by Kesi Bem FosterTeacher union-bashing has become a sport among the business class and their minions in both major parties. Teachers unions, it is claimed, keep “bad” educators on the job, doing the public a disservice. But few politicians attack police unions for defending officers “accused of using excessive force against citizens, even when such force results in death.” And grossly overpaid incompetents on Wall Street put the entire world economy at peril – yet are rewarded with taxpayer dollars.
Bad Teachers on the Front Line
by Kesi Bem Foster
“Bad teachers and the AFT are easy targets for government officials and the pro-business, anti-union conservative punditry.”
Why do we let public officials lay the blame for our broken education system on bad teachers and their unions? President Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, as well as our most prominent politicians, bureaucrats, pundits, and talking heads have all pointed to an education system overrun by bad teachers protected by their union.
A recent article in the New Yorker by Steven Brill, supposedly critical and investigative in nature, makes no effort to decouple bad teachers and the United Federation of Teachers, the New York affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). He in fact re-cements this false coupling by focusing completely on the New York City Public Schools’ notorious “Rubber Room.” In the Rubber Room dwell hundreds of allegedly bad teachers, a literal purgatory for educators. Yet while Brill is quick to cite the cost of the Rubber Room for New York City and state taxpayers (around $100 million a year), he fails to note New York City’s total annual school budget, which is $10.4 billion. Thus, the awful Rubber Room is less than one percent of the total budget. Now, if in some distant future the level of incompetence on Wall Street gets down to less than one percent of the whole, we’ll be instantly flooded with articles celebrating this astounding, truly monumental achievement. To judge by the $17 trillion we taxpayers just handed to Wall Street to save their shattered financial system, the incompetence of these professionals is clearly far more than one percent. But bad teachers and the AFT are easy targets for government officials and the pro-business, anti-union conservative punditry.
What we need to do is focus on bigger targets.
“The proponents of education 'reform' want nothing more than to weaken the union, so that they can run our education system in exactly the manner of the 'free market,' and hire and fire teachers just as they please.”
The education system in this country is in desperate need of a massive overhaul: inner-city graduation rates are anemic, less than fifty percent, the gap between the achievement of white students and black and Latino students is the size of the Grand Canyon, resources are not evenly distributed, and classrooms are bursting at the seams with overcrowding. Still, even with a seemingly pro-union Democrat administration now in office, the national discourse on what’s wrong with public education remains largely the same, with bad teachers and their unions in the crosshairs. From the White House to Tweed Courthouse, the proponents of education “reform” want nothing more than to weaken the union, so that they, the business class, can run our education system in exactly the manner of the “free market,” where the executives—mayors and principals—hire and fire teachers just as they please, and implement new changes as they see fit, including above all the elimination of tenure, the seniority system, and the current salary scale.
One of the biggest complaints against the teachers’ union is that it makes it impossible for city administrations to purge schools of bad teachers. There are teachers in New York City’s Rubber Room accused of sexually assaulting students, chronic absenteeism, showing up to class drunk, and just plain old educative incompetence. The arbitration process to dismiss these teachers is excruciatingly long and teachers could spend years in the Rubber Room before a decision is reached.
“Rarely if ever do we hear about the costs incurred by taxpayers in the legal defense of bad cops.”
Does the Rubber Room hurt the City’s education system? Maybe. Are all the teachers in the Rubber Room bad teachers? Probably not. The job of any union is to protect its workers; this is just common sense. So it's surreal that the UFT is singled out for doing its job. For example, law enforcement unions don’t receive criticism for supporting their worst members. Officers repeatedly accused of using excessive force against citizens, even when such force results in death, are all supported by the police union until the legal process is given time to play out. Does their vigorous defense of bad officers harm the relationship between the citizens they are supposed to be serving and the officers on the force? No doubt it does. But rarely if ever do we hear about the costs incurred by taxpayers in the legal defense of bad cops.
There are bad teachers out there—most of us have had at least one. There are also bad police officers, bad firefighters, bad nurses, and so on. The teachers’ unions, like the police union and other municipal labor unions, are vital to the workforce they represent, and even more so to our communities. Without them, worker incompetence would no doubt quickly reach Wall Street proportions, where the priority is turning a fast profit, not performing the job according to the goals of long-term development, better efficiency, and overall success.
The great irony is that it is the business class, their elected officials, and their media pundits who are giving advice to the UFT about how to get rid of bad employees. This is like the manager of a last-place team calling up Joe Torre to counsel him on his current starting line-up. Joe might laugh at first, but then, realizing the guy’s actually serious, would quickly hang up the phone, and in the future avoid him wherever possible.
“The ongoing corporate attack on the UFT will likely gain more and more traction as the local and state budget crises deepen.”
This has been the approach of the UFT, to shrug off any and all advice about education reform that comes from the U.S. business class. No sane person can blame them. All the same, in a bitterly hostile anti-union environment such as ours, the ongoing corporate attack on the UFT will likely gain more and more traction as the local and state budget crises deepen and, possibly, rapidly hemorrhage out of control.
In this context, it’s more important than ever to state, and keep re-stating as simply and clearly as possible, that the only rational solution to public education reform is a national public education system, under which every pupil receives exactly the same funding—i.e. the immediate abolition of the old property-tax funding system, which is responsible not only for the persistence of alarmingly high student drop-out rates but the existence of bad teachers.
Here, also, the Wall Street analogy is compelling. The average pay on Wall Street is around $700,000 a year. For New York City Public School teachers, the average pay is $55,000 a year. It’s safe to assume, then, that the vast majority of smart and talented young people will be seeking careers on Wall Street, not in public education. Consequently, after virtually every smart and talented young person has taken their place on Wall Street, or in some other business-related career, those remaining will be forced to search out careers in the public sector, in teaching, nursing, bus driving, and so forth.
One thing is certain: the message this sends to young people is pernicious, namely that public education is where the mediocre go, those without talent or ambition, the place where you can find the disaffected and the disillusioned, the place where you go because your not smart enough to succeed in business. The overwhelming majority of public school teachers are not disaffected or disillusioned; they are dedicated, hardworking, intelligent, and largely taken for granted. Wall Street complains that they won’t be able to keep their best and brightest if they can’t hand out excessive bonus packages, so we send over more taxpayer money. In order to keep their best and brightest, the teacher’s union fights for their employees to keep middle class security, and they are assailed. It’s as simple as ABC: until our priorities change, our education system will continue to receive a failing grade.
Kesi Bem Foster is currently a student at City College. He can be reached at kesibemfoster@gmail.com.
Comments
perfect example:WBAI Eve.News 11/05/09 - postcoup-quotes Man.Ins
Manhattan Institute person is quoted and no refutation of the lies last night in a story on WBAI evening news - archived free 90 days www.wbai.org The story was on laying off school aides. A short interview with a NYC Councilmember, then an interview with someone from the Manhattan Institute. The Manhattan Institute was not identified as a conservative "think tank" and there was no refutation of the lies. The interview consisted of the Man. Inst. person blaming the teachers union as costing too much money, so that how money would be available to pay aides. Usual nonsense coming from the union-busting right wing.
How much of this report on WBAI News shows change since the coup at the station? I don't know, but I was shocked that the union members and aides were not in the story. That no challenge was made to the lies by the Man. Institute propagandist. The "coupsters" have been accused of trying to move WBAI to be NPR-like. This story on last night's evening news would count as evidence. Perhaps budget cuts to fewer staff might be related. I don't know. You need to know that WBAI has 49 years of history as a listener supported community radio station. I used to know that when I listened to WBAI (which I've done for much more than a decade), I could trust the news. I hardly listen now, post-coup. I tuned in last night because it was before the excellent "Free Speech Radio News" carried on WBAI. www.fsrn.org Last night's FSRN had a good, long-for-radionews interview with Glen Ford. NOTE: Sunday Evening WBAI News is somewhat separate from the weekday Evening News, WBAI. Last night's Sunday Evening News was its usual good reporting, including a rebroadcast of the FSRN interview with Glen Ford and a good report by Fred Nguyen, among other news stories.
For information on what's going on at WBAI - see TAKE BACK WBAI RADIO www.takebackwbai.org See the Ques.&Ans., the videos, the link at top of home page "latest news" (excellent stuff). I support the "fired and banned" Don DeBar who produces www.wbaix.org and www.wbixradio.org (the latter began during first coup, 9 years ago, which we "undid" as listeners).
I appreciate being able to return to a story and add this update in support of this story on BAR. If my links don't work, just retype them into your search thing.
Educating Amerikkka
Great article Mr. Foster the truth never sounded better. Not only are the Educational Enterprise Thugs who masquerade as the Business class demonizing the teachers and the unions that represent them they are also criminalizing demonizing and vilifying the children. Whaaaat NOT the Children they are OUR FUTURE!!! Or so you would think. The goal of the folks that are pushing the privatization of education scam is to form to distinct pipelines. One is the school to prison complex pipeline. The other is the school to military industrial complex pipeline. Nether one of these pipelines requires that the subjects be well educated. In fact the preference is that the subjects be DIRT IGNORANT as possible. It makes it easier to program the subjects for their intended roles (can ya hear me now)???
What we need to understand is that the institution of education is NOT about educating ANYBODY!!! It has always been about BIG MONEY, BIG BUSINESS and BIG POLITICS end of story. Education get a huge amount of money and any institution that gets that much money has to spend it on its day to day operations, teachers, support staff and supplies. It is BIG POLITICS that determines who get to do the BIG BUSINESS with school districts to fill those operational needs. What the privatization tycoons are doing is using BIG POLITICS to take control of whole districts and turn them into cash cows (think Hostile takeover). The end results is that they (Educational Enterprise Thugs) get the Business and the Money while the public (children included) gets SCREWED every which a way but loose!!! Sounds just like what happened with the Bozo on Wall Street that drove the economy over the cliff. They (the Wall Street Gangstas) got bailed out while we the people (children included) got SCREWED every which a way but loose!!!
Here are some links to articles that speak about the criminalizing of our children and the zero tolerance mentality used to justify that criminalization. All the while the Educational Enterprise Thugs will be making Mo Money Mo Money Mo Money!!! Amerikkka what a place!!!
http://www.slepton.com/slepton/viewcontent.pl?id=2904
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/39502.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/347/347_st_adults_responsibility_youth_violence.html
Peace
S Murph
Finally a focus on real causes
Yes, you are absolutely correct. The fundamental problem is not the teachers or the students, it is a public education process that systematically warehouses rather than educates a specific sub-population of the United States. Is this some sort of accident, or oversite? A number of high level reports written during the 1980s, including one by the Carnegie Commission itself, indicate not. The failure of public education to do anything except prepare inner city children of color for prision is no accident. It constitutes the single greatest instrument of institutional racism operating in this nation and should be addressed as such. Perhaps the most powerful finding of the 1980s studies was that it is more than possible, and plausible to insure decent education for all given the will to do so.
Yes. And it costs more to keep someone in prison for a year than
send him/her to Harvard for a year. (A year in a NYS prison.)
I LIKE the article a lot. When I was a young student in a SUNY
teachers college (pre-being called SUNY), we were told teachers don't need unions because we are (going to be) professionals. When I started teaching at age 20, 1960, I was making under $5,000. a year. As I have commented elsewhere on BAR, I was active in the first strike to get collective bargaining. Our 2nd strike, in April, 1962 was for a good contract. (I know the date because my sign was in the newspapers.)
I was a union delegate from my junior high school. All the arguments being made now are similar to the antiunion statements when the first strike happened, just to get the right to unionize. No, I never voted for Al Shanker, but for his opponent. I left teaching for art in 1965.
It's harder to teach now and it was rotten beaurocracy then. Awful.
Basir Mchawi has a good show (when fundraising is not happening) on Pacifica radio's WBAI, which has had a coup and many of us are in "undo the coup" mode. See www.wbai.org for archived shows by Basir Mchawi on "Education at the Crossroads" and see www.takebackwbai.org on undoing the coup.
Also see www.wbaix.org for new videos. WBAIX in Exile.
The UFT has problems and there are dissident groups within the union. I have followed education since I left, and am the middle generation of 3 NYC public school educated. Mayor Bloomberg has recently announced that he wants 200 more charter schools this year. It's privatize, privatize, give away as much as possible and kill the union so teachers have no way to fight back, especially since the Taylor Law made strikes impossible for public employees. The TWU was hurt by major fines a few years ago.
Today is the day the October 22 Coalition Against Police Brutality observes the dead who were killed by police, nationally, and in NYC. See the website, www.october22.org for where events are taking place and for the startling list of dead in the Stolen Lives Project. How does this relate to schools in NYC? The schools are pipelines, in about 7 districts in NYC for the prison system. The police are illegally "stop and frisk" of mostly the young, and of color, see the NYCLU www.nyclu.org on the topic. Who supports kids? Not the militarizing mayor. The teachers and parents are natural allies and parents and teachers and kids are shut out of the corporate model of the mayor. Yuk.
UFT bureaucrats part of the problem
Unfortunately, the UFT leadership's own role with regard to charter schools, the heart-and-soul of the effort to privatize education and bust teachers' unions, has been at best ambiguous. It owns two charter schools in Brooklyn. See "The Disastrous UFT Policy on Charter Schools" <http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/disastrous-uft-policy-on-charter.html>.