Arthur Goldstein has taught ESL for decades in New York City. He is tired of being lectured by billionaires like Michael Bloomberg about how to teach or what a slacker he is.
He writes in The New York Daily News:
There’s lots of talk about whether or not school buildings should be open. European school buildings recently shut over concerns that children do indeed spread the virus. Yet former Mayor Mike Bloomberg now says, “It’s time for Joe Biden to stand up and to say, the kids are the most important things and important players here. And the teachers just are going to have to suck it up and stand up and provide an education.”
In fact we’ve never stopped doing that, but Bloomberg seems not to have received the memo. Bloomberg says kids are most important. Twelve years of working in New York City schools under Mike Bloomberg tell me to him, that really means adults are not important at all.
It’s particularly galling, after having devoted your life to help children, to be told you don’t care about them because you question the wisdom of risking your life, the lives of the children, and the lives of all our families.
In fact, here in New York City, elementary and middle-school buildings are open. A distinct minority of students can come in, masked and socially distanced, and get tested regularly in order to ensure safety. I can’t read Bloomberg’s mind, but if he actually wants buildings to be safe, I have no idea how he wants to change that.
Regardless, Bloomberg’s views, shared by many in media and elsewhere, reflect an utter lack of respect for those of us who work in schools. This is beneficial to neither teachers nor students. Who is going to fight for better conditions in schools? Is it people like Bloomberg, who cavalierly threaten teacher layoffs in a city with exploding class sizes, unreduced in 50 years? Do people really think young people would get the attention they need, or benefit in any viable fashion from the classes of up to 70 he proposed?
It doesn’t really matter. Mike Bloomberg, like Donald Trump, has more money than most and he knows things. When you have that much money, many accept your opinions. Publications of all stripes mirror them. And years of such treatment has had a distinct effect on those of us who work in schools. Many of us are afraid to speak out. It took an awful lot for the red-state strikes to happen. We’re more fortunate and better organized here, but we still face dire and deadly consequences of ill treatment. Many of us simply will not speak not speak out. It’s too risky.
Please open the link and read the rest of the article.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine threatened to pull COVID vaccines from Cleveland school staffers late Friday after The 74 reported that the district was likely putting off reopening until April.
After making the vaccine threat, DeWine said district CEO Eric Gordon promised him in a phone call Friday that Cleveland schools would reopen by March 1, the governor’s original deadline which Gordon initially agreed to. ”
Ohio has done absolutely nothing to assist public schools in the pandemic- in fact, the state has spent most of their time since the pandemic hit expanding vouchers and promoting private schools, but now that it’s politically beneficial for DeWine to threaten teachers he happily piles on.
Just useless. We all send state tax funds down to the ed reform black hole in Columbus and nothing ever comes back for public schools. The vast majority of public schools in the state have handled the pandemic with no assistance from state or federal political leaders- they cobbled together solutions and did the work without the assistance of any of these people. They’re irrelevant to actual public schools and public school students.
Disgraceful.
Placards of every teacher/school staff/students who have died from COVID should be paraded on the state capitol steps.
The wealthy and powerful believe they have the right to tell teachers what to do. Billionaires do not walk in teachers’ shoes, and they have no idea what teachers face on a daily basis. There is no single “one size fits all” approach to returning to the classroom, and bullying teachers is no solution. Teachers should have the right to speak their mind without retaliation. Teachers should, of course, be civil, but civility must also be shown by those in administration and those “know it all billionaires” as well.
Racist misogynist Bloomberg is just going to have to suck it up and stand up and provide money to people who need it instead of whining.
LeftCoastTeacher The Bloomberg Attitude joins the Louisiana legislature for censuring their senator for voting to convict Trump for:
best RABITHOLE-REALITY LORE of this Century. CBK
That’s: RABBITHOLE-REALITY LORE . . . . CBK
I’m thinking about what children think of teachers . . . when their BIG BOSSES are willing to risk their teachers’ lives by requiring them to work before being vaccinated. WHAT an example of valuing teachers THAT is for students to be aware of. (Tell me we don’t need teachers’ unions!)
If teachers are required to teach, then the State should put them at the front of the list for vaccinations. In my view, it’s the DEAL BREAKER of the century . . . a totally COMMON SENSE idea . . . that, if applied to ANYONE in ANY profession, makes total sense: going to work is deadly, therefore, I get vaccinated before I return to my job.
What are these people thinking? WHAT inhuman rabbit hole are these people in that they don’t understand even THAT? And worse, it’s about being around CHILDREN? who are not exactly known for their ability to self-control. Sheesh. WHAT ARE WE DOING? CBK
CBK,
When you say “a totally COMMON SENSE idea . . . that, if applied to ANYONE in ANY profession, makes total sense: going to work is deadly, therefore, I get vaccinated before I return to my job.” I have to think you don’t actually mean ANY profession. There are a large number of professions where we as a society have asked people to return to their job without vaccinations for, I think, good reasons.
Teachingeconomist You can ask all you want, but to expect it without offering vaccines is cruel and says more about us than it does about those professionals. CBK
CBK,
I am thinking of all the people in the food supply chain, the folks in healthcare, those professions where their failure to go to work would be dangerous for us all. Their willingness to risk their own lives for our benefit does say a great deal about them.
Teachingeconomist Yes, but not with a hand in their economic back. Teachers’ own choices are what makes those who choose HERO’s, and those who don’t well-understood by most of us . . . at least the ones who still have a heartbeat.
In the broader picture, to live in a well-kept democracy is to live in an intelligent, reasonable, even moral world . . . civilized insofar as, commonly, most if not all need not make choices between one set of horrors and another set of horrors.
Trump’s mob-boss performance took that from us. And the people who try to force teachers to go to work in an unsafe environment, by job threats or whatever, are the same arrogant, selfish, flat-souled people who, earlier on in the nation’s history, saved their own children from going to war for “the good of the country” while sending everyone else’s to die or to be forever wounded.
Give those corrupt people an orange wig for their next birthday. CBK
CBK,
I am not sure what you mean by “not with a hand in their economic back”. All the many millions of people who grow, process, and distribute food in the cities of the coasts have “a hand in their economic back” in the sense that if they do not go to work they do not get paid. As I am sure you will agree, there are obvious problems if they all (or even a large percentage of them) decided to stay home rather than risk catching COVID-19. If they do not go to work it is deadly for us.
Teaching economist We were talking about the order of giving vaccines. If we expect teachers to work, then do the basics of protection. They’re not slaves.
In Trump’s time, however, hospital workers were wearing garbage for protection because it cost money to supply for virus protections; the management at meat plants were making bets about how many people would die while ignoring OSHA rules, and some were talking about letting older people die on purpose, or asking them to do so “for the greater good.” This kind of thinking comes from cruel, flat, selfish souls.
The economic hand in workers’ backs is still their choice to respond to. Fortunately, the use of a lash isn’t acceptable any more. And if they don’t want to live with the fear of either getting infected and/or passing it on to their family circle, then all protections should be available to them. A healthy government can help, which is what’s happening.
“Obvious problems,” and “deadly for us”? Do you mean: “us or them”? I think is just a different set of crises with different people at stake. CBK
CBK,
I mean us. Sure there may be enough people in the food supply chain vaccinated in a couple of months that food can flow again to the cities, but it will take several months. Meanwhile the food stops. The stores do not open until enough of the workers there are vaccinated. I suspect looting would begin shortly so some in the cities would have enough food for a little bit.
teachingeconomist As FDR knew, the proper response is good and visionary government and not to resort to sacrificing the slaves to your or my existence just because we can.
Even if it would be right to sacrifice slaves (not right, but logically in an abstract argument), concretely, slaves also have children and are human. Haves and have-nots doesn’t work in that visionary view. (But don’t worry about it . . . we’re getting there where you won’t have to think any more deeply about it than you already have.) CBK
CBK,
When you eat over the next few days perhaps you could think deeply about the unvaccinated people who all went to work so that you could have food.
Without them going to work despite not having been vaccinated, you would die.
I’m a bit behind on this one so please excuse me if I’m leaving something out:
If the question is about who should be vaccinated first (food producers/service people vs teachers); my answer would be the former. We need to eat to survive and those workers (esp in service) are exposed to others on a daily basis.
If the question is whether, while waiting for the vaccinations, teachers should be forced to suck it up and get in the classroom (or else be fired/lose their livelihood); I’d have say, “No”. Under that scenario; there are many who will die and/or expose others they come in contact with, who could end up dead.
Why would anyone want to put another person into that position? Why not wait until both food providers and teachers are vaccinated?
gitapik No . . . your arguments are good. CBK
Teachingeconomist Maybe someone like you or your grown children, or friends, could do the work of getting food to the grocery stores? Perhaps “WE” could have some better “plan’B’s” and even “C’s” to deal with the problems that (apparently you think) can only drive us into a slave economy? What’s your address? I’ll be sure the powers-that-be have it so that they’ll know who to call. CBK
My last note went to moderation to Economist. CBK
gitapik,
My motivation for the discussion is questioning wether or not it really does make “total sense” that anyone in ANY profession demand to be vaccinated before going to work. I don’t think that makes “total sense” for a whole variety of occupations because people in those occupations, from extremely well paid physicians to extremely poorly paid vegetable pickers, not showing up to work is more dangerous to the general population than the virus.
The reason we can not wait for the people who grow, process, and distribute food to be vaccinated is that we would like to eat something in the next month.
Much of the discussion about these issues here strike me as privilege masquerading as justice. That is disappointing, but not unusual.
In other words, TE does not see why teachers should be vaccinated before returning to full-time instruction.
“ In other words, TE does not see why teachers should be vaccinated before returning to full-time instruction.”
Well…maybe a bit more nuanced than that, lol, but If that’s the nuts and bolts of it:
Teachers come in direct contact with children and adolescents from diverse backgrounds and communities. Some of the parents (and, thus, the offspring) for similar and/or different reasons, are more or less invested in safety protocol than others (to put it mildly, in some cases).
Regardless: the teacher will be with these students, daily, week by week, for hours at a time.
These teachers and students will be placed together in confined areas for extended periods of time. Depending on the functional level of the students; it can be next to impossible to maintain social distancing or compel them keep a mask properly placed on their face. I worked with children with autism and/or emotional problems. The proposition would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
Many classrooms/schools have poor HVAC systems. Even with good ventilation and consistently proper placed masks, prolonged exposure in an enclosed area is an absolute must to avoid.
Among the most important people to protect in this pandemic are those who are exposed to the highest risk. On a consistent basis.
If you’re going to put teachers into the category of “essential worker”, knowing the extreme risks involved; then you should be willing to provide them with the safeguards necessary to preserve their lives and those of others they come in contact with.
As we should be doing for those involved in the food and health care industries. And cops. And firemen. Those who are on the front lines need to be properly armed.
TE has repeatedly complained that teachers are not in their classrooms but grocery clerks are. He comments only to be provocative. I no longer take his bait.
gitapik There are other forms of fallout also when teachers are required to work (OR lose their jobs) without proper protections. One is that if a teacher gets sick and/or dies, many students will feel they are somehow responsible for giving them the virus. CBK
As will the parents, Catherine.
That was the specific reason given by some good friends of mine. Young, healthy adults. When given the window of time to make their choice between remote and blended instruction; they cited the emotional impact on their kids if they thought they’d been the cause of spreading the virus…and how that would effect the relationship with them; the parents who’d told them they should return to the classroom.
Of course I am a teacher who has not been vaccinated and has been teaching in the classroom since the middle of last fall.
Teachers may well demand that they will not return to work before being vaccinated while they pick of their delivery of groceries on the porch picked, processed, packed, and delivered by unvaccinated people of color. That is not justice, it is privilege.
TE has somehow turned this around so that teachers are at fault for getting their groceries but not going to work without proper protections. Sigh . . . . I think Diane is right about the taking-the-bait thing . . . .
BTW, Rush Limbaugh died. Maybe they are looking for a disingenuous replacement. CBK
TE: the grocery clerks/tellers are often standing behind plexiglass windows, wearing protective gear, in stores that won’t allow customers to enter without masks on. And their exposure time to individuals is limited.
Though I still think these workers should be vaccinated, asap, I don’t see how anyone can you equate that with hours at a time in the same room with kids who may or may not observe safety protocol. And even if they are all perfectly following the correct procedures; everybody is still at risk.
gitapik,
Everyone agrees that everyone should be vaccinated as soon as possible.
The question here is if EVERYONE should not go to their job until they have been vaccinated. It is a simple question, requiring a yes or a no.
TE It’s their unforced choice. CBK
CBK,
Just so I understand, when you say it is their “unforced choice” you mean that everyone, from highly paid physicians to poorly paid field hands should be able to choose to be at a physical workplace or not and if they choose not to work they should get the same income as they would receive if they did work?
If I am understanding you correctly, can you give an estimate of percentage of hospitals would have enough staff to remain open? Of grocery stores?
I worked in New York during the Bloomberg mayoralty, and the succession of godawful school chancellors he appointed–including the ridiculously underqualified and professionally inept Kathy Black. Therefore, I thank Mr. Goldstein for his much-needed screed against this out-of-touch billionaire. In fact, let’s all take note that Arthur Goldstein is not singing a new song here; he has been notably consistent and cogent in his protestations about and against Michael Bloomberg.
Enough Mayor Bloomberg, enough already.
“It’s particularly galling, after having devoted your life to help children, to be told you don’t care about them…”
This has been the mantra for the majority of my teaching career. We get it not just in the media, from the bloombergists and rightwingists, we get it from the administrations in public schools who try to shame teachers into doing their bidding instead of convincing teachers as professionals.
General Douglas MacArthur: I shall NOT return, but the soldiers in my army need to suck it up and stand up and return.
President Lincoln: …that we here highly resolve that these honored dead shall not have died in vain, I mean, I am not going to be highly resolved that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth, but all you little people need to suck it up and stand up and provide resolve.
John F Kennedy: Ask not what your country can do for you. Suck it up and stand up and provide for me.
Good ones.
“The only thing we have to fear is the absence of suckservience”
— Donald Trump
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to not suck it up” – Edmund Burke
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to suck it up”- JFk
Those who dare to suck it up can achieve greatly” — JFK
Give me suck-up or give me death” — O Henry
“Yes, we can suck it up” — Barack Obama
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to suck it up, eventually you’ll make progress” ― Barack Obama
MLK: I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the penthouse. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But suck it up and get over there while I look down from my penthouse.
Blessed are those who suck it up, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Oh, we’re going biblical? Well, in that case, quoth Jules from Pulp Fiction! Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and tell my lost children to suck it up.
I love that movie, especially the Honey Bunny scene in the restaurant.
Suck up to others as you would have them suck up to you.
“Suck it up for your enemies”
“suck it up and you shall receive, suck it up and you shall find, suck it up and the door will be opened to you”
SomeDAM Poet Keep your enemies close, but your suck-up enemies closer. CBK
I posted this poem in previously and it never ceases to amaze me how nitwits like Bloomberg continue to mitate art
“
ExpertNitwit Billionaire advice”“A mask or two or three
Is all you need to be
A teacher in the schools
In times when virus rules”
The nitwits give advice
And often give it thrice:
“Don’t need no stinking vax
To stop it in it’s tracks”
“So suck it up and teach
Inject some household bleach
And quit your endless whining
You’re ruining my dining”
The other thing that never ceases to amaze me is how people like Bloomberg who are so stupid can become so rich.
Nitwits imitate art
But they also mitate it.
Perfect. Just perfect.
So true today, Some DAM.
I like that one, poet. Especially the last stanza. “How dare you disturb my Baked Alaska!”.
One good (not necessarily “great”) idea, conceived at the right time and place, combined with tremendous aggressive tenacity and commitment, can reap large scale financial rewards.
Bloomberg got into the communications/news biz at the perfect time. Just before tech was just about to seriously hit it’s stride.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of NITWITS
is for good men to do nothing, that STOPS them…
I thought I’d thrown a little red meat into the ring:
https://crooksandliars.com/2021/02/fox-news-lie-teachers-unions-are-power
Before I decided to return to college and earn a teaching credential back in 1975, I often heard one phrase, “Those who can’t do, teach.” Meaning: “people who are not able to do anything that well makes a living by teaching.”
Yea, right! That quote is pure BS and propaganda.
I was thirty when I returned to earn my teaching credential. I was 15 when I started my first job in the private sector washing dishes in a coffee shop. When I graduated from high school, I left that job, joined the Marines and ended up fighting in Vietnam.
After Vietnam and behind honorably discharged by the U.S. Marines in 1968, I started college with financial help from the G.I. Bill.
After graduating from college with my first degree, I ended up working in middle management for a large trucking company. That job sucked. It was tedious, the same routine and paperwork day after day after day, boring as hell. No challenge at all.
So, I quit and earned a teaching credential and taught for thirty years 1975 – 2005. Teaching was the most challenging, demanding job I ever had, even the Marines and combat was easier.
When I retired at 60, I decided that if I was forced to return to teaching, I’d rather die than go through that again. The reason isn’t that I didn’t enjoy teaching, but it’s the way teachers are treated by ass hats like Bloomberg and DeVos.
Excellent essay, Arthur.
He’s not as bad as Trump…but 12 years of Bloomberg’s iron fisted insanity was enough to make anybody consider leaving the profession.
And, indeed; many either did just that or were forced to, in the name of “reform”.
The fact that the fear remains; long after Bloomberg left the job, is disturbing, to say the least. Many of his like minded lackeys were allowed to stay and continue to enact his policies.
For me (a teacher who saw his working it’s effects, first hand) his legacy is that of subordination. I am the boss. The people who supervise you are your bosses. You are only a teacher. Do what we tell you to do and we’ll be satisfied. Speak up and you’re gone.
If you live in NYC, be aware that Joel Klein is advising mayoral candidate Ray McGuire.
Well, that’s the proverbial punch in the gut.
But I’m glad you let me know, Diane. I’ll spread the word. Joel Klein is just a poor(er…not a billionaire) man’s version of Bloomberg.
Flip side of my reasonable demand that I be vaccinated before returning to in-person teaching::
COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee public comments Week of January 18-24, 2021
Older adults Summary: Older adults should be prioritized for COVID vaccine ahead of 0-12 educators.
[…]
“IIf teachers get vaccinated before elderly, the kids go back to school X- months earlier… But during these X-months, how many more elderly people are going to DIE? AND THAT’S A GIVEN! I offer no apology for feeling that people’s lives matter more than delaying education for a few more months.”
Respectfully submitted, Lee Nolet FORMER- Chief of Clinical Operations, County of San Bernardino
[…]
Click to access Public-Comment-COVID-19-VAC-2021-01.28.pdf
Richard Holsworth Does ANYONE here NOT connect these kinds of choices (older people or teachers) to Trump’s early treatment of all-things-virus? CBK
2013 headline “Mayor Bloomberg Defends Mandatory Flu Shot Decision”
Ah, the hypocrisy of the ‘reopen schools” push by those who rightly championed strict immunization mandates like this one: “No different than students being vaccinated for measles and mumps or tested for tuberculosis before they come on campus. That’s the best way we know to keep all on the campus safe. Families will always have the option for a child to stay in online learning and, therefore, not be on campus,” Beutner added, “but to go back to campus, yes.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2021-01-12/la-schools-chief-kids-must-get-coronavirus-vaccine-to-return
What has Bloomberg done to prepare schools for reopening?
Last I knew teachers weren’t responsible for providing hot water for bathrooms, filters or purifiers for vents, signage for mask wearing and social distancing, cohorts of smaller classes, quarantine rooms, vermin removal …
But most schools can’t even claim that. States and school boards need to catch up.