[RSCT] FW: "The global teachers' anthem" by Jesse Hagopian/Common Dreams 4/3/09

Mon Apr 6 13:14:25 CDT 2009

Just  a few thoughts

For those of us who have devoted our professional lives to human
development, intellectual and otherwise, the content and tone of the
rhetoric that gets passed around as enlightened is a soul killer.   Charter
schools were originally envisioned as a way to provide a space for open
exploration to sound educational practice.  Seeing them used a hammer
against the training and teaching profession is not just repugnant, it is
utter foolishness.
There is so much more than drills for inane test preparation to excellent
teaching.  An in depth knowledge of learning and teaching practices is
critical to the development of the human beings in our care in classrooms or
less formal settings. Moreover, real learning that empowers our students is
critical to a working democracy.

Would it be possible for the organizations and strong voices of ³real
education² to put out press releases and get news coverage in as many places
in the country as possible, coast to coast, so as to get  more thoughtful
discussion going on what we really need education to look like in the United
States.  Are there not a few legislators in every city, county, or state who
would support and help get out the truth of it.  Union bashing is extremely
limited and dangerous in a society that says it is a democracy.  How can we
coordinate an effort to get needed voices and ideas into the public domain.
  I love reading Rethinking Schools- it always heartens me and Monty Neill¹s
work is a godsend but we need to get a wider audience.  How can we do that?
What are the possibilities that we could explore or are being explored
already?

Celia R. Reyes, Ph.D.
Teacher Diversity Project

------ Forwarded Message
From: rick at kissell.org
Reply-To: rick at kissell.org
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 21:45:36 -0700 (PDT)
To: Rethinking Schools list <rs at criticalteach.org>
Subject: [RSCT] "The global teachers' anthem" by Jesse Hagopian/Common
Dreams 4/3/09

The global teachers' anthem
by Jesse HagopianCommonDreams.org4/3/09

"Raise the threat level to a code red," they cry out.

>From Baghdad to D.C., a growing chorus of a-tonal anti-union executives
around the world (the only choir that may be left after all the public
school budget cuts) are asserting that the teacher union menace must be
neutralized.   

In Iraq, Paul Bremer (as former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority)
threw out most of Saddam's legal code but kept the 1987 Decree No. 150 that
made it illegal for employees in the public sector to have a union or
negotiate over the terms of their labor. This opened the door for the Iraqi
government's inharmonious announcement at the end of March, 2009 that it
intended to dissolve the Iraqi Teachers' Union (ITU)-a move sure to make
Washington, D.C. public school chancellor Michelle Rhee's cheeks flush with
excitement. 

Rhee's discordant bluster was on display in a March 2nd interview
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/02/michelle-rhee-threatens-e_n_171041
..html>  [1] with the Huffington Post: "We are going to impose the new
evaluation tools regardless" of the outcome of talks with the union. "We are
going to be moving people out who are not performing."

New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof stated in his out-of-pitch March 10
column 
<http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/obama-takes-on-the-teacher-unio
ns/?pagemode=print>  [2], "Education reform is going to mean challenging the
unions, and Obama signaled that that's what he plans to do."

None of these recent union-busting voices have been as off key as George W.
Bush's Education Secretary, Rod Paige, when he called
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/us/education-chief-calls-union-terrorist-
then-recants.html>  [3] the largest teachers' union in the US, the National
Education Association (NEA), a "terrorist organization."  However, the
similarity of the current tune from corporate education deformers is
unmistakable: because teachers have some measure of job security, schools in
America are dysfunctional.

If only we could treat our teachers like Wal-Mart employees, test scores
would rise and students wouldn't be left behind.  As a Time Magazine article
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1862444,00.html>  [4]
recently contended, "The most glaring example of the backward logic of
schools is the way most teachers receive lifetime job security after one or
two years of work."

But as the NEA explains <http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm>  [5], "Tenure
does not mean a Œjob for life,' as many people believe. It means Œjust
cause' for discipline and termination, be the reason incompetence or extreme
misconduct. And it means Œdue process,' the right to a fair hearing to
contest charges."  

Moreover, these Pinkerton style attacks on teachers' rights to collectively
bargain suffer from the common problem middle schoolers face when attempting
a first research paper: a scarcity of factual information to back up claims..

Those who argue that unions prevent improved student achievement are at a
loss to explain the high unionization rates of schools internationally that
they lament are outperforming American youngsters.  Or why Southern "right
to work" states that have managed to avoid unions in public schools score
lower on the standardized tests that antiunion zealots overemphasize as the
only real measure of student success.  As Arizona State University's
Education Policy Research Unit reported
<http://epicpolicy.org/publication/school-reform-proposals-the-research-evid
ence>  [6], "Several studies found math, economics and SAT scores in
unionized schools improved more than in non-unionized schools. Increases in
state unionization led to increases in state SAT, ACT, and NAEP scores and
improved graduation rates. One analysis attributed lower SAT and ACT scores
in the South to weaker unionization there."

In addition, a Department of Education study
<http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/charter/2005456.asp>  [7]
found that public school students' test scores in reading and math are as
good as or better than the scores of comparable students in charter
schools-- the vast majority of which are nonunion.

The gospel truth is, teachers unions the world over are raising the volume
in the struggle to improve public education.  Time and again these unions
have used their power to collectively bargain-and collectively strike-in
defense of the schools:

* In 2005 the British  Columbia Teachers Federation in Canada led the
46,000-strong union in  a successful strike in protest of budget cuts to
education, large class  sizes, and government attempts to take away
collective bargaining rights.
* In May 2006, 70,000  teachers in the Mexican state of Oaxaca went on
strike to prevent the  privatization of education and demand more funding
for student services.
* On February 21,  2008 the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico led a strike
that was successful  in stopping government's privatized charter scheme.
* In Bellevue, Washington  the teachers' union proved it was the most
important voice for public  education in the region when it led a successful
two week strike at  the beginning of this current school year to protest the
implementation  of what the school district called the "curriculum web"-a
system  that would ensnare students in mandated, daily, scripted lessons
that  would deny them access to the teachers' individualized knowledge,
skills, and passion for the subjects they were teaching.

On March 28 of this year, over 500 protesters joined the Iraqi Teachers'
Union in a demonstration against the attempted undemocratic government
takeover of their union.  Champions of public education and union supporters
are encouraged to sign their petition
<http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=49
1>  [8] that demands that the union remain independent and that the union
organizers not be imprisoned for their activity.

If coming teacher struggles are successful at keeping funding for our music
programs, students across the world should be taught in every language the
great Woody Guthrie anthem "The Union Maid," with a refrain as relevant
today as when America's great troubadour wrote it in 1941:   "Oh, you can't
scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die."

Jesse Hagopian is a teacher in the Seattle Public Schools. Visit
teachersforceomeritpay.com <http://teachersforceomeritpay.com/>  [9] or
contact Jesse at: info at teachersforceomeritpay. com
</mc/compose?to=info at teachersforceomeritpay.com>  [10].

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
 URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/03

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