.
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Here’s NEA’s recently-elected President Lily Eskelson-Garcia’s response that TIME just published:
http://time.com/3541384/eskelsen-garcia-cover/
————————————
“Opinion – Education
“Lily Eskelsen García
Responds To TIME’s Cover
“Oct. 27, 2014
“The president of the National Education Association responds to TIME’s “Rotten Apples” cover.
“This is one part of a series of readers’ responses to this week’s cover.
– – – – – – – – – –
LILY ESKELSON-GARCIA:
“A fabulous friend recently said to me, ‘I’m just so tired of the new national pastime – Beat up a Teacher.’ She had seen the nasty cover of Time with a court gavel about to smash an apple (a good one by the way). She had seen the title she knew was a lie: It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. But I think what pushed her over the edge was the subheading: A group of Silicon Valley investors wants to change that.
“The irony drips. The Wolves of Wall Street woke up one day and decided simultaneously that all the problems with American education could be solved by…firing teachers.
“Seriously? My dear friend could not even muster outrage. She was just tired. She saw prestigious TIME as next up to bat in a long line of cheap swings at teachers. TIME could have written about any number of ways to improve our schools–restoring school funding, actually ensuring equity, and ending the insane and costly No Child Left Behind testing regime, which has replaced real classroom instruction with tests, tests, and more tests.
“Instead, TIME decided to write about tenure. They came to the astonishing conclusion that the one critical reform we must make is to make it easier to fire teachers.
“Due process policies like tenure exist in almost every state. Although timelines and appeal processes differ, the concept is the same: After passing a probationary period and satisfying performance expectations, teachers get two basic things before they can be fired:
“(1) The teacher gets to know why; and
“(2) If she feels she is a good teacher being fired for a bad reason, she gets to defend herself and tell her side of the story. That’s it. States continually review whether their tenure policies are fair, efficient, and effective. More than 31 states have revised their tenure and dismissal policies in just the last few years. Policies are changed all the time. But the purpose of tenure – to protect good teachers from being fired for bad reasons – is the constant.
“I had a hot argument with a guy who truly believed that if you were a good teacher, you didn’t need tenure. He said, ‘Teachers used to be fired for their religious or political beliefs. That never happens anymore.’ His point: Only incompetent teachers are at risk. His conclusion: Take away tenure because incompetent teachers should not have the right to defend themselves. So I told him about Jennifer.
“Jennifer asked me not to use her last name because she is afraid of being fired. Jennifer is a Special Education teacher who talks about her students with such pride and such love. But there were tears in her eyes when she told me what mandated testing did to her beloved students. Parents started asking her questions about these tests. Jennifer talked to me as her union leader to ask if she could get fired for giving parents information about their right to opt out or whether she could be terminated if she gave them her professional opinion about how these tests might negatively affect their kids.
“She is right to be afraid. She could get fired in some states for telling parents the truth. We get questions from teachers about whether they could get fired for refusing a parent’s order to change a student’s grade. Teachers all over the country have wondered if they can be fired on the basis of the now widely discredited VooDoo Value-Added-Measure, which pretends to place a human child into a test tube and magically tease out all the factors that could affect that particular child’s score on that particular day with the remaining numbers being the ‘value’ the teacher ‘added’ to the score. There is, of course, no such equation.
“My friend may be tired, but I am not. TIME needs to celebrate the real heroes of our schools: the teachers who greet students every day at the school house door and take them as they come. Tenure lets teachers challenge students with demanding curriculum choices, and to grade students fairly based on the students’ work rather their parents’ connections. It allows teachers to speak out when school districts cut corners or cut budgets.
“Good teachers know the ‘Blame the Teacher ‘game is a distraction from talking about real solutions like reducing class sizes, giving our students time for meaningful one-on-one instruction, and funding great schools for all kids regardless of their zip code. I love all my tired and frustrated friends, but we won’t be sleeping through this debate.
“The public wants real, common sense solutions. Teachers have them if only TIME would ask.”
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Here’s AFT’s recently-re-elected President Randi Weingarten’s response that TIME just published:
http://time.com/3541200/randi-weingarten-time-cover/
————————————
“Opinion – Education
“Randy Weingarten
Responds To TIME’s Cover
“Oct. 27, 2014
“The president of the American Federation of Teachers responds to TIME’s “Rotten Apples” cover.
“This is one part of a series of readers’ responses to this week’s cover.
– – – – – – – – – –
RANDI WEINGARTEN:
“America’s teachers aren’t rotten apples, as TIME’s cover suggests, that need to be smashed by Silicon Valley millionaires with no experience in education. Far from it. America’s teachers are national treasures, doing the most important job in our country—educating children for today’s democracy and tomorrow’s economy. They are making the promise of public schools a reality. Unfortunately, too often, they’re making it happen without the resources, support or trust they need to get the job done.
“Yes, there is a real problem facing America’s teaching profession, but it has nothing to do with tenure. The problem is in recruiting, retaining and supporting our teachers, especially at the hardest-to-staff schools.
“Every time we lose a teacher, it costs us. Literally. More than one-third of teachers leave the profession before they’ve taught for five years. The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future estimates that the high rate of teacher turnover nationwide costs more than $7 billion per year. This only exacerbates the greatest challenges facing our public schools: underfunding and inequity.
“Our economy is changing quickly. Education funding in many states has been diminished. Our student population is more diverse, yet our schools are more segregated. Poverty is on the rise. For these reasons and more, great teachers have never been more important. Yet, new research finds that teachers in the United States earn less and work longer hours than those in other nations.
“So, how do we recruit, retain and support great teachers? Certainly not by bashing them. There is no evidence that wiping out due process—more widely known as tenure—for K-12 teachers is going to make a more effective teaching corps. In fact, it will do the opposite. We know that the states with the highest academic performance have the strongest due process protections for teachers. Research shows that our most at-risk kids need more-experienced teachers. But why would these teachers stay at schools with few tools, little support and no ability to voice their concerns?
“As Dana Goldstein, the highly acclaimed author of The Teacher Wars, wrote, ‘For high-poverty schools, hiring is at least as big of a challenge as firing, and the Vergara decision does nothing to make it easier for the most struggling schools to attract or retain the best teacher candidates.’
“Tenure is not a job for life. It’s ensuring fairness and due process before someone can be fired, plain and simple. Where it’s become more than that, our union has worked to change laws and contracts. Because no one, particularly not teachers, wants people in our profession who aren’t cut out for it or shouldn’t be there.
“Due process means the teacher at a high-poverty, low-resourced school can fight for new schoolbooks or needed services for her kids. It’s a shield for the teacher who tells her boss that her special needs students deserve art and music. It’s a safeguard for the teacher who wants to get creative and use ‘Mean Girls’ to explain the power dynamics in Julius Caesar. It’s what teachers—who aren’t paid enough or praised enough—need to do their jobs well.
“Even Campbell Brown—who is leading the fight to eliminate due process in New York—when asked if she worried that ‘removing tenure might harm efforts to attract high-quality teachers,’ said ‘Sure.’
“We know why teachers stay, and we know why teachers leave. They stay when they’re well-prepared and supported; they leave when they’re not. They stay when they have manageable class sizes; they leave when their kids are packed in like sardines. They stay when they have effective managers; they leave when management is inconsistent or incompetent. They stay when poverty is counterbalanced by wraparound services; they leave when they don’t feel their students are being given a fair shot.
“Here’s what TIME’s cover story didn’t tell you: Two-thirds of what affects student achievement actually occurs outside the classroom. That’s why we need to talk about poverty, about segregation, about violence in our neighborhoods and in our schools.
“We need to talk about the woeful lack of funding our schools receive. Sadly, at least 30 states are funding education at a lower level than before the recession. Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen recently noted that America has ‘one of the few advanced economies in which public education spending is often lower for students in lower-income households than for students in higher-income households.’
“Instead of hammering teachers, let’s smash inequality and underfunding. Let’s work together to do what evidence and common sense tells us works to help children succeed:
— Support and preparation for educators.
— Manageable class sizes.
— Time to collaborate.
— Rigorous standards with engaging curricula, including art and music.
— Early childhood education.
— Career and technical education.
— More project-based learning, less testing.
— Wraparound services to address kids’ social, emotional and health needs.
— Family and community engagement.
“Let’s work together to reclaim the promise of public education for all children.”
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They want to pick on teachers because they don’t want to face the fact that 45 million Americans, over 14%, are in poverty. The leaders in the poor communities don’t want to bring up the poor’s standards, but keep them that way so they are dependent on the government. Those leaders should be going into the communities and talking about families staying together. Until that happens, the teachers will get the blame because Johnny comes to school with no supplies, hungry, abused, neglected, raised by grandparents because parents are on drugs or in jail. Teachers can not fix those problems, but people expect them to work miracles on these children. It isn’t going to happen.
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And, these children don’t know the front from the back of a book. Some haven’t been read to. Mom or dad can’t read and have no interest in reading. What a shame.
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Your blame of parents is misguided. The parents are subject to the same negative forces, largely beyond their control, that affect their kids. The blame lies with the oligarchs who perpetuate and exacerbate vast income/wealth inequality.
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I’m sorry but I agree with Anne, many times the parents are the problem. Maybe some of it is out of their control but for the most part they can and should have higher expectations from their children.
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How long did you live in poverty? How did you lift yourself out of it?
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Dienne,
The ideal response to someone who assumes he has a superior makeup, that would enable him to overcome obstacles like hunger, fear, degradation, poor health, homelessness, prejudice, etc.
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Drext727 is contributing his views to this discussion and does not need to be treated with such tones of condescension.
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What about the children of refugees from genocide who don’t speak English? Are they bad parents because they can’t speak English? Sorting students by birth year instead of stage of development is junk science. Pres. Obama promised to eliminate junk science, but has not with his RTTT.
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Chris,
I have occasionally suggested that tracking students by age was a possible problem with traditional public education. Glad to see I am not alone in thinking this.
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There’s another response — this one from Rep George Miller (one of the authors of the No Child Left Behind legislation).
In his response Miller supports the Vergara decision (!), but says that the cover is “grossly unfair to teachers” and “further polarizes” the issue — is that anything like being “grossly ineffective?”
This is a man (a Democrat) who claims to want better schools, yet is the co-author of the single most destructive piece of legislation for public education in the nation’s history…
It shouldn’t surprise me that he supports Vergara…but it’s frustrating nonetheless.
Feh!
http://time.com/3541263/rep-george-miller-responds-to-time-cover/
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He helped author an illegal law. NCLB should be challenged in the courts as a law that produced de-facto entrapment. A law that NO ONE can adhere to, despite their best efforts, cannot be constitutional. Can it? Any lawyers listening?
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cross posted at
with this link
The war on teachers
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/The_Insane_War_on_Teachers_and_Democracy.html
began 20 years ago and it removed over one hundred thousand veteran professionals in the most lawless and traumatic way possible, and the media never covered the process that ended public education so it could be mineralized.
I wrote about this scandal, at my first teacher’s blog. I wrote to the Ny Times, and have endless letters explaining how teachers were being sent out the door.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
Now when the schools have failed, the very people who made it happen are offering their services, their opinions on how to fix them. and nothing they offer has anything to do WITH LEARNING. They changed the conversation to one about teaching
It is all is about LEARNING, NOT TEACHING,
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
but the national narrative has been subverted long ago
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
ANDm at the crux of this you will find the puppet masters Gate/Broad/Koch/Walton/Murdoch. Through their puppet Duncan. and because they own ALL the media the public has no idea what is happening across 15,880 school systems in 30 states… and what is happening, is thE SILENCING OF THE VOICE OF THE PROFESSIONAL WHO KNOWS WHAT WORKS… and what is just a magic elixir.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
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Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
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Randi Weingarten should spend her time advicating for teachers in Newark, Philly and elsewhere facing horrific conditions rather than playing footsie with the reformers and then charading as a union
leader with national media audiences.
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Weingarten sold teachers down the river long ago.
And you are exactly right, now she is “charading.” But she does it well.
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Much, much depends upon cultural attitudes. There was a time in our country when teachers were instinctively revered. Teaching was considered a noble helping profession, like nursing or the ministry. We live in an ironic, profane age in which far too many people routinely, instinctively, view teachers and other public servants with cynicism, in which far too many parents, for example, model for their children a lack of respectfulness in their interactions with teachers. But this is a profession that merits respect. I know many, many teachers who are hardworking, loving, dedicated, learned servants of their communities. Teaching is the profession of Jesus and of Socrates–of love and of reason. It is a sacred vocation. It should be treated accordingly.
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IMO, teachers were revered during a time when their salaries were considered acceptable because they were considered supplemental to their husband’s income. As soon as teachers started to make an independent living wage, the view began to change. As time went forward and the economy stagnated, teachers wages seemed too high to many. So the excuses began. Teachers were expected to do more and more, provide for their students, clean their own rooms, and work longer days. Teachers began to receive the brunt of criticism because they were costing more tax dollars. As governors took away state funding for schools, local communities found that teachers were too expensive. We are the easiest piece of those receiving government pay, so we are the first to be blamed when people feel like voting “no”.
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But also as we look at the money involved in public education, hedge funds, which are supporting many of the education corporations being formed around the charter school movement, are dying to get their hands on the money: over 700 billion dollars nationwide!
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Teachers are providing a service FOR A PRICE. That price must be competitive, or the buyers, the parents, will obtain the teachers’ services elsewhere. This has happened in Florida, where upper middle class parents send their children to private schools so that they can get a good education. The consensus seems to be that the public schools provide second-rate education.
I feel that teachers are overpaid for what they provide to the community. They are certainly not the only group of public service people in that category, but right now, because of the economy, they are the most visible. That visibility is enhanced by tenure for teachers, because the public views tenure as akin to the “guaranteed annual wage” of the fifties, which tried to guarantee union jobs regardless of economic conditions or personal performance.
Thankfully, that attempt largely failed, except in the education business, where failure seems to have no impact on remuneration or job security. There is no doubt that with union protection, the abuses are increasing. They are also becoming expensive to the point where the salaries and benefits of presently employed teachers exceed their value to the tax payers.
This is another point: Because salaries are concentrated at the older end of the seniority scale, there is reduced incentive for “new blood” in the teaching profession. The older teachers are literally clogging up the process and have been doing so for decades.
Here is yet another point: If teachers are so valuable and if they’re so effective, why is the United States falling behind the rest of the world in mathematics and the sciences? Something is wrong. These paragons seem to be falling down in educating American children.
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Oh, well. I have been retired 2 years. I decided to sub a bit this year. I am glad to see most of my former 4th grade students in the 8th grade Honors Math and in Honor Society.
I work in a district that has had an Excellent with Distinction rating for the last 6 years, since that designation began in Ohio.
We are a small rural district with mostly average incomes. We aren’t an community. Our school is public and serves about 2200 students.
I don’t believe we are “falling behind,” and I dont think we are “alone”. The students who seem lost are ones with terrible homelives and little money. But we work with them to turn things around.
Our district has the lowest per pupil expenditure in our comparison group, and we are among the lowest paid in the county. We have had no raises since 2007.
So, if you wish to paint American education with a broad brush, you do not know of what you speak.
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Deb,
When you say that your district has had no raises since 2007, do you mean that teachers have recieved no step increases in the last six years? There has been some confusion about this in the past.
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There are only step increases when a teacher gets a higher degree. Those with 18 years of experience have bee flatlined since 2007.
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Deb,
I had thought those would be called lane changes, but it is good to know that your conception of a raise is the common one.
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A service for a price. Something is wrong?
Ya think?
Is this guy for real?
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but I’ve noticed it does attract a lot of people (at least in the elementary schools) who want to be told what to do. And so goes the GAGA issue mentioned on this blog fairly often.
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Why pick on teachers? This is what I think:
In the past twenty years, laws have changed to allow charter schools. Although these schools were supposed to be run by educators for the purpose of allowing them to innovate, our Wall Street types quickly saw a way of dipping into the previously sacrosanct education tax dollars. Right now there exists a frenzy among “investors” to get their hands on tax money intended for schoolchildren.
In order to access this pot of gold, investors need to destroy the confidence Americans have in their teachers and the public schools. And that’s what I think is happening.
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i think most of the current negativity towards teachers stems from politicizing and monetizing education. By bashing and demonizing, teachers, the privateers can appear like crusaders trying to save children from the evil grasp of “bad teachers” that are lazy civil servants hiding behind their tenure. If “Time” wants to be fair and balanced, they should do a story on the amount of fraud, waste and forced reallocation of resources going on in the privatization movement. If we had any investigative journalists left, they would follow the money and do an expose on the puppet masters behind the curtain.
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First the high tech man’s premise is that tenure is the problem. His basic premise is wrong. Tenure protects the students so that teachers can be vocal and speak up when administrators break federal or state regulations, introduce curriculum or programs that will frustrate or damage the students, cut students supplies and classroom needs even as basic as cleanliness. A tenured teacher can fight back with a loud voice as these happen without as much fear of reprisal. In addition it gives them due process if they decide to throw out a teacher that disagrees, or points out injustices.
Next, the entire trial itself was fatally flawed. First it was funded not by dissatisfied students or parents but by dissatisfied non educators with tons of money and tons of angst. The article mentioned that one teacher that a student didn’t like was actually a teacher of the year. What it also failed to mention was that none of the teachers that the students so disliked were even tenured. It also failed to point out that the 3% of bad teachers statistic quoted by the learned professor in the trial was made up. Yep, when asked how he came about that percent he said he made it up by observing. Thus, the judge who as nearly as we can tell didn’t listen very well to the actual evidence , and said he judged it all on the learned professors remarks, made his decision on false information.
Finally the basic belief that schools are failing is also up for debate. The massive budget cuts over the last few years are not to be believed. It has effected class size, materials available, programs before and after school, transportation, counseling , libraries, art, music and teachers. Society and our culture allows dangerously dark video games, movies and TV programs to grab the attention of students. Social Media has escalated bullying. Kids are scared to go to school and get killed by a crazy student. All of this, as Hillary Clinton said, takes a village. A school isn’t an isolated place it’s a village within the larger village of society. And to point the finger at one aspect of the system, tenure for teachers and say , this is the problem get rid of this and all will be well is to grossly misunderstand the complication of education a child. It is remarkable that teachers do so much with so little support, help, materials or understanding as it is. To deny then basic rights, a decent chance to stand up and speak out to administrators that are incompetent or blatantly bad is to hurt the children far more than a few bad teachers that will be fired eventually even if tenured.
Finally lets address the administrators that teachers face. They yell, they intimidate, they demand, they make decisions that are so poor and so obvious and you can never get rid of them In Los Angeles they just transfer them around. I have worked with them seem them jump up and down red faced when teachers disagreed and refused to budge.as they were making damaging decisions. I have seen parents picket for days to get rid of the bully in the principals office that disrupted the harmony and peace of the campus just cause he or she can. Not one word in the Time article about Deasy our superintendent, who testified at the trial against teachers, who was forced to resign or be fired because he was an aggressive bully that did things his way only and finally spent a billion on I pads that won’t last, and a grading system that won’t work. He left with the teachers singing the teachers and community giving him a 96 percent disapproval rating. And he is one of the top reformers choices for principal.
So, this article bought and paid for and skewed by the rich to make them look like the saving grace of the poor is so blatantly wrong it makes me weep. Finally look at the real motive for getting rid of tenure by the reformers. What is the one thing stopping their beloved common core, their beloved charter school, and VAM etc from going through easily. The strident loud VOICES OF THE TENURED TEACHERS. How do they get what they want without such a battle. Shut us up. And that imy opinion is why they are so hell bent on throwing out tenure. They can’t get what they want and they can’t buy us off like the media, because teachers are one of the last bastions of morality in this nation today.
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Another response that Time posted along with Randi Weingarten and Lily Garcia was made by a father of an autistic child that was allegedly abused by several staff members. His point is that tenure prevented the firing of these staff members and that this protection is too strong. Upon closer examination I learned that one staff member was actually fired (no problem with tenure there) and the other staff were moved to another location. The reason the others were not fired was because the local Board of Education did an investigation and found them innocent of the charges or that the evidence didn’t support the allegations. So, they didn’t move to terminate them (again, nothing to do with tenure here). It’s difficult to understand because there is little information provided about the actual events. But in both cases the issue had nothing to do with tenure.
I’m not questioning the outrage this parent must feel about his situation, but is this story really a balance and appropriate addition to the Time story dialog?
I wonder if Time even gave any thought to the accuracy of the claims of those “responding”. Such a shame. The whole thing is a mess. A truly missed opportunity for a real conversation.
Does Time truly believe that tenure protects teachers that break the law? If not, why would they imply it in their coverage?
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There is absolutely nothing about tenure that would prevent a teacher (or anyone else) from being fired for abusing a student. That letter is absurd and just further shows TIME’s ridiculous bias.
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People in the kind like to twist the meaning of word in any way they want for shameless promotion of national narrative. Just like right-wing J-politicians accuse foreigners of dwelling on welfare program by conveniently ignoring the fact that 99.8% of its overall budget goes to the citizens of the country J! If TIME editors really believe tenure protects teachers who break the law, they are stupid. It doesn’t. That’s the matter of school superintendent who needs to make critical decision.
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Since Time became a tired, print version of Fox, they adopted the right-wing school of argumentation, perfected by Rush Limbaugh. Anecdotes are extrapolated, to indict the whole.
Either Time has no capable editors or writers left or, in service to plutocrats, they are intentionally obtuse. David Brooks is the latter, as proven by his recent argument that money is irrelevant to elections, because two corporate parties each raised the same amount. Conservative thought has been reduced to a parody.
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This apple worked a nine hour day and forgot to take a break and use the restroom.
This apple offered extra help before school and during lunch.
This apple is being squeezed into cider for APPR scores based on her students’ progress.
This apple’s creative juices are being squelched by the mediocre paint-everyone-the-same red curriculum.
This apple needs more than 30 desks in her classroom.
This apple has a smile for her students every day.
This apple began as a green June apple many moons ago
This apple won grants, awards, accolades, and hearts
But this apple is wrinkled, worn, torn, bruised, and
This apple is tired.
This apple is ready to give up.
If the best of the bunch is ready to give up, what will remain?
I am that apple on your cover, TIME Magazine,
and today I shed cider tears for today and tomorrow’s children.
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Me, too. I cry for the kids. This apple has been burned.
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If someone said, “We need to make it easier to sue doctors who commit malpractice,” I don’t think very many doctors would be so confused as to take this opinion as an attack on “doctors” per se rather than an attack on malpractice.
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Actually to make the analogy correct it would be ” We need to deny doctors who are accused of malpractice the right to defend themselves.”
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“…to defend themselves”, in a rigged court, characterized by judges who have been bought and, whose decisions reflect,
research results, that were also bought.
For insight into judicial objectivity, check out the most recent Mother Jones issue.
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We will win in the court of public opinion. Time is practicing yellow journalism–muckrakers in reverse…it would be as if 100 years ago Upton Sinclair took the side
of the owners rather than the men and women who worked in the killing sheds.
This is an unholy alliance of left and right–written by authors who are not
familiar with American public education but this attack will backfire and
those bankrolling it will be ulnmasaked.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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After seeing the Time magazine cover all I could do is exhale. I resigned my position as an elementary school teacher when the incentive of Early Notification started last year. I was “invited” to change grade levels so I moved from first grade, my love and what I spent my money gaining expertise in, for fourth grade position with no real support having not taught this grade level before. Knowing it was a high testing grade I was incredibly stressed. Not only did I have to deal with the excessive amounts of test prep and testing but I also had to find a way to integrate International Baccalaurate curriculum into the limited amount of time I had each day. I don’t think any profession has been more demonized than teaching! It is a noble profession but it has been tarred and feathered, leaving us demoralized and defeated. I know I was. I can’t return! The atmosphere is too toxic and depressing!
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Of course you did. Have you read anything I posted here about the war on teachers
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/The_Insane_War_on_Teachers_and_Democracy.html
the hidden conspiracy that has silenced the voice of the teachers in the most horrendous deprivation of due process in our history (with the exception of slavery.)
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
The media across the nation has not printed a single story that tells what REALLY happened to cause the schools to fail…the removal of the professional practitioners so that the system tanks.
Where in the media is this film review of the reason the largest system in the country was devastated:
https://vimeo.com/4199476
have you not seen what they are doing in LAUSD
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-continues-to-target-teachers.html
The harassment begins by unsettling the teacher, removing them from the practice… akin to telling a cardiologist that he is now to treat people with foot problems…or an attorney practiced in torte legislation that he is now to go to traffic court.
Then, there are ways to ensure that the teacher is not given the supplies, or support, and finally there are charges of insubordination… you have been there TOO LONG. You salary is too high for the budget…. you are being subtly targeted and harassed… where is your union? Uh! That was a rhetorical question.
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