It seems that the major teachers unions are getting a lot more heat than they can handle these days. All of the talk about education bubbles, ‘waiting for superman’, and even the political imbroglio in Wisconsin (ongoing…) has them in a corner. Sadly, and as a less than effective means of putting their concerns into view read the New York Times editorial by David Brooks…and then check out the tone of the follow up retorts in the following article…this is from a teacher (!!).
Finally as a means to cleanse one’s palate after the rhetorical excesses in the Schools matter.info article you can consider some of the upcoming vituperation being directed towards Arne Duncan (the current education secretary) by the NEA…
As always, these quotes may be of some value, but reading the articles in their entirety is always much more insightful and valuable…click away!
Smells Like School Spirit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=2
Diane Ravitch is the nation’s most vocal educational historian. She once was one of the leading intellects behind the education reform movement — emphasizing charter schools, testing and accountability. Over the past few years, she has become that movement’s most vehement critic.
She pours out books, op-ed essays, and speeches, including two this week at the Aspen Ideas Festival. She is very forceful, but there are parts of her new message that are hard to take. She is quick to accuse people who disagree with her of being frauds and greed-heads. She picks and chooses what studies to cite, even beyond the normal standards of people who are trying to make a point.
She has come to adopt the party-line view of the most change-averse elements of the teachers’ unions: There is no education crisis. Poverty is the real issue, not bad schools. We don’t need fundamental reform; we mainly need to give teachers more money and job security.
Nonetheless, Ravitch makes some serious points.
Most important, she is right that teaching is a humane art built upon loving relationships between teachers and students. If you orient the system exclusively around a series of multiple choice accountability assessments, you distort it.
Lies, Damn Lies, and David Brooks
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/07/lies-damn-lies-and-david-brooks.html
David Brooks was the latest Diane Ravitch corporate savager until the New Republic’s senior dolt, Jonathan Chait, strode in yesterday in the flyweight division of clueless corporate Ed deformer commentators. I’ll get to Chait’s thought disorder in another post, but first I must say something about that sweet-smiling fascist-next-door type, David Brooks, whose smarmy swipe at Diane Ravitch has gotten a lot attention among the Business Roundtable ed industry types who can’t decide, at this point, whether to wait for Arne Duncan to be burned in effigy in Washington, DC before they take their bags of dirty money and head for the hills.
NEA goes after Education Secretary Arne Duncan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/nea-goes-after-education-secretary-arne-duncan/2011/07/03/AG72ClwH_blog.html
National Education Association delegates blasted Education Secretary Arne Duncan, passing a resolution that orders the NEA president to “communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately” to President Obama that the teachers union “is appalled” by a number of things Duncan has said and done in the name of school reform.
The resolution of the country’s largest union (see below) includes a list of Duncan’s actions and statements with which the NEA disagrees, including his standardized test-driven reform policies…The resolution underlines the sharp animosity that exists among many public school teachers toward Duncan’s Education Department. But, with obvious calculation, the NEA does not blame Obama for the policies even though they all have his imprimatur.
In fact, the union’s leadership decided in May to ask their legislative body to approve an endorsement of Obama in the 2012 presidential race despite the great disagreement over reform policy.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said in May that whatever conflict the union has with the Obama administration, he imagines it would only be worse with any of the Republicans who are either candidates now or considering jumping into the race.
A number of Republican governors have recently launched attacks on the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other public sector workers. The Obama administration has opposed the GOP actions.
The union is effectively between a rock and a hard place — supporting a president with whom it has fundamental disagreements about policy — and the resolution, combined with the endorsement, appears to be its way of maneuvering in that very small space.
Obama is not, however, likely to take especially kindly to any attack on his education secretary. Obama has known Duncan for years, and has been nothing but supportive.
