1 question for those supporting the chicago teachers

[patrice]

108. One reason it could be "crap" is that people do not understand that teachers have very little power

over the things that cause a great deal of the problems in education, very little power over the things that shape the contracts that they are offered. The contracts are the result of much much bigger problems that teachers cannot control and yet they are made responsible for ALL of it on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Their responsibilities increase constantly and those responsibilities have been becoming less and less about student learning and more and more about bigger system dysfunctions, so teachers work harder and harder, often on stuff that is beside the point when it comes to authentic learning, so perhaps you can see how, failing more power to control what is actually happening to learning and education in general in a larger context, wages do become quite important as leverage to do whatever MIGHT be possible at a particular moment in a particular set of circumstances.