Karen Lewis: The 2012 Education Person of the Year
 Karen Lewis: the Anti-Ed-Reform Idol. Photo from the Chicago Tribune. |
If 2011 was the “year of school choice,” then 2012 was the “year of the resurgent teachers union.” And leading the comeback was Chicago’s Karen Lewis—fiery, forceful, and unabashedly oppositional. Call her the Anti-Education-Reform Idol.
Lewis dominated the education news in 2012. First there were the skirmishes over an extended day in the Second City (resulting in a longer day for the students, not the teachers). A lengthy run-up to the strike ensued, followed by the strikeitself—which, as others have noted, surprised many of us by being a public relations success for the union and a galvanizing event for teachers nationwide.
Lewis ended the year with in-your-face comments about the Newtown tragedy and a fresh lawsuitalleging racial discrimination in the shuttering of Chicago schools.
While Lewis appears unlikely to be able to challenge Randi Weingarten as leader of the AFT anytime