School Tech Connect: I Stand With The Union:
by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)
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| from the Labor Day Rally |
I stand with Karen Lewis, the CTU negotiating team, the united Chicago Teachers' Union. I'm not a member of their union, but I've been paying attention. What's happening in Chicago is a full-scale assault on communities and public education in the guise of "reform." The national fetish for teacher-hating has its epicenter here in Chicago, where Rahm Emanuel has decided that his personal agenda is the only way forward, without negotiation, without the assent of the communities impacted by one terrible policy after another. I know there's a faction within the Democratic party that likes the smack-down, likes the head-cracking bravado of this mayor, but when you live in the communities roiled by school closings and the constant upheaval and the top-down, we-know-better-than-you attitude, you begin to see how far to the right this issue has lurched. Our kids have been tested into submission, told
ad nauseum that they're failures, dispersed, disciplined, and disposed of. They've seen their teachers blamed for every ill, and they've grown up in a city that's starved its schools, sabotaged its schools, and sold its schools off. Enough is enough. The fight that's coming is worth the cost. It has to be done, here, in our city, on our streets, in Chicago.
"A job is a lot more than a paycheck. It's about dignity. It's about respect." -Vice President Joe Biden.
