The Latest in Blaming Teachers for EVERYTHING: Rudy Giuliani Edition
First, I know you want to scream, but let’s all stay calm. We need to understand. There’s always a simple answer for every complex question. We will understand Rudy Giuliani’s bizarreness when we understand the answer to the following:
Teachers’ unions are responsible for…
- Global Warming
- Ebola
- Police taking the life of Eric Garner
I’m not sure he wouldn’t make the case for All of The Above, but in recent interviews, Reality-Challenged Rudy Giuliani says “3”.
Because we oppose corporate franchise charter schools that have dismal records of improving education for poor kids and are racked with fraud and mismanagement. Because we don’t support private school vouchers where schools cherry-pick the students they want. Because we don’t think teachers should be paid by hitting their quota of kids who pass a standardized test.
So, according to Rudy regarding the situation in New York, “there’s some blame here that has to go to the teachers union” for the death of a man in Staten Island who was being arrested by several police for selling cigarettes on the street. Now, I could end there, but you’d think I was kidding. Or at least exaggerating.
Oh that it were so.
Google “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” and you will find several pages of Rudy answering the question put to him by Geraldo Rivera about his opinion of the public outrage in the wake of the decision not to indict police officers responsible for the death of Eric Garner.
Brave Rudy wasn’t afraid to call out exactly who was to blame in the death of unarmed Eric Garner, wrestled to the ground by several officers, video-taped not resisting, but instead crying out that he couldn’t breathe in the choke hold that killed him. Brave, only because he had to know it would make him look completely ridiculous, and he tried to sell it anyway.
“Maybe all these left-wing politicians who want to blame police, maybe there’s some blame here that has to go to the teachers union for refusing to have schools where teachers are paid for performance, for fighting charter schools, for fighting vouchers so that we can drastically and dramatically improve education.”
There are quotes around those words. It’s on video.
Honestly, I’m not making this up. Let me translate.
Geraldo (kind of): Who gets blamed for police conduct?
Rudy (seriously): Education unions that won’t support privatizing public schools and paying teachers by test scores.
I just finished a presentation in Nashville on the elegantly simple tactic of school profiteers and privateers. It’s easy as 1, 2, 3.
- Focus on poor and minority communities whose schools don’t even offer access to the courses they need to get into college and then use their fill-in-the-bubble test scores to call the whole public education system a failure.
- Blame “bad teachers” for everything: Poverty, leaky roofs, hungry kids, Everything.
- When someone wants to talk about what students in poverty need to succeed like a path to STEM fields or The Latest in Blaming Teachers for EVERYTHING: Rudy Giuliani Edition: