This is my analysis of the strike, posted on the website of the New York Review of Books.
Archives for category: Race to the Top
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.
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.
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/
At the Democratic National Convention, Arne Duncan renounced many of his own policies.
He came out in opposition to teaching to the test, although his own Race to the Top demands it (he never mentioned Race to the Top.)
He denounced the millionaires and billionaires who are supporting the charter school movement and privatization of public education (he didn’t mention that either).
He didn’t mention that he wants education colleges to be graded by the test scores of the students of their graduates.
He didn’t mention merit pay, into which his Department of Education has pumped nearly $ billion.
He didn’t mention the proliferation of for-profit schools.
He didn’t mention that he campaigned with Newt Gingrich to rally support for Race to the Top.
He didn’t mention that he called Bobby Jindal’s choice for state commissioner a “visionary leader,” who now promotes vouchers and the disestablishment of public education.
We should be grateful, I suppose, for what he did not mention.
A reader described the start of the new school year. It began on a sad note:
School started for me yesterday. We had twos of professional development which meant our principal and a few other suits lecturing us about what we needed to do to keep our school from closing. At one point the principal said, “if you have a problem with what I’m telling you, maybe this isn’t the right school for you” very nice on the 2nd day of the new school year.
Today our local superintendent came for a minute. He seems very sad. He looked defeated. He came to wish us well and tell us that NY state is now deciding which schools live or die. NYC is no longer in the loop. He said he doesn’t agree with the state but the bottom line is that everything hinges on the results of the ELA and Math state exams. He said it didn’t look promising.
I work in an urban school with a high percentage of challenging children. Each year as more children go to Charters we get those who nobody wants. The numbers of elementary students are declining while the numbers of middle school are increasing as Charters cherry pick the best students and leave us the rest.
This is not considered. ELA and Math scores only will decide our fate.
To have our Superintendent so defeated before one child has set foot into my school this year is troubling. He said he just wanted to be honest with us.
What a way to start a new school year.
I first met Bill Clinton in Little Rock in 1984.
When he was President, I heard him speak on many occasions.
I never heard anyone speak as eloquently about the challenges in K-12 education.
Tonight, I watched his boffo performance and was once again wowed by his ability to get deeply substantive and at the same time, chatty and personal.
The man truly has a gift of oratory.
He briefly talked about education. He talked about the importance of bringing down the cost of college and student loans.
He didn’t mention K-12.
I listened closely.
He didn’t mention Race to the Top.
Maybe it was an oversight but I doubt it.
How can you talk about cooperation and shared responsibility in the same breath with a “race” to “the top” for our children?
How can you say “we are all in this together” while you are telling children that they have to race to see who is best at taking tests and the poor kids almost always are the losers?
Eli Broad made billions in the home mortgage business and the insurance business (AIG).
He runs a foundation that specializes in education reform, medical research, and art.
One assumes he does not tell the medical researchers what to do or the artists what to create.
If only he had the same modesty about education.
He thinks he knows what works.
School choice. Test-based accountability. Merit pay. Business-style management.
None of his favorite nostrums are supported by research or evidence.
No matter.
Now he plans to expand to generate even more “disruptive,” “entrepreneurial,” “transformational” leaders of your schools.
He boasts about listening to no one and plunging ahead.
It worked for him in the home mortgage business, though he was long gone when millions of people lost their homes.
It worked for him at AIG, but he made his billions before that giant collapsed.
Now Broad trains school leaders in his unaccredited “academy.”
They learn his principles.
His Broadies are leading districts and states.
Some are educators, some are not.
Some are admired, some are despised.
But the question remains, who elected Eli Broad to reform the nation’s schools?
He is like a spoiled rich kid in a candy shop, taking what he wants, knocking over displays, breaking jars, barking orders.
America’s public schools are not his playground. Or should not be.
How can he be held accountable?
And who will pick up the pieces when his latest fancy blows up like AIG?
By all accounts, the election of 2012 will be close.
For educators, the stakes are high.
Mitt Romney supports every kind of privatization, from charters to vouchers to full-time online schools, and he has no problem with for-profit schooling.
His agenda threatens the survival of that most basic of democratic institutions, the public school.
Educators supported President Obama when he ran in 2008. They enthusiastically embraced him as a true change agent, expecting that he would make major alterations to the noxious federal law No Child Left Behind.
But after his election, instead of calling for a major change in NCLB, he launched his Race to the Top, which builds on the flawed strategies of NCLB. Although President Obama has won the endorsement of the NEA and the AFT, many of the nation’s nearly four million teachers are discouraged by his policies. If they sit home or if they are lukewarm, he could lose the election.
We can’t let that happen.
So I am doing my part by writing a short speech that would win educators back. If he uses this speech, he would win the election. He could incorporate the following into his acceptance speech at the Convention in Charlotte or use it on a subsequent occasion:
“I want to address a few words to the nation’s hard-working teachers and principals, to its dedicated leaders and school board members. You hold the future in your hands. Your work will determine whether America is a great society, a just society and a creative society in the future.
“I know you have been disappointed in my approach to education. I know that teacher morale is at a low ebb. I know there is far too much pressure to teach to the test. That degrades the joy of learning.
“I know that most of that pressure comes from mistakes we made when we launched a ‘Race to the Top.’
“I know now we were wrong.
“Judging teachers by the test scores of their students is wrong. I understand now that this method doesn’t work. I apologize to you for letting it happen.
“You know that I have spoken out repeatedly against teaching to the test. I would not want this for my children, and you should not want it for yours or the children in your care. This is mis-education.
“Our country is now spending billons of dollars on testing and test preparation that should be spent in the classrooms of America, bringing back the 300,000 teachers who lost their jobs. reducing class sizes, restoring libraries, and providing services directly to children.
“Our nation must out-innovate the world and it won’t happen by picking a bubble on a standardized test. It will only happen if we encourage critical thinking, free inquiry, and a sense of wonder and imagination in every classroom.
“We want our students to lead the world in their love of learning. We want them to be the best in creativity. We want them to know history and foreign languages, science and mathematics, literature and geography. We want them to rexperience the liberating power of the arts. And we want them to have physical education every single day so that they are healthy and fit.
“One more thing. I realize that we were wrong to require states to allow more privately-managed schools as a condition of getting money from the Race to the Top.
“Through our mistakes, we inadvertently unleashed a movement to privatize our nation’s public schools and to turn them into for-profit centers for equity investors and technology corporations.
“This is unacceptable. Folks on the right have wanted to privatize our schools for half a century. We can’t let that happen.
“When we look around the world, we see that the top-performing nations have great public systems. We do not want to revive a dual school system in our nation’s cities, dividing up our public funds between a weakened public system and aggressive charter chains.
“And so I am directing my Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as of this day to cancel the Race to the Top. The fact is that learning is not accomplished in a “race.” Races are fine on the sports field, but not in the classroom. Learning is accomplished because of the patient effort of students, teachers, principals, parents, and communities working together.
“From this moment on, the U.S. Department of Education will dedicate its efforts to improving public education; to supporting equality of educational opportunity; to enforcing the civil rights of our students; to funding the districts where need is greatest; to strengthening the research and information that we need to upgrade our schools; and to recognizing that the primary responsibility for reform lies with the states and districts that are closest to the problems.
“Yes, we must improve public education. But we must do it in ways that make our communities and our democracy stronger. We must do it in ways that respect the dedication of our educators. And we must do it in ways that recognize that many children and families need extra help because of the burdens of poverty. We must do what we can to lift those burdens and to bring about the greatest of American goals: equality of educational opportunity.
In response to a post defining a failing school, Paul Thomas tweeted a definition of current school reform, as exemplified by the ruinous policies of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. It is called “ouroboros.” See here for further explanation.
