I applaud the teachers at the NEA Convention who booed Arne Duncan … he deserved to be booed. And, unfortunately I am beginning to have my doubts about President Obama. I don’t fully understand how “cap and trade” will improve the environment and the trillion dollar Obama health care plan is faltering. I do know that the Obama/Duncan education plan is a fiasco, worse, it is a thinly disguised assault on teacher unions and their contracts.
Duncan’s claims of a Chicago education miracle have been challenged by a local business group in a just released report . Why should we think his Washington agenda is any sounder?
Merit pay, easier dismissal procedures and the war on tenure have nothing to do with improving instruction … they have everything to do with garnering public support and forcing unions to make concessions. After all, where can teachers go? to Sara Palin?
A scant year ago Obama was our hero, taking on the Rush Limbaugh/Fox Network crowd. With soaring , lyric speeches he spoke to us … we flocked to his campaign, we did the “dirty work” of politics, making phone calls, licking envelopes, knocking on doors, texting, traveling to other cities and canvassing … the person to person, door to door campaigning that wins elections.
Our hero has deserted us.
Yes, there are great teachers and “schleppers,” to use a sports metaphor, Albert Pujols and the .220 hitter. The same applies in all professions, medicine, law, engineering, we just hope that our doctor or lawyer is in the higher cohort, and that marginal engineers didn’t design the plane we’re flying on.
The bell shaped curve of life.
Agreed, we need more great teachers, and the recession/depression will retain teachers and drive more able candidates into teaching. The Great Depression of the ’30s drove would-be doctors and lawyers and college professors into public school classrooms.
The whining about union assisted teacher incompetence is a charade. Schools systems and principals, not unions, hire teachers. School systems and principals, not unions, decide who stays and who leaves.
There are 700 teachers in the rubber rooms around the city, not because, as Klein would want you to think, union rules. There are 700 teachers in rubber rooms because Klein hasn’t hired the investigators, the lawyers and the arbitrators to expedite the process. For Klein, it’s simply good politics, to allow teachers to molder and slam the union.
Teachers don’t embrace merit pay, or easier dismissal rules because teachers don’t trust Joel Klein and his principals. How many teachers are in rubber rooms because they voiced their disagreement with the principal? In a Brooklyn elementary school nine teachers received U rating from a first year Leadership Academy principal because, basically, they disagreed with her.
Teachers admire Randi Weingarten because she fought for us, she became our hero.
I first met her when she was the union lawyer working for Sandy Feldman. I was trying to fight a predatory principal who targeted young female teachers. When I confronted him he scoffed and complained that due to his arthritis he was in constant pain. A complaining teacher, a first year teacher of Caribbean lineage told me, “He should have the arthritis in his dick.”
A new Chapter Leader was elected who was passionate, we worked with Randi, and in a few months the principal was forced to resign. Randi became my hero.
We would have liked to see her take on Bloomberg, his braggadocio TV commercial lauding his educational achievements chaff. 44% in salary increases, restoration of 25/55 pension benefits ease the aggravation, and if Randi’s backing off on governance results in a fair contract teachers will understand, it will tarnish her image, but they’ll understand.
Heroes for teachers are in distressingly short supply.
Ralph Hinkley, a teacher in the 1981-1984 TV sitcom “Greatest American Hero.”
Alex Jurel in the 1983 movie, “Teachers,” and that spectacular final scene.
NICK NOLTE (TEACHERS 1983) FINAL SCENE
”Jurel, they know you’re crazy … I know, I know, what can I tell you, I’m a teacher, I’m a teacher.”
4 responses so far ↓
mikeklonsky // July 6, 2009 at 12:57 am |
That “local business group” is the Chicago Civic Committee–the ruling class of Chicago. They were the ones who’s plan (Renaissance 2010) you are so critical of, was supposed to be carried out by CEO Duncan. You mention their report as if it’s credible. It ain’t.
Linda/Retired Teacher // July 6, 2009 at 2:10 am |
Teachers need to do a complete paradigm shift in their thinking. President Obama and Arne Duncan have invited them to be full partners in reform. This means that if teachers see themselves as empowered leaders, they can start and manage charters, choose their head teachers, decide on the people invited into the profession, determine the meaning of pay for performance, write assessments and, most important of all, do what is best for their students.
Loretta // July 6, 2009 at 3:13 pm |
“and if Randi’s backing off on governance results in a fair contract teachers will understand, it will tarnish her image, but they’ll understand”
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Sorry – the teachers I talk to care as much about teaching and learning – being able to teach so that kids learn – as they do about salary and pension. It seems to me, PJG, that you don’t have the same dedication to this profession as so many out there. Salary, of course, but not at the price they are now paying.
Natalie Schwartz // July 6, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
I’m a journalist, and last year I wrote a book about the multitude of challenges teachers face in the hopes of garnering more support, respect and gratitude for teachers from parents, taxpayers and the general public. I interviewed more than 50 teachers and heard countless stories about the obstacles teachers overcome to educate our children—a spectrum of behavior issues in the classroom, uncooperative parents, unsupportive administrators, heavy workloads, inadequate compensation. I’ve been writing magazine articles, commenting on blogs, doing interviews and conducting parent workshops to garner support for teachers. I have a lot of insight into the issues facing teachers due to my research. If there is anything else I can do to advance your causes, please let me know.
Natalie Schwartz
Author, “The Teacher Chronicles: Confronting the Demands of Students, Parents, Administrators and Society” (Laurelton Media, 2008)
natalie@laureltonmedia.com