Professor gives critique of corporate school reform at King High School meeting... Speaker encourages teachers to fight back against neoliberalism and build a democratic union movement
Nearly 90 people packed into the front rows of King High School’s auditorium to hear Lois Weiner, professor of education at New Jersey City University, talk about the global attacks on teachers and their unions. The presentation was sponsored by the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), Teachers for Social Justice (TSJ) and the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education. The event began at 5:30 on April 13, 2010.
CORE's Karen Lewis (left, standing), a teacher at Chicago's Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep High School, offered some perspective prior to the remarks by Lois Weiner in the King HS auditorium on the evening of April 13, 2010. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. Professor Weiner was introduced by CORE presidential candidate Karen Lewis, who teaches at King High School, and TSJ's Pauline Lipman, a professor at the University of Illinois.
Lois Weiner began her comments by noting that the international teacher union movement began with Margaret Haley in Chicago. She noted that the Chicago Teachers Union was Local 1 of the American Federation of Teachers because CTU was the first teacher union in the USA. She commended Haley for insisting that the ideal of education “places humanity above machines.” At the same time, she noted that Haley, although a pioneer in teacher union organizing, was also out of touch with the growing problems of segregation in places like Chicago, which began undergoing massive migration from the South during and after World War II.
The gist of Dr. Weiner's talk centered on a World Bank report that claimed teacher unions represent the "biggest threat to global prosperity" in the world. Weiner asserted that the World Bank’s assertion was an excuse to de-professionalize teachers: “they want a revolving door because a revolving door is cheaper.” Ultimately, she stated, “the World Bank’s aim is to make schools no different from Wallmart.”
She also explained that standardized testing, as a means to gauge achievement and accountability, is now largely tied to teacher evaluation. Race to the Top, the federal initiative led by the U.S. Department of Education under former Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan, aims to tie test scores to teacher evaluation. Weiner insisted that the true aim is not student excellence but a way to “get rid of a salary schedule based on experience and education,” so as to not “put other money into the salary schedule.”
Lois Weiner delivered her remarks to the group, then asked people to purchase her book, which has just been published. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Another objective of the recent attacks on teacher unions, she said, is to get rid of collective bargaining because “we do it together and it contradicts their ideology [of individualism and self interest].”
In addition, Weiner noted that “unions are the most integrated social institution in this country” making them a powerful force of solidarity among workers. However, she insisted, that only a teachers union movement committed to democracy in its ranks can turn back the current assault.
Weiner believes that the “crisis in this country is not the schools.” She cited a 2002 Department of Labor study that shows seventy percent of future jobs will require less than a high school education and that teachers cannot solve this problem, “only a government that creates jobs can solve that problem.” In her last comments, Weiner encouraged the Caucus of Rank and File Educators to take unpopular and moral positions if necessary. She commended presidential candidate, Karen Lewis, for linking the joy of teaching and learning to the ability of teacher unions to contest the current “reform” agenda. She also encouraged a new rank and file teacher movement to “always include in your deliberations as equals representations of [your school] communities…..parents and activists.”
During her remarks, Lois Weiner urged those at the event to get a copy of her latest book, The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for Resistance, which she co edited with Mary Compton. Although she didn't have any copies of the books at King HS at the time of the event, she noted that it is now available. She said that one of the chapters in it was contributed by a Chicago teacher, Kyle Westbrook.
[Full disclosure: Jackson Potter, a teacher at Chicago's School of Social Justice at Little Village High School, is co-chairman of CORE and a candidate for CTU Trustee in the May 21 election.]
Comments:
By: Vinicius
U of C Prof at Booth School of Business calls Huberman's Data Fetish Questionable.
The prof got it nailed!
But Phillips, like many, is not so sure that these business tactics will work well in education. “I worry about the over-reliance on data,” he says. “I don’t know if it will work in education. It is an experiment.”
http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/index.php/entry/642/CPS_releases_more_details_on_central%2C_citywide_staff_layoffs
By: Jean Schwab
When is enough -enough?
I was at Dr. Weiner's presentation(with my two grandchildren) and what went through my mind was - What will it take? When will it be enough for our country to get really angry about the violence, loss of jobs and break up of school centered communities? Will it be enough if classrooms become more overcrowded, more students hurt, more schools are turned around and more staff jobs lost? What will it take? When will it be enough for the media to become enraged? I say that right now enough is enough!