Re: letter to SacBee re Rhee

[aburke5054@aol.com]

I guess you just forgot to identify yourself as a teacher and a union official. Or maybe you just wanted to do your part for the environment by saving newsprint. 

Like I said, the forces of counter-revolution mobilize quickly when the status quo is threatened. We saw that when the financial industry mobilized itself to resist financial reform and the health care industry mobilized itself to fight health care reform. Big surprise that the education industry mobilizes itself to fight educational reform. 

The malarkey that education reform a la NCLB promotes the interests of corporations and not public education was exploded a few summers ago when the nation's civil rights establishment rose up to oppose legislation that would have weakened NCLB's accountability requirements, the very same requirements that you claim are part of the nefarious corporate agenda. That line of bull has lost teachers' unions a huge amount of respect, so much so that teachers' unions are now openly criticized by liberal and progressive politicians and by civil rights leaders as a prime roadblock to improving schools. Why you continue with the same misinformation, disinformation, and bare-faced deceit is beyond me. 

  
Art



 

-----Original Message-----
From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>
To: epata <epata@interversity.org>
Cc: ARN-l <ARN-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 11:59 pm
Subject: [arn-l] letter to SacBee re Rhee


I submitted this letter today.



*****



Michelle Rhee is just another face on the same corporate agenda that 

has done so much to harm schools since passage of the No Child Left 

Behind Act. She may raise a billion dollars for her lobby group, but 

that money would have done more good if spent to hire teachers and librarians.



European countries have high test scores because they have little 

poverty and provide social services including medical care for all 

children. In our country, test scores correlate with zip codes. 

Schools in some neighborhoods struggle because children in those 

communities are suffering.



In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared 

segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Following Brown, 

years of organizing and struggle ended legal segregation everywhere. 

But de facto segregation remains an open secret. Urban and rural 

schools with low test scores are those with high concentrations of 

low income students - often lacking food, housing, medical care and 

job prospects.



Teachers aren't waiting for Superman. Against the odds, true heroes 

work for students each day, despite the interference of politicians, 

bureaucrats and corporate shills like Rhee.



Rhee's campaign to blame teachers distracts voters from the need to 

change the odds for students.





George Sheridan  



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