Because their traditional allies from the Democratic Party have obsessively embraced corporate-motivated innovations, teacher unions seem paralyzed, unable to respond with a new strategy. They criticize the overuse of standardized tests, but they keep electing Democrats to office who, once elected, more often than not join the corporate attack on education.
Agustin Morales was fired from his job as a Massachusetts public school teacher after being elected president of his union and after he participated in collective protest against an element of education reform. Here is the story of how community groups, parents and other teacher union activists came together to support him and help him win his job back.
The former radical leader now finds himself in partnership with former adversaries as an advocate for school choice and vouchers. He says he is “a novelty, an outspoken black man and former large system school superintendent who supported a growing movement that was largely championed by conservative white people."
Civilians need to understand-- the biggest problem with the destruction of tenure is not that a handful of teachers will lose their jobs, but that entire buildings full of teachers will lose the freedom to do their jobs well.
More than two-thirds of states quickly adopted Common Core in 2010, but four years later, the standards seem to have become, among other things, a proxy for whatever in education people are unhappy with.
Adapted from a longer piece in the current issue of New Politics (see link below). Fighting corporate education reform is less about restoring the old system to its former glory than building a just one for the first time.
The CCSS have been adopted by 46 states and are currently being implemented in school districts throughout the United States. Today everything about the Common Core, even the brand name—the Common Core State Standards—is contested because these standards were created as an instrument of contested policy.
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