This is my analysis of the strike, posted on the website of the New York Review of Books.
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This reader will vote for Obama because Romney would be a catastrophe on many levels:
I am just the opposite of many here. I will be abandoning the Green party for the first time in years because, while I did not vote for Obama, the difference between Democrat and Republican is, for the first time I can remember, significant enough to warrant my voting for a less than ideal candidate to avoid electing a truly awful one by default. Even if ed. policy is your only issue, I don’t see how anyone thinks the strong ALEC-driven push to privatize the entire system is the same thing as RTTT. And if you look at all the other issues, the prospect of a Republican in the White House becomes scary enough to vote against Romney, at all costs.
Diane, you have spent the last several years pointing out that it is poverty that creates failing schools, rather than failing educational personnel. I applaud you for being nearly the only strong public voice challenging the prevailing deform movement. However, I cannot believe you are suggesting anyone vote in such a way as to create what will almost certainly be widespread increases in poverty (and therefore worse education for many more kids) through the regressive policies proposed by Paul Ryan and hs running mate. Please, swing state folks–hold your noses and vote for the far lesser of two evils.
Norm Scott, a retired teacher who is a blogger and film producer (“The Inconvenient Truth Behind ‘Waiting for Superman'”), wrote a provocative explanation of the Chicago strike and its political implications.
He says that President Obama can’t support the Chicago teachers because they are striking against his Race to the Top policies. And he can’t oppose the teachers because he needs the votes of teachers in the election. So he supports the kids.
Jon Pelto has placed an order for a comfortable pair of walking shoes for President Obama, so he can walk alongside the striking teachers in Chicago.
He even paid for priority shipment from L.L. Bean.
Mr. President, remember when you said that “workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner”?
So far, President Obama has had no comment. Like Mitt Romney, he is on the side of the students.
President Obama, the teachers are on the side of the students. They want the students to have smaller classes, art classes, access to a social worker, a library, and the help they need to succeed.
Mr. President, please join CTU on the picket line to show your support for the students and teachers of Chicago.
Count on Stephanie Simon of Reuters to get the story that eluded every other reporter.
She is the one that got the inside story on Louisiana, TFA, and for-profit investors.
Now she has the scoop on Chicago.
The strike in Chicago is not about money.
It is a national story.
It’s about the survival of public education.
Read her story.
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.
Yesterday I responded to an article in The Atlantic claiming that Michelle Rhee was actually a “lefty” and was “taking over” the Democratic party.
I responded to the article.
Others have said that the writer, Molly Ball, was sending out an automated reply, but I got something slightly different.
What she says here is that she doesn’t understand why a Democrat would not support for-profit charter schools; or work closely with Governor Chris Christie to strip teachers of tenure and seniority; or work with Governor Rick Scott to promote privatization of public schools; or work with Governor Mitch Daniels to push vouchers through the legislature; or accept an award from the rightwing American Federation for Children in company with Governor Scott Walker.
What she says is that there is no difference between Democrats and Mitt Romney on education.
I hope that President Obama makes clear what the differences are.
Here is our exchange:
Hi Diane, thanks for the feedback. My intent with the story was not to mediate yet another round of the education-reform debate, but to illustrate the political inroads Rhee and her ideas have made, while noting, as you do, that they remain quite controversial. To answer your rhetorical questions, I don't see why a Democrat can't do any of those things. Best, Molly ________________________________________ From: Diane Ravitch [gardend@aol.com] Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 6:05 PM To: Ball, Molly Subject: From Diane Ravitch re Rhee Would a Democrat work to promote a for-profit chain? Would a Democrat work with Republican governors Rick Scott, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels? What part of Rhee's agenda differs from that of the most rightwing Republicans? What Democrat would have accepted an honor from the far-right voucher-loving organization American Federation for Children, which simultaneously honored Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker? Nothing that Rhee advocates has ever succeeded. Neither charters nor vouchers nor merit pay nor evaluating teachers by test scores has any evidence of improving education. Diane Ravitch
I have not decided how I will vote.
I will not vote for Romney.
How I cast my vote will be decided in the next few weeks.
This teacher has decided:
I am one of the thousands of stunned teachers, and life long Democrats who was amazed by the actions taken by the current Democratic leadership in the war against teachers. I was one of the teachers who was fired, then rehired at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.
Without warning, bad evaluation, or cold reasoning I was made the pillar and brunt of national jokes and political finger wagging.
The greatest hurt came when this president, on national news, commended the “bravery” of the superintendent when she fired the entire staff of the high school.
Without knowledge or background on the extreme level of poverty, crime, or lack of funding, President Obama called me a bad teacher.
This is the direction of the war against teachers. Along with Arne Duncan and of course the teachings of Rhee I have seen first hand the devastation caused by amateur educational reformers.
Replacement Teaching Fellows from 60 day certificate factories have lasted as little as 24 hours, some I find crying in the bathroom. Promised money disappears into administrative accounts, and the blame for kids that can’t see the light of day for the crushing poverty they live in rests with teachers.
So, for the first time since I walked the blocks for McGovern I will not vote for ta Democratic president.
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.
