When Mayor Rahm Emanuel is talking about youth crime, he assigns responsibility to parents and families for the values and attitudes and behavior of what he calls “gang bangers.”
When he talks about schools, however, he forgets that parents and families have any influence on how students behave and the effort they are willing to expend on their studies. All of a sudden, teachers alone control test scores, no one else.
Jessie B. Ramey attended a meeting at the White House with a delegation of Pennsylvania educators.
Ramey wrote an open letter to Roberto Rodriguez, President Obama’s education advisor, asking the White House to stop berating educators and public education.
Based on the story in The Atlantic claiming that Michelle Rhee is “taking over the Democratic Party,” it becomes imperative for President Obama to distance himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher ideas.
Does President Obama support charter schools, like Rhee? Yes.
Does President Obama support for-profit schools, like Rhee? He hasn’t said.
Does President Obama worry about a dual school system in American cities, with charters for the haves and public schools for the have-nots? We need to know.
Does President Obama want entire school staffs to be fired because of low test scores? He said no at the Convention but he supported the firing of the staff at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island and his Race to the Top turnaround strategy supports mass firings. Does he approve or disapprove?
Does President Obama truly want to stop the odious practice of teaching to the test? Will he explain how teachers can avoid teaching to the test if their pay and their job depends on student test scores?
President Obama must let the nation’s teachers know that he is with them. He can do so by disassociating himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher agenda, as well as from policies pushed by his own Race to the Top.
And he could go to Chicago and tell Rahm Emanuel to settle with the teachers and do what is right for the children of Chicago.
Superintendent J.C. Brizard says a strike will only hurt the kids.
This teacher tells Superintendent Brizard what really hurts the kids in Chicago public schools.
A reader says:
My last post Said a strike is likely.
That was wrong.
From Ms. Katie:
Not likely. It’s happening. “In the morning, no CTU members will be inside our schools. We will walk the picket line.”-Lewis #CTU #FairContractNow
I will be wearing red in solidarity with the Chicago Teachers Union tomorrow, in support of whatever decision they make. If they should strike, they have my support. If they don’t, they also have my support. I am not giving my support unthinkingly or blindly. I support their right to bargain collectively. Knowing Karen Lewis, I believe she has the best interests of the children of Chicago in her heart. I believe in her and I believe in the teachers of Chicago.
One of our readers, GatorbonBC, posted the following comment.
If you know me well, you know I hold our WEAR RED FOR ED close to my heart. I also hold my CHICAGO teacher friends very close to my heart. They have taught me so much over the years. So, please… wear RED tomorrow. Show SOLIDARITY with Chicago teachers. They are fighting the same fight we are all fighting for our KIDS. They are fighting against high stakes testing, against the closing of public schools, against privatization via charter schools and virtual learning, against funneling public tax dollars to corporations … and against blaming teachers for everything wrong with our schools. FAIR CONTRACTS… please stand with Chicago. ~Wear Red for Public Ed !
Tomorrow is Decision Day in Chicago.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has tried to bully the Chicago Teachers Union and its leader Karen Lewis.
Lewis was elected by the members because they knew she would stand up for them.
Emanuel has the support of the Wall Street hedge fund managers organization, somewhat absurdly called Democrats for Education Reform. He also has the other big-monied people in Chicago, as mentioned in this article in the Chicago Tribune, including billionaire Penny Pritzker.
The article mentions that DFER staged a protest at union headquarters to oppose a strike. I wonder how many hedge fund managers send their children to Chicago public schools. I am trying to imagine hedge fund managers marching in front of union headquarters and carrying signs. I am guessing that what happened was that they “staged” a protest, meaning that they hired out-of-work actors to carry protest signs. Maybe the unemployed actors have children in the Chicago public schools.
The great thing about having Karen Lewis there is that every teacher in America knows she will stand strong for them. She will not sell them out. And she will not sell out the children.
She knows that teachers’ working conditions are children’s learning conditions.
Both Rahm and Penny know that too. That’s why they don’t send their children to the schools for which they are responsible. They send their children to a school with small classes, lots of arts and physical education, a great library, experienced teachers, and a full curriculum. The school where they send their children doesn’t give standardized tests and does not evaluate teachers by their students’ test scores.
Last spring, Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee tried to push the phony “parent trigger” legislation through the Florida legislature. It seemed to be a slam-dunk, since the legislature is controlled by Republicans and the governor is Republican, and the skids were greased to turn more public schools over to the charter corporations. These corporations give generous campaign contributions, so the table was set to add to their portfolios.
But they forgot about the parents, the alleged beneficiaries of the “trigger.”
Florida parent organizations turned out in force to oppose the “trigger.” They knew what the game was, and they knew it was not for their benefit that Bush and Rhee and ALEC were so eager to “empower” them with the ability to give their public school to a corporation. The Florida PTA and groups like Testing is Not Teaching, Fund Education Now, and 50th No More opposed the “trigger.”
Parents made a difference. They understood that the goal of the “trigger” is to shoot public education in the heart. They convinced enough Republican senators to vote against the bill that it ended in a 20-20 deadlock in the state senate. Of course, the forces of greed will return again, but parents will organize again.
Parents in Chicago are organizing to support the Chicago Teachers Union. One group, the parents of the 19th Ward, have been outspoken. I got this email today:
http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/09/press-statement-on-chicago-teachers.html
Press Statement on Chicago Teachers Strike
Dr Mark Naison, Fordham University
The Chicago Teachers strike is an incredibly important development because it is a the first time a union local has threatened to strike against education policies pushed by the Obama Administration through its Race to the Top initiative, policies, in my judgment, that have had incredibly destructive consequences for Urban school systems and distressed urban communities
The policies pushed by Rahm Emmanuel, which are being simultaneously implemented in New York and many other cities, involve evaluating teachers and schools on the basis of student test scores, closing schools whose test scores fail to meet a certain standard and firing half their staffs, replacing public schools with charter schools, some run as non profits and some run for profit, and trying to weaken teacher tenure and introduce merit pay
The first three components have been already introduced in Chicago and the mayor wants to intensify them and legnthen the school day. The union is saying enough is enough.
I support the union in taking this stand for the following reasos
1. Closing schools, many of which have been a bulwark of neighborhoods for generations, has been a complete disaster. It has destroyed one point of stability in the lives of young people who have precious little. It removes teachers who have been a part of students lives. It is not an accident that Chicago has seen a serious uptick of violence since Emmanuel became mayor. Young people in distressed neighborhoods need to see community institutions strengthened and teacher mentors protected. School closings and staff turnover take away needed anchors
2. Rating teachers and schools on the basis of student test scores, and threatening to close schools and fire teachers if the proper results aren’t achieved have not only ratcheted up stress levels in schools, they have led to the elimination of art music, sports, school trips and even recess for test prep. The result is that more and more teachers hate teaching and more and more young people hate school, increasing the drop out rate in neighborhoods which desperately need schools to become community centers where young people want to go. The union wants to make schools welcoming places where students want to come by reducing class size, and bringing back sports and the arts, and strengtheining struggling schools rather than closing them. That makes a lot of sense to me
3. Favoring charter schools over public schools has resulted in the systematic creaming off of high performing students by the charters and the warehousing of ELL and special needs students, along with students who have behavior issues, in the remaining public schools. The result is that overall academic performance in the district has not improved
4. Removing teacher tenure and job protections has resulted in the most talented teachers leaving the city system or trying to move from low performing schools to high performing ones where they are less likely to be fired. The result is an accentuation of racial and economic gaps in performance
Basically, what the union wants is to strengthen neighborhood schools an invest in making them places where students are nurtured and want to come, rather than stress filled test factories which the Emmanuel plan and Race to the Top guarantees
The union, in this instance is far better advocate for the children
of Chicago than the mayor
I am available for interviews on my cell all weekend (917) 836-3014
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
“If you Want to Save America’s Public Schools: Replace Secretary of Education Arne Duncan With a Lifetime Educator.” http://dumpduncan.org/
I link two different articles here, each of them explaining the dilemma in which we find out society today.
On the one hand, there is the potential strike of the Chicago Teachers Union. This situation pits a Democratic mayor against the city’s public school teachers, who stand united (98% voted to authorize a strike). They should have been his allies. President Obama will need their votes in two months.
On the other, there is a growing realization that the new jobs created since the recession of 2008 are low-wage jobs. The middle class is losing ground. Many new college graduates find themselves working at a fast-food chain or in retail sales, not making enough to pay off their student loans. The jobs they expected to get have disappeared.
What is happening to our country? The middle class is shrinking. The rich are getting richer. Income inequality is growing. The ranks of the poor and the near-poor are expanding. There is a full-court press to eliminate collective bargaining or reduce the power of unions, rendering them toothless.
The attack on unions is an attack on the middle class. It is an attack on an institution that builds a middle class. Unions were an essential part of the movement to create a middle class, allowing poor people to find jobs with a pension, health benefits and a decent wage. As unions wither, the middle class will shrivel even more.
Unions were an important ally in the civil rights movement and they have been fundamental in promoting the economic progress of black and Hispanic workers.
Consider this guest post on the Shanker Blog by Norm and Velma Hill, veterans of the civil rights movement and the union movement:
With a lot of prodding from [A. Philip] Randolph, the AFL-CIO… came to recognize the deep connection between labor rights and civil rights. The civil rights movement has moved the same way, acknowledging organized labor as by far its strongest ally. In a 1961 speech, Dr. King spoke to this, declaring that “Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education and respect in their community. That is why blacks support labor’s demands and fight laws that curb labor.”
That is why the labor hater and the race baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature, spewing anti-black epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other. That is why, at the time of King’s assassination in 1968, he was preparing to lead a march in Memphis, Tennessee, in support of black sanitation workers who were striking for union recognition. And that is why, for generations of black Americans and other minorities, a “good” union job was understood to be a path to the middle-class.
Still today, the benefits of trade union membership for African Americans, women, and other minorities are clear. According to one recent estimate, the wages of black union members are 31 percent higher than the wages of African Americans who are not union members. The union wage advantage for women workers is 34 percent; for Latino workers, it’s a whopping 51 percent. That being true, the decline of the union movement should be of special concern. In the mid-1950s, about one-third of the workforce belonged to unions. Today the proportion is down to not much more than 10 percent.
Some black and Hispanic entrepreneurs have done well during this period of growing income inequality. But black and Hispanic poverty remains deep and entrenched. Destroying unions eliminates the good jobs where black and Hispanic workers earn more. Access to the middle class becomes harder when unions are eliminated.
As the non-union charter sector expands, teachers’ unions are weakened. 88% of charter schools are non-union. It is easier for them to fire expensive teachers or to fire teachers who don’t conform or to fire whistle-blowers. There is no evidence that non-union charter schools are systematically more successful than public schools with unions. Here and there, you will find a high-flying non-union charter school, but you can find many more high-flying unionized public schools. On average, charters do no better than public schools when they enroll the same students and have the same resources.
So, yes, we need a rebirth of unionism. Yes, working people need protection from predatory employers who care only for lowering costs, no matter what the human cost. This country must restore a balance and sanity to its policies, and that won’t happen as long as the most powerful figures are joined in an effort to destroy unions and to privatize public education.
P.S. A personal disclaimer: I do not belong to a union. I never have.
Diane Ravitch's blog 