Why Teachers Unions Are Fed Up with Obama

Why Teachers Unions Are Fed Up with Obama
by David Dayen
July 8, 2010

This is a couple days old, but it's worth paying attention to. The two most powerful teachers' unions blasted the President and his education policies at their annual conventions. In particular, they decried the veto threat the President offered on the war supplemental if the House passed legislation keeping teachers in their jobs, partially offset by cuts to the Race to the Top fund:


In a skirmish last week over federal education financing, the administration and the teachers' unions were bitterly at odds. Last year, Congress approved $100 billion in education stimulus funds, about half of it to help states avoid school layoffs.

With that money now running out, House Democrats proposed spending $10 billion more to shore up school district budgets, paying for it, in part, with $800 million in cuts to Race to the Top and two other competitive grant programs Mr. Duncan created to spur his initiatives. Mr. Duncan and the White House supported the $10 billion in new spending, but objected to trimming the grant programs, infuriating union leaders.

"For the Department of Education to say, ‘Everybody else has to sacrifice, but our pet programs must be spared'- that makes me so angry I don't even know how to say it," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has often been more supportive of administration initiatives than the National Education Association.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/education/05teachers.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1278428511-DQ/0TyHtTa+HEx+92D3Yeg


The cuts to Race to the Top would constitute a small percentage - under 20% - of their total funding. But Arne Duncan clearly values bribing states to change their education policies in directions that have not been fully tested, rather than saving teachers and keeping class sizes low, policies which have been rigorously tested and show results. Students perform better when they have a teacher than when they don't, to simplify this debate as much as possible. It makes no sense to hoard money for competitive grants when teachers face layoffs. But clearly the White House and the Education Department doesn't see it that way. In fact, despite the grassroots action from the teacher community, they fully expect the funding to be restored:

E-mail messages pleading for the jobs measure rained down on Congress from thousands of union teachers, and despite a veto threat by the White House, Democrats in the House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to create the $10 billion school jobs fund and to trim Mr. Duncan's grant programs. The bill must be reworked by the Senate. On Friday, Mr. Duncan shrugged off what appeared to be an administration setback, expressing confidence that lawmakers would eventually find a way to spare Race to the Top.

I'm sure he's quite confident. But that full funding of Race to the Top will most likely come at the expense of up to 140,000 school personnel.

Education leaders have been told by this Administration at every turn that they must bend, shake up their entrenched system and change the status quo. They must sacrifice by changing teacher pay policies, or tenure policies, or charter school policies. But absolutely no such sacrifice must come from the White House on this front. They don't have to meet anyone halfway. They don't have to give up even a sliver of this reform to save teacher jobs. At the base level, that's why teacher unions, which have gone extremely far in the direction of the reformers thus far, are so angry.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/08-2

I'd rather do without and ensure that he gets a decent education than put him in the public education system. It's a complete and utter mess.

"a complete and utter mess", though like some private schools, some are a mess. IMO the number one predictor of a child's success in school is support at home.

Msongs

Not the teacher's fault.

and not just biology. Parents set up the conditions of early childhood learning, and IQ probably is a function of this.

THere are lots of ways to depress IQ, not a whole lot of ways to raise it. None of this is controversial.

Put your child in private school, but I will say this. I will defend the public system since the president and his DOE are out to get it.

There are so many good teachers in so many good schools.

Reagan started the propaganda in the 80s. Both parties have perpetuated it.

And people are falling for it.

And a great tradition of public schools is being defunded and dismantled with few defending it.

another *f*ck y'all, I've got mine* good american attitude. :sarcasm:

You know, you're handing the privatization enemy a win with your attitude, right?

We need to change the way public schools are funded, instead of basing them on property values. That's why you see such a discrepancy in test scores / skills in wealthy suburban areas verses poor, urban ones. Also, those who are wealthy and have free time instead of working 2-3 jobs to pay the bills are also able to get involved in their child's education. Invariably, low income kids don't have that type of parental involvement. You can't just rely on the teachers to do everything, it doesn't work that way.

I can still fight for all of that, but I just want to give my kid the best shot I can at a good education. There's nothing inherently wrong with that and he will not be going to private school the majority of his childhood. I"ll probably do the same thing my father did to me -- private catholic school until 8/9th grade, then transfer over to a public high school in a decent district.

Would you save money by putting your son in public school and then getting together with other parents and forming a group that would split the costs of hiring private tutors etc to supplement the public education?

That way, at least, you aren't just another parent contributing to the end of public education. (Not that I disagree - get your kid the best education you can while you still have time).

It'd be considerably less per year to hire a private tutor to supplement what he learns in public school.

Shelter them from the outside World...

Public schools allow children to partcipate with other kids of all stripes and backgrounds. Also, the education of your child doesn't stop when he/she steps foot off the school bus; unless you are a bad parent.

I went to private school from K-8th grade. Then I went to public high school. I slacked off more in high school and didn't learn very much at all, while skipping classes and easily maintaining an 3.8 gpa.

the unreccers are out for this thread.

Why isn't this administration listening to educators rather than those that want corporate schools? As a retired teacher my union went all out to back Obama in '08 because he was going to do something about NCLB now we have to take this from them?

If property taxes were put into a pool and spread across all schools - it would help truly equalize education. As it is in many cases those with money can move to locations with good schools and leave those without similar resources to rot.

That many people took on too much house and too much mortgage - they stretched thier budgets to the breaking point in order to afford a good education for their kids.

My suggestion for a solution to this is to open enrollment to all schools in a state to any kid from that state. Have the money follow the kids and not be locked into a geographical area. They did this in Minnesota and it was a boon for rural and urban schools who figured out how to convince kids to move to their schools.

Its well known here in NJ that the crazy property tax values are encouraged so that 'people of color' can't afford to move into the 'white bread' communities and 'tarnish' their towns!!!

This structure of paying for the public schools on a town-by-town basis is encouraged by the NJEA teachers union which is why I don't support that particular union. Too bad the teachers in my state are run by such a corrupt union.

Ruled to be in conflict with the Texas Constitution, and Texans, for the most part, are still dumber than a box of rocks.

Any Vermonters care to comment?

Does he think there will be BANKERS' BOOTS ON THE GROUND?

for elections once they get enough corporate cash. $10hr
Meanwhile us volunteers get 0
They need the base in the beginning before their first election after that not so much if they have the cash.

they can hire as many 'boots' as they need.

With unverifiable, unsecured voting technology convincing people is not necessary. Merely churning enough PR through a few thousand desperate people calling and walking provides enough doubt that we will swallow any 'election results' they feed us.

The mask has come off.

to a large degree they are correct. There are NO real leftist Democrats running for President against Obama, there will be few-if any- REAL leftists in congress, merely a few Democrats who are slightly left of the mainstream. The WH treats us as if we don't matter because in reality we don't. We can complain and piss and moan, but we have about zero effect on administration politics...we can defeat some Democrats in primaries, maybe make things tight for Obama in 2012, but unless we want to help elect republicans by not voting we don't have a choice.

It is time the Democratic left faced reality-we are not important and have no influence on "our" party leadership. They spend more effort on making the right happy because they think thar to cater to the left would be a waste of effort and they are right.

The Democratic Party left in the US is dead.

mark

There's a few groups out there that Obama knows will donate and vote for him regardless of how he treats them. The teachers unions are one of them.

but Organized LABOR...across the board.
Especially after the debacle in Arkansas where the White House actively campaigned FOR openly Anti-LABOR Blanche Lincoln against a Pro-LABOR challenger with UNION support in the Democratic Primary.
The White House GAVE this seat to the Republicans.