Friday, September 14, 2012

Here's everything you need to know about the Chicago teachers' strike

Here's pretty much everything you need to know about the Chicago teachers' strike and the larger problem that is at play with public education:
INEQUITY
Some corporate reformers and policy makers are pursuing public policy that creates an education system for other people's children which is markedly different than the educational opportunities they provide their own children.




Read this post and decide which kind of education is good for your kids and which is good enough for other people's children?

7 comments:

  1. You mean inequity as in they make more money than average? What inequity are you talking about?

    What people REALLY need to know is that unions care about union dues, not education. And like the auto industry, airline industry, and dozens of other industries -- unions are KILLING quality, accessibility, service, reliability, and innovation while funneling money to lobbyists and overpaying union workers.

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    1. As a member of The St. Paul Federation of Teachers in Minnesota, I have to wonder what your experience with unions consists of. My union promotes educational excellence though professional development. My union promotes high quality instruction by working with the school district to put ineffective teachers on improvement plans. My union works for conditions that help its workers and the students we serve.

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    2. Meg,

      You have to look at the big picture. You present us with a wonderful anecdote that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. For every example you can give with your Minnesota experience, there's 1000 national examples of teachers unions undermining education, school choice, and positive reform.

      Minnesota is not America. And your union is not necessarily representative of the fact that unions IN GENERAL have decimated the quality of education in this country. Just like they decimated the auto industry, the airline industry, and nearly every other industry in which they have power.

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  2. What inequity am I talking about? Did you watch the video? Did you hear about how the affluent schools provide a rich curricula that provides their children with a wide variety of educational opportunities? Meanwhile the poor kids are resigned to poor teaching and a pedagogy of poverty.

    As I write this comment, I am attending an Alberta Teachers' Association Strategic Planning event where the entire first day was spent talking and thinking about what is changing about being a child in the 21st century. I participated with a room full of teachers' union executive staff officers while we concentrated on one thing: what's best for children and how can we help them?

    Almost all of the highest performing nations and jurisdictions in the world have unionized teachers. How do you explain that?

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    1. Joe,

      The teachers unions are precisely the ones responsible for the inequity -- that's what I'm trying to tell you. Who do you think fights school choice and a voucher system so kids in communities with underperforming or underfunded schools can go to better ones?

      Who fights against charter schools?

      The NEA is the worst thing that ever happened to American children. And if you can't see how unions are murdering our education system then you have your head firmly in the sand.

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    2. And where is your source to back up your statement that the nations and jurisdictions with unions have the highest performing students?

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  3. Two things.

    What makes "being a child in the 21st century" different than being a child in any other century? Granted there obvious social differences, but what seems to be the most relevant aspect about being a child in any century is the cognitive process we call learning and what neurologists call enrichment. So, what's different about being a student in this century versus any other?

    In my opinion, unionized teachers matter so much less than education schools and state education policies that focus on teacher training. If teachers were strong pedagogues, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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