The irony of Obama’s "help" for Wisconsin teachers

[Bluebear]

CROSSPOSTED from GD by request

By Valerie Strauss

For two years, President Obama has been pushing school reform that has demonized public school teachers. Now he has injected himself on the side of teachers into the confrontation in Wisconsin, where the new Republican governor is trying to pass emergency legislation that would drastically cut collective bargaining rights.

Obama’s support is ironic, given that teachers’ collective bargaining rights have already been undermined by his education reform policies....In a number of ways, Obama’s education policies have gone a long way toward undermining the position of public school teachers and, separately, their unions.

The Obama administration, through its Race to the Top competition, dangled federal money to encourage the expansion of charter schools, which are largely non-union. It has provided verbal and cash support for teacher training programs that have as their distinguishing feature not the fact that they are anti-union (which they are) but that they believe a young person with little training is “highly qualified” to teach the neediest students. And it has made standardized tests the main measurement of students, schools and, now, teachers. This obsession has bastardized the entire learning process, narrowing curriculum, fostering cheating scandals, harming real student achievement and putting teachers in a position of being blamed for things for which they are not responsible.

The administration has squeezed unions into accepting assessment schemes that link student standardized test scores to a varying but significant percentage of a teacher’s pay -- even though research shows that outside influences play at least as much a role in how a student does on a test as a teacher. Also ignored: Research showing the unreliability of systems that use scores to evaluate how much “value” a teacher has brought to a student.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/race-to-the-top/the-irony-of-obamas-help-for-w.html

[femmocrat]

1. K&R Worth reading!

Thanks for posting this, Bluebear! :hi:

[RKP5637]

2. Strange, very very strange. n/t

[midnight]

3. Unionized teachers are a better value. Just look at the scores of the states that don't

allow teacher unions..

[emilyg]

4. You have some recent data? What I saw

posted ghere was from 1999.

[madrchsod]

5. duncan was a union buster when he ran the chicago schools

as soon as he picked him i knew we were in trouble. duncan was a disaster in chicago and he`s even worse now. as far as i can tell neither obama or anyone in his cabinet give a shit about whether unions exists

[Starry Messenger]

6. Nice to see you in here Bluebear!

Solidarity. k&r

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. k n r

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. Missed this. Ironic indeed. n/t