While President Obama’s former spokesman, Robert Gibbs, manages a national public relations campaign against teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) has finally decided it has had enough of Team Obama’s union busting. The NEA has now called on Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign.
...
Duncan may have made a misstep when he publicly supported a court decision in California that destroyed teacher tenure and job protections, a shill too far?
...
Though it is unlikely Duncan will resign, the call for his resignation from the NEA may be a turning point for the teachers unions who have largely refused to substantively push back against the privatization agenda that Obama has been pushing for five years. Unions typically go light on Democrats which is one of the reasons privatizers do everything they can to use them in their fight to wreck public schools.
The policies of “education reformers” – charter schools, merit pay, vouchers, drill and kill testing to evaluate teachers – that Duncan has promoted have consistently proved not to work. Though the reformers/privatizers constantly point to America’s poor rankings compared to other developed countries, none of those superior countries have adopted the policies the privatizers are promoting, in fact, most have strong unions and lots of public investment and control. So it is a rather strange argument to make, isn’t it?
Nonetheless, it is well past time for teachers to start educating corporate Democrats as to what happens when you try to destroy public education.
It is well past time to take on corporate Dems like Obama, Cuomo, Emanuel, et al. - unless you're Randi Weingarten, of course, in which case you send out a strongly worded letter, then appear at the next Duncan "Teacher Bash" fest to shill for "Excellent Educator Equity".
Yeah, that'll show 'em, Randi.
Please add Booker to the list.
ReplyDeleteYes, you're right. Lots of other "Democrats" on the list too.
DeleteWhile NEA postures and engages in the paltry histrionics we've come to expect from our "union leadership" -- you know Randi getting herself arrested in Philly, Randi bloviating through a bullhorn in the Adirondacks -- they've just anointed Lily Van Roekel Deuce who just can't seem to shake her crush for Bill Gates and is an Obama appointee to some committee for Niceness to Hispanics. These people never change. They do the minimum and collect the maximum while we schlubs in the rank and file classroom continue to get hammered by all the people the "union leaders" rub elbows with at happy hour. We remain on our own. And pissed off.
ReplyDeleteI don;t follow Randi on the Twitter, but sometimes I see some of the bullshit she tweets that other people retweet and its infuriating. Can't think of a union leader who is more full of shit than Weingarten.
DeleteRandi's got to go!
ReplyDeleteAgreed - alas, how is that to be done?
Delete