The sad story of Chester Upland.

Is there a teacher in this country who didn’t wince when they read the story last week of the Chester Upland school district in Pennsylvania? The District is broke, the governor refused help and the union teachers agreed to work for free.

Did I mention that Chester Upland mainly serves poor and working class kids?

I couldn’t bring myself to Tweet or post about it. My emotions went from anger to sadness. From pity to fury.

Of course, the teachers of Chester Upland are heroic.

But it makes you wonder. Is this what they have planned for all of us?

Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post has a letter from an Chester Upland high school teacher.

“My heart bleeds for these kids. Many of these students have seen so much tragedy, loss, and rejection in 16 years than most will see in a lifetime. Now, when faced with the possibility of their schools closing they are hit yet again. In discussions between students regarding the possibility of being sent to other districts, a common response from students is, “They won’t do that; nobody wants us.”

In a Huffington Post column responding to an Ed Schulz report on the situation in Chester, Timothy Slekar writes:

But the biggest light you’ve brought to this story is the nasty little truth that our governor was financed by the owner of the charter schools. Gov. Corbett received $300,000 from Vahan Gureghian.

However, as important as this story is to the people of the Chester Upland community, you have only scraped the surface of a nasty campaign designed to dismantle the American public school system. Corbett is no different than Walker, Christie, Scott, and all the other Republican governors that were elected in 2010. Look deeper into each of these governors’ campaign contributions. They all have money from private interests that want the public school system in this country dismantled. Why?

Look at the story of Chester Upland: $36.3 million dollars have been siphoned from the taxpayers and given to private interests. Ed, this is the real story, and it is happening all over the country.

That is the real story.