First of all, this strike is not about pay. It is about job security, teacher evaluation, and providing better classroom conditions for students.
Your hitpiece addresses job security and teacher evaluation, to a certain extent. But the problem is, you and your piece treat the fact that standardized tests as a perfectly valid form of teacher evaluation. They aren't, they never have been for a variety of reasons. Let's examine those.
First of all, standardized tests carry no penalty for the student, absolutely none. There is no motivation for the student to do their best, and many, if not most students don't. They don't study for them, they think that they're just a BS day where they can stay up late the night before playing video games and come in bleary eyed to do the test. Many students just want to get the test over ASAP, and thus go through and randomly mark the answer sheet as fast as possible while others are more creative and actually create designs while filling out the bubbles.
Secondly, multiple choice, fill in the bubble tests aren't the best form of assessment for many students. Just as there are distinctly different ways that students learn, there are distinctly different ways to best assess a student's knowledge. Some do better with essay or report writing, some do better with portfolios, some do better with presentations. Some have basic test anxiety. Forcing these students into doing a standardized bubble test insures that they are not going to do their best.
Third, every student, no matter their background, has to take these tests. Thus, students for whom English is a second language, that they are probably struggling in, still have to take the test. Students with developmental and learning disabilities have to take the test. The very same test, in the same amount of time, in the very same manner, with no allowance for their various differences and disabilities. That is recipe for failure. A kid with ADHD having to sit through four hours of testing every day for a week? Do you think that kid is going to do well on that test?
So, would you like your work evaluated on such a rubric? Basing a teacher's evaluation on such a poor and capricious model guarantees that you are not going to get an accurate evaluation of any teacher. There are much more objective, accurate and effective ways that teachers can be evaluated, but they aren't being used. Those who control education policy in this country(people who have no actual experience in the classroom) seem intent on using a one size fits all rubric that fits into their nice tidy numerical model, but doesn't reflect the diversity of students, learning styles and disabilities that are the reality of this nation's students.
As far as classroom conditions, this is a huge issue. Inner city, rural and other students from poor districts are forced to use textbooks that are out of date, factually inaccurate, or simply don't have texts. The physical plant of these schools is poor, with roofs leaking, heating and cooling weak at best, and floors and foundations that are simply falling apart. Not to mention that classes are overcrowded, students come to class hungry, and the school can very well be under assault from gangs and other thugs. This is not a conducive learning environment, but somehow the teacher is supposed to overcome all these problems and insure that all students are straight A students? LOL!
Before you continue your teacher bashing, consider this. Urban school districts like Chicago are suffering from a crisis in funding. Since schools are funded primarily by property taxes, urban districts, along with rural districts, pull in very little money. Meanwhile, suburban districts ringing Chicago pull in the big bucks. It is so very easy to produce quality students when the physical plant is new, the equipment is up to date, and the students are well fed, cared for, and don't face the daily danger of being shot or assaulted.
Worse yet, the people who administer these schools, any schools across the country, have absolutely no experience in the classroom or even stepped into a school since they graduated. School boards are made up of people who won and election, and given that RW fundies have used school board positions as stepping stones up the political career ladder, what does that do for education decisions when anti-education people are in charge of making decisions. Worse, you have political appointees like Duncan or Emanuel, who again have no teaching experience, wanting to dismantle public education in favor of a corporate model. These people are making the decisions as well, not only at the local level, but at the state and federal level.
Now then, let's take a look at what does work, and work well in the top school districts in the world. Finland and Japan have been the gold standard of education for years now. The starting pay for teachers in those systems is on par with what we pay doctors, high five figure, low six figure salaries. This kind of money attracts the best and brightest to the profession, and insures that those teachers remain in the profession. Far too many college students, who would make excellent teachers, look at the student debt they are piling up, and the pay that teachers bring down, and say sorry, but I can't afford to be a teacher.
Furthermore, instead of being the whipping boys for what is wrong with the current generation, teachers in Japan and Finland are treated with the respect they deserve. They aren't used as political footballs, the ills of society aren't laid on their shoulders, and they don't have every Tom Dick and Harry second guessing their decision, or worse, taking it the Board or the courts if they don't like what the teacher is doing.
Better yet, the people who administer the school system in these countries are education professionals themselves, with experience in the classroom. They aren't RW yahoos, they aren't career politicians using the schools to make political points, they aren't businessmen looking to drain the schools dry, they are education professionals. Wow, what a concept.
Each and every one of the schools in Finland and Japan are fulled funded, fully stocked and up to date. Textbooks are up to date, computers are widely available, labs have all the equipment they need, and classrooms have small student sizes, and all the supplies that are needed.
This is because education funding is done differently there. It isn't based on highly variable property taxes, it isn't left up to the anti-tax whim of the voters. It is more equitable, and since they actually believe in the notion that education is job one, better funded.
But hey, let's damn the teachers for trying to protect themselves and help out their students. Let us portray them as greedy, and out of touch. Let us join the politicians trying to destroy public education. And twenty years from now, when we have completely destroyed public education and installed a corporate model that produces even less educated students, who will we blame? The teachers.
Oh, yeah, one other thing, just in case you're buying into the myth that our students aren't learning, read these articles.
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/kids-school-test-scores-charts-kevin-drum
All this while functioning with a substandard school support system. Amazing what teachers can do.
Take your anti-labor, anti-teacher BS and peddle it somewhere else, you're fooling nobody.
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