Roekel's good defense

The attack against teacher working conditions is heating up. Maybe this is what explains why a leader of a teacher union finally did a decent job defending us against the attacks. Dennis Van Roekel performed well in this NY Times article, defending teacher tenure as a basic right of protection against arbitrary dismissal. Maybe I haven't seen enough performances of the top brass, but Randi Weingarten's performance on Bill Maher's Real Time during the Central Falls debacle was abysmal. Back to the article, the claim by opponents of tenure that only bad teachers have an interest in tenure is beyond absurd.

What does a "failing school" look like?

This NPR interview exposes the lie of what it means to be a "failing school," both under Bush's No Child Left Behind and Obama's Race to the Top.

My union leadership, all bluster?

I didn't go this year to the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly, but having gone twice, I have a sense of the results by looking at the new business items passed by the delegates. I was particularly interested in how the NEA would respond to the increased attacks against teachers and our unions, specifically with Obama's Race to the Top and his horrible plans for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (titled NCLB under Bush).

With the attacks suffered by our teacher unions this year, there is no better time than now to start fighting back.

In his keynote address, NEA head Dennis Van Roekel thundered, "We must not allow another bad ESEA. Because if they take the old NCLB, fancy it up and call it the new ESEA, I think we ought to just call it TNT and blow the whole damn thing up!”

But a look at the passed business items suggests that the NEA leadership does not intend on leading a grassroots mobilization, but rather plans on continuing with their ineffective support of Democratic Party politicians and lobbying efforts.

Van Roekel does call for state affiliates to organize a Day of Action against Obama's plan for ESEA, which in my opinion is even worse than Bush's NCLB. But such devolution of organizing to state bodies insures a mediocre effort. The New Business Item that would have committed the NEA to a national mobilization in the streets failed, undoubtedly due to the leadership's opposition to it.

More tellingly, New Business Item 95, passed late in the proceedings by the delegates, assists state affiliates in attracting Race-to-the-Top grant money, apparently contradicting the NEA position laid out in NBI A. NBI A commits the NEA to opposing "federal educational funding through competitive grant models" like that of Race-to-the-Top.

What we need is a national leadership willing to lead by mobilizing the ranks. Instead, once again, I suspect that we are getting fiery rhetoric with no substance. That said, we need to nevertheless influence our state affiliates to organize a Day of Action against Obama's ESEA. But it should be a real Day of Action by marching in the street, not worthless texting or call-ins.

Our Race to the Bottom

This article on Obama's Sec. of Education, Arne Duncan, as leader of the corporate take-over of education, is the best I've come across yet. But I would have been a little harder on the leaderships of the two national teacher unions, which have done so very little to educate and lead on these issues. The NEA under Van Roekel is so enamored with Obama that his mild criticism of Race to the Top (RTTT) and merit pay gets lost when it isn't absent. And as for the AFT, which is getting hit hardest on NCLB and now RTTT because it represents teachers mostly in urban districts, Weingarten's appearance on Bill Maher's HBO show Real Time was absolutely pathetic. Honestly, almost anyone could have done better. The worst part was her refusal to defend the fired Rhode Island teachers, preferring instead to blame the school's administration on its "failures". Of course we can't depend on these bureaucrats, but it's infuriating nonetheless.

Deborah Meier on charter schools

This Democracy Now! video from 5/21/09, featuring Deborah Meier on education, is a fairly good counterpoint to Obama's atrocious pro-NCLB/pro-charter school education plan. What's missing from the analysis, however, is that charter schools are designed to attack teacher unions and whatever democratic accountability exists within the present public school system.

Solidarity with L.A. teachers

Thank you L.A. teachers! Your struggle is our own. On May 15th the UTLA protested with civil disobedience against the massive layoffs in L.A. Unified Schools. I'm interested in this story because Los Angeles is one place where teachers are leading the way in defending public ed.

Articles:
May 15
L.A. schools disrupted by sit-ins, sick-outs, and walkouts (L.A. Times)
Protesting L.A. teachers arrested outside district offices (L.A. Times)
Arrests as L.A. teachers protest layoff (Mercury News)
LA teachers protesting layoffs arrested (UPI.com)
Arrested protesters return for after school teacher rally (ktla.com)
Public sector unions fight budget woes (Labor Notes)

May 22
L.A. students threaten walkouts (LA Times - May 22)

May 26-27
400 L.A. students walk out (Democracy Now! 5/26/09)
9 L.A. teachers to go on hunger strike to protest layoffs (LA Times)