A Vested Interest In Selling Our Kids As Failures

Some people just can't deal with the idea that our kids may not be failures:

Yes, America has the strongest military and the biggest economy by far. We remain the most innovative people on Earth, measured by the number of new patents, and our strong position in cutting-edge industries, from computers and genetic engineering to popular movies and music. More than any nation, we peacefully blend a huge range of ethnicities and religions in a tolerant democracy.
But we are slipping. Our high school students rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math, while the gap between rich and poor students is among the widest in the world. Median household income has been dropping for more than a decade. Our infrastructure is crumbling and now ranks 16th in the world, according to ratings of the World Economic Forum. [emphasis mine]

First of all: if we're the most innovative people on the planet, and our test scores are so low, doesn't that say the tests are at bad judging our intellectual capital? As a nation, the United States has astonishing success in real-world measurements of innovation:

Historically, from 1901 through 2012, 555 awards have been granted to 863 people, of which 246 are US nationals. From a total of 620 university-related laureates 321 are affiliated to US universities. And if one looks at the top ten universities with Nobel laureates nine of them are American.

China, whose Shanghai province and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, obtained outstanding results in PISA 2009, has a total of 10 Nobel winners in history. Finland, South Korea and Singapore, the top countries in basic and high school education, have earned three, one and zero Nobel Prizes.

So it's not like scoring high on international tests guarantees success in scientific achievement. But let's look at those oft-repeated figures: "17th in science and 25th in math." Is it true? Do we really suck so badly?

Not according to the latest results:

American students' average scores on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in math were above the international average in both fourth and eighth grade, the findings show.

Among the 45 countries that participated in fourth grade, the average U.S. math score was among the top eight. In eighth grade, the USA was among the top 11 of 38 countries.

In reading, U.S. students scored 56 points higher than the international average, putting them in the top 13 on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Only five nations or education systems had higher average scores -- and one of those was Florida, which asked that its scores be compared with those of other nations.

[...]

Also hidden in the data: Finland, long considered to have one of the best education systems in the world, is slipping in math, at least in these results. Finland doesn't generally participate in TIMSS, but last year, for the first time since 1999, it took part. Today's results show that Finland's eighth-graders have dropped 6 points from 520 to 514 since 1999. Meanwhile, U.S. scores have risen from 502 to 509, making the two nations statistically even.

If you think it matters that Finland's eighth-graders dropped 6 points in math, I'd like to discuss with you how you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars in your spare time from the comfort of your own home...

Bob Somerby, who has been on this for a long time, points out the cloud of doom that the nation's media loves to conjure up over the heads of our public school students. The Star-Ledger is but one example of an outlet that revels in saying how much our kids suck: they're willing to ignore the latest results that say otherwise just to wallow in misery.

The frustrating thing is that the S-L editorial page is very good when it comes to pointing out income inequity. What they refuse to see is that, when adjusting for socio-economic status, the US actually does very well on international tests: Stephen Krashen pointed this out recently. Last year, I did a series of posts on how American kids are penalized more for being lower on the socio-economic ladder than kids in other countries.

So the S-L is correct in pointing out the penalty paid for being poor in America. But they refuse to give credit where it's due: in spite of our economic challenges, our students are doing quite well when compared to the rest of the world. This would suggest, if we dare to open ourselves to the possibility, that our problems do not lie at the feet of our public school system. Maybe the best thing we can do to help kids raise their educational outcomes is to raise their standard of living.

Unfortunately, the Star-Ledger - like many in the media - has shown time and again they are not interested in exploring this idea. They almost seem to have a vested interest in selling the meme that our kids are failures, no matter their economic status, all evidence to the contrary.

Why is that, I wonder?

The Lawsuit That Might Change Everything

I'm going to make a prediction: this lawsuit will change the entire conversation about education "reform":

CHICAGO -- The oft-maligned Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policy of subjecting neighborhood schools to “turnaround” discriminates against African-American teachers and staff according to a federal lawsuit filed this week by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and three public school educators. More than half of the 347 tenured teachers who were terminated by CPS as a result of the most recent turnarounds are African-American. This is the second major legal action on this matter taken by the union.

The Dec. 26 lawsuit alleges that the process for selecting schools for turnaround results in schools being selected that have a high percentage of African-American teachers, compared to schools that performed similarly but are not selected for any school action. More than 50 percent of the tenured teachers terminated as a result of the most recent turnarounds were African American, despite making up less than 30 percent of the tenured teaching staff at CPS, and 35 percent of the tenured teacher population in the poor performing schools.

The complaint, a potential class action first filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August by the CTU and teachers Donald L. Garrett Jr., Robert Green and Vivonell Brown Jr., challenges termination by virtue of the Chicago Board of Education’s policy and practice in selecting 10 South and West side schools for turnaround in February 2012—effective June 2012.

“While no one wins when jobs are lost, to disproportionately affect a particular segment of the population— whether intentional or not—indicates a glaring oversight and lack of concern for what the loss of jobs does to an individual and their community,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. [emphasis mine]

Let's start with this: the heart of the reformy argument for just about every prescription they push - charters, test-based teacher evaluation, gutting tenure, throwing out seniority - is that "nothing is more important to a child's life than having a good teacher." And that the way to get good teachers is to ensure that administrators and school districts have the ability to fire at will anyone they wish to get rid of.

Unfortunately - and largely because these people have so little practical experience as educators themselves - the reformies don't understand the full implications of what they are doing. Wait, scratch that: it's possible they know, but they simply don't care.

Take the sexism inherent in test-based teacher evaluations. As I've shown previously, women who are teachers are much more likely to suffer from the humiliation of having their inaccurate VAM scores published than men who teach. Scroll down in the comments to see my trolls desperately attempt to shrug this off; to their chagrin, however, the facts can't be denied.

How does this relate to the CTU lawsuit? Well, CPS is going to have to show that it isn't making closure decisions capriciously; they're going to have to disclose their methods for determining which schools should be shut down. That will inevitably mean looking at how test score data is used to determine the "effectiveness" of a school. And if that becomes an issue in this lawsuit, watch out: all of the issues the reformies have so far tried to sweep under the rug will now be front and center:

• Are the tests themselves unbiased? Are they properly vetted? Are they graded to exacting standards? (Answer to all of these: no.)
• How can a "normalized" test - a test designed to create a bell-curve distribution of scores - give all schools a chance to succeed when a normal distribution, by definition, means some schools must "fail"?
• If school boundaries were drawn to match neighborhood boundaries, then the students were not randomly assigned to schools; this is analogous to a principal who does not randomly assign students to teachers. Well, non-random assignment completely compromises the use of tests to determine the "effectiveness" of a teacher or a school. You can't say Teacher A is better than Teacher B, based on test scores, if Teacher A has students who are easier to educate than Teacher B. Maybe Teacher A has fewer kids in poverty, or fewer kids who don't speak English, or fewer with special needs. Same with School A and School B: non-random assignment skews the results.
• Which brings us to how a district assigns its teachers. I can't speak as to how teachers are placed in Chicago's schools, but the lawsuit makes clear that the CTU sees a pattern where minority teachers are assigned predominantly to the South and West Sides. Maybe this isn't coercive; I don't know. I do know that the student populations are not the same as on the North Side. And CPS is going to be hard pressed to prove that it's reasonable to hold schools and teachers to the same standards on bubble tests when they are not teaching the same students.

The reformies response to the last point is to claim that VAM-based evaluations attempt to tease out the teacher's "value." But by now, we all know that the models are incredibly unreliable and completely inappropriate for making high-stakes decisions. And if the decision is based on "growth" in scores, that's even worse: the people who designed the growth models admit they can't separate out a teacher's or a school's effect on student growth.

So this lawsuit will have to address the unreliability of using tests to judge schools and teachers. It will have to address the poor quality of the tests themselves. It will have to address the segregation taking place in schools both at the student and faculty levels. And, most likely, it will address how charter schools are compounding racial and socio-economic segregation.

In other words: the CTU's lawsuit is going to force the reformies to deal with some hard truths about their agenda that they worked so long to avoid.

This was, of course, inevitable. You can't keep pushing this stuff and not expect to be challenged. You can't keep spitting out nonsense and expect people to simply accept it - especially when their jobs are on the line.

Lawsuits move notoriously slowly in this country, so it may well be that this one takes a long time to gain traction. But here's hoping it will. It's time for the people who are ruining our public education system to be held to account for their actions; this lawsuit will be a good start.

Have An Un-Reformy Christmas!

If you celebrate, have a Merry Christmas. If you don't, Happy New Year al the same. Enjoy your families, enjoy your friends, enjoy the season.

Be back later this week. Until then, peace.

See? Tenure Cases CAN Be Easy!

That wasn't so very difficult, was it?

A Vineland teacher caught running naked through an apartment complex on a dare is the first tenure case resolved under a new law designed to reduce the time it takes for such cases.

In the past, tenure cases had dragged on for a year or more. 

Mark C. Bringhurst did lose his job, but representatives of both the state teacher’s union and the school boards association said the new procedure did protect his right of due process while resolving the case in a timely manner. It took less than four months from the time charges were filed with the state. [emphasis mine]

Apparently, this was the second time the guy was caught streaking, so it was time to go, even if it took place outside of school (yes, as a matter of fact, I do believe teachers should be held to a higher standard in their personal lives). Thanks to the provisions of the new NJ tenure law - which most closely matched the proposal put forward by the state's largest teachers union, the NJEA - the hearing was fair and swift:

Bringhurst’s attorney, Robert Bowman, yesterday said he would not speak to the merits of the case or the arbitrator's decision, nor did he say whether there would be an appeal. Under the law, an arbitrator’s decision can only be appealed on whether proper procedures were followed, not on the decision.

Bowman said he did not know it was TEACHNJ’s first decided case, but he was aware it was one of the early ones. “When I called about it, they said the law had just been signed,” Bowman said.

Still, the lawyer of 21 years had no complaints about the process, saying Gifford’s proceedings were timely and professional. Bowman hadn’t handled a tenure case before, but he was familiar with administrative law court and knew it could be plodding. The law called for this case to be decided within 45 days of the hearing, and it was.

“I thought it was handled very professionally and fairly,” Bowman said.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, which had a big stake in the new legislation, also would not speak to the specific case, but said the process seemed to work in this first example. The NJEA itself had initially proposed the expedited process of using arbitrators, almost a year before the law was enacted.

“The new law is designed to preserve fairness while making the process faster and less expensive,” said NJEA spokesman Steve Baker.

“We have not seen any evidence yet to indicate it is not working as intended,” he said. “We want the law to work, and we are watching to make sure that it does.

The railing of the corporate reformers against tenure has always been yelling at a straw man. There has never been a good reason for unions to want to drag out cases: they're the ones who have to pay the lawyer's fees. All anyone ever wanted was a fair hearing in front of an impartial third party. Now that we have that, everyone wins.

I don't know what the reformies are going to do now that the Tenure Boogeyman has been shown to be a figment of their highly active imaginations. You can, however, rest assured that they'll find something else that will get them all hot and bothered. After all, Campbell Brown and the other members of the Reformy Pearl Clutching Society pretty much live to be angry at teachers and unions and public schools. If it's not the Tenure Boogeyman, it'll be some other monster they just know is lurking in their closets.

What do you mean, I'm not scary anymore?!

God Bless the Education Law Center

Let's take a minute to heap praise on the folks at the Education Law Center (ELC). While others dither around promoting failed "reforms," ELC fights for students where it really counts: funding and policy accountability. For example, ELC has led the fight to make schools safe, holding the NJDOE's feet to the fire for its inexcusable delays in repairing dangerously crumbling school buildings:

 An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) has ruled that the NJ Department of Education (NJDOE), by failing to adhere to expedited timelines for processing requests for emergent repairs to school buildings, “has violated the requirements of the ‘thorough and efficient’ clause of the New Jersey Constitution.”  

The December 14 ruling by ALJ Ellen Bass responds to a legal action filed by ELC on behalf of students in NJ’s low-income “SDA districts,” challenging extensive delays by the NJDOE’s Office of School Facilities (OSF) to review and approve hundreds of applications for emergent repairs filed by SDA districts in June 2011. The case also challenged OSF’s failure to “promptly” transmit approved emergent projects to the NJ Schools Development Authority (SDA) for construction. 

Judge Bass sharply criticized the OSF’s attempt to explain the months of delay in acting on the emergent projects as caused by the SDA stating that the “OSF’s approach passes the proverbial buck to another agency, one over which it urges it has no authority or control.” Further, Judge Bass makes clear that the EFCFA and the facilities mandate in the landmark Abbott v. Burke equity litigation “directs the DOE, not another agency, to take action to repair school facilities.” 

[...]

“Many of these dilapidated and dangerous schools are the very same priority and focus schools targeted by NJDOE for fast track academic improvement,” said David G. Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. “It is impossible to expect these schools to make educational progress when their students are consigned to a dangerous, unhealthy and inadequate environment in which to learn. We urge Commissioner Cerf not just to affirm Judge Bass’ ruling, but to direct the NJDOE to immediately address all health, safety and other emergent repairs in these school buildings.” [emphasis mine]

Cerf and his merry band of Broadies at NJDOE aren't really that interested in making schools safe, however. Their plans call for local disenfranchisement, expansion of segregationist charters, teacher contracts that force undue focus on bubble testing, and whatever else Eli Broad tells them to do. It never seems to occur to these people that having safe, healthy schools is a necessary precondition for educational success. Thankfully, ELC is there to remind them.

Speaking of charters, here's another great project for which we can thank ELC: a charter school data tool. It's actually quite easy to now look at the demographic differences between charters and publics - and with a specificity CREDO was reluctant to employ in their infamous charter report. I'll be referring to this constantly as I blog about charters over the next year.

Again, many thanks to ELC for all they do. Every state should have a group as dedicated to the education of our children as these good folks.

Closing Schools: NOT a White People Thing

It appears the racist, segregationist school policies we find here in Jersey aren't confined only to our state. Chicago, for example, looks to be a national leader in disenfranchising people of color:

An internal Chicago Public Schools document obtained by the Tribune shows for the first time that the Emanuel administration has weighed how many elementary and high schools to close in which neighborhoods and how to manage the public fallout.

Labeled a "working draft," the Sept. 10 document lays out the costs and benefits of specific scenarios — revealing that the administration has gone further down the path of determining what schools to target than it has disclosed. 

[...] 

The most stark page in the document is a graphic that breaks down the 95 schools that could be closed in each of CPS' 19 elementary and high school networks.

On the page, which contains a warning at the bottom that the graphic is a "preliminary work in process" and for "pre-decisional discussion only," most of the schools are on the South and West sides, which are predominantly African-American and Hispanic sections of the city.

For instance, the graphic suggests most of the closings are occurring in elementary school networks: 12 schools in the South Side's Burnham Park network, 11 schools in the West Side's Austin-North Lawndale network and 11 in the Near West Side's Fulton network. In comparison, the graphic suggests closing only one school in the Southwest Side's Midway network, three in the North Side's Ravenswood-Ridge network and no schools in the Northwest Side's O'Hare network.

The report details the effect school closings could have on students, stating that there will be an "initial negative impact" due, in part, to students having to move to new schools but that over time there will be "improvement in educational outcomes" for students who move into better schools with more academic programs. [emphasis mine]

Oh, please. There is no evidence whatsoever that a school closing strategy works. Chicago already tried closing "failing" schools under Arne Duncan; that was a train wreck. The money saved from schools closings is relatively small, and there is very little evidence that school closings lead to positive outcomes.

Here in NJ, Newark put together a school closing strategy that Bruce Baker showed had neither rhyme nor reason when it came to student outcomes. One thing was certain, however: every school slated for closing had a higher concentration of students in poverty than any charter school in the city.

Which is what this is really all about: closing schools to make way for private, unaccountable charters that will segregate the kids by socio-economic status, special need, language, and even race. In the case of Chicago, the plutocrats who run the schools get the added bonus of punishing the uppity teachers who dared to stand up for themselves this past fall.

This is the plan for Newark and Chicago and New York and Detroit and New Orleans and Los Angeles... but not for the wealthy white suburbs surrounding them. Those parents enjoy a locally-elected and accountable school board, adequacy in funding, stability, and policies that integrate the special needs students into the system (even if the districts themselves are racially and economically isolated).

Apparently, this is fine for the 'burbs. But in the cities? Well, you know... those people really can't be trusted to run their own schools.

Local control remains a white people thing.

Campbell Brown: Queen of the Pearl Clutchers

The Reformy Ladies Sewing Circle and Pearl Clutching Society is apparently auditioning new members. Who better to join than the queen of teachers union bashers, Campbell Brown?

For example, the unions’ newest patron saint, education writer Diane Ravitch, wrote a post titled “The Hero Teachers of Newtown.” Just three days after the shooting, Ravitch described the teachers’ bravery not in individual terms, but by linking it to their union membership. The implication was clear: nonunion teachers would not have acted the same way. And if that weren’t enough, she used the dead to rant against teacher evaluations, tenure, and student testing. She also criticized Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy for supporting charter schools, saying, “Let us hope Governor Malloy learned something these past few days about the role of public schools in their communities. Newtown does not need a charter school. What it needs now is healing.” What a creative way to champion healing: divisive and ugly rhetoric. [emphasis mine]

First of all: does Campbell Brown know how to read? Ravitch's post describes, in great detail, the individual bravery of each of the teachers killed. Does Brown think her readers don't know how to follow a link? Or does she assume they have as little regard for the truth as she has?

Second: nowhere does Ravitch ever state, imply, or remotely suggest that nonunion teachers would have acted differently. What she did say - quite clearly, at least for those who understand basic English - was that these brave educators were career teachers and union members. Ravitch isn't saying nonunion teachers are bad people; she's saying unionized teachers are good people.

Now, why would Ravitch feel that she needed to point this out? Why would she think she had to make the point that these heroic educators were members of a union?

Maybe because of the rhetoric of people like Campbell Brown:

Under the headline “Campbell Brown: Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators,” the former NBC and CNN reporter writes a tale in The Wall Street Journal about teachers unions that are so darn awful, she says, that they protect members who are sexual predators.

The teachers unions, according to Brown, are “resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools.” And, she says, that “perhaps most damaging to the unions' credibility is their position on sexual misconduct involving teachers and students in New York schools.”

Unfortunately for Brown — and also for those being defamed by this nonsense — she’s wrong about the union position.

Much is being made by Brown critics that in her piece she did not disclose piece that her husband, Dan Senor, is on the board of Michelle Rhee’s anti-teachers union organization StudentsFirst. She should have, and it is not sexist to say so. But this is the least of the problems with this mess.

Without any evidence, she claims that teachers unions have allowed sexual predators to stay or return to the classrooms, and that the unions somehow control arbitrators who are chosen to deal with such cases. They don’t and they don’t.

She should have read the union contract, signed by the union and the city Department of Education, which makes clear that the union couldn’t protect a predator if it wanted to — which it wouldn’t. Besides, arbitrators are hired and approved by both the union and the department, and either side can move to get one fired. [emphasis mine]

That's Valerie Strauss, who goes on to cite a piece by Sarah Jaffe, who notes: "school districts not only have the authority to terminate teachers who commit sexual misconduct—they are required to."

And Jaffe, like Strauss, notes that Brown forgot all the rules of journalistic ethics when filing her piece:

There's no reason for a professional reporter not to know this. This contract was agreed to by Joel Klein, the former New York schools chancellor, and the teachers' union. Klein is now the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's “fledgling education division” and is a board member ofStudentsFirst, the infamous anti-union organization led byscandal-plagued former Washington, DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Also on the board of StudentsFirst? Dan Senor, Campbell Brown's husband.

Though Brown denied that StudentsFirst had anything to do with her Op-Ed and her TV appearance, StudentsFirst sent an angry email to supporters when Brown's connection to their organization (whose talking points she's parroting) was pointed out by, among others, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. StudentsFirst claimed that questioning Brown's connection to their organization was “sexism.”

Gee, think Campbell Brown might hold a grudge against teachers unions?

It is sexist, apparently, to ask where one's household gains its income, and whether that should have been disclosed in Brown's Op-Ed or in her television appearance. Yet male reporters from theWashington Post's education columnistto the Nation's Christopher Hayes have felt the need to disclose possible conflicts of interest to their audiences.Brown herself has disclosed in other appearances that Senor is, for instance, anadviser to Mitt Romney, but there's no mention of her connection to an organization that makes its living bashing teachers' unions—indeed, her credentials as a journalist are the only qualifications she has for her to pose as an expert on sexual misconduct in schools.

Zachary Pleat at Media Matters pointed out, additionally, that one of the two teachers Brown quotes in her piece has blogged for StudentsFirst, making the connection a bit more explicit. [emphasis mine]

Lovely. And you know who else took Brown to task for her shoddy reporting and shoddy ethics? Diane Ravitch, who linked approvingly to a great piece on Brown's hypocrisy by a friend of this blog, rlratto. Again: you think Brown might be holding a grudge here?

I'll say about Brown what I said about the other reformy types who got the vapors because Ravitch made an obvious connection:

I'd take your complaints about how "reprehensible" Ravitch is a lot more seriously if you weren't part of a culture of teacher- and union-bashing yourself.

Only the willingly blind would attempt to make the case that teacher- and union-bashing hasn't reached epidemic proportions. So when the best of us make the ultimate sacrifice, no one should be shocked when we "claim them for our own."

Campbell Brown was happy to go on a media tour when it came time to make wild, unsubstantiated claims about teachers unions. For her to clutch at her pearls now - when Ravitch and Lewis are saying that Newtown proves hatred of teachers unions is unwarranted - is simply absurd.

ADDING: Peter Hart at FAIR puts it well:

In Brown's mind, Ravitch was obsessed with their union membership: "The implication was clear: Nonunion teachers would not have acted the same way." In reality, the mention of the teachers' union comes after her tribute to the teachers' heroism:

Oh, and one other thing, all these dedicated teachers belonged to a union.

And why did she bring this up at all? Because in our public debate over public schools, teachers' unions have been singled out as the obstacle to success and "reform," because they "don't care about kids."  Ravitch reminds readers that the governor of Connecticut had recently derided the tenure system, which he said awards teachers just for showing up.

To Campbell Brown, Ravitch is just like Huckabee and Dobson, "so dogmatic, so tendentious, and so drawn to bitter and contentious debates that they cannot help but use dead children as weapons in their culture wars." It's an absurd and disgusting comparison.  Brown has bashed teachers' unions before; ironically, in a piece criticizing others for trying to score political points during a tragedy, she does exactly the same thing.

Reformy Pearl Clutchers

The Reformy Ladies Sewing Circle and Pearl Clutching Society has worked itself into froth of outrage over the defense of teachers by Diane Ravitch and Karen Lewis. What did these women say that has our delicate, reformy flowers running for the fainting couch? Ravitch and Lewis made the impolite observation that the brave teachers who died in Newtown were union members and tenure-track career educators.

Poor RiShawn Biddle was overtaken by the vapors. Andy Rotherham finds the whole affair to be "obscene." Patrick Brennen at NRO was incapacitated by his vexations.

You can go back and read Ravitch's and Lewis's posts and make up your own mind. To me, their points were obvious:

• The adults who were killed in Newtown were tenured/tenure-track career educators and union members.
• Sandy Hook is a public school that had a lot more going for it than test scores; this community does not need corporate education "reform."
• The inveterate union bashers and those who lay all the problems (many of them phony) with America's schools at the feet of teachers would be well-advised to back off.

When you're a pearl clutcher, however, you learn to look for slights where none exist. And any time is a bad time for me or anyone else to bring up a point they disagree with. Because the sad truth is that these people have no answer for what Diane and Karen are saying. The unmistakable climate of teacher-and union-bashing in this country was already a national disgrace; it is even more so after the tragedy of Sandy Hook. That was the unmistakable message of Ravitch and Lewis, no matter how the tut-tutters try to twist it.

Now, if Biddle and Rotherham and Brennen had a history of defending teachers and their unions against attacks on their characters, maybe I would give their reservations some weight. I'm not saying they have to agree with teachers unions on policy; far from it. I'd love to have a substantive debate about "reform" that has good faith arguments on both sides.

No, I'm saying that if these fine gentlemen had stood up and called out those who have created a climate of distrust for teachers and their unions, maybe they'd have more credibility when questioning Ravitch's and Lewis's integrity. But that's not what these guys are about.

Rotherham, for example, poo-poos the notion that teachers are under attack, suggesting that the vitriol against educators is "just a reflection of the times we’re living in." He makes the divisive case that unions and students regularly have interests that are not aligned; even when striking a pose as a fair middleman, he plays right into the frameworks of the corporate reformers.

Rotherham speaks admirably of Chris Christie's Educator Effectiveness Task Force, bemused that anyone would have a problem with the panel having only one working teacher and no representative from the state's largest teachers union, the NJEA. Where, I wonder, was Rotherhan's outrage when Christie personally insulted teachers and questioned their motives over and over again?

Biddle shares Rotherham's insouciance at teachers being excluded from policy making forums about their own profession. He thinks the "argument of teacher-bashing lacks merit." He thinks unions "let teachers off the hook." He accuses unions of aiding and abeting "the kinds of abusive behavior among teachers that ultimately hurts the futures of children."

Brennen's tree house, NRO's "The Corner," is a hotbed of anti-union and anti-teacher sentiment. Teachers in Chicago supported "rampant union greed." The union in Louisiana engages in "thuggery." Teachers are accused of not caring about their students when they express a political view. They are derided for not being "ambitious." And, of course, teachers unions are fighting against the children.

So this is the record of those who are now bemoaning the poor manners of Ravitch and Lewis. At best, they stand aside bemused as teachers and their unions are smacked down; at worst, they deliver the beatings themselves.

And then they expect us teachers to just sit there and take it. If we dare to, as Anthony Cody puts so well, "claim our heroes," we are "obscene" and "artless" and "reprehensible."

Well, this teacher couldn't care less what these people think. We've had a solid decade of teacher- and union-bashing, and it's time for that to stop. If you want to have a serious discussion about policy, let's have it. Maybe we can spend some time looking at the shaky nonsense on which you've built your reformy arguments.

But don't contribute to a climate where educators are vilified and then expect us not to react when the best among us pay the ultimate price. We were already sick of being denigrated before Newtown; the attacks, however, now look especially cruel in the wake of the massacre. But your guilt about your previous words and actions is your problem, not mine; don't try to deal with it by telling me to shut up.

I will proudly claim the Sandy Hook Six as my own; get yourselves some smelling salts if that bothers you.

Mercy!

ADDING: More "obscenity" from the Baltimore Sun:

Teachers and other public school employees deserve more respect than to be vilified as lazy, overpaid union thugs, or any of the other various taunts that have been hurled their way in recent years. In some states, they are been stripped of bargaining rights. Often, they are cited as a threat to public education and not its chief asset.

We adopt standardized testing of students, in part, because we don't trust that teachers are doing their best. Too often, we judge them harshly for not achieving the near-impossible: creating a model citizenry from the imperfect products that show up at their doorstep.

Next time we discuss the state of education, let us also recall those images of teachers leading children out of harm's way in Newtown or those half-dozen adults who died in the line of duty. Public educators deserve our respect, not just for what happened in Sandy Hook but for their extraordinary, daily devotion to the education, health and welfare of the next generation.

How "reprehensible."

Reprehensibility

How dare Diane Ravitch and Karen Lewis stand up for teachers after what happened in Newtown! How dare they point out the obvious fact that these educators were career teachers and union members! It's reprehensible! Clearly, it's wrong to stand up for those who work in schools after six of their own were killed in an act of senseless violence!

Because it's not like there's been a systemic assault on teachers and their unions over the last few years, right? [all emphases mine]

Dannel Malloy:

"And to earn that tenure -- that job security -- in today's system basically the only thing you have to do is show up for four years," Malloy said in his speech to the Legislature on the session's opening day. "Do that, and tenure is yours."

Chris Christie (there are so many to choose from - lets go with...):

The state teachers union said--they had a rally in Trenton against me. 35,000 people came from the teachers. You know what that rally was? The "me first" rally. "Pay me my raise first. Pay me my free health benefits first. Pay me my pension first. And everybody else in New Jersey, get to the back of the line." Well, you know what? I'm not going to sit by and allow that to go unnoticed, so we'll shine a bright light on it, and we'll see how the people react. But I think we are seeing how the people of New Jersey are reacting, and that's how you make it politically palatable in other states in the country. Just shine a bright light on greed and self-interest.

Mike Bloomberg:

“Education is very much, I’ve always thought, just like the real estate business. Real estate business, there are three things that matter: location, location, location is the old joke,” Bloomberg said. “Well in education, it is: quality of teacher, quality of teacher, quality of teacher. And I would, if I had the ability - which nobody does really – to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.”

Half of the teachers in NYC are "bad"?

Bobby Jindal:

Jindal, speaking at the Brookings Institute on Tuesday, said America's K-12 schools are lagging in the world and "do not provide equal opportunity in education" to children of different income levels. But his strongest criticism was aimed at the teachers unions, which he blamed for standing in the way of progress. 

"Were it not for the teachers union Herculean efforts, every low income family would probably have the opportunity to enroll their child in a better performing school," Jindal said. "That's not an opinion, that's a fact."

A "fact"? Also from Jindal:

1. "Short of selling drugs in the workplace or beating up one of the business's clients, they can never be fired."

2. "We are going to create a system that pays teachers for doing a good job instead of for the length of time they have been breathing."

Scott Walker:

January 3, 2011 -- In his inaugural address, Walker attacks teachers and other public workers's salaries and tries to pit low-wage workers against public workers, saying, “We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots."

February 11, 2011 -- When Walker announced his intention to kill teachers' unions and other public sector unions, he said that he was prepared to bring in the national guard to deal with worker unrest.  Clearly, Walker's statement was a smear on teachers and other public workers, because it intimates that teachers and other public workers would react as a union thugs requiring the National Guard's services.  

February 21, 2011 -- Sent out a press release with a sub-headline of "Viagra for Teachers," which attacked teachers in Milwaukee for having a health care plan included all prescriptions.

March 3, 2011 -- Sent out a press release with subheadline of "Arbitrator Reinstates Porn-Watching Teacher."

March 8, 2011 -- Sent out a press release with a subheadline of "Teachers Receiving Two Pensions" and another attacking Green Bay teachers called "10,000 Per Year for Doing Nothing"

March 10, 2011 -- Sent out a press release trumpeting his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he attacks the seniority system that protects older-- and more expensive-- teachers from being fired and replaced by younger, less-expensive workers during budget crunches.

March 31, 2011 -- Creates the absurd "Read to Lead" task force and smears Wisconsin teachers by making the completely bogus claim that 1/3 of Wisconsin fourth graders cannot read at a basic level.  Such bogus claims are simply intended to undermine public confidence in Wisconsin schools.

The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute:

Teachers, did you know you are overpaid by 52%?

That’s the conclusion of a new study by conservative-leaning think tanks The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Taxpayers, they conclude, are “overcharged” $120 billion each year from the difference in teacher salaries and compensation compared to similarly credentialed private sector workers. Teacher benefits are often far more generous than the private sector, the study notes.

Rick Scott:

Is a $2,335-a-year pay cut for the average teacher worth a $44.72 property tax savings for the average Florida homeowner with a homestead exemption?

That's a key question behind the math that Gov. Rick Scott's administration is banking on for his pared-back school spending plan as the legislature gears up to begin its annual session Tuesday. 

More Rick Scott:

“Why would it be that teachers are guaranteed their jobs for life? If you were guaranteed – you didn’t have to do anything, just showed up, and you didn’t have any obligation other than showing up every day – you think you would get better or worse? Right. This stuff is not hard. So we have a big opportunity.”

 Ann Romney:

“AR: I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.”

The right-wing media:

RAFF: I think these jobs are largely held by bored people -- not all of them, but bored people. They get in on a lesson plan, they've got many, many months off a year -- sometimes four, five months a year. And then they're bored and they got in on a lesson plan, and many of them -- many of them, not all -- some may have been drawn to the profession to begin with because they have peculiar tastes, peculiar attractions.

CALLER: So you think they got to do something with these?

RAFF: I think they've got the sex bug that grows, and for many, the target of their affection may be children anyway, or young people. I think that's got to play a part in it somewhere. Because there's so many other ways to destroy America.

LIDDY: It doesn't make any difference. Any way to destroy America is a good way from their point of view. [There's lots more of this at the link - proceed with extreme caution - JJ]

I could do this all day, but I'd probably wind up getting a form of septic shock...

What am I saying?!?! It's clearly wrong for me to bring all this up after Newtown! The proper response for all educators is to bow our heads, accept a gentle pat on the noggin from our betters - the same reformy folks who have vilified us over the years - return to our classrooms, and keep eating the crap sandwiches that these people are shoving down our throats.

Because any response where we finally start standing up for ourselves would be "obscene"...

ADDING: JoyMama in the comments points us to this:

As you know here, there is more, there is always more:

Scott Walker has attacked teachers, saying they are "failing our children" and when a rightwing shock-jock said "most of them are not nice people," Walker refused to condemn the remark and instead brought the radio host an on-air Christmas gift of glazed nuts.

"Most Wisconsin public school teachers are absolute lunatics. People at least now are beginning to say this. I've been talking about this for years. Most of them are not good people. Most are not fair minded. Most of them do not care about the children. Most of them are sickening union thug money jerks who couldn't care less about the public good." Mark Belling.   

[...] 

Jay Severin: "A lot of" teachers are "losers" and "little Napoleons." On the June 25 edition of his WTKK show, Jay Severin said of teachers: "These little Napoleons -- think about these teachers and how they act, a lot of them. This is their little, tiny kingdom. A lot of them are losers, and they're little, tiny Napoleons, and you go into the school and this is their only chance in life, is to boss around parents."

Bill O'Reilly claims studies indicate that "most" high school and college teachers "bring in a anti-American viewpoint." On the October 24, 2007, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly asserted: "[I]t seems to me, and the studies indicate, that most teachers -- high school and college in the United States -- are left-wingers. That they bring in a anti-American viewpoint to the sense that they don't preach about the nobility of America, they teach about the deficits. Now, I think you have to teach both." O'Reilly introduced the segment by saying, "[W]ith many public schools teaching diversity, tolerance, and self-esteem rather than history, civics, and geography, lots of American kids know little or nothing about their country, including what they owe their country." O'Reilly did not indicate which studies show that most teachers "are left-wingers."

I find Cognitive Dissonance's entire post to be full of "reprehensibility"...