It's Time To Listen To Teachers On Issues Of Education
Commentary
By John A. Ostenburg
The Outpost Observer
Why is it that the last people listened to regarding problems in public education are the ones who deal with it on the front line day after day?
Chicago's Renaissance 2010 education plan came onto the charts back in 2004. Immediately, classroom teachers pointed out its many flaws. Were they listened to? Of course not. Instead, Mayor Richard M. Daley and now U.S. Secretary of Education -- then Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer -- Arne Duncan pushed ahead with a program that had come not from the educational community, but rather from the business community.
Lest anyone forget, that's the same business community that has demonstrated questionable wisdom in the world of finance, ultimately leading the United States into its current economic crisis.
When teachers voiced their outrage over some of the proposals contained in the Ren 2010 plan, they were accused by both politicians and the media of being concerned only with selfish interests. Newspaper editorials declared that teachers only were protecting their jobs, only were complaining because they wanted to duck accountability. CPS administrators said "bad" teachers were the problem in Chicago, and so they used Ren 2010 as a way to get rid of seasoned teachers, claiming that the
