Gov. Scott Walker can thank Michelle Rhee for making teachers unions the enemy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022506611.html

Gov. Scott Walker can thank Michelle Rhee for making teachers unions the enemy
Richard D. Kahlenberg

...Teachers unions are taking a pounding because Republicans have gained power in recent state elections, and the GOP has a strong partisan interest in undermining public-employee unions, which provide troops and treasure to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, Walker's campaign to restrict the collective bargaining rights of teachers and other groups to the issue of wages is transparently partisan. Exempt from his plan are two unions that supported him politically: those representing police and firefighters. But Walker's argument - that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public - resonates in part because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well.

Exhibit A is former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Under Democratic mayor Adrian Fenty, she repeatedly clashed with the Washington Teachers' Union, which she said put the interests of adults over those of children. "Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated," Rhee said at the Aspen Institute's education summit in 2008. She told journalist John Merrow it is imperative that teachers-union bargaining rights exclude issues such as devising a fair teacher-evaluation system.

Since resigning as chancellor last year, Rhee has launched a new organization, StudentsFirst, with the express goal of raising $1 billion to counter teachers unions. Her approach remains confrontational. In a profound sense, Democrats like Michelle Rhee have paved the way for Scott Walker.

But Rhee couldn't have done it alone. Then-candidate Barack Obama endorsed Rhee in a 2008 debate as a "wonderful new superintendent" and later applauded the firing of every single unionized teacher at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. (The teachers were later rehired.) Rhee's agenda also received a big boost from liberal movie director Davis Guggenheim, whose film, "Waiting for 'Superman,' " implies that teachers unions are to blame for the failures of urban education and that non-unionized charter schools are the solution. The movie includes no acknowledgment that the things teachers want for themselves - more resources devoted to education, smaller class sizes, policies that allow them to keep order in the classroom - are also good for kids...

into one classroom...

... well into the article.

Republicans are doing what Republicans always do.

The incomprehensible part is the aiders and abettors from "our" side.

Edit to add: the following is a moment of revelation in an otherwise trite commentary:

>>>Bargaining should be broadened, not constrained, to give teachers a voice on a range of important educational questions, from merit pay to curriculum. This could help improve the battered image of teachers unions. But, more important, it could help students.>>>



Teachers? Having a *voice*!? In CURRICULUM !!??!!


Imposcerous. Craziest thing I ever heard of.

And .... forgive the unrelenting cynicism... but what is this Century Foundation and where does the $$$ come from?

When I have seen Rhee during her many interviews, she comes across as very deliberately self-serving, insincere, and as though she was on the offense, with something to hide.

I'm no expert in human behavior nor visual behavioral cues/ micro expressions, but instinctively I do not trust her. What am I seeing that others can not (and why)?

If you can see the cues and expressions then you are the expert
very hard to teach that

the problem and only he can back off. I'm so tired of someone besides the perp getting the blame, no matter how at fault they are. A person is responsible for him/her self period. Everyone has a choice to make.

He just signed a "No tax hike" bill that will guarantee WI will have to declare bankruptcy, and the hate radio-fueled hatred for teachers will get worse, until we either fight back or give up (like usual)

If teachers want to keep order in the classroom then maybe they should try to allow the children to study at their own pace, help the slower children keep up with the average. Kids have it tough enough already without the teachers seeking to become brutal dictators who "keep order."

Sound asleep within 10 minutes of class. Wake them up, 5 minutes later they're catching up on their zs. That's in the classrooms where the teachers *try* to keep them awake. In classes where the teacher doesn't try you get maybe 20, 25% of the kids asleep on some days.

Some of the kids have it tough. Broken homes, abusive parents, working part-time to help feed the family or pay the utilities.

But *all* the kids think they have it tough. Joe broke up with Mary to see Sue, making Pete upset because he wanted to be the only guy to bed her. Mike can't afford a G4, and Betsy had her iPod confiscated because she was listening to it in class. Mabel's upset because her phone was taken away from her by a teacher so she can't text Guy 24/7 and suspects he's after Mary now that he's free. Charla wants to know what Dee was doing with Sam over the weekend--and insists on making sure the entire class knows about it. Sarah's in on-campus suspension for flipping off a teacher and both Barney and Beth's primary concern during their test is making sure their hair is feathered just right. They all have it tough, with their low test scores, their even lower comprehension, their confidence that "something" will happen to make their rap/athletics/modeling careers take off the minute they graduate.

You'd think that Mary would be upset that she's a sophomore and 3 months pregnant, that would count as "tough." Nope. Mary's upset because Joe found Sue more attractive. Mom at 16, grandmother at 33 is *normal*. The teacher, a first-time mother at age 33, is the weirdo.

Even the kids with the broken homes and abusive parents think their primary problem is making sure they're bopping the right person, have their hair coiffed just so, sport the right bling or clothes and have the latest gizmo. Their education? Not a problem. We'll make sure they don't fail--after all, teachers are told that they "own" their kids' educational outcomes, that if their kids don't teach it's the teachers' fault.

Think there are failing schools now? Let's move the average closer to 0. It'll make it easier for special needs kids to keep up.

In the last year I've seen two teachers' classes that scored more than 1 standard deviation from the mean. In the first, the classes scored over 15% above average (with his own classes included in the average). He kept absolute order and when they asked for mercy said, "I'll tutor you after school, during down time in class. Otherwise, you own your education. You don't study, you own your failure and I'll see you next year." He says things like, "So, how's not studying working out for you? Like those Fs?" How reactionary--having nearly every one of your kids pass the exit-level exam. The second set of classes scored under the mean. The class was out of control. The teacher could not keep order. He really cared about the kids. Just not in any way that helped get them an education.

Unschooling is great--if the kids' home culture and self-motivation are suitable and on-tap. If not, unschooling means no schooling. It's the same with homeschooling. In households that valued education, one year of homeschooling was way more than one year of public education. In those that valued education the kids would have soaked up more knowledge sleeping under the bleachers in the school gym.

That's exactly opposite of my experience. The teachers who want the students to shut up just zoom through the material and then head to the teacher's lounge or out for a smoke break. Crappy teachers cannot keep the students focused and those are the ones who need to keep "order" because the kids know that they are a crappy teacher and they have zero respect for them. Teachers who know the material very well and are passionate about the subject (or act like it really well) will have the students wanting to pay attention and to learn.

The teachers who just want to crack the whip are the ones who don't know their subject and need to shut the students up so they don't endure the ridicule or disgusted looks from the students.