The article on the unions and opt out that they wouldn’t print.
The balancing act between defending the Common Core State Standards and supporting their member’s concerns about the amount of standardized assessments and national testing has been a difficult trick for both the American Federation of Teachers and the larger National Education Association.
It is difficult because curriculum and assessment are not fundamentally divisible. It helps to understand the process if you conceptualize curriculum, instruction and assessment as spiral rather than linear. The conceptual difference between a spiral and a straight line is the kind of thing that is more likely to be discussed in a university seminar than at a union convention.
For the two national teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the Common Core State Standards and the standardized testing that is used to assess it are two very different things.
The most extreme defense of Common Core State Standards came from New York’s United Federation of Teacher President Michael Mulgrew at the 2014 national convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Los Angeles.
Mulgrew stood at the microphone with sweat pouring down his face, looking more like a street corner bully than head of a union of professionals, as the AFT likes to call itself. He was debating an anti-common core resolution introduced and supported by the Chicago AFT affiliate, the Chicago Teachers Union.
“If someone takes something from me,” he growled, “I’m going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine! You do not take what is mine. And I’m going to punch you in the face and push you in the dirt because this is the teachers!”
AFT President Randi Weingarten stood at the microphone, arms folded and smiling. She appreciated the efforts of her attack dog, Mulgrew. Engaging in The article on the unions and opt out that they wouldn’t print. | Fred Klonsky:
