It’s Not OK to Hate Teachers
A recent action alert from the United Church of Christ reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is predicting that up to 300,000 jobs in public schools may be lost due to the recession. In cities like Chicago and Cleveland school officials are predicting class sizes of 35 to 45 for next fall. Meanwhile, as high school seniors plan for their graduation ceremonies, a new round of “blame the victim” seems to be in vogue. In this case it is the vulnerable teaching profession that seems to be under siege.
Earlier this year Arne Duncan and Barack Obama publicly affirmed the decision of a Rhode Island school district to fire every teacher at a failing public high school. Do we really think every teacher at that high school deserved to be fired? Subsequent negotiations between the district and the school board have led to the rehiring of many of those teachers, but under enforced new work rules. This spring the governor of New Jersey, angry at the pace of negotiations with teachers’ unions, publicly urged citizens to vote down their school levies knowing full well what kind of devastating impact that would have on public school classrooms in his state. This Sunday The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a front page report on teachers in the Cleveland Public Schools that, at least to me, seemed designed to paint teachers in the worst possible light as overpaid, underworked, intransigent about reform, and not overly competent.
What’s going on here? No one can deny that there is a desperate financial crisis hitting our schools this year. The inadequacy of a school funding system that relies heavily on property taxes privileges suburban school districts at the expense of rural and urban districts. Year by year its flaws grow more apparent, yet year by year we steadfastly refuse to reform it. State budgets are in freefall in an environment where few are willing to consider any rise in income taxes to maintain even the most essential public services. No can deny that there are some mediocre teachers protected by employment rules that need reform. But there are also plenty of mediocre doctors, lawyers, and clergy around; no one hears them pilloried as a class in quite the same way teachers are being viewed today. The fascination with testing, ushered in by the “No Child Left Behind” law, has made it easy to point fingers at failing schools and
