Recently an annoying pop-up petition has taken over the upper-left corner of my DK homepage. It is extremely annoying. Does anyone even check out what the petitions are for? Can someone tell me how to make them stop?
StudentsFirst? Really? Daily Kos members should support StudentsFirst?
I suppose the petitions are a money maker for the website, but I come to Daily Kos to get away from all reminders of organizations like StudentsFirst. It is Michelle Rhee's nonprofit designed to make herself some quick cash off the backs of poor, mostly black and Hispanic students. It is a poser education organization. Please do not sign the StudentsFirst petition. Here's why.
You will watch this video and say, "That sounds reasonable. I'll sign that petition." Watch.
Rhee's selection of a granny figure, complete with hair pulled straight back into a bun circa Little House on the Prairie, to represent teachers speaks volumes about her opinion of experienced teachers.
Here's the subtext you don't get. The "great teachers" Rhee talks about aren't teachers at all. She's trying to protect Teach for America amateurs who have no teaching credentials. Traditionally, TFAers are the last hired in school districts and so should be the first to go if union contracts are followed. Never mind that in many places TFAers have taken the jobs of professionally certified teachers who were laid off only months before. How does TFA get this extraordinary access to teaching jobs when that truly great teachers don't have? Money. It's all about the money.
Rhee launched StudentsFirst with an audacious goal: to raise $1 billion with 1 million members by the end of this year. Rhee talks about raising money while educators talk about raising kids.
The research she quotes is a convoluted distortion of Linda Darling-Hammond's work in Education and the Flat World. (I'm supposing. She doesn't actually cite facts.) What she fails to mention is that "low-course work" teachers as Darling-Hammond labels Teach for America recruits, are the teachers who do the most harm to students. Those two bad teachers in row are two Teach for America recruits in a row -- the very people Rhee is trying to protect.
Rhee is all about destroying teaching as a profession, and she is doing it by going after tenure and teachers' collective bargaining rights. She isn't the least bit concerned about students. If she were, she would be talking about combating the effects of poverty and making sure that every child has a highly effective professional teacher. As for bad teachers with tenure, administrators should get rid of them through the system that is in place. Union or not, it isn't that difficult. Teachers can't fire other teachers. Administrators must do their jobs if teachers are not performing. We have a system is place for getting rid of bad teachers.
What will all Rhee's millions be spent on? You can bet it won't be spent on equipment, supplies, or curricula that will benefit children. Rhee and her protege, Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, have the Midas touch when it comes to raising education dollars. They are the puppets of Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and the Billionaire Boys. Trouble is all that cash goes to support their minions -- people who likewise have no education credentials -- not to benefit kids.
Those policy changes that Rhee suggests you make to governors and lawmakers is code for "get rid of collective bargaining and deregulate the teaching profession." That's what should be against the law!
So, Markos, please, if you are going to have the petition thingy on the website, please, please, police the mission of organizations posting here. You have just made my job all the more difficult. I don't know about the other petitions appearing. Some look worthwhile, as StudentsFirst does at first glance, but I don't want to be distracted by poser petitions that seemingly support progressive causes only to learn later that I've been played.
Save Our Schools!