Here is one of those blog battles that are very informative.
Awhile back, a group of civil rights organizations came out in favor of retaining annual testing as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB). A smaller group issued another statement critical of parents who opt their children out of annual standardized testing.
Marc Tucker wrote a post saying that annual tests have harmed poor minority students, and they should reconsider their position. He was criticized strongly by Kati Haycock of Education Trust and Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children, who support annual testing.
In this post, Tucker responds to Haycock and Edelman. All of the links are embedded in his post, including the link to civil rights leaders who disagree with the organizational statement.
He says there is no evidence for their assertions and urges them to base their critique on facts, not attacks.
As you read this debate, be sure to read the statement by Seattle teacher and activist Jesse Hagopian and the board of the Network for Public Education, critiquing annual testing. The Seattle chapter of the NAACP opposes annual standardized testing.
You might also want to see Mercedes Schneider’s overview of this debate, in which she points out Haycock’s failure to cite any evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Are we sure that Kati Haycock still exists in real time, rather than in some virtual unworld? Might there be a “Kati Haycock” thingy chirping the same stuff in the 21st Century that we all had to listen to at the end of the 20th? As far as I can remember, she has been quoted with the same couple of lines for a couple of decades. And always identified (like the “Dems for Reform”) as a once-upon-a-time “civil rights leader” or something like that. At least Marc Tucker has always been out there among the reactionaries and forthright about it. For all we know in 2015, the “Kati Haycock” quoted in The New York Times (etc., etc., etc., etc.) is now a cyborg and when the phone rings at “Ed Trust” and they see it’s a reporter from corporate media on the line, they just turn on the robot and the quote gets recycled. Nothing has really changed since Geri Bracey published “Don’t Trust Ed Trust”, probably around the turn of the century. The question isn’t about this debate, but about how and why “Kati Haycock” keeps getting quoted over and over and over and over and ….
ad nauseum…
A quick Google search unearths the following:
“Kati Haycock
President
Kati Haycock is one of the nation’s leading advocates in the field of education.
She currently serves as president of The Education Trust. Established in 1996, Ed Trust works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, pre-kindergarten through college. The organization’s goal is to close the gaps in opportunity and achievement that consign too many low-income students and students of color to lives on the margins of the American mainstream.
Known for years as a powerful force on education policy, Ed Trust is often described as “the most important truth teller” in American public education. But the organization also works hand in hand with educators and civic leaders in their efforts to transform schools and colleges into institutions that serve all students well.
Before coming to The Education Trust, Haycock served as executive vice president of the Children’s Defense Fund, the nation’s largest child advocacy organization.
A native Californian, Haycock founded and served as president of The Achievement Council, a statewide organization that provided assistance to teachers and principals in predominantly minority schools in improving student achievement. She also served as director of Outreach and Student Affirmative Action programs for the nine-campus University of California system.
Kati Haycock speaks about educational improvement before thousands of educators, community and business leaders, and policymakers each year. She has received numerous awards for her service on behalf of our nation’s youth, and serves as a director on several education-related boards, including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The New Teacher Project, and the Hunt Institute.”
Um, so?
Nice Googling and impressive use of a keyboard, but Haycock needs to present evidence independent of a résumé. Granted, she chose the tougher position of showing enough evidence to accept causation between tests and improving the outcome of disadvantaged students (rural, suburban, and urban). Or at least not reject the claim the tests are beneficial. Tucker does show evidence about no effect comparing pre-NCLB and post-NCLB scores. But underlying all of this is the idea of using test scores to raise test sores which should make anyone interested in true learning uncomfortable.
Go ahead and ask your friends: “Does that give Haycock immunity to her failure to make clear and thorough response to Tucker?”
NOTE: Tucker is also pro-CC.
Thanks, Raj, for proving a point often made by people on the other side of the barricades: this woman has never taught a day in her life, yet presumes to lecture educators about education and how schools should be run.
Another, privileged, arrogant know-nothing…
For those who missed it, the Children’s Defense Fund spawned “Stand for Children” and the variously odious outposts of that branding of corporate “reform.” Jonah and Josh Edelman are two of the most corrupt guys in that bit of cyberspace. But some people seem to think because they grew somehow out of the “Children’s Defense Fund” they are good guys?! Somehow each of these daisy chains of pseudo-legitimacy leads to the same result — infinitely quoted no matter how corrupt they became.
Mathvale,
Thanks for the backhanded complement “Nice Googling and impressive use of a keyboard”
Call ’em as I see ’em. Haycock has an impressive history, but that doesn’t make her right. I’m not sure what your post accomplishes, but I’d like to see evidence or at least verifiable observations. Too often, we have “experts” stating opinion as fact with no classroom experience. If you have that evidence, please post.
Earth to Matilda,
Replicant reformer or human, I wouldn’t trust George or Google. Better check with Harrison Ford.
Raj, thanks for the googling.
Did you learn that Kati Haycock was one of the architects if No Child Left Behind? Did you see Mercedes Schneider’s post pointing out (by reading Gates Foundation website) that Education Trust has received $49 million from the Gates Foundation?
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/education-trust-profoundly-gates-funded-test-driven-reform-machine/
Diane, You frequently play “guilt by association” by reminding us who receives Gates money. That’s a lazy way to argue. John Merrow receives it, too: http://learningmatters.tv/about/about-us/ . So does the NEA Foundation: http://www.neafoundation.org/blog/gates-millennium-scholars-preparing-for-college-with-this-life-changing-student-scholarship .
Does that mean John and the NEA are simply shills for Gates as well?
Paul, I think it is important to follow the money. When groups are funded by Walton or Broad, that sends a message because these foundations have a clear agenda, and they don’t deviate from it. Gates paid at least $200 million for Common Core; I would be very surprised if he funds any organization that criticizes Common Core. Gates has spent hundreds of millions promoting VAM. I don’t think critics of VAM get Gates money.
John Merrow is a special case. He is also a personal friend. He is a serious journalist. He made Rhee, and when he learned about the DC cheating scandal, he changed his views. By the way, he is retiring.
Offer some other examples. Who funds your work matters in an age when foundations set their agenda, then find or create groups to do what they want.
Thanks for the reply, Diane. Not entirely satisfying, though. I agree with the general impulse to follow the money. It sounds like you’re laying down a standard, though, that says: “money buys influence, except when it doesn’t in special cases when someone [you in this case, but others in other cases, I would suppose] decides that it doesn’t.” Not much of a standard. I think a better approach would to skip the guilt by association and simply focus on the substance of what people are doing. Sure, report who is spending whose money, but that’s only a starting point, suggesting deeper scrutiny, not evidence of “case closed.”
Paul,
If you read my book “Death and Life of the Great American School System,” you would know that around 2000, there was a major change in philanthropy. Before then, the top donors were Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller. People submitted proposals, and some got funded. After 2000 came a new breed of foundation. They knew what they wanted; they don’t take unsolicited topsails. They choose where to “invest,” and they create groups to implement their agenda. Gates, Broad, and Walton converged in a common agenda, based on their shared (and erroneous) belief that public education is failing (it is not). They like charters, data, VAM, and top-down management. They don’t like unions, tenure, or any job protections. Gates funds groups like TeachPlus and Educators4Excellence; Walton funds TFA and StudentsFirst; Broad has an unaccredited “academy” to train superintendents in his managerial approach to education.
I hope you will give me one example if any of these foundations giving money to a pro-public education group, or to anyone who is critical of the agenda above.
The very fact that she sees a positive association with herself and TNTP sours her credibility in my opinion.
Thank you Raj:
It would be imperative to list Mrs. Katie Haycock’s
1) Personal background and achievement in Education (Alma Mater?)
2) Time line of ALL sponsorship prties for each of K.H. positions as Director or President.
3) Family background. (corrupted corporations?)
According to your info, it obviously seems to me that her “”educational”” activities did not match with her support for invalid testing scheme which harm teachers, students and the future of American PUBLIC EDUCATION. Back2basic
“Does that mean John and the NEA are simply shills for Gates as well?”
Um, yes. Merrow brought us Michelle Rhee and, while he’s turned against her, he’s never apologized for his drooling support in the first place. More recently, he’s also taken pot shots at the Opt Out Movement.
Lily Eskelson Garcia is one of the biggest and loudest cheerleaders for the Common Core, even now.
Diane, Yes, I know your book. I have taught it for several years in my classes. I think you’re incorrect in your assessment how foundations operate. They have always been cautious in their giving. Places like Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller also were strategic back in the day when they were more dominant in the education arena. To suggest otherwise is naive.
As far as examples of grants to groups that support public schools, I’ve already given you John Merrow and the NEA Foundation. A quick (not comprehensive) scan of the Gates database reveals some other illustrative examples.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2015/03/OPP1128162
A+ Schools: Pittsburgh’s Community Alliance For Public Education: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2015/01/OPP1125635
National Center for Learning Disabilities: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2014/10/OPP1122577
DonorsChoose.org: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2014/10/OPP1116793
Paul,
Gates silences critics with grants. I challenge you to find a single organization that actively criticizes testing, charters or VAM that Gates has funded.
Gates grants to NEA kept them in board with Common Core even though most teachers don’t like it.
Diane,
Read the National Center for Learning Disabilities’ positions on vouchers and charters. You also keep avoiding the NEA Foundation example that I provided.
Also, Gates “silences critics”? Can you provide evidence of a group that was hostile to testing, charters, etc. and then became a big enthusiast of these things after receiving Gates money? That’s the claim that you’re making, it seems.
Look, I’m not saying Gates doesn’t have big influence. I’m just in favor of a more careful and rigorous look at people’s behavior, rather than playing guilt by association. (That was the original point of my post.) The education policy landscape is a complicated place, not as black and white as people often like to paint it.
Paul
They do not support vouchers for private schools because the protections of IDEA do not apply. Their position statement on charters shows a lack of research into the actual performance of charters although they do take issue with the charter sector not serving disabled students equitably. You need to read their position on testing as well, which again shows a lack of examination of the evidence. Their positions are couched in such a way as to avoid conflict with current policy statements. I know that many professionals in the field are not pleased with their positions.
In honor of summer, Haycock is splashing in the baby pool while Tucker is swimming laps in the adult lanes.
In “running the schools like a business”, teachers must focus on the best return on investment for a student portfolio. Those that offer the best return, the students most likely to pass, are the focus as Tucker suggests. A teacher could bring up a struggling student multiple grade levels, but that student is STILL too low to cross into the measurement range of a test. The teacher puts forth a Herculean effort, and is still considered ineffective. The game for teachers is to obtain those students on the roster who are the most likely to improve test scores and ranking. Inside a school at a micro level, this may play out as favoritism or bias during scheduling and teaching assignments. No one wants to teach the very low or very high students or they risk a career. At the macro level, teachers eventually avoid and migrate away from schools that have the most disadvantaged students. Or even those teachers that can choose a different career do so. I am surprised civil rights groups do not see the big picture. Even when we know there is an achievement and funding gap, as Ohio proved, politicians simply ignore the issue.
Well stated. The vice grip of testing and punishment will cause schools to stagnate with teachers scrambling to play the odds to survive in this Draconian environment. The lower end of the spectrum will be the most short changed.
The sad part is the whole reform effort is forcing teachers away from teaching and towards gaming and necessary indifference to certain students. It goes against the core values of teachers and destroys from within.
For me, the whole discussion would have more credibility if there were an admission of error. How did testing get so off track? What federal and state policy played into it? Would it make sense to ditch VAM since that seemed to drive more testing? Why are they clinging to VAM, anyway?
Also, can we stop using the word “accountability” when we really mean “testing”, even if “accountability” polls better and all but ends debate since no one can be opposed to the whole concept of “accountability”?
I’m uncomfortable with the whole framing of “accountability” because it seems politically-crafted. I don’t want my son to believe his school or teacher is solely responsible for what he learns or how performs on a test. I expect him to take some of that, and I would argue that’s important not just for some negative punishing reason, but because that’s part of him developing agency- the power to act. He has some role in this. The passive framing bothers me. That’s not what we’re teaching him at home.
Errors, like accountability and taxes, are for the little people, Chiara.
So-called education reformers are above all that. As they never tire of telling us, they are miracle workers who are incapable of making mistakes
I’m also uncomfortable with the constant effort to divide children and adults. I don’t know what world this is, where children and adults have opposing aims or goals. We live together. Admittedly not all adults want what’s best for all children and obviously there can be areas where interests diverge in any collaboration or joint effort, but the idea that my son is surrounded by this group of selfish, hostile untrustworthy adults in school every day is not what we’re telling him at home.
I’m suspicious of it too, because divisive language like that usually leads to “you should trust ONLY US, because we are the only people working in your child’s best interest”.
No thanks. I think I’ll go with “the adults” at his school. I’m wary of people who take that approach.
Also left unsaid in that unnatural division is that, while so-called education reform is always said to be “all about the kids,” it in fact is attempting to foreclose on teaching as career for the children who, in the not-too-distant-future, will be standing in front of their own classes of students.
Not only are so-called education reformers stealing the potential richness of a public school education from this generation of students, they are also trying to eliminate teaching as a realistic career option for them in the future, for who in their right mind would ever encourage a young person to go into teaching today?
Chiara, with grade span testing, VAM disappears. My own preference is for no federal testing mandates at all. The purpose of federal aid is equity not accountability
Agree on the credibility of Kati Haycock and all of the backscratching “partners” that keep The Education Trust from being untrustworthy,
One of the links in Marc Tucker’s rejoinder will take you to a statement supporting the Common Core, signed by “Teachers of the Year” in 15 states, with four teachers from Arizona and Wisconsin. All appear to have been selected for that honor between 2011 and 2015 by an organization set up to push the Common Core, with the Education Trust, Student Achievement Partners, the Chamber of Commerce and others among the sponsors. see. http://forstudentsuccess.org/
This whole exchange is so “beside the point” unless the press drawn to this spat will really influence Congress. NCLB is still in limbo. Duncan is threatening to cut federal Title 1 funding if states fail to have 95% of all students in all subgroups taking statewide tests for the 2015-2016 school year. There are great reasons for not doing the annual tests required by NCLB but the participants in this exchange are not really helping that cause.
My first comment didn’t post because I included some links to a couple of my blogs about Marc Tucker – one to America’s Choice and the other to Leadership & ESEA Reauthorization……They proved my points.
Marc Tucker talks out of both sides of his neoliberal mouth. He is the Karl Rove of outcome-based education theory. He has the capacity and audacity to move his totalitarian education/labor system forward through the use of our public schools and uses public dollars to train leadership in his neoliberal philosophy in such a stealth form that even most students of his National Institute of School Leadership (NISL) have no clue about their indoctrination.
He is an untrustworthy liar. The best thing this country could do right now is dump the old-guard reform leadership and start with a new batch of unblemished, trustworthy leaders.
Hmm, “The Education Trust.”
That sounds awfully close to “The Oil Trust,” “The Beef Trust” and other monopolies that Teddy Roosevelt tried to bring into line more than a century ago.
Perhaps, by echoing the language and practices of the Overclass of previous decades, the so-called reformers are for once, if inadvertently, being honest.
do kati and the edelmans have their kids tested?
My favorite Kati quote is her “low-end-of-the-pile” description of public school teachers that she shared with NEWSWEEK a few years ago:
http://www.newsweek.com/can-michelle-rhee-save-dcs-schools-88041
—————————————————–
KATI HAYCOCK: “But what we need to do is change the idea that education is the only career that needs to be done for life. There are a lot of smart people who change careers every six or seven years, while education ends up with a bunch of people on the low end of the pile who don’t want to compete in the job market.”
—————————————————-
So Kati divides public school teachers into two categories:
1) HIGH QUALITY: that tiny minority — elite “smart people” (TFA & others) who, over a lifetime, “change careers every six or seven years”— with just one career being teaching, and the other five or six being non-teaching careers—and who, albeit briefly, deliver the highest quality of education to their sadly limited number of students before moving on…
… OR…
2) LOW QUALITY: the vast majority — the “low-end-of-the-pile” incompetent slackers who make teaching a long-time career, merely to avoid having “to compete in the job market,” with teaching being a place to hide out and be lazy… and, in the process, willfully destroy the academic and career potential of millions of students… and who do so without the slightest twinge of conscience.
In Kati’s deranged mind, if you teaching in classroom for more than five years—ten years at the absolute most—you’re guilty-as-charged of being one of those “low-end-of-the-pile” incompetent slackers that are driving our country to ruin.
Seriously, teaching is “the only career done for life”? What is she smoking?
And she wants to use bogus VAM systems—and the bogus tests on which VAM is based—to go on a full-out Stalinist purge of those millions in her “LOW QUALITY” category of teachers.
I’m sure you’ve read this but I love it because it’s so blunt, and a lot of it strikes me as true:
“Yet many people I grew up with treated teachers as bumptious figures of ridicule—and not in your anarchist-critique-of-all-social-institutions kind of way.
It’s clear where the kids got it from: the parents. Every year there’d be a fight in the town over the school budget, and every year a vocal contingent would scream that the town was wasting money (and raising needless taxes) on its schools. Especially on the teachers (I never heard anyone criticize the sports teams). People hate paying taxes for any number of reasons—though financial hardship, in this case, was hardly one of them—but there was a special pique reserved for what the taxes were mostly going to: the teachers.”
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/09/12/why-people-do-hate-teachers-unions-because-they-hate-teachers/
Low end of the pile? I think there’s a poem in there, call a poet.
After a particularly tough year of VAMania and SLOgging, I feel like a low end pile of something.
I don’t often find myself laughing out loud these days. It just happened.
Wow. The Obama Administration goes all in on their anti-labor stance.
I knew they were anti-public employee union but I didn’t realize they opposed private sector unions too.
The President said repeatedly that there were worker protections in his trade deal. Since the corporate representatives didn’t put them in there and labor unions say they were excluded, I wonder if they’re in there. I guess we won’t find out until the deal passes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/10/afl-cio-head-sends-angry-letter-to-obama-on-trade-deal/?postshare=8871433960040029
Hi Chiara!
I followed the link you provided to the 2012 “Diane Rehm Show” radio panel discussion about the 2012 Chicago Strike. (The panel included an out-numbered Diane Ravitch, btw.) :
http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio/#/shows/2012-09-12/chicago-teachers-strike/106556/@00:00
I then listened to some of it, and, as a result, I have to engage a shaman to do some sort of cleansing ritual on my entire being… Andy Rotherham, Rick Hess… sheesh!!.. In their attitudes toward unionized teachers, it’s like listening to Nazi’s talk about Jews, or KKK-ers talking about blacks.
Chiara, in contrast to what you quoted above, sometimes the public does back its teachers, as was the case in Chicago during the 2012 strike. In particular, this 75% support from the public—and the even higher support from parents (I forget te percentage)—really irritated then-mayoral-advisor Bruce Rauner, who is now governor in Illinois. When asked about this back in 2012, Rauner’s explanation was that parents and community in Chicago were simply not smart enough to recognize or resist their being manipulated by the teachers in Chicago.
In a TV forum, the virulently anti-union Rauner tried to claim simultaneously that he was “an advocate and supporter… a huge advocate” of teachers, but also that the entirety of the students in Chicago—“hundreds of thousands”—were having their “futures damaged” and the vast majority of those teachers were responsible for this “tragedy.” He then declared “war” on them.
I’m sure the teachers there were and are appreciative of such “advocacy” and “support.”
I did a long post on this, which I’ll re-post here (sorry if it’s long… skip it if you like):
—————–
Illinois Guv Bruce Rauner is also on the whole
“Corporate Reform = Social Justice = Union-busting” bandwagon.
In the 2012 video below, a pre-governorship Rauner blathers about the “tragedy” in Chicago that “hundreds of thousands of students” have been having their “futures damaged” simply because they are not yet attending privatized, non-union charter schools, instead of those traditional public schools filled with corrupt incompetent union thug teachers.
CLASSIC, MUST-BE-SEEN VIDEO … trust me on this, folks. (long post, but you’ll enjoy it)
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
It’s from an incendiary 2012 TV forum back when Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner was merely Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “advisor”, (though back then he was hinting at his eventual run for governor in 2014).
He’s appearing with Chicago Teachers Union Vice-President Jesse Sharkey, pinch-hitting for CTU President Karen Lewis (perhaps Rauner didn’t want to share the same news desk with Karen… who knows?).
It’s from Chicago’s PBS affiliate’s show “CHICAGO TONIGHT,” moderated by Chicago TV news veteran Carol Marin, who was awesome. At the time, she was indirectly employed by Rauner at the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, where Marin also worked, and of which Rauner was part owner. Rauner did not happy getting grilled by one of his underlings like that.
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
When asked why he thinks that 75% of Chicagoans supported CTU in the recent strike, Rauner basically implies the parents and general public are simply too stupid or at least too gullible, so they got taken in by union “misinformation”, and cannot realize how evil teachers’ unions are.
———————————
( 02:26 – 03:00 )
CAROL MARIN: “And yet, there were parents standing with teachers on the picket lines. What meaning do you take from that?”
BRUCE RAUNER: “That the union has been… uhh… aggressively marketing and running a huge PR campaign of misinformation. Many parents don’t really understand what’s going on inside their schools As long as their child feels safe, and their… their teacher is a pleasant person, they think things are all right. The tragedy… the tragedy is … uhh… hundreds of thousands of children in the Chicago Public Schools are receiving an inadequate education, and their futures are being damaged because of it.”
———————————-
Really, Bruce? “A tragedy” for “hundreds of thousands of children” who are having “their futures damaged”? Exaggerate much? And your claim that the parents are too gullible or too obtuse to see through, or resist manipulation at the hands of their kids’ teachers? You basically just called all those parents idiots.
Bruce, those parents are the folks who talk to their kids every ding-dong day about what’s going on in their kids’ schools… at the breakfast table… at the dinner table… in the car rides to and from school… or whenever. Those parents whose mental faculties you deride are the same folks who regularly meet with teachers in conferences, monitor their kids’ education. review their report cars, etc.. Some even volunteer as unpaid aides, or visit their schools in session, then talk among each other, share their opinion, compare notes on their kids’ teachers, administrators, etc…. and on and on…
Seriously, Bruce? You think that ALL those parents—hundreds of thousands of them–with all that information and first-hand experience and second-hand info from their kids and others, are just wrong, wrong, wrong… and that you and your corporate reform allies know better than them what’s good for their kids, that they need a right-wing consciousness raising so they can face the “tragedy” that their kids’ teachers are all scum, as are their schools?
Am I hearing your right?
Wow… is all I have to say to that one.
Jesse then lays him out:
( 03:05 – 03:42)
JESSE SHARKEY: “I’m both a public school parent—I have two students in the schools— and am a twelve year teacher, and was publicly elected democratically by the members our union. It’s ironic that someone who is a billionaire, whose interests in the schools aren’t based on his long-standing work in that school system—talking about how what’s ruining the schools—in contrast to the very people who work in those schools every day, who pour their heart and soul into the public education and their students every day. Frankly, if you want to know what’s wrong the public education system, it’s been a series of efforts with corporate or top-down reform that don’t take the opinions of the actual educators into account.”
————————————
I don’t have time to transcribe all this, but the moderator Carol Marin then accuses Rauner of constantly using extreme and “inflammatory rhetoric” against teachers and their unions. She reads back and quotes from some of his indescribably vicious prior statements that damn the vast majority of Chicago’s teachers with a broad brush.
Rauner awkwardly responds by saying “This is a war with huge stakes,” but clarifies that, in contrast to the quotes just heard from himself and from Sharkey, that Rauner is actually “an advocate and supporter of teachers… a huge advocate…” and cites his philanthropic donations to schools as proof.
Really? “An advocate and supporter… a huge advocate…”? In your “hundreds of thousands of students being damaged” quote a little earlier show itself, you just implicitly accused the overwhelming majority of teachers of being greedy, dishonest, and incompetent union thugs… and then, on top of that, you just declared “war” on all of them… but yet, you still maintain that you’re “a huge advocate” of teachers?
The mind boggles.
But here’s where it gets good, REALLY good.
My hat’s off to Carol Marin for provoking the riveting exchange in the transcript below. Finally, somebody from the media is doing their freakin’ job!
First, a little background:
Keep in mind that Chicago is a huge union town… from the private sector unions of pipe fitters and electricians to the public sector unions of police, nurses, firefighters, etc. … and that even non-union folks vigorously and overwhelmingly support unions and their members. Further keep in mind that Rauner’s a plutocrat who embraces an extreme right-wing ideology, and thus, hates all unions, and everyone of their members.
Of course, Rauner and his ilk (i.e. Scott Walker) wants them all crushed—public and private. Just like Walker, Rauner’s plan is to go after teachers first, then the rest of public and private union members after. To quote Walker, “You just divide and conquer.” See that quote from Walker here as he blabs this strategy to a female Wisconsin billionaire supporter:
Any-hoo, back to Rauner in 2012.
However, Rauner can’t dare SAY or ADMIT TO any of that, as he was planning his run for governor at the time, and he needs to hide his hatred of the working and middle classes, and thus, trick all these union worker voters and non-union union-supporters into voting for him in two years.
In that context, Carol then asks if he feels the same antagonism towards ALL unions, and Rauner runs from the question.
What then ensues is truly a FROST-NIXON or 60 MINUTES-ish exchange that must be seen again and again. Unlike Rauner, Marin keeps her cool, them calmy but firmly refuses to let Rauner (her then-boss at the Sun-Times) get away:
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/09/19/mayors-adviser-attacks-ctu
—————————————————————–
——————-
( approximately … 05:00 – 7:00 )
BRUCE RAUNER: (finishes an anti-teacher union diatribe) ” … and we’ve got to fight them hard.”
CAROL MARIN: “Is this your view on ALL unions, or JUST the teachers’ union?”
BRUCE RAUNER: (uncomfortable) “Tonight, this is focused about the schools, and making our schools the best in the nation.”
CAROL MARIN: “No, I understand ‘tonight’, but in general, IS that your view of unions?”
BRUCE RAUNER: (more uncomfortable) “That’s a different subject.”
CAROL MARIN: “It is, but it IS the question.”
BRUCE RAUNER: (slightly angry) “But it’s not the subject of tonight.”
CAROL MARIN: “It is, but the question is: globally, is this the problem of collective bargaining being a problem systemically in our society?”
(What follows is TOTAL DUCKING OF THE QUESTION… Rauner just regurgitates more anti-teacher talking points that he had memorized for the show, and that have no bearing on the question asked of him)
BRUCE RAUNER: “The teachers’ union is engaged in a conflict of interests… (then goes into a stock diatribe against teachers’ unions specifically, effectively ducking the global question about his opinions of unions in general… because he can’t share that and get elected governor)
CAROL MARIN: (gives up on RAUNER, then turns to JESSE SHARKEY): “Mr. Sharkey, your point of view on this I gather would be different.”
JESSE SHARKEY: “If I could, Mr. Rauner isn’t answering the question, because he’s ideologically committed to a right-wing program that basically sees unions as an impediment to, frankly, privatizing public schools. In New York, private equity fund managers like himself have been involved in a scheme where they buy up under-utilized or unused school buildings on the cheap, and then lease those schools back to charter schools for profit. And I understand that Mr. Rauner himself is trying to do the exactly the same kind of scheme in Chicago.
“The teachers’ union is one of the organizations is this city is advocating for public schools… (then goes into detail about how the charterization of Chicago schools has been a total failure) ”
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Marin then asks if the conflict between unions and corporate reformers like Rauner is “personal,” and Jesse gives a great comeback that I’m too busy to transcribe, but he goes into detail about how the highest-performing school districts have the strongest unions, and the strongest job protections… and on and on…
Marin then poses a question to Rauner about how the “jury is in,” and all the studies show charters perform no better than public schools. (She could have added that, given charters ability to cherry pick and kick out kids, it’s not a level playing field, so they should be doing better… but oh well… ) Rauner denies this of course, then paints his wet dream of wiping out all public schools, and replacing the entire Chicago School District with groups of charter chains own by him and others of the 1%.
In response, Sharkey later says that he is horrified that billionaires like Rauner have usurped the people’s democratic control of schools, merely because they have a lot of money, and that no citizens or teachers have the personal acccess and influence that billionaires like Rauner have with Mayor Emanuel and other politicians.
Finally, Marin asks if the two sides have any “common ground”. Rauner says no, he has “no common ground” with teachers’ unions, or with Mr. Sharkey (or, he might add, with ALL unions and their members… SEE ABOVE for his ducking of that question).
However, he allows that, unlike his attitude toward unions, he DOES have “common ground with the teachers”, even Chicago’s teacher union members. You know, the very same ones—the vast majority—whom he constantly calls greedy, corrupt, incompetent union thugs, and on whom he has just declared “war.”
That’s probably not a good way to reach out to folks with whom you claim to have common ground.
Read the COMMENTS. They’re great, so I’ll finish with one:
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“Sue • 3 years ago
“Just watching this guy (Rauner) is like being in the middle of some 1950’s sci-fi horror flick. The world is being taken over by peapod people or zombies or space aliens, and you keep waiting to wake up. You try repeating, ‘It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie,’ but then you discover that it’s for real. This is the guy who’s calling the shots for our schools, our teachers, and our children? Frightening.”
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Sue, little did you know that, in just two years, he’d be governor.
I believe that the testing spread to all grades every year because of VAM. Part of it was from without, part was from within. Teachers didn’t want it, but many felt that if they had to be so judged then so should all the rest. A can of worms was opened and the tests started to grow and morph and bring more harm to lower and lower grade levels. Now, with a foothold on public k-12 schools, the colleges of education are under fire.
Bottom line is a disrespect for teachers and everything they offer. It is present in both parties for different reasons.
I feel that people like Bill Gates have some extremely paternalistic views coupled with Asperger’s tendancies. I think there is a desire in this society to put certain people in subservient positions. It is about control. It is about putting people in “their places”. It harkens back to the 1950s when teaching was a supplemental occupation to help out with the family income. It harkens back to the days when women were at home and doing what they were told … supposedly.
By the time the 1970s rolled around, there was a full steam reaction to having “liberal” ideas put into kids’ heads and the early plans were laid out to take things back to “the way they were”.
Social media has exposed the widespread behaviors throughout so many states and local school districts. This will continue now that we have placed so much money into the hands of corporate executives, corporations, lobbyists, and bankers. They have money, much tax free, and they seem to have no responsibility for the common good of the general public.
If we can’t find a way to fight against this kind of disrespect by uniting instead of arguing, the steam roller will keep on crushing through the decisions of people like Scott Walker and John Kasich and so many more. They are wrong minded, but they have influence because they reflect the vicarious disappointment of thousands of parents due to their own social and academic traumas from the 1950s-2000s. Things have never been perfect, but they are always magnified in the mind of a teen. Some people never get beyond the pain that was real or imagined or somewhere between. Taking it out on teachers gives them some sick satisfaction. I have found, and my brother is a perfect example of this, that in their minds they had the right attitude, right answers, right perspective. They have never grown out of that. Still stuck in the “chip on their shoulder” against education and change that might benefit them in some way. And, they feel they are right still because through their selfishness, they have all the money. The rest of the “fools” dared to share… and care … about others besides self.