The war on teachers: Why the public is watching (and not stopping) it happen

[yurbud]

This was a tough one to snip down to four paragraphs, but it had some crucial ideas.

There are huge profits to be made in the testing industry, in educational technologies that replace teachers, and in constructing and managing charter schools, so it is not hard to see why some people in the corporate world would benefit from attacking public education and teachers unions.

That's the motive for the push, but why has it gotten farther than other corporate snake oil like privatizing Social Security? Why has a significant percentage of the public bought into it?

Large numbers of people are losing their jobs and homes, earning sub-standard wages and taking in their children who can’t find jobs. All the while, they see teachers, 80 percent of them women, who make better salaries than they do, have better health plans and pensions, and get two or three months off in the summer!

Many say to themselves: “Who do teachers think they are? Why should they live so well on my tax dollars when I can barely keep my head above water? At the very least, they should feel some of the insecurity I feel every day and face the kind of performance assessments workers in the private sector deal with all the time.”

That is the same sentiment that America’s unionized blue collar workers faced in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s and ‘90’s when big corporations started closing factories and slashing wages and benefits. The non-unionized work force in big industrial states refused to rally to the defense of their unionized counterparts, and industrial unions lost battles to maintain their wage and benefit levels that allowed them to live a middle-class life style or prevent plants from relocating.

FULL TEXT

In short, big business takes the hard won gains of one group of workers and convince those not doing as well to pull them down rather than try to gain the same benefits for themselves.

[Dawson Leery]

1. Many of the same people who do not want to pay teachers a respectable salary

will pay a hundreds of dollars for tickets to sporting events.

[yurbud]

3. and those at the top want to cut their pay so that when they privatize schools...

there's more money available to take as profits.

[MicaelS]

2. I think many people remember a particular teacher they disliked or hated,

When they were in school, and transfer that dislike to those presently teaching.

[yurbud]

4. with the uber-regimentation and narrowing of the curriculum, it would take more effort

to not be disliked or hated.

Teacher's don't want to do it, but the process is becoming more and more like the rehabilitation of Malcolm McDowell in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

[Igel]

5. Perhaps.

Some remember incompetent teachers--whatever that means. Perhaps bad classroom management, perhaps a bad assignment, perhaps off-topic conversation that was deemed inappropriate. (My Spanish teacher kept talking about the tales of Pancho, her pet cat. Chummy for some students. But I remember her as incompetent for that and for a bad bit of information: When asked how to say "streaker" she went home, asked around, and came back with "huelguista." A huelguista is somebody who's on strike. Striker. Her knowledge of content area was weak.)

Others are simply unable to understand the 3-month summer break. Teachers here have off June, July, and half of August. That they do stuff over the summer doesn't much matter--teachers here have trainings, often take courses, and some work on their year-long lesson plans to shorten their 55-hour workweek during the school year.

Mostly they don't like the job security. No evaluations, they think. No stress at work. They think. They're wrong, of course. But most of all, low SES workers assume that when teachers are off the clock they're off the job. 7 am to 2:30 doesn't sound like much. Pitch in meetings that last till 3:30, tutorials that last till 4, lab set up and take down during lunch break, evening and weekend trainings and it's a lot more. Then add in making up and grading assignments, email with parents, lesson plans and it's quite a bit more. Except that's not on the clock.

It's also not manual labor or factory work. That matters a lot for some. Around here teachers don't work hard enough--white collar and all that; but the poor Latino yard workers are dismissed as inferior because while they work harder than most homeowners they're not really Americans and they don't speak English. Heck, most didn't graduate high school.

And lastly whitecollar professionals know that teachers may work long hours off the clock, but figure that they don't need the JD or MD or even the M. Eng. so what they do isn't as difficult. It often isn't. But it's still a lot of work, boring and sometimes stressful.

But mostly the problem is that most people make truly crappy employers. Some of the worst employers I've seen have been educated progressives. They're dead sure that they know exactly what to do and what needs to be done and can't figure out why others can't rise to their consistent level of uninformed brilliance. It was ridiculous in Los Angeles. But it was also ridiculous in the place I lived before, when I worked for a church and every parishioner thought that s/he personally paid my salary and had to cater to his/her demand because, well, they knew best. Let's just say really bad when people, whatever their political persuasion, aren't the direct managers, but out of the chain of command (so to speak).

[Dan]

6. Maybe because ....

Those that promote the idea of Charter schools or privatizing public schools, or discontinuing public education all together, are the ones getting elected to local school boards - where they can promote this crap. Because, it starts at a local level - and then it is like a virus, seems good until it is actually in place. Then the lack of controls, accountability, increased cost and sweet heart deals to cronies then comes into play.

Realization that you have been played - or used, well you are then dealing with a different set of denial.

It has to be confronted at the local level - I guess, unless you have a governor like the one in Wisconsin - and then, lots of people were played.

[Doctor_J]

7. Hate Radio, Cable "News"

The root of 99% of the ills of the US. things will turn around when the purge begins.

[yurbud]

8. ''purge'' has too many ugly connotations. I prefer defecation of an impacted turd

[Doctor_J]

9. Except that there are thousands of impacted turds

purge has ugly connotations, because we have an ugly problem that requires and ugly solution. Or we can just sit and get trounced, and go smugly to our deaths, secure in the knowledge that we got massacred, but didn't offend anyone in the process. That seems to be the course that the libs & Dems prefer.

[yurbud]

10. not me. I was just pointing out that purge has the connotation of hurting the relatively innocent

and wast trying to think of the equivalent for the purely guilty.

[Zoeisright]

11. And too many Americans are too stupid to realize they're being played.

I don't think many of them will ever wake up. This country is coming to an end.

[yurbud]

12. an encouraging story: Rahm tried to stuff a school privatization town hall with fake supporters

and not only did he get caught, the homeless guys he paid to hold signs heard the arguments of the pro-public school people and changed sides!

If it's clear enough for an alcoholic or schizophrenic who lives under a bridge to see, most other people will too if something makes them pay attention to the debate.