Last week I announced that Arne Duncan had declared war on teachers. This followed his public endorsement of putting the names of teachers in the LA Times if their students didn’t test well.
Some thought I had overstated the situation.
It turns out I was late in making the announcement.
After 18 months of frosty relations that at times bordered on outright hostility, it seems that Obama has called a truce — one that several education experts noted comes just in time for the midterm elections, when teachers unions can be a powerful Democratic ally.
Three questions:
1. If Obama is calling a truce, doesn’t that mean that what we had before was a war?
2. What are the signs that a truce has been called?
3. What drives the declaration of a truce?
The answer to number one is that Arne Duncan, with the apparent permission if not encouragement of the President, has waged a two-year war on teachers and our unions. This blog and dozens of others have documented the battles so that I don’t have to list them here.
It is important to point out that Duncan’s endorsement of the witch hunt tactics of the LA Times took place just last week after the so-called truce.
When does the truce go into effect? Is the truce like the stand down in Iraq where 50,000 combat troops still remain?
In the past few weeks, President Barack Obama delivered two major speeches touting education reforms. He invited teachers to the Rose Garden and pushed the House to pass an emergency spending bill saving thousands of school jobs. This week, his education chief is traveling on a cross-country bus tour to highlight school success stories.
If Obama’s speeches touting reforms are examples of a truce, then there is no truce. The administration’s idea of reform is opposed by most teachers and some union leaders.
Good for the administration in getting the jobs bill passed. Of course, it is late and leaves more than half of the pink slipped teachers still without jobs, but this is not entirely the administration’s fault.
Many teachers are tired of hearing the tired old cliche of how we are “the single most important ingredient in the educational system.” It hangs up there with “we’re doing what’s best for the kids,” as a justification for the worst kinds of education decisions and policies.
If we’re that important, give us the tools to do our job well. Stop de-professionalizing our work. Stop reducing what we do to test scores and base metrics.
Plus, start counting other ingredients as important: families, jobs, housing and communities.
Lastly, would it be cynical of me to suggest that the sudden declaration of a truce has more to do with November’s election than collaboration with teachers in the classroom?
The alienation of four million teachers is the alienation of four million voters. Those four million teacher union voters aren’t going over to the tea party or tea party candidates. But if even if some proportion stay home in disgust, the Democrats are in bigger trouble than they appear to be in now.
A truce has to be more than words.
Fred Klonsky 