The kids can just sit on the ground in dirt lots....

No respect at all.

...considering the warm, fuzzy relationship she has with those darned teachers unions.

What pisses me off even more, is how Mrs. Kevin Johnson is made out to be suuuuuch a hero in the media. Oprah lionized her on her show not too long ago. NBC recently produced a one-off interview show, viewed on the local Comcast Hometown Network channel, which was in all essence a huge puff piece, with the intrepid "journalist" asking Ms. Rhee why all of the vitriol against her, and how personal it seemed to be getting. Ms. Rhee said she didn't know. The coup de grace, of course, was Waiting for Superman.

Personally, I don't think I've seen a slicker, more sincere-appearing shill for education privatization this side of Arne Duncan. She needs to called what she is - a partisan hack.

these people?

They do it because they get away with it. Only a few bloggers are speaking out against such tactics.

If people fought back, they would have to stop it.

Its no wonder they face even greater disrespect in the wider community when even those who should be their putative "supporters" like those of us here, parrot the MSM lies about "terrible" teachers.

I've got direct experience with 4 very different school districts and I have never met a single "bad" teacher. There seems to be this meme lately that teachers suck.

Yeah, their school ENVIRONMENTS suck. The families of their students are in desperate trouble (so the students struggle). We don't adequately fund the poor so they are always at a disadvantage.

This is rarely a "bad" teacher issue - there are so many other factors.

I'm shocked anyone is still going into teaching any more. The obstacles to professional success for them, and personal and professional respect, seem to grow every day.

... just like my teachers taught me.

...is a subdivision of a larger meme - that ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES suck.

Even more important, is the meme that THEIR DARNED UNIONS suck.

It's all a push to privatize. The messaging. The vilifying. The trotting out of Duncan and Rhee. The charter schools. The breaking of unions.

Somebody is trying to open up a potentially $30 billion dollar - plus market, and we'll be damned if we get in their way.

It has really taken hold under this administration with Arne Duncan leading the way.

I would expect the teachers to go on strike or quit. Trouble is there aren't any other jobs they can take. I'll bet the charter and private schools have better working conditions. Seems like they are trying to deliberately make public schools fail.

It has been for years.

Why on earth would you say something like that? if it is in comparison to this then maybe, but I highly doubt it. Also, in a charter school they could just flat out decide on this and not even have to bring it up to a union, then fire anyone who speaks up about it, like they do to under preforming students.

But teachers are made to take the fall every time

We're not trying to compete with Singapore- we're trying to compete with Somalia.

First get rid of teachers. Looks like that's the plan.
Insane and scary for any country but especially one with our military and nuclear might.

Why even bother then?

I have often said that Broad-trained superintendents have the least respect for teachers. They are very aggressive and heartless in doing reforms.

http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/network/profile/william-hite

"William Hite
William Hite
The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2005
Superintendent, Philadelphia School District

Pre-Academy Role: Area Assistant Superintendent, Cobb County School District, Atlanta, Georgia
Post-Academy Role: Deputy Superintendent, Prince George‘s County Public Schools, Maryland

School leaders must provide the support and resources to enable all students to excel academically. Quality education is the key to future opportunities for students of all backgrounds. Urban superintendents must have the capacity to encourage change and hold teachers and administrators responsible for closing ethnic and income achievement gaps.

- See more at: http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/network/profile/william-hite#sthash.nZIPSm3e.dpuf "

Michigan eliminated seniority on the state level, we work a longer day for no more pay in our district because of a state mandate, we're required to do most of that for no extra pay, we have to notify someone if we leave the building for any reason, and our nurse isn't given comp time. We don't have a teacher's lounge (though we all finally got keys to what they call the lounge, a closet off the kitchen with the Coke machine, a couple of weeks back), a designated room for speech and language staff (mostly because we don't have any) or a school psychologist. All of that is pretty normal in our public school district, as are constant threats of serious pay cuts (they want us to take an 8% paycut on top of 5 years of no increases at all).

This is the reality of education, and the other reality is that people will still teach. The students need us to, and we need to as well.

I am retired so the only thing I risk is annoying people.

We should be aiming for NO workplaces to be like sweatshops.

I hope there is a way to overturn these moves.

We need to stop the austerity gangs because they want 9 to 5 to be as mean as possible. Why? A few dollars more?

Get those dollars from Halliburton! Make them cut back first.

Fraudsters first!

CUT THE MASSIVE FRAUD THAT PRIVATIZATION HAS WROUGHT: http://www.contractormisconduct.org/

Repeat after me: Union, union, union, union, ...

And the membership needs to be militant.

...the unions need to learn and use MESSAGING.

TPTB got to where they are at because of their mastery of how to frame messages, and how to use propaganda to their own base ends.

Unions can use a few of those skills right now, as a counter to the profiteers.

The problem isn't the message, which should be obvious- the problem is getting it out there. The MSM is subservient to TPTB, so the message needs to be disseminated in other ways. Social media are currently the primary alternative. We need more and better. And we should be prepared for some bloodshed.

...at the turn of the 20th century, lots of it was shed so that we could have a 40-hour week, the weekend, paid vacation, and sick leave - not to mention all of the other things that built the Great American Middle Class.

(Note that I'm NOT ADVOCATING VIOLENCE IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. I'm merely saying that it may be an inevitability at this stage.)

I also fear that the message may be obvious to us, and others who know who has been screwing them, but not to Joe Sixpack (or Joe The Plumber, for that matter) - that's the consequence of the pervasiveness of Foxymoron News, their wannabes (CNN, et. al), and the general dumbing down of our culture.

With everything lost since Ronniebaby's reign, we may have to fight those battles all over again.

That is really scary sounding, no rights, bet a lot quit and move away.

when they came for my job, I was too uneducated to do anything about it.

There's nothing left!

It is so ridiculous.

Or else...you guessed it. Live alligators in the classroom. Or? Something?

The bottom line is that we used to know that democracy depended on a well educated electorate, and that our prosperity also depended on a skilled workforce.

But when you don't give a crap about the middle class, minorities, and democracy, you limit advantages to those who were born into them: The entitled rich.

This is the end of democracy, of our meritocracy where every child gets a fair chance to rise above his or her parent's limitations on the basis of hard word.

This is the privileged putting down the rest of us.

This is the ultimate expression of the oppression of the 99% by the 1%.

These schools will fail, and the question will be, Will anyone care?

can a teacher teach without a desk, and counselors counsel without privacy?

Wow, just wow.