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Teachers Fight Back Against Nationwide Attack
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 7, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Fighting back after years of teacher-bashing by the
corporate charter movement, the National Education Association meeting in Denver
called on President Barack Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan to step down,
citing his unrelenting attacks on public school teachers. When Duncan hailed the June 10
decision of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu striking down teacher
tenure in Vergara v. California—the most egregious abuse of judicial activism in
recent memory—teachers’ unions gasped.
Funded by Silicon Valley meg-millionaire David Welch who lent his
non-profit Students Matters $950,000, Welch continued the assault on public
schools, embracing the charter movement taking educational decision-making out
of the hands of elected school boards and putting it into the hands of
un-elected corporate boards. Duncan
was the Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools before tapped by Obama in 2009
as Education Secretary.
Duncan rubber-stamps the new education model of Princeton-educated
founder of Teach-For-America Wendy Kopp and former Washington, D.C. public
schools superintendent Michelle Rhee, bashing public education, demanding more
metrics, leading to today’s failed attempt to overhaul public education with the
Bill Gates-funded “Common Core.”
Asking for Duncan’s immediate resignation, the NEA cited a “failed education
agenda,” essentially blaming teachers for the educational failures in largely
overcrowded urban schools replete with newcomers living on government largesse. Duncan outlined his plan to assure
all students have equal access to quality teachers, the same arguments used in
Vergara v. Calif. to strip public school teachers of one of their most coveted
benefits: Teacher tenure. Insisting he was “trying to stay out
of local union politics,” Duncan obliquely trashed public education.
Obama, who plays basketball at the White House with his 6-foot-five-inch
education secretary, backs much of Duncan’s view, despite knowing they run afoul
with public school districts around the country.
“We’ve had a very good working relationship with the NEA in the past,”
said Duncan, congratulating incoming NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcaia for her
victory. Duncan backs Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel’s battle against the Chicago Teachers Union when they fought the
school district’s refusal to pay pension and health care benefits. When the CTU went on strike Sept.
10, 2012, Emanuel dragged the CTU to court to break the union. Teachers went back to work Sept. 18, 2012, only to find Emanuel closing 50 Chicago public
schools Sept. 17, 2013, 49 elementary schools and one high school, amounting to
the biggest single attack on public schools in U.S. history.
Duncan’s bought into the idea that charter schools offer the closest
thing to a private education to vast numbers of poor children locked within
America’s inner cities. Instead of
supporting the public schools, Duncan drank the Cool-Aid from the charter school
movement that attempts to take money directly from school districts to fund
corporate boards, putting less burden on cities and counties to manage state
education funds. Charter schools in
the nation’s biggest cities compete for the same cash historically available to
school districts. Mega-million
dollar non-profits like Teach-For- America offer charter and public schools an
endless supply of less expensive, less qualified and less trained
schoolteachers, often taking jobs away from credentialed teachers. Duncan has no problem by passing
teachers’ unions to hire less qualified, non-credentialed teachers.
When Duncan added insult-to-injury praising Vergara v. Calif. ending
teacher tenure in California, the NEA had enough. When you look at conservative groups
bankrolling the lawsuit, Duncan exposed his bias, realizing that obscene
corporate cash—like in elections—now filters into outrageous legal opinions by
activist judges. Teacher tenure
affords teachers the job security needed to exercise their First Amendment
rights in the classroom, without fearing the kind of reprisals from corporate
boards seen in private, parochial and charter schools. Blaming the vote on
“venting of frustration of too many things that are wrong,” Duncan completely
ignores his role in giving wholesale backing to charter schools while joining
the public school union-busting propaganda machine that blames public
schools—and their unions—for everything wrong in today’s education system
Calling for Duncan’s resignation, the NEA finally takes a stand against
the Obama administration’s egregious attack on the nation’s public schools. Aligning himself with Rahm’s 2013
destruction of the Chicago public schools, Duncan shows his unmistakable bias
against public schools and teachers’ unions.
Jumping the Common Core bandwagon, Duncan shows more interest in lining
the pockets of multinational corporations like Pearson Education Corporation or
Educational Testing Service than helping the multilingual immigrants—legal or
not—flooding the public schools, forcing teachers to do back-flips to
accommodate their needs. Instead of
celebrating the end of teacher tenure, Duncan should be finding ways to
strengthen public schools and unions, not imposing untenable federal standards
like Common Core to make public school teaching even more impossible.
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