Anyone Can Teach

by Ruth A. Sheets

I must say “thank you” to the teachers of Chicago for standing for the kids and for themselves.  During the past few years, teachers and public schools have been the target of all kinds of folks who “know” about education and are sure they “know” exactly what to do about it.

According to standardized tests, our children are doing so poorly that it is amazing we are still a “first world country.”  We are in an education crisis, say those who claim to know. 

As so often happens when America faces difficult situations, we want to turn the problem over to private for-profit entities who, for a price, will make things all better.  There is a lot of money in education, and the for-profits want as big a chuck of it as they can get.

Do these folks know anything about education?  Does it matter?  Since everyone has been a student sometime in their lives, they are automatically experts on education.  That’s like saying “I’ve been a patient, therefore I know everything about medicine.”

Trained educators know that there must be some type of accountability and that there should be an effective system of evaluating teachers and how they are doing.  Subjectivity, not objectivity, however, reigns in the evaluation process.  Standardized testing is the tool of people who think that “one size fits all” in determining success.  It’s easier than actually trying to figure out how to help kids learn more effectively and teachers to teach more effectively.

So what do we do in the face of poor test scores?  We respond to anyone who comes in with the promise of making things better.  We Americans have always been vulnerable to snake oil salesmen.

“Give me a school and I’ll fix it.  Make sure you give me a lot of money too, tax-payer money that is.  We’ll make the school day longer, pay teachers less or better yet, make their pay tied to how well their kids do on tests.  Pay for the computers the students need and we need more money for trips and air conditioning for the school.  We’ll show you!

"Accountability, what’s that?  The students didn’t do well this first five years because we are trying to clean up after those awful public school teachers who ruined the kids and it will take at least another ten years to see any progress.  I know what I am doing."

The parents believe that this charter school is better than the regular public schools, so, OF COURSE, IT IS.

This nonsense is what the teachers in Chicago are fighting.  Everyone thinks they know what students need.  Everyone thinks they can teach and that when kids don’t score well, THERE must be a bad teacher INVOLVED SOMEWHERE. 

People like Mayor Emmanuel love standardized tests and are so sure that these tests tell EVERYTHING about the students tested, that they would tie a teacher’s salary to the scores.  They hand over “charter” schools to anyone who comes along promising miracles.  A few of these charter schools are doing better, but not many.

What does happen, though is union busting.  It is about trying to destroy one of the few unions with any power left in the United States TO STAND AGAINST CORPORATE GREED.  Usually, it is Republicans who run this racket, but lately, some Democrats have gotten on board.  That’s too bad because it leaves so few people out there standing for us teachers and our students.

If our nation really cared about our children and how well they do in school, we would be actively addressing the issues related to poverty.  It is no accident that the schools where children are performing poorly are in poverty-ridden areas. 

If our leaders were as well-educated as they would like us to think they are, they would have noted the connection between poor schools, poor performance, poor communities, and poor children.  Where were these leaders when their teachers were showing them how to make meaningful connections, back in the day?  They were probably daydreaming about all the money attendance at their exclusive private school would bring them.

So Much for Freedom

by Ruth A. Sheets

The Republican Party likes to get the word out that it is the party of “freedom.”  They also claim that we should be “free” of big government and that government should be out of our lives. 

The party publicists know that the word “freedom” triggers a lot of feelings about America and how special the country is.  It makes their faithful feel patriotic and important.

When one examines their idea of freedom, however, it may cause one to pause a moment to ask for their definition.  No one seems to do that these days, especially the media.  Republicans are delighted because they don’t want people to know what is really going on.

They cry “freedom” when they take away a woman’s right to choose, related to her body and family planning.

They cry “freedom” when they propose laws to eliminate EPA and other forms of regulations that would protect citizens from environmental destruction, pollution, and hostile takeovers.

They cry “freedom” when they pass laws to require photo IDs for a type of voter fraud that doesn’t actually exist in numbers high enough to matter, yet which will disenfranchise the most vulnerable of our voters.

They cry “freedom” when they pass laws that encourage citizens to treat immigrants with disrespect, which can lead to violence, in order to drive the immigrants out – “voluntarily,” of course.

They cry “freedom” when they refuse to consider gun control legislation which could protect citizens as well as law enforcement from folks who have no business having any gun let alone an assault weapon.

They cry “freedom” when they cut funds for education, malign teachers, and take over school districts, claiming they are protecting people from waste or poor teachers.  

This last false cry of “freedom” hits me particularly hard because my district, Chester Upland in Southeastern Pennsylvania has been a target of these education cuts and government takeover.  Our district was handed to our governor’s campaign supporters with no accountability requirements for what happens in the schools which are paid for by taxes yet run by for profit companies, and they do make a lot of profit off the backs of our citizens.

For ten years, Pennsylvania government officials ran our district and left us about 40 million dollars in debt.  They made several charter schools, all but two of which failed badly.  The larger one that still operates skims off the money it wants before the rest of the district gets any funding.  The money goes to them straight from the state capital, and into the pockets of the governor’s Republican friends. 

Again we are living under a takeover.  To make sure that the district cannot be successful, the state legislature has passed a bill essentially turning our district over to Joe Watkins, a powerful Republican, who is a voucher freak and a charter school aficianado.  He has 30 days to make a plan for what will happen to our district – charters, vouchers, or something else.  He knows nothing of our community and the poverty here, yet he will decide our fate in just 30 days.  Our teachers will lose their jobs, our union will be broken, because of course, a charter school can’t have a union.  And with this new “freedom” contracts, dedication, professionalism, and service mean nothing.   .

The deck has been stacked against a whole community in the name of “freedom.”  This reminds me of Orwell’s “1984” when words like freedom meant exactly the opposite.  I am guessing that most Republicans have not read that book and those who have, actually like the premise.   

It feels weird to be fighting against “freedom,” but that’s what we need to do, the Republican brand of freedom.  

NEVER FORGET

by muon

I'm already hearing the news media link Labor Day events with decade anniversary of 9/11. I'm guessing, this year like last, we'll see all sorts of news items about Labor Day tributes to soldiers, veterans, police and firemen. We'll see a lot of flag-waving. I have nothing against those things, but not on Labor Day.

The first Labor parade was held in Toronto, Canada on September 5, 1872 in support of the Typographical Union's strike (they wanted a 58-hour work week. Imagine that?) On September 5, 1882, New York unions tried a Labor Day parade of their own. 30,000 workers took part. Each year thereafter parades were held on that day and the American Labor Movement really began to organize. Not that it did much good. Government was on the side of big business. Labor leaders were branded anarchists. Many were arrested and executed.

State militias were regularly called in to stop strikes. In the 1886 Bayview Massacre, 7 people, including one child, were killed by the Wisconsin state militia. In 1887, the Louisiana state militia shot 35 unarmed black sugar workers who were only asking for a dollar-a-day wage.

A series of strikes against the Pullman Company in 1893-94, involving a quarter million workers over 27 states, ended with Federal troops killing American Railway Union members. Strike leaders were imprisoned and the union dissolved. President Cleveland and Congress feared a backlash and tried to appease the unions by quickly declaring September 5th, Labor Day, an official holiday.

Unfortunately, troops were still used to quell union strikes. Shootings were common all the way up through the 1940s. Most famous is probably the Ludlow Massacre, where the Colorado National Guard murdered at least 5 men, 2 women and 12 children (every kid in the photo below), and wounding dozens more by riddling the union tent camp with a machine gun, then setting the tents on fire.

American workers and labor unions are once more being vilified by those in power, so the media's not mentioning labor much these days. In fact, FOX News is even saying that teachers shouldn't ask for more money because they're overpaid (on an everage salary of about $50,000). FOX News also claims that it's not possible to live on $250,000 a year and that people earning a quarter mil ought to be considered poor. Some people are now trying to say Ludlow wasn't a massacre but an 'incident.' Look at the photo above, realize none of those kids survived

We're constantly told to never forget 9/11. Fine, next week let's do that. On Monday, though, we should  remember the massacres at places like Ludlow, Bayview, and leaders like Joe Hill, as well as all the American workers and their families who gave their lives so today's workers could be slightly better off.

Let's also remember union-busting governors like Scott Walker and other politicians who care more about the campaign money they're getting from corporations like Koch Industries than in the working conditions of the average American.

This Monday, let's remember why workers still have to fight for a decent living. And let's all say a prayer for the unemployed.

Read more about the history of American Labor at http://www.lutins.org/labor.html