Oh those, bad, bad American teachers. Everything’s their fault. What fools we were to trust them to instruct our parents, ourselves, our children. What a scam they’ve been running for decades! Thank goodness we have politicians wise enough to want to put an end to this. I’m sure they became successful despite the horrible schooling they were subjected to. It must be they carry the scars of that experience, and that is why they are so angry. They need to punish the teachers, treat them like children—see how they like it! They are so very angry that even though they know that test scores have been manipulated, charter schools have uneven or poor results, educational resources are distributed unequally, they persist in spending millions of dollars on tests, closing schools rather than improving them and tying test results to teacher evaluations. Why waste those millions on capital improvements or enriched curricula? That’s money ill spent. Sure, wealthy suburbs may have better schools, but, really, who knows why? And now those pesky teachers in Chicago have actually gone on strike. Trying to make those poor, angry politicians stop and reconsider the “reforms” they clamor for. And having the chutzpah to do it in Chicago, Obama’s and Duncan’s and Emanuel’s town during a crucial election, too. Maybe they hope it’s not too late to go back –not to the status quo, but to the serious examination of how to improve our schools. Maybe they want the Democratic politicians to see how sincere the teachers are, how important this issue is, how the Dems are abetting the destruction of public education in our country.
