The power to make money, and the ability to receive a reward for assuming risk, have been cornerstones of America’s economic success. A free-enterprise system made the U.S. the world’s only remaining superpower.
Sadly, all of the above are foreign concepts to the government-run public education system. Karen Lewis, the new president of the Chicago Teachers Union, recently fired this shot across the administrators’ bow:
I’m giving notice to [Chicago Public Schools’ CEO] Ron Huberman and the board: you’ve met your match. We will no longer be played.
…
We’re going to put business in its place: out of our schools. These corporate heads and politicians seem willing to trade off our childrens’ and educators’ futures to pad their bottom line.
Her speech goes on with one-liners that would make Mao Tse-Tung (and Karl Marx) blush. Anita Dunn, call your office! This is the type of person we should expect to teach students an appreciation of what’s made America great? Perhaps Ms. Lewis would fit better in the Havana Education Association than any teacher group in America.
The National Education Association recently considered a New Business Item at its annual convention which called for bouncing Education Secretary (and former CPS CEO) Arne Duncan and replace him with “a person who is aligned with the interests of the NEA, its members, and especially the students it serves.” The reason?
The D.O.E. must be led by someone who sees all students as deserving of an excellent public school and the federal funding it requires, not just those in states that can win resources by best adopting Sect. Duncan’s competitive philosophy.
Leaving aside my quibbles with the reform competition known as “Race to the Top,” what has made it successful is the fact that states have had to one-up each other in terms of legislating reforms to in order to compete for the money. I can see why that wouldn’t fly in the public schools of say, Cuba. But apparently it’s just as unwelcome in the union halls of Chicago and elsewhere in America.
And worse yet, the NEA wants to Obama administration to appoint a shill for teachers’ unions. Isn’t that grand?
We know our students must now compete globally or our superpower status is going to go by the wayside. Such a belligerent attitude displayed by leaders of public education will do little to hurry that improvement process along.