Paul Karrer, a veteran elementary teacher in California, likes to read David Brooks, even when he disagrees with him. But he was taken aback recently when Brooks said that the teachers’ unions are the biggest impediment to education “reform.”
Karrer knows that education reform is not what it appears.
He explains to Brooks, as if Brooks might read his column:
So far Ed Reform has been a nightmare, a massacre, a coup de grace on democratic public education institutions. Ed Reform has plundered the public sector, crushed teachers’ souls, and offered virtually no positive improvement even when measured by the right’s own yardstick. The right benefits on many levels in its relentless assault on public schools.
First, privatization feeds the Republican DNA of the government’s role as an agent of profit for business. Public education viewed through Republican eyes is viewed as a feeding trough opportunity of financial benefit. Hence, the many hedge funds lauding, testing and assessment companies, charter corporations and publishing empires whose spread will fattened wallets.
Virtually every mantra about Ed Reform is false or basely wrong. Charter schools do not perform better when equal measure are used. Rather, often worse. End of story. They skim the best, the brightest the motivated. And they boot out those who don’t behave.
Those attending charter schools have parents who have guided them to charters. Many of my students have guardians. There is a difference.
Because he respects Brooks, he invites him to his classroom to learn about what really matters:
So friend David Brooks, I invite you to spend a few hours with me at my poorest of the poor schools. Run a lap with my fifth-graders and me in the morning, see what it’s like in the mucky trenches of gang-infested poverty. Then just sit and watch, no principal, no superintendent present, observe 30 fifth-graders and their old teacher. We’ll talk, later, about the subtractive brutality and injustices of ed reform.
Your words carry great weight. Please be careful how you [use] them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Whenever these so-called conservatives blame organized labor for the problem, why do the interviewers never ask, “Could you please explain in detail how the union is standing in the way of progress?” It simply has become a mantra of the right to blame the unions, reflecting their inability to do anything about the real issues facing the children and youth of America. Just mindlessly round up the usual suspects.
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I don’t think it’s just conservatives.
There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the views of David Brooks and the views of DC Democrats on ed reform and labor unions.
I don’t think there’s a dime’s worth of difference on private sector unions, either, although Democrats aren’t openly anti-labor there, yet.
Democrats will wholly adopt the conservative position on labor shortly, just as they’ve wholly adopted the conservative position on ed reform. They’re 90% of the way there now on private sector unions.
They’re followers. They follow Republicans.
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And the description of “government as an agent for business” chilled me. That’s a textbook definition for fascism, and we’re in the middle of it.
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Comments about unions are part of the narrative to undermine public education. Conservatives loathe unions because they represent rights and benefits to workers. This graphic shows the larger plot the both Republicans and Democrats are perpetrating.https://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty/photos/a.313395813326.193473.304981108326/10153597815293327/?type=1&theater
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I don’t know why they keep blaming the unions when the fact of the matter is the reforms couldn’t have been pushed through without the help of the unions.
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So in essence, they’re right when they say that unions are defenders of the status quo.
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How can anyone read Brooks regularly and be “taken aback” when he bashes unions?
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Vermont Educator, it’s not just the right. It’s a thing right now for neoliberals to be anti-union, and people who present themselves as not anti-union overall to be anti-teachers’ union. One liberal friend posted on a Facebook discussion that she supports unions but doesn’t think professionals should be unionized (I pointed out that as a daily-newspaper copy editor in a union shop I’m a member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild and she shut up fast).
Here is a piece of writing I would like to see. Maybe I’ll write it someday, or maybe Diane Ravitch will — she would obviously do it much better: It would lay out clearly for the non-wonk who doesn’t follow these issues why the basic principles of the whole current education “reform” sector are wrongheaded. It would be something anyone could present whenever we ran into someone duped by the hype and falsehoods. Here would be its characteristics:
SHORT. Zero jargon (“VAM” etc.). No hyperbole or melodramatic language. No snark. Nothing that sounded paranoid. Just a matter-of-fact, clear refutation of the basic notions promoted by the current education “reform” sector. I hope Diane or someone more skilled than I will do this perfect piece soon.
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Of course, that would assume that teachers are professionals. Of course, I agree that we are, but we are not paid or treated as such, and the cutting of our professionalism in what we teach is being cut every year.
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Do it carolinesf!
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I am having a discussion with a man who sends his children to private schools and have them in private universities. His attitude is that this is a problem for public school children and their parents… This is my response to him.
Dear My Kids in Private So I Don’t Have to Care,
You know you don’t live in a vacuum. What happens on Main Street affects everyone. Most of America goes to public schools. It should be of concern to all. Even if the wheels move so slowly that some are not personally affected, our children or our children’s children will reap from our errors. Even if you don’t need to particularly care what happens to the public in a general sense, you may want to consider whether it has incidental or unexpected impacts for you.
What about what is happening to the American experiment and to the political landscape? Obama took your tax dollars and mine and then required states to compete to have them returned to infrastructure. Are you not outraged by such an unprecedented theft of service? Currently, Cuomo in NY is attempting to use tax dollars to coerce a quota of ineffective teachers each year. If it turns out, as it will, that unrealistic social engineering goals and coercion fail, there will be many good teachers who lose their livelihoods and whose families are thrown into disarray before it is done. (Think McCarthyism and Japanese Internment for relevant parallels) But, perhaps that also is not a problem for you since your family won’t be affected.
You may still ask why fiscal coercion by the federal and state government is a problem… In terms of self interest. We could talk about the fact that the test impacts the property values of private school users. But… more importantly, if collecting and then withholding tax dollars are used in one circumstance, it can be used in another. The tactic is on the table, and if it is not fought, it will be used again… possibly in ways that you do care about.
You may or may not wish to care about what your tax dollars pay for. Charters transfer your tax dollars out of the public sphere and into private hands. In other words, if the charter can do it cheaper, they pocket the profit. Charters will seek to pare down education for the masses and offer big bucks at the top, just like in corporations to that intrepid individual who can cut costs. Less qualified teachers who don’t stay in the career will be had for less, class size will increase, and more emphasis will be given to online test prep. Sound good so far? It also means the end of a middle class career path in a world of declining middle class avenues and that means fewer dollars on Main Street.
If you think that won’t impact you, you may have reason to consider the risk attendant upon giving overwhelming power to corporate donors to determine policy. Gates is the on- the-side architect of every policy impacting the public schools to date. He has Duncan as the face of policy, but it’s his experiment that we are now experiencing. (never mind that his first experiment failed… he has the entire nation’s public school children to experiment with.) Perhaps you don’t mind because you are well off and insulated, but unfettered access to governmental functions by the extremely wealthy should give everyone pause (unless you are one of the 80 families). Imagine what other agendas might come under his or any other multibillionaire’s purview. Do you think they link their well being to yours? Do you link your well being to mine? Well, then.
ps. As it relates to New Orleans: Hurricane Katrina came in and destroyed New Orleans. When it receded, all the teachers who weren’t floating face down in debris were told they no longer had jobs, and the entire district was going charter. They then hired TFA kids as teacher temps. Arne Duncan declared Hurricane Katrina the “best thing to happen to the New Orleans school district.” (stop for a second and let that comment percolate) And then his all charter district failed anyway. If none of this matters to you and you feel secure that your life will go on untouched by the churning world around you… if legislated injustice that doesn’t impact you doesn’t bother you… well I recommend reflecting on what we have to learn from history in the 20th century. Or perhaps just a reread of Masque of the Red Death.
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WOW! Could I use this? I have several people who say similar things, and you rebutted their arguments FAR better than I have. I will attribute it to you, of course!
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Affordable private schools exist only because of public schools. If public schools disappear, private schools with their norm cherry picking, would be faced with the responsibility of educating all students or severely discriminating based on price due to overwhelming demand. As it stands now, private schools can exclude to more difficult and less well off students, leaving them to the public schools.
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This is dog whistle politics. What the Republicans and neoliberals mean by “teachers union” is female classroom teachers. Teachers unions are at the core a true grassroots representation of the school. By silencing teachers, the Republicans can impose questionable cronyism and religion on the classroom.
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That’s funny, I don’t enjoy reading David Brooks even when I agree with him — because then he makes my opinions sound stupid.
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Well-put. The NYT, as a paper with journalistic integrity, should have cut the cord on Brooks long ago. Only an inept journalist, that has disdain for his audience, would try to sell the position that equal donations to both corporatist parties, is evidence that money has no influence in politics and the economy.
If he’s not inept and disdainful, then, he is a shill for the 0.1% and, the paper should make the Chamber of Commerce pay for his print.space …..wait….it’s coming back to me, something about Time magazine and reporter rankings based benefit to advertisers.
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“retired teacher
February 1, 2015 at 12:07 pm
Comments about unions are part of the narrative to undermine public education. Conservatives loathe unions because they represent rights and benefits to workers. This graphic shows the larger plot the both Republicans and Democrats are perpetrating”
If Democrats in DC actually supported private sector labor unions, they would pass legislation or rules that were favorable to encouraging private sector union organizing and membership.
They don’t. It’s political rhetoric. It’s purely abstract. They “support” labor unions like they support” something like “higher wages” or “great schools!” It costs them absolutely nothing. I think they’re a little embarrassed that they ONCE supported labor unions, quite frankly. It’s “traditionalist” and not at all “cage-busting” or fashionable 🙂
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I agree a lot of the Democrats posture without lifting a finger. It seems neither party sees the unethical way, members of both parties, especially governors, attack teachers who are government employees.
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I wonder if the ills of privatized education if teacher unions were stronger– in all states across the country.
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Definitely not only the right. So called Democrat Andrew Cuomo is on a union busting mission here in NY while simultaneously promoting charter schools. Ironically he is to much of a coward to step into a public school for a day to see what’s really happening. It’s sad.
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This makes me sad… because it is over a decade since the activists whose sites Ipost here, have made it clear that the unions let it happen.
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From NYS assembly woman Deborah Glick
Fighting Success Academy Charter School in District One
I am proud to announce that on January 8th I joined community members and education advocates to present testimony at PS.20 after the Success Academy Charter school hearingwas cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice. My testimony was in opposition to Success Academy Charter school’s application to move into school district one. The hearing was cancelled because Success agreed to remove their application at this time but made no promise about the future.
As I have expressed in previous testimony and numerous letters to the SUNY Board of Trustees, while charter schools may be deemed public under the law, they operate in a manner that is substantially different from traditional public schools, and all too frequently undermine neighborhood schools. Giving Success Academy the green light to open a school in any district they choose in direct opposition to local needs sets a poor precedent. It also fails to recognize that each school district has different needs and the cursory decision to shift Success Academy to School District 1 shows a blatant disregard for the community. We will continue our fight to keep Success Academy out of our district.
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Good one. Brooks is typical for the anti-teacher NT Times. Tenure keeps ‘bad teachers’ is a mantra that identifies Brooks as an ignoramus. Everyone who read this should tellth NY Times exactly how they feel about liars posing a journalists.
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