"This smear campaign against teachers is freakish. It’s a new low."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/25-1Published on Monday, June 25, 2012 by Common Dreams
Teachers in the Crosshairs
by David Macaray
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And yet, if we believe what we see and hear in the media, the myriad problems with our public schools—from low test scores to a 25-percent drop-out rate—are the fault of incompetent teachers and their “powerful” teachers’ union. No one dares blame the kids or the parents. It’s the teachers who are the villains.
With all the lies, omissions, and exaggerations that we’re regularly exposed to, many of us have become understandably cynical. Personally, I’ve pretty much come to regard everything with a jaundiced eye. Ever since the needle on my Indignation Dial got stuck in the “You’ve Got To Be Shitting Me” position, very little outrages me.
But this smear campaign against teachers is freakish. It’s a new low. What’s worse, even though it’s being driven by reactionary right-wingers, it’s not confined exclusively to the right. Everyone is buying into it. Self-avowed “progressives” blame the teachers. President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan blame them.
Which is why so many teachers are reluctantly leaving the profession. This smear campaign is actually forcing good teachers to change careers because they no longer feel it’s worth the aggravation. Teaching is demanding enough without being accused of incompetence. So we’re forcing them out. Is this a great country or what?
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OTHER than the students themselves (who are another whole set of challenges), ... figure out what other people want and HOW to get it for THEM, and many of these others don't know exactly what they want, let alone why they want it (other than that students should "get a better job and earn more money"
. Everyone and everything (sports, the prom, cars, dating life, politics, religion, professional ambitions, you-name-it ...) comes before the young people do.
A lesbian ex-nun, who taught history in the classroom next to mine down in Oklahoma, and was approaching 30 years in the profession, was the first person whom I ever heard actually speak it out loud and it shocked my newbie socks off the first few times I heard her, "America DOES NOT CARE about its children. They are LAST in their concerns. Children are accessories to 'adult' lives."
It's logically obvious that Pro-Life is a lie.
