Pink slips at Central Falls part of disturbing trend

[tonysam]

From coast to coast this privatizing juggernaut pushed by the White House and the Department of Education, both under the influence of the scam artists of the Billionaire Boys Club, is happening, and it's almost overnight:

It is as if we have all tacitly agreed that when it comes to public schools, there are our children and then there are other people’s children, who just so happen to be largely poor, black and brown. Other people’s children need uniforms, authoritarian disciplinary policies and uninspired curricula. Other people’s children are taught by Teach for America “graduates” who have five weeks of training under their belts. Other people’s children are best evaluated by tests of highly questionable validity. Other people’s children have their schools closed.

In what can only be described as Orwellian, “reform” has come to mean a simple two-step: drill students with test preparation materials and then use their test scores to evaluate the worth of children, their parents, and teachers.

In our poorest communities, where teachers need the most support and students need the most innovative curricula, we find instead instruction driven by the tyranny of statewide tests. Meanwhile, in these same communities, teachers are increasingly subject to “professional development” that denigrates students and their families, puts millions into the coffers of test-prep corporate monopolies and threatens teachers with their jobs if they don’t comply with the new “reforms.”

...

All school children deserve a solid system of public education, designed for the success of all. Teachers who have committed themselves to urban education need resources and support, they need to be asked their opinion; subjecting them to hysterical threats from administrators, more tests, and mass firings does not move us forward. With teachers’ rights nullified, the pathway to restructuring schools according to corporate visions and market values will continue unabated.

Handing out pink slips to teachers in Central Falls is part of a disturbing trend being played out across the nation. Politicians have closed schools and disempowered teachers through the undermining of unions and their collective bargaining rights, and they have effectively silenced parents as well.

Teachers' rights are already almost nonexistent as it is; it is just they don't know it because they haven't been fired. They will realize when they are just how stacked the process is.

But anyway, this is nothing but wholesale class warfare against those who have the least power.

More from Projo

[peace13]

1. This kind of thing happens across the board in the US.

I agree that the children deserve better and the teachers deserve better. That being said, this country is almost at rock bottom. Workers in Ohio have been suffering this kind of thing for the last eight years. I am surprised that it has taken this long for others to see what is happening. Sorry about the folks in Central Falls having to reapply for their jobs but at least they have a chance at it. If they have done a good job in the past there should be no problem. On the other hand, people have been fired using age discrimination and worse while big business bends small vendors over a barrel voiding contracts with the wink of an eye. It happens to all of us.

[tonysam]

2. WTF? It's the KIDS who are in charge of their learning. Teachers can only do so much.

Replace the teachers with new ones? What a laugh! The problems with low test scores, and test scores don't mean SHIT by the way, will still exist unless school administrators CHEAT.

Don't you get it? I guess you don't, and you never will.

This is about wholesale class warfare against the many by the few.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. That doesn't make it okay

It happens to everyone is a 3rd grade argument. And you're talking to teachers. :)

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Teachers are not factory workers, and students are not widgets.

This is all about privatizing the schools so that corporations which don't give a damn about students can maximize their profits - and the only thing standing in their way is unionized teachers.

Smash the unions, privatize the schools, make money - that is the end goal of education in this country today.

We go down this road we will DESERVE third world status.

[peace13]

5. My point exactly!

We are all third world now. So many of the comments out here are from teachers and we all need to realize that this problem is system wide. When people let * push NCLB without much of a whimper the cycle was complete. Parents, students, teachers and community members are all responsible. There is no benefit in teachers acting like their union is sacred and different and 'not factory workers' (like that's a bad thing). WTF..we are all in this together and if you want to make it better you will have to decide that teachers have not been singled out here. The fact is that you have had much more protection than the 'factory workers', or other folks with college degrees whose jobs have been flushed down the toilets as even the toilet manufacturing as been moved to China. Gone... done....did. Sorry for being the bearer of bad news.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. No, that is the exact OPPOSITE of my point.

While the right considers ALL unions to be evil, and teachers' unions to be part and parcel with any other, they believe you can get better profits by killing unions and letting the free market flow. Well, if schools are privatized and the unions destroyed you WILL get better profits for the corporations running the schools but you will NOT get better students - schools are designed to produce educated students, not profits.

"...people let * push NCLB without much of a whimper..." False. Parents, teachers and unions ALL fought NCLB. The unions and teachers (unions being, of course, a TEACHER organization) did not fight it because it would be bad for teachers' paychecks - they fought it because it was bad for STUDENTS. They fought it because it interfered with imparting a quality education. They fought it because they knew it would result in exactly this scenario, with the undermining of education.

And what is with the jealousy there? You think because the republicans have destroyed other unions and thrown millions of jobs to China, that teachers deserve the same fate? How egalitarian of you.

[peace13]

8. Did I say that they deserve it?

Don't think so. I said that when we make the disaster that our country has become something different for teachers, it separates us. You will never understand this because you look at it only from your vantage. Jealousy? I am sorry that you can't understand my point but smart enough to know that nothing that I say can make you understand. Best wishes. I hope it works out for you. We are all in this together.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. IOW, since you are in a leaky rowboat EVERYBODY should be in

that same leaky rowboat.

I don't understand. You're right. I cannot comprehend how any liberal can support the demolition of a union and favor the corporatists who are demolishing it.

[Hannah Bell]

10. "it happens to all of us" = more reason to fight

[peace13]

11. When they came for the auto workers I did nothing....

When they came for the small busnissees....When they came for the pilots I did nothing...when they came for the unions I did nothing. On and on and on. Yes fight as you say fight, together.

[Dinger]

7. The Beginning Of A Disturbing Trend

They'll be plenty disturbed in 2010 and 2012.