The media was all aflutter as NYC Mayor DeBlasio launched his war on the cities Charter Schools.
The picture at the left is one of the many demonstrations by students shattered by the closure of their schools by the Mayors fiat.
The Charter schools, some specialized, some simply general academic offered choices for poorer NYC parents who could not afford the pricey private schools where the children of politicians, UN Delegates and the wealthy attend.
The Charter Schools drive the left crazy. They outperform the public schools regularly in student achievement, and do so on less money, and without the benefit of the teachers unions guidance, direction, and control of the workplace. Ideologically, in a truly insane way, the left hates the charter schools because they do excel.
Columnist Michael Goodwin talks about this upside down logic recently and explains it like this:
" Say anything nice about charter schools, and you are sure to get letters full of rage, false charges and praise for unions. The attacks, often from teachers, follow a format that appears to be scripted by labor bosses and echo the class-warfare bile of Mayor de Blasio.
The picture at the left is one of the many demonstrations by students shattered by the closure of their schools by the Mayors fiat.
The Charter schools, some specialized, some simply general academic offered choices for poorer NYC parents who could not afford the pricey private schools where the children of politicians, UN Delegates and the wealthy attend.
The Charter Schools drive the left crazy. They outperform the public schools regularly in student achievement, and do so on less money, and without the benefit of the teachers unions guidance, direction, and control of the workplace. Ideologically, in a truly insane way, the left hates the charter schools because they do excel.
Columnist Michael Goodwin talks about this upside down logic recently and explains it like this:
" Say anything nice about charter schools, and you are sure to get letters full of rage, false charges and praise for unions. The attacks, often from teachers, follow a format that appears to be scripted by labor bosses and echo the class-warfare bile of Mayor de Blasio.
To wit, charters succeed because they weed out problem students, they discriminate against those with disabilities, and their operators, especially Eva Moskowitz, got special favors from the previous mayor.
Ergo, everything charters achieve is suspect and their methods won’t work on a broad scale.
“Charter schools claim to educate students with disabilities but those disabilities are mild, while the public schools are serving every child,” reads a letter from one misguided fourth-grade teacher.
The claim is false and the comparisons to traditional schools wildly misleading, but the repetition of similar charges in letter after letter is revealing. As I’ve argued, unions and so-called progressive politicians see successful charters as an existential threat, and so they must be stopped, facts and innocent children be damned.
The threat is to union jobs, but more broadly, to the equality ideology that animates the left wing of the Democratic Party. That ideology is a form of creepy collectivism that favors mediocrity for all over excellence for some.
“Do you know what else charter school children and parents have, motivation, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, they would not have undergone the process to get in,” writes the grammatically challenged educator. “Public schools serve every child, even those whose parents sadly don’t even care enough to bathe or feed them.”
Oh, the illogic. Parents who care about their children are a problem because their children have an advantage. This is the ultimate upside-down argument, making devoted parents and excellent students evils to be crushed.
It is a version of the poisonous accusation by some that successful black students are “acting white” and therefore traitors to their race. The inference is tragic — that authentic blackness equals failure in the classroom. In this case, the accusation is aimed at all involved parents and top students.
The teacher also defends America’s poor international ranking in education, saying it is because “WE EDUCATE EVERYONE. We educate the poor, the moderately to extremely disabled, students who don’t even speak English.”
Of course, charters educate those kids, too, but they do it better. Which brings my pen pal to her wackiest charge — the occult.
“As a teacher I can tell you that there is magic that goes on in every classroom,” she writes. “That magic isn’t under the sole dominion of Eva Moskowitz, although it does seem like witchcraft in the way she’s managed to secure public financial benefits as well as private ones, all the while keeping her books closed to public scrutiny and bringing in a $487,000 salary for herself.”
Envy used to be a sin, but de Blasio’s vendetta against Moskowitz is apparently contagious. But just as her rage carried her round the bend, this teacher recovers to recite union talking points. To wit, it’s all about the money and respect.
“Magic happens when good teachers who really know and care about their students are treated like professionals, have their voices heard and are given the time, materials and professional latitude to invest in what they deem will work best for their students.”
In other words, forget standardized tests, teacher evaluations and wholesale failure. And by the way, the $21 billion the city is spending on education isn’t nearly enough.
How much is enough? Silly question. The answer is the always the same: more.
It has been that way for 40 years, as the once-great New York system declined thanks to two destructive trends. One was the rise of money-sucking monolithic unions, and the other was the disintegration of urban families.
The combination has been near-fatal. The money exploded, but education declined and generations of students have been sent into the world unprepared for success.
Yet, to the system’s defenders, no competition is allowed because change will produce winners and losers. That means inequality, and inequality is always bad.
That, in a nutshell, is the argument against charters and against excellence. On both counts, it is nuts."
What kind of crazy upside down logic can allow a teacher, a supposedly educated person to make these kinds of arguments. Is it the lockstep with the union, or the madness of thinking that since all can't excel, we should settle for a communal mediocrity? The teachers who would propound such nonsense should have their credentials revoked and be barred from the schools to protect the children from being indoctrinated with this nonsense.
This post first appeared on Mr Smith Thinks - Musings From The Mainstream, please read the originial post: here
