This article gets it wrong in so many ways - BUT makes an unintended and important point! First, it calls Diane Ravich and those like her Militant. As if critics of corporate education reform walk around with rifles wearing berets. No, were not Che Guevaras. Second, it says that tenure makes it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. We all know tenure only provides due process so that administration has to give employees due process and a reason before firing them. Third, it continues the myth that charter schools are laboratories of innovation that public schools should emulate. Specifically, it says that charters have a longer school day and when Chicago administrators tried to do the same thing in the public schools, the teachers union refused. If Im not mistaken, the problem wasnt the longer school day but that administration didnt want to pay teachers more for working longer hours. Moreover, more class time is not always the answer. This completely ignores the problems of poverty. Finally, it completely ignores how dreadful the educational outcomes are at a majority of charter schools. However, even with all this (to be kind) inaccuracy, the article shows how much the recent actions of the AFT and NEA have shaken up the Democrats. The authors point here is that Democrats will have to change if they want to keep teachers as a constituency. This is true! President Obama has been under attack by Republicans for so long and over so little, its a shock when a real, substantive criticism surfaces from his supposed base! Can he and the Democrats really survive as a viable political party entrenched against both the Right and the Left? Of course not! They have to listen to us and change or else they are politically vulnerable. Conversely, this is a huge opportunity for the Republicans. There are many on the far Right who already hate Common Core. If the GOP changed its stance on education, it could reap huge gains - heck! a whole voting block is up for grabs! In short, if we can keep educating the public about the factual errors once again entrenched here, we really can engender real change in our nations educational policy? We really can win one for our kids and our profession. Take heart! https://portside.org/2014-07-14/teachers-unions-turn-against-democrats
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 12:13:26 +0000
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