The right’s latest distracter du jour is class warfare, how we need to leave the rich alone so they can produce jobs. Well friends I find this ironic considering the smear campaign they launched against teachers, well that and the lack of jobs the rich are creating.
Who remembers these whoppers told by the right about teachers?
Teachers have jobs for life. No teachers had due process, which they only got after three years of service. If there is a bad teacher out there, it’s the job of the administration to get rid of them and to do so all they have to do is follow the procedures in place.
Teachers come from the bottom third of college graduates. Just because A 2004 study by a right leaning group says so, it doesn’t make it so. By the way only about a third of all citizens have college degrees and all teachers have to have college degrees.
Teachers get Cadillac benefits. Bigger groups get better deals on benefits and that is just how the industry works. Teachers tend to travel in pretty big groups. Furthermore over the last few years my benefits have gotten both worse and more expensive. They are more used Honda Civic benefits now.
Teacher’s unions’ protect bad teachers. Why would they? No they protect a teacher’s right to due process and that is all. A little more about teachers unions who likewise have been demonized, in case you didn’t know it the teachers union doesn’t set policy, develop curriculum, hire or fire teachers.
Teacher’s unions allow great first year teachers to be fired while letting older teachers to keep their jobs. First if a great first year teacher is fired that is tragic but people have to know teachers unions don’t create budgets. Furthermore many shops have last hired, first fired policies, union and non-union alike and no experienced teacher thinks, hey I was a lot better when I was a first year teacher. Finally study after study finds it turns out experience does matter.
Experience in education doesn't matter. See above
Teachers with advanced degrees don't deserve any more money. In all of society we stress how important education is and rightfully so, except if the right is to be believed, in the field of education. This one gets a Wow.
Teachers are over paid. This is the latest one told by right think tanks. Teachers are highly educated professionals that are required to continue their training and every teacher I know works a dozen or more unpaid over time hours a week. Many of our supposed top college graduates say there is no way they would consider going into a career in education because the pay is to low.
Teachers have their summers off. Most teachers I know get a second job over the summer or take classes or both.
Teachers are against innovation and reform. Teachers are in the classroom they know what works and what doesn’t and sadly they are the ones least consulted about education issues. Teachers want reform and innovation that works not what the powers-that-be are trying to pass off as reform and innovation as they line their pockets with campaign contributions from entities seeking to make a buck off our children.
A great teacher teaching a huge class is better than average teachers teaching smaller classes. A smaller class is the one reform that has evidence saying it works, not charter schools, not virtual schools, not vouchers. The best teachers in the world will tell you that rooms jammed with sixty kids would be bad for education.
Teachers use poverty as an excuse. Poverty is the number one measurable statistic when determining how students do in school. Kids that live in poverty as a group do worse. Teachers don’t use poverty as an excuse; instead ed deformers avoid solutions and ignore problems that don’t make them money.
Finally how can some people give millionaires and billionaires a pass yet at the same time attack their middle class neighbors, the teachers of the nation?
There is class warfare going on and it’s your neighbors who are taking the beating.
No comments:
Post a Comment