GOOD Education: Chicago Teachers’ Strike Lesson: We Need Autonomous Educators, Not Corporate Reform « Cooperative Catalyst

GOOD Education: Chicago Teachers’ Strike Lesson: We Need Autonomous Educators, Not Corporate Reform « Cooperative Catalyst:

GOOD Education: Chicago Teachers’ Strike Lesson: We Need Autonomous Educators, Not Corporate Reform

by Nikhil Goyal

This piece originally appeared on GOOD Education: Chicago Teachers’ Strike Lesson: We Need Autonomous Educators, Not Corporate Reform. 
One week ago, the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education reached an agreement on teacher contracts. But, what most pundits still don’t realize is that the strike wasn’t really about the contracts or the unions. It was about stopping the assault on public education, teachers, and children.
You know what’s hurting kids in Chicago and elsewhere? Contrary to media reports, it’s not the teachers union. It’s the corporate reform takeover—mayoral, not local control, closing schools and turning them over to charter corporations, evaluation of students and teachers with test scores, and weakening teachers unions. These policies are backed by billionaires, many of whom have never stepped foot in a public school classroom in their lives and they’ve blossomed thanks to the passing of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind and President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative.
In Chicago—as in many places—Mayor Rahm Emanuel and corporate reformers have waged a war on teachers.