The Education Wars

An Obama official wants to fuck around with tenure law.

As it is, the ONLY reason public school teachers are eligible for tenure is to protect them from vindictive parents who would simply roll over administrators regarding grades (it sometimes happens anyway). If there were no tenure, and teaching were "at-will" for ALL teachers, nobody in his or her right mind would go into education. The turnover would be unbelievable in schools, with only friends and relatives of current teachers or administrators having any kind of job security. This is already true in many school districts in the country, which are infested with Chicago-style corruption. Moreover, teachers who are terminated, which is rampant, not rare, are blacklisted from virtually every school district in the United States thanks to (what should be illegal) questions asked on applications about terminations or even disciplinary actions. Their property rights, if they attain them, are literally stolen from them, and with it their livelihoods. This is unlike any other occupation in the economy. The blacklisting has nothing whatever to do with "protecting" kids from "dangerous" teachers but everything to do with politics.

Nobody should go into education anyway given the outrageous abuse by administrators, who aren't accountable to anybody. "Education law," by the way, is simply the right of school districts to do whatever they hell they want short of murder. And what about unions, those entities so hated by the right wing and "reformers"? Far more often than not they are in cahoots with the school districts, including their so-called independent law firms. Case in point: my own case. When I was illegally terminated from my job, I called the union's executive director, who represented me both in the investigatory hearing preceding the termination and the meeting with the superintendent. When I ignorantly opted to go the arbitration route following the two kangaroo hearings, the lawyer for the union said the union's executive director, who was a WITNESS for me against the district, had gone to work for the person who instigated the illegal termination (the human resources assistant superintendent). She had gone to work for human resources two months after my kangaroo hearing with the superintendent and over a month before my kangaroo arbitration hearing. The lawyer saw NOTHING wrong with the appointment, nothing whatsoever wrong with it. From where I sit, her "appointment" would constitute at the very least a conflict of interest, but more likely this was a classic case of bribery, all paid for by the taxpayers. A couple of weeks ago I wrote this attorney, who tried to contact me after I contacted the district's outside law firm representing me in the civil action I was considering contacting the "other side" in the case and possibly going public with my allegations (which were and are true), mentioning this and other things which made me suspicious about whether his actions were actually in my best interest. It appears all of them were on the same team, with yours truly being basically alone. Now the shit has hit the fan with the civil action, and these people won't be able to dodge the bullet much longer. Tune in for the next installment...

When the public is finally made aware that public schools, as oppose to their stated mission, are NOT about children at all or educating an informed citizenry but instead are POLITICAL institutions with more than their share of corruption, only then can "reform" happen. The problem isn't with teachers overall; it is with those who are at the top, the ones who bark orders and don't have to answer to anybody. So-called reformers like Arne Duncan aren't serious about real reform because they remain dedicated to the idea administrators are always right and never should have to answer to anybody, especially to the taxpayers who pay their salaries.