Teachers and the President: Love Meets Indifference and Condescension
Yesterday, I was sent a photo by an engraged teacher from the state of Michigan who I have been communicating with regularly for the last few years It showed a picture of President Obama with a huge smile on his face in a Detroit pizza shop preparing to visit the auto show in that city. it was dated January 20, 2016.
To my teacher friend, a picture of a smiling President visiting a city where there was an ongoing sick out of teachers protesting intolerable conditions in the schools they work in was like a huge slap in the face. Did the President care that thousands of teachers were putting their jobs on line to fight for decent conditions for their students? Did he have anything to say about the desperate conditions in Detroit schools? What kind of President visits a city in crisis and not only refuses to acknowlege that such a crisis exists, but has a huge smile on his face amidst the turmoil?
The sad thing about this is that this is exactly the behavior that my friend would have expected from George W Bush. It was the behavior he displayed during Hurricane Katrina. But from Barack Obama, who was swept into the White House with teacher votes in 2008? This came off as a complete betrayal
Yet unfortunately, it is part of a pattern
Did President Obama say a word during the great Chicago Teachers Strike of 2014? Did he come to the defense of teachers who lost their collective bargaining rights in the state of Wisconsin a few years earlier? Has he ever said or done anything to let the nation's public school teachers know he appreciates their efforts, or encouraged them to play a major role in shaping education policy?
If the answer to these questions is "No" there must be a reason. Why, given the overwhelming support he has gotten from the With A Brooklyn Accent: Teachers and the President: Love Meets Indifference and Condescension:
