Teachers, The Right's new version of Welfare Queens

For the last decade, but specially the last couple of years, I've heard from the media rabble and the right about the horrible problems with our educational system. Well, not all of the system, just the part that all Americans have a stake in--public schools. I've heard how its failing, failing, failing and its all because of those union thug teachers!!! Making all those millions of $$ and just sitting around eating bon bons...funny, the teachers I know seem to be working pretty hard, they start about 7 in the morning and usually don't finish until evening. Sure they aren't "in the office" for some of that time, but they bring work home all the time.
So the right keeps telling us how much greater our education system would be if we got rid of the antiquated public education form..Private Schools!...Charter Schools! They work so well and everyone that goes to them do so much better! Sure...too bad the stats don't really bear that out.
First: Both private schools and charter schools get to pick and choose the "cream of the crop", you know those kids that aren't a problem and don't have those stupid learning, behavioral or physical disabilities. OK that means that they already have at least "C" students to start with. In May of 2010, there was a story in the NYT magazine explaining how much better charter schools were by comparing a charter and public school that were not only in the same neighborhood, but shared the same building! Same kids, same community and you know that charter school soared much higher on standardized tests than the public school so that just goes to show how much better the charter is, right? Umm, not really.
A deeper look at the data showed some illuminating facts about those kids...yes the came for the same neighborhoods but again the Charter School gets to choose their students.
At the public school, 20% of the students were in some form of special ed and about 2/5 of those students were considered "severely disabled"...the charter school? They did have about 17% of special ed students, but none were considered severely disabled.
The public school had 13% of their students which English was their second language, only 2% of the charter school were ESL students.
The public school had 20% more of their students that were eligible for free lunches(68% of the students qualified for free lunch, 49% in the charter) and a 10% homeless rate for the public school kids, the charter only had about 1% of homeless students. Now, are these two populations the same??? And since the public school(which teaches to all, not just the easy ones) did improve on the tests after the charter school raided their best and brightest away, shouldn't those public school teachers get an award for doing as good, if not better than in the past? OF COURSE NOT! Their job is to teach and we know there are bad teachers because the UNION protects the bad ones...
So, the teachers at charters allegedly get paid better, better benefits so that means the best come there, right? Again, not necessarily. Charter schools have a much higher turnover of staff than public schools which does hurt the continuity of service...having to train the teachers over and over. Why the higher turnover? Because charter school teachers have more responsibilities and longer hours. Also, without collective bargaining and union membership, teachers aren't treated fairly across the board...its a brown noser's paradise. Most professional teachers prefer the traditional public school, not because they're lazy, but because they are treated on a fair basis.
Another issue of charter and public schools is segregation. Historically, private schools(most being religion-based) have been notoriously segregated. Charter schools also have the same inclination, in fact there are white supremacist sites that extol this as the best reason to send your kids to charter schools, not better schools. Oh, and the scandals that surface with charter schools? Shoved under the rug of ignorance.
And all in all, after all of the high marks of the media, corporations, "civic" leaders, charter schools, in general, do not do better than public schools on the same level as Stanford University has studied, time and time again. It seems all charter schools really do is break the union(although some charter schools are now organizing), segregate school children and take more money out of public funds into private bank accounts.

Thank you Dad

March 14 would have been my father's 86th birthday. He died in 1990, but I know he'd be very unhappy with the way life in this country, one that he fought for in WW2 has turned. Although my father was not the rebel that I am(I think I got that from his sister, my Aunt Helen), his views were still much more liberal than conservative and he was the first one that I ever heard use the phrase, "If there was a pig on the republican ballots, those idiots would vote for it!" So, I guess I'd just like to thank my dad for some of my attributes:
First, my red hair--it fits my personality
Second, my love of reading; although both of my parents read and my mother probably read a bit more to me when I was a child, my father was the one who introduced me to the magical world of newspapers. Dad worked in Chicago and took the train. In those days there were 4 Chicago papers--the Trib, Sun-times, Daily News and Chicago Today. Two were morning papers and the other two were afternoon. We never read the Tribune, dad called it the newspaper for the rich and middle class people who read it were duped into believing they were just like the upper class. He got me interested in the papers by way of the comics-HEY I was only 7 or 8! As I got older, he'd mention different articles that I might like to read, he was sneaky!
Third, my love of knowledge; yes, if you are reading articles by the time you're 10, you're also being told that knowledge is important. My father and I would debate topics, debate football, debate why I should be able to stay up later(I usually lost that one) and we'd do it without yelling(that started in my teen years...hormones and independence ya know). He wanted me to be sure I knew what I was speaking about, not just talking about something because my friends liked it.
Fourth, my passion for social justice; my mother always said my father was always bringing home strays--dogs, cats, people and he did, specially the people in later years, but his heart was in the right place. I remember one time when I was still in elementary school and he had his secretary and her husband to our house for dinner. Her name was Millie and she was New Orleans and she was....black! In a middle/blue class neighborhood in the suburbs!!! Talk about throwing the neighborhood for a quake, you'd have thought Dad had invited MLK, Jr., Malcom X and Jesse Jackson to move in with us! Now, my dad thought those men were evil, it was the 60's and civil rights were just awakening, but he was so angry that our neighbors would be so....stupid(read racist in this day and age) about friends of his! My father showed me, whether he knew it or not, how blind racism can be--he would give his shirt to someone he knew, no matter what race/creed/religion, but to ones he didn't, he thought the worst. The indirect definition of white privilege.
He gave me my love of football, taught me how to dance(although he never got me to understand that I was the girl, I wasn't supposed to lead), my humor and my sarcasm.
He had been a mid-level manager for all of my life and really didn't have much good for unions, but when I started getting involved with mine, he said it was good that I was standing up for other people and now, in his late 50's, understood how important unions could be. After working over 30 years for one company, they terminated him before he turned 60 and he never really recovered from that in some ways. At least he had a pension that started when he was fired.
In 1986 I became a correctional officer, after working for 6 years in the clerical department of the prison. After about 6 months, he told me that it had changed me, made me a bit more hard hearted, but he said, "That's good Kim, you were too softhearted, like me." No, dad I'm very proud to be as soft hearted as you. I love you and I miss you and may you find peace in the your world.