When the party's top leaders do not respect teachers, how can we expect children to do so?

[madfloridian]

How can we expect parents to treat teachers respectfully if the Department of Education and its leader, Arne Duncan, are plotting to get rid of public schools and their teachers. They plan to replace them with privately run schools that are financed publicly.

It is like a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Treat public school teachers poorly, take away their resources and give them to charter schools.....and demand they produce results.

Children now are seeing the very highest leaders in the country actually take delight when schools doing poorly are closed down.

Last week, the New York City Department of Education pushed through a decision to close 19 high schools. With the encouragement of the "Race to the Top," we will surely see similar closings across the nation, hundreds or perhaps thousands of them. Entrepreneurs cheer when public schools close, as new space opens up for their ventures in philanthropy and profits.

It is odd that school leaders feel triumphant when they close schools, as though they were not responsible for them. They enjoy the role of executioner, shirking any responsibility for the schools in their care. Every time a school is closed, those at the top should hang their heads in shame for their inability or refusal to offer timely assistance. Instead they exult in the failure of schools that are entrusted to their stewardship.

It is the responsibility of the administration to "fix" the schools that need it.....not to turn them over to private companies.

It's a charade.

.."This is a great and terrible charade. It is not about improving education or helping kids. It is about producing data to demonstrate that small schools are better than large ones and that charters are better than regular public schools. The destruction of neighborhood public schools is merely collateral damage, though it may also be a goal of free-market zealots. The neediest kids will continue to be pushed out and bounced around until they give up. And the data will get better and better until the day comes when the DOE runs out of large high schools to close.

It is about free market schools. In fact many educators believe that the words "school choice" are code words for turning public schools over to private companies. These companies are well-organized, have loads of money, and they form parent groups and pretend they are grassroots.

Are the words "school choice" public code words for the movement to privatize public education?

"School choice" is the public code word for the political movement to privatize public education in the U.S., but the movement's real agenda is made clear by its ideological vanguard. The Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank, explicitly advocates privatization in its school choice policy statement:

"Classical liberals seek education policies that will empower parents and clear the path for entrepreneurial activity. We envision a day when state-run schools give way to a dynamic independent system of schools competing to meet the needs of every American child. ("Education and Child Policy: School Choice")"

The progress of the school choice movement in the U.S. is monitored and reported on annually by The Heritage Foundation, another conservative Washington-based think tank that is at the vanguard of the privatization movement.

I remember a time when before I retired from teaching when parents demanded their children respect and obey the teachers. They usually took the side of the teacher when there were problems.

It changed as time went on. Parents were empowered by the new policies, and teachers were told to satisfy them. We were told the children and parents were our "clients", and their satisfaction would be the goal. How does one teach that way.

When public school teachers are fired or laid off, when public schools are closed affecting communities and their ties to one another...it affects the children.

They see it as public schools teachers being "bad", even when that is far from the truth.

But the terrible charade is necessary so they can continue the firings and closures and privatization.

[madfloridian]

1. Some in congress question Arne's Race to the Top plan.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2010/03/some_congressional_pushback_fo.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CampaignK-12+%28Education+Week+Blog%3A+Politics+K-12%29

"Much of the ire came from the House Appropriations Committee, especially its chairman, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc., who has questioned the administration's reform agenda in the past.

Here's a snippet from his opening statement at a hearing last week on the U.S. Department of Education's fiscal year 2011 budget, at which Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified:

That request includes over $3.5 billion for new and untested initiatives, for which you will control how the funding is allocated to States, school districts, and other providers. In times like this, we need to worry about our core, foundational programs which go out by formula and are widely shared across the nation. A school district's ability to attract funds should not depend on its capacity to write a grant application.

I want to support this Administration and your education priorities, but not at the expense of reliable and predictable federal support that thousands of districts across the country depend on. Perhaps most troubling is the lack of any increase at all in the title I funds, which are broadly distributed by formula to all school districts in need. At the same time, the budget includes an extra $500 million to expand the Innovation Fund, which makes grants through competition run by your Department. Similarly, it seeks to more than double the appropriation for the Teacher Incentive Fund ($950 million) - even though your Department has yet to complete any rigorous evaluation of this five year old program."

John Kline, Republican, said this:

"A spokeswoman for Rep. Kline (one of the Big 8 the administration is targeting for help in pushing reauthorization) said he's somewhat skeptical of the proposal to extend Race to the Top for an additional year, since there isn't yet any data about the program's effectiveness, given that the money from the first round of grants has yet to flow."

Exactly right, there is no data supporting the new "reform."

It's a rush, hurry-up job.

[harry_pothead]

3. Race to the Bottom

Actually more like race from the urban schools if you're a teacher.

[madfloridian]

2. Wow, 3 unrecs already. Wonder why? Country was built on public education.

:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. People view the title as fundamentally intellectually dishonest?

That's why I unrecced.

[Wilms]

5. You speak for 'people'?

Which ones? :shrug:

[Skittles]

6. aw, you know which ones

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. The rational ones that aren't prone to knee jerking.

[Jakes Progress]

14. Says the owner of the twitchiest patellae on DU.

[dana_b]

7. our kid's education is up for sale

and the big, bad teachers are the reason. pfffftt. Uncle Milton woukd be so proud, Arne.

[madfloridian]

10. Literally.

We would never have allowed under the Bush administration.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. People trust President Obama to do the right thing on education

[Starry Messenger]

8. Every libertarian website I've come across

this year is practically jubilant at what is going on in "education" from this administration. It sickens me. The Heritage Foundation must be thrilled that they are eliminating the evil commie threat of public schools.

[madfloridian]

9. They want government out of the business of regulating schools...

make that federal, state or local. That is why the tendency is for charter schools to bloom unregulated.

Worked really well for our economy.

[madfloridian]

13. Intellectual dishonesty is being in denial about public education's destruction.

Pretense that it is not coming to fruition under our party is intellectual dishonesty.

[Fumesucker]

That's simple, we tell them to..

Do as I say and not as I do always works, particularly with kids, right?

[seabeyond]

15. i guess that will be the difference between the parent that supports and gets kick ass education

for our children and the parent that shifts blame to teachers buying into the "war on teachers" taht deprives their very kids of the kick ass education.

i am so fuckin tired of parent not doing their JOB and insuring the kid gets his/her education. then whining and blaming everyone else for the kids failure

[Jakes Progress]

16. I fear that ship has sailed.

Disrespect for teachers was the first target on the neocon checklist. It was an easy sell to self-centered discontents who had been caught cheating on the 8th grade history test and have blamed that teacher for ruining their life. The neocons knew they could count on the memories of middle school angst to generate blame for teachers as schools faltered under state mandated bad instruction, high stakes bad tests, and massive cuts in funding.

Just look on DU for the gullible. They pop up on these threads regularly to blame teachers and cheer corporate schooling.

[JDPriestly]

17. Too late to recommend this thread, but MadFloridian, you really

struck the heart of the matter in your discussion. First the Republican Party, then the press, then the rest of the media, then parents and now our political leaders have all scapegoated teachers. The real problem is our lack of social network for parents, especially parents of very small children.