“Thank you Chicago Teachers” from Georgia Educators

This piece is from the Teaching Georgia Writing Collective,  first posted on Maureen Downey’s AJC Get School Blog:

Dear Chicago Teachers,

The Chicago Teachers Union strike will go down as a significant event in history when educators stood up against the destructive powers of privatization and for workers’ job security and a strong middle-class in the United States. We want to thank you for standing up for yourselves, for your students, for public education, and for every teacher who is faced with constant criticism and attacks on their professional dignity. Your courage to stand up, walk out, and demand national attention inspires us and makes us hopeful that your actions will have a positive impact for the working conditions of all teachers, regardless of whether they have union protection or not.

Thank you for challenging the narrow-minded vision of using high-stakes standardized test scores to evaluate student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school rankings.

Thank you for showing America and the world that most teachers do not agree with the heavy-handed policies that have narrowed curriculum and made school a less interesting and enjoyable place for most kids.

Thank you for fighting for the rights of children, youth and families to have access to fully funded public schools that aren’t destroyed by for-profit charters not held to the same level of scrutiny.

Thank you for demanding rights for laid-off teachers.

Thank you for demonstrating to everyone in our country that working conditions for teachers have been deteriorating since before NCLB and won’t be improved by Race to the Top.

Thank you for reminding workers everywhere that they have a right to stand up for injustices in their workplace.

Thank you for teaching your students – and all of us – an important lesson about democracy, labor, and the vision of public education that is handed to us by “reformers” who rarely know anything about real schools and real kids and real teaching. We should all strive to be as courageous as you.

Sincerely,

Teaching Georgia Writing Collective

Enough of the “Teachers are Villains” Narrative

Thanks to L.S. for sharing this on a listserv.

I am going to add some highlighting to the article for those of you reading this during your only bathroom break of the day, or during your leisurely 10-minute lunch time, or as you are rushing to write some notes home to families about how great their kids are.

 

Washington Post  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-standing-up-for-teachers/2012/09/17/ad3ee650-00fd-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html

 

Standing up for teachers

By Eugene Robinson, Published: September 17

 

Teachers are heroes, not villains, and it’s time to stop demonizing them.

 

It has become fashionable to blame all of society’s manifold sins and wickedness on “teachers unions,” as if it were possible to separate these supposedly evil organizations from the dedicated public servants who belong to them. News flash: Collective bargaining is not the problem, and taking that right away from teachers will not fix the schools.

 

It is true that teachers in Chicago have dug in their heels against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demands for “reform,” some of which are not unreasonable. I’d dig in, too, if I were constantly being lectured by self-righteous crusaders whose knowledge of the inner-city schools crisis comes from a Hollywood movie.

 

The problems that afflict public education go far beyond what George W. Bush memorably called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” They go beyond whatever measure of institutional sclerosis may be attributed to tenure, beyond the inevitable cases of burnout, beyond the fact that teachers in some jurisdictions actually earn halfway decent salaries.

The fact is that teachers are being saddled with absurdly high expectations. Some studies have shown a correlation between student performance and teacher “effectiveness,” depending how this elusive quality is measured. But there is a whole body of academic literature proving the stronger correlation between student performance and a much more important variable: family income.

 

Yes, I’m talking about poverty. Sorry to be so gauche, but when teachers point out the relationship between income and achievement, they’re not shirking responsibility. They’re just stating an inconvenient truth.

According to figures compiled by the College Board, students from families making more than $200,000 score more than 300 points higher on the SAT, on average, than students from families making less than $20,000 a year. There is, in fact, a clear relationship all the way along the scale: Each increment in higher family income translates into points on the test.

Sean Reardon of Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis concluded in a recent study that the achievement gap between high-income and low-income students is actually widening. It is unclear why this might be happening; maybe it is due to increased income inequality, maybe the relationship between income and achievement has somehow become stronger, maybe there is some other reason.

 

Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers.

 

The brie-and-chablis “reform” movement would have us believe that most of the teachers in low-income, low-performing schools are incompetent — and, by extension, that most of the teachers in upper-crust schools, where students perform well, are paragons of pedagogical virtue.

 

But some of the most dedicated and talented teachers I’ve ever met were working in “failing” inner-city schools. And yes, in award-winning schools where, as in Lake Wobegon, “all the children are above average,” I’ve met some unimaginative hacks who should never be allowed near a classroom.

 

It is reasonable to hold teachers accountable for their performance. But it is not reasonable — or, in the end, productive — to hold them accountable for factors that lie far beyond their control. It is fair to insist that teachers approach their jobs with the assumption that every single child, rich or poor, can succeed. It is not fair to expect teachers to correct all the imbalances and remedy all the pathologies that result from growing inequality in our society.

 

You didn’t see any of this reality in “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” the 2010 documentary that argued we should “solve” the education crisis by establishing more charter schools and, of course, stomping the teachers unions. You won’t see it later this month in “Won’t Back Down,” starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal, which argues for “parent trigger” laws designed to produce yet more charter schools and yet more teacher-bashing.

 

I’ve always considered myself an apostate from liberal orthodoxy on the subject of education. I have no fundamental objection to charter schools, as long as they produce results. I believe in the centrality and primacy of public education, but I believe it’s immoral to tell parents, in effect, “Too bad for your kids, but we’ll fix the schools someday.”

But portraying teachers as villains doesn’t help a single child. Ignoring the reasons for the education gap in this country is no way to close it. And there’s a better way to learn about the crisis than going to the movies. Visit a school instead.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Troy Davis

I know folks in Georgia and around the country have been watching the case of Troy Davis and wondering if he is, indeed, going to be executed tonight. The execution has been delayed (a temporary stay was granted) for now – here is a live broadcast from the prison through Democracy Now.

Here are facts about the U.S. death penalty.

Amnesty International’s campaign to abolish the death penalty.

Mistakes and Innocence on Death Row.

Anti-death penalty video based on true story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Class Warfare” or finally paying attention to class?

Wareen Buffett started it all with his persistent attempts to get millionaires and billionaires taxed at the same rate as middle-class folks. So now Obama is proposing the “Buffett Rule,” drawing on Buffett’s call and using a billionaire’s voice to buttress the proposal.

Some politicians are calling this “class warfare,” as if we haven’t endured class warfare for the past thirty years.

Some evidence of class warfare in the past several years:

“Welfare Reform” – a war against the poor to “reform” welfare to ensure limited access, limited funding, and often humiliating requirements for receiving even small amounts of money.

1 in 100 of our citizens are in jail or prison with millions more tied up in the complicated web of court-involvement – again, a war against the poor. Nearly 90% of all people arrested are living below the poverty level at the time of their arrest. Profiling? Of course it is – but we don’t hear anyone calling that “class warfare.”

Attacks on workers’ rights to collective bargaining (hmmm….I wonder who that benefits?)

Minimum wage workers not even pulling in enough income to live above the poverty level (hmmmm…can anyone say class warfare?)

Tax credits for private school “donations” (read: tuition). Again – who benefits here?

Tax credits for mortgage interest payments – so anyone owning a home gets to write off more and more from their tax bills. And folks yell about “entitlements”?

Tax exemptions for corporations moving into towns or cities – is it “fair” that they can come into a town or city, hire minimum-wage workers who won’t be able to provide for their families even with a full-time job, then not even pay taxes that could support local and state public initiatives?

Lowest rate of union membership in decades – hmmm…I wonder how that happened. Can you say “business-friendly” policies that work against workers?

Foreclosures by the millions – mostly resulting from creative loan “products” sold to folks who couldn’t afford them but didn’t know it because the terms weren’t carefully explained to them by their loan officers…who took the commission and ran.

The war against the middle-class, working-class, and poor in our country has been waged overtly, covertly, and consistently since the 1970s. But we haven’t called it “class warfare” because to talk about class at all was assumed to divide our country (as if it wasn’t already divided). Therefore it has been more like a “Cold Class War” – the war that isn’t really a war, the unspoken war, the anti-acknowledgement war…

But suddenly when millionaires and billionaires are asked to pay their share it’s “Class Warfare” – the coldness heated up immediately and with great intensity.

So what if it’s class warfare? We’ve been suffering through it for decades…Bring it on.

Expose them to big houses? Thinking about Upper Middle-Class Bling

Big houses, fancy sedans, downtown boutiques filled with expensive clothing and shoes, trendy restaurant spots with hard-to-pronounce specials.

Some educators believe that the way to “motivate” working-class or poor students is to expose them to the ways  upper-middle class and wealthy people live their lives. Just let them see what else is “out there,” expose them to the bling (my word, not theirs) acquired through high paychecks, inheritances, good credit loans, and inspired by materialism and consumerism. Bigger and fancier is better – name brand purses, the most expensive imported cars, designer shoes, houses large enough to provide shelter for five families.

I sympathize with people frustrated that children and youth often grow up and find limited opportunities to sustain themselves financially. But this idea of exposing children and youth from “lower income” neighborhoods to the materialistic bling of upper middle-class wealth is more than disturbing.

People suggesting this exposure are often the same folks who demonize mothers who find a way to buy the newest sneakers for their children, or share quick glances of mortification when they see adolescents with gold caps on their teeth, or laugh out loud when a completely rebuilt older American made car slides down the street with the shiny wheels turning and a hip-hop beat thumping from the speakers.

“That’s why those kids grow up and sell drugs,” some people might say, “because they see those sneakers, those gold teeth and chains, those hooped up cars around their neighborhood and they want that bling too.”

Really now?

So you’re telling me that a $100.00 pair of shoes will make a child envious enough to become a drug runner, but showing him a $500,000.00 house will inspire him to stay in school, make good grades, go to college – and act like you?

This is really what we’re talking about folks. Upper middle-class people that say and believe these things are convinced that their own lifestyles (often of opulence and tremendous waste and materialism, though of course not always) are simply better than others’ lives. They secretly – or not so secretly – think that the gold chains and teeth and cars and music and sneakers are ugly, gaudy (is that how you spell gaudy?), disgraceful, “ghetto,” “low-class,” and disgusting. In other words, “Low Brow Bling.”

But that the material goods they acquire and consume are “classy” – pretty, understated, classic, “tasteful,” etc. etc. etc. In other words, “Aspirational Bling.”

We really need to wake up here. Bling is Bling, and using materialistic bling as a lure for supposedly getting kids to stay in school and “be like us, instead of like those people in your community” is the most absurd, classist, self-absorbent, egotistical, naive, ignorant, clueless, contradictory thing I’ve heard of.

Kids will stay in school and engage themselves when they feel like they belong, when they are valued, when they are treated with dignity and respect, when they are given some choice and power over their school experiences, and when they are motivated and inspired by the work they do there.

It’s as simple as that.

No bling required.

In fact, all that upper middle-class bling might just offend and alienate the very students some are trying to inspire and make them work extra hard to get away from anyone who represents it.

I haven’t even gotten to the unsustainability of persistent consumption of bling in the upper classes…but think about this: What if every family in North America had a 3,000 square foot home that required increasing amounts of energy to heat, cool, and water? What if every family in North America bought the newest, fanciest imported car from Europe? And on and on and on….you can see where I’m going with this.

Using one “class’s” Bling as a lure because it is positioned as infinitely better than the working-class or poor community’s Bling is simply unethical.

Encouraging more and more consumption of bigger and costlier things is simply wrong-headed and short-minded.

We have to really think long and hard about what it is we hope children and youth get out of our school systems – and surely it’s more than hoping they are envious enough to become like someone else, or motivated enough to work harder and harder so they can buy bigger and more things.

The American Dream – if there ever was one or ever can be one – must be about more than making yourself like someone else and aiming to buy  ”classier” Bling.

Riots in London and Connections to U.S. Politics and “Society”

Hey all – thanks to a friend for sending this along. I have grown more impatient with the “These are your children, control them!” response from UK officials to the riots in London that resulted from a police officer killing a young man of color. UK officials are now considering the eviction of all families related to any accused in the riots. Great – so then the disenfranchised, angry, resentful collection of working-class and poor (mostly) immigrants will be homeless. This is a terrific solution! That should certainly prevent any future uprisings.

Is this an uprising? Or is it just a bunch of hoodlum adolescents expressing their greed and self-righteousness the way UK officials make them out to be?

It may be an uprising.

We weren’t surprised by the uprisings in the Middle East this year, but somehow people are less inclined to speak of “uprisings” in the “civilized, western” world including metropolitan London.

But this may just be an uprising.

Margaret Thatcher (the woman who spoke the words “There is no such thing as society” quoted at the bottom of this article in The Guardian) and her cronies including everyone involved in the Reagan era politics wanted “individuals” who were solely responsible for themselves and no one else – just as no one else would be responsible for those individuals – would be bound to consumerism and market fetishes and not worry about something so abstract as “society.”

Congratulations.

This is a terrific article and a nice primer for folks not familiar with “neoliberal” policies of the last 30-40 years and their implications.

 

What comes after the SOS national march and rally?

So I’m more than envious of all you folks who participated in this historic event – but I’m still happy that I spent the day at my cousin’s wedding in Ohio celebrating with family and friends and dancing the night away…

But these speeches look like they were fabulous! Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol, John Kuhn, Diane Ravitch, and all the amazing educators, families, and children who are fighting every day to make sure kids are respected and can experience education with dignity and hope and power:

Other great video footage of the march.

What should we do now?

Paul Thomas has some good ideas here…

Why talking about social class matters…

Listen.

This is why I write about working-class lives and lives lived in economic insecurity.

This is why I reveal so much about my life that others would work hard to hide.

This is why I revel in vulnerability so others can find their footing more confidently.

Listen closely.

You might miss it, because I nearly did and I’m always listening for these things.

There is a slight knock on my office door and a slightly built young woman with sweat beading on her face looks at me as if she is scared and nervous and small. I’m expecting her, a masters student who emailed to ask if she could meet with me about her program of study.

“Do you mind if I sit?” She walks uncomfortably into my office, looking at me with an expression that I can’t place.

“Of course not, please, sit down.”

“I’m here to get some details about my program. I began in the summer and want to finish by next summer.”

“Alright. Well that means you will definitely have to register for comps this semester so you can write in the spring.”

“Can I ask you a stupid question?” she asks, still sweating and not quite looking at me.

“Of course. No questions are stupid.”

“What are comps?”

“Comps is what we call our Comprehensive Exams that all masters students must pass before they graduate.”

I pause and smile.

“I had heard everyone talking about them, but I didn’t know what they were at all. Is it like a test?”

“You will receive five or so questions from which you will choose one to write about, then you will write a ten page paper in response to the question. It’s a good idea to start keeping notes and references now from your readings and courses so you have them nearby as you write, because we do expect that you will cite readings and course discussions to support your argument in the paper. When you turn it in, two faculty members will read it.”

“So it’s not a standardized test or something like that?”

“No, we want to know that you have learned something deeply in your program and can articulate that learning in relation to what it means to teach. It’s a take-home paper.” Smile.

Her face relaxes a bit and I think I know why she’s sweating and nervous. Comps are scary. Not knowing what the scary thing is is even scarier.

“Okay, great. So what have you taken so far?” I ask and pull out a grid to begin penciling in courses that meet requirements in our program as she reports the memorized course numbers and instructor names. When prompted, she describes a bit about the course so I can decide where it “fits” in the program of study. We talk about classes she can take in the spring and she wants to know if I am teaching a course.

“Yes, but it’s a doctoral seminar. “ Strange. I know I’ve never met this young woman, maybe she’s just asking to be nice or she’s heard about me before.

“You know, in my Thursday class we’re reading your book,” is that a redness in her face? “and I read it as an undergraduate and kept it and didn’t sell it back like most of my books and I have so many things underlined. But it’s really amazing that now I feel like I’m getting so many different things out of it and I’m underlining different things. I love your book.”

“Thank you. That’s really nice.”

“I mean, I kind of connected with what you were writing about in your life. I’m the first person to go to college in my family too.”

Ahhhhhh.

Of course.

Now the pieces are falling into place.

“And you know, as a junior when we were reading that book and I was surrounded by all these girls in my class who weren’t from families like mine at all, I always felt intimidated by them and I was afraid to speak up. But when we were discussing your book I was like raising my hand! I was telling everyone that I can talk about those things from firsthand experience!”

Smiles – and maybe redness in my face?

“It made me proud.”

“Thank you so much for telling me that – it’s exactly why books like this in school are so important, so people who have never felt quite comfortable in school settings can have a space where they feel privileged and valued. Thank you for sharing that, it makes me really happy that my book could do that for you.”

“It did! And when I found out you worked here I couldn’t believe it! I mean, I thought you were this amazing famous person because you wrote this kind of book.”

Ahhhh. Now the nervousness and sweating is becoming even clearer. She was afraid of meeting me!

“And that’s why I didn’t know what comps were. No one in my family has ever been to college, much less to graduate school, so I have never had a clue. I went to group advising, but I thought I could come here and ask you about comps.”

She talks about her freshman year and earning enough scholarship money to live in a dorm but spending most of her nights at home in a neighborhoing County with her family. By her sophomore year she was living full-time back home and in her junior year she found a roommate who was – very surprising to her! – from a poor family who was proud of their Goodwill shopping, coupon cutting, and figuring out how to eat with little or no money.

“I’ll probably never meet anyone like her again,” she tells me, “but it was perfect that we were roommates. We didn’t have to hide any more.”

Her body and her face transform and she is now a tall-sitting, confident, excited talking young woman who didn’t even resemble the person I had opened my door to.

“Now I’m married and we live in the same apartment that I had with my roommate, in fact, now I’m the resident manager so we only have to pay one-half the rent. We do everything we can to cut down our costs.”

She’s moving to another city next summer and she plans to get there plenty early enough to do community ethnographic work where she’ll be teaching well before school begins, “Just like in your book,” she tells me.

“I did so many of those things even in my student teaching. I did home visits and went to a Quincierita, and really listened and learned about my students’ experiences at home and with money and how I could make connections with them to make sure they felt proud of who they are. I just know that when I have my own classroom I can do even more.”

Our conversation lasted much longer than the 30 minutes I had scheduled it for and I knew my daughter was waiting impatiently for me at the YMCA to pick her up, but these are the moments I continue to revel in.

And marvel at.

When perfect strangers seek me out because of something I said about working-class families or poverty or first generation college students or just because they had been assigned my book.

As we ended our conversation she apologized four times, “I’m sorry I’ve kept you so long.”

“You’re gonna have to work on that you know. Not apologizing. You deserve to be here talking to me just as much as anyone else does. Don’t apologize…I enjoyed the conversation just as much as you did.”

We smile and I want to grab her and hug her and thank her and wish her all the best in her today and future.

But I’ve just met her.

And she was nervous and sweaty about meeting me.

I didn’t want to traumatize her again.

Is this land still made for you and me?

Tom Morello at the Wisconsin protests – this is amazing stuff!!

 

 

Make a sign and put it in your car – use a marker for a T-shirt and wear it tomorrow – draw on your backpack or grocery bag – stand in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and everywhere. This is how history is made, and we have to be on the right side of it this time!

 

 

Classism Exposed blog is fabulous…

Check out Paul Gorski’s blog called Classism Exposed.