Friday, October 05, 2018

It Appears That Teacher Respect Is Making A Comeback





























Over the past couple of year American altitudes toward teacher reputation and respect has been improving.    The Answer Sheet wrote an article that, using Time Magazine's cover page, showed how teachers were thought of at the beginning of the Obama Administration and what's happening presently.  Also, Education Week wrote a similar piece.

At the beginning of the Obama tenure as President, his administration embraced the education reform movement that demonize teachers.  Starting with his nomination of Arnie Duncan as Education Secretary, who single handedly destroyed the Chicago Public Schools that resulted in many schools closing and teachers terminated.   Then Obama blamed teachers in Rhode Island for the low test scores, conveniently ignoring that the high school he cited was composed of recent immigrants and English Language Learners.  Obama was a strong supporter of education reform and along with then Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his billionaire buddies like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and  the Walton family, decided to evaluate teacher competence by student test scores.

Washington D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee,  was the "rock star" of the reform movement.  She imposed a teacher evaluation system that entirely relied on test scores.  The result was that many Washington D.C.teachers were unfairly fired.  Moreover, the Obama administration bribed states to develop their own test-based teacher evaluation system by giving them money as they were cutting education funds due to the recession.  This was called Race to the Top   Finally, the reform movement had  the media as allies as teachers were the blame for all school ills.  An example was Time magazine's cover called "Rotten Apples", which demonized teachers.

When states adopted the education reform programs and they failed to improve student academic achievement, .the Obama administration backed away by not supplying additional funding as the President also facing reelection and realized that his ant-public school teacher and pro charter agenda was a political liability.  Of course his teacher evaluation systems were now part of every state's education policy.  By the last year of the Obama administration, Arnie Duncan was gone and the charter school miracle was a mirage.

The combination of a recession, the Obama administration, and the media,  teacher disrespect was at its peak.  Since 2000, teacher salaries were noncompetitive, when compared to other professions and even conservative parents now  support teacher demands for higher salaries, small classes, and more respect.  States like West Virginia,   Oklahoma, Washington, and Arizona saw teacher salaries increase and teacher respect becoming an  issue.

Let's hope that the teaching profession becomes a respected profession throughout the nation.






17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama quite possibly could be the one who has destroyed this country let alone education. Obama let the flood gates open to all others around the world to flood our country, suck us our resources and create conflict among us all. Muslims around the world have flocked to this country with obama in office. Can anyone imagine muslims migrating to this country with trump? Dont think so. So, Obama is the snake in the grass who ruined everything really. We supported a black man with no resistance whereas trump gets trashed. The days of obama, arnie duncan and bloomberg seem like light years ago now.

Anonymous said...

Diane Ravitch had a great line when she was telling a teacher how Farina did not clean house and many of the KLEINBERG people still exist at the DOE. How can we rid these people? We should all demand that any KLEINBERG people be removed from the nycdoe headquarters and replaced.

Anonymous said...

Turns out the woke crew peddled agitprop for the Obamas while we got shafted. Trump, for all his flaws, is providing a much need correction. CNN accidentally printed the sterling economic news today. Economy is way up and teachers are gaining respect.

Are the #resistance/BLM/kavcrybabies an embarrassment or what?

Anonymous said...

figures there are trumptsters on here...must be ATRs. go polish up that resume, perform some mock interviews in the mirror ... or just continue to waste your productive years being a sub.

Anonymous said...

I fear the damage that Obama wrought is too great to fix.

Most Leftists and Liberals I know, which encompasses most of my school colleagues, are hopelessly blinded to Obama's failings and look upon him as a Saint incarnate.

His slide towards social engineering and outright welfare bonanzas and then mass immigration and going along with the prevailing anti-white male hysteria in vogue now, along with the 'reform' agenda in schools has literally created problems that will ultimately cause a collapse of this nation. If we are 'diverse' then what do we have in common - consumerism?

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm. I beg to differ at least for NYC. Nothing has changed for us since Bloomberg left. We still are treated like shit by the DOE, UFT, and admins. I was hoping that the new chancellor would clean shop down in Brooklyn but that has not happened. New contract right around the corner will either be the final nail in the coffin for our once great jobs, or it will be a much needed sigh of relief after years of torture.

Jonathan said...

For years we've had this weird response to teachers: people did not like teachers, blamed them for a lot, but they liked their kids's teachers.

The political response and the personal response were different. Maybe now the political response is coming around to what people personally know - they like and trust the people who educate their kids.

On another note, there's just been a sweep in the top level of the DoE, deeper than anything Fariña eer attempted. It's absolutely the right time to talk to Carranza about cleaning out the middle.

Jonathan

Anonymous said...

Agreed with 7:05.

We have the same admins acting like despots in their castles, terrorizing for the fun of it.

The younger they are, the worse they are, in my experience, and they will be in the system long after many of us are gone.

Teaching is dead.

Blergh said...

folks, Trump hates you. You're union 'leeches' and he and the GOP want you like to be like the at-will Moskowitz Academy slaves or the DeVos voucher peons, with even fewer rights, worse health care, and lower salaries than you already have. The Democrats will at least PRETEND to respect you now that the pendulum has swung over a bit (though Obama was unquestionably the worst education president since education became a federal thing), and the RIGHT Democrats will actually fight for you. Are you actually this blind to your self-interests?

Anonymous said...

To 1:08 If "Trump" hates us, and "Trump" is really used as a stand in for conservatives in general, maybe it's because so many teachers are far Left and brainwash kids to hate America, hate their race (if they are white), hate their history, etc.

In the mind of the general public, a lot of people feel teachers are anti-American. Why would they love us?

You are correct that Obama's time saw the descent into anti-teacher madness, and this was from the Left that is frustrated that no matter what we do, Dequan and Jose still can't read. So what did they do? Blame the white teaching force and call us all 'culturally incompetent' racists, even though we tend to be very tolerant of all, moreso than the general public.

Anonymous said...

Don't kid yourselves, you may be a New York or NJ Republican, but Trump hates our states, our unions, and if he had time to think about it, us as well. We are suckers, according to him. Socialists, unionists, wet rags who weren't tough enough for the business world. He's give us a pay cut to save money, and anyone who disagrees would be un-American.

Anonymous said...

Why should Trump support NYC , or Jersey teachers...or anyone else,living here when you brain washed zombies voted against him 9-1 ?

To the victor goes the spoils.

By the way...Trump built his buildings with union labor, jackasses.

Yeah, they gave Hussein the Nobel Peace prize after 1 year of no-nothingness, then he and Shitlery proceeded to bomb the shit,out of the Middle East, which caused this "refugee" crisis. You brain washed zombies never said a peep about it, cause YOUR guy was in power-purely politics.

At the end of Hussein's reign, because of his Commie race baiting rhetoric, towns were burning down here in race riots, large scale terrorist attacks, cops were being ambushed, and the economy sucked with no hope of getting better...and it's all Whitey's fault of course.

You jackasses lost, so get over it-and the more you continue to act like jackasses , the more seats you will lose.

Kanye West is Soooooooo Right! The Democratic Party is the Plantation Master, the real racists who have destroyed much of the African American legacy. Snoop Doggy Dog is the Uncle Tom...not Kanye.

Go Kanye, keep tellin' it Brother...go tell it on the mountain. You are a brave soul Kanye.

Anonymous said...

Trump has actually had very little effect on education at all.

His education Sec DeVoss just goes around giving speeches.

Not much action from her.

All the big transformative (negative) changes that we are still dealing with came from Obama, Duncan, Rhee, Bloomberg, et al.

Anonymous said...

Yes, perish the thought, Trump.is trying to bring back some decent.paying jobs, and some sort of an industrial base here. Who might these prospective jobs go to-Ivanka and.Jared? No jackasses...its for the working man, people of all.colors who may get to middle class salaries and have a better life...at least he is trying...Hussein did shit.for the economy, education, or.much else but get his ass kissed by jackass zombies...

Anonymous said...

We can agree to disagree on a few points, and I will also agree on a few points. I would say this: Collective bargaining and unions provided a lot of workers with good lives, not the gracious protection of politicians and employers. Unions have been on the downward slide in terms of power for a long time. New York is still a state where unions have some considerable power. I have been to a few national conferences in the last couple of years, and hearing people talk about what is going on in other states is educational. In a recent survey, NY came out #1 in terms of overall quality of experience for teachers.

The neo-liberals - Obama, Clintons, Cuomo, sort of Bloomberg, were not really friends of public education. A lot of the anti-teacher rhetoric, common core, Danielson, E4E, reform groups, Race to the Top, more charters, etc. came from this group. Even so, we got a huge bump in salary and held onto most benefits - not saying it is great but we are at least holding the line in some ways.

The neo-conservatives were busy starting wars and deregulating the economy to make money, leading to 2008 crash.

Is Trump really pro teacher? I don't think education is on his radar, unless it is how to make money through it. Are many Republican politicians pro teacher? doubtful.

Is Trump pro-union? Ok, maybe he worked with unions before, the building trades. Any maybe the business dealings he had were dubious in terms of legality as well. Can I see him supporting teacher unions? No. And to some degree that is because I don't see teacher unions supporting him. But, we can agree, a President has fairly little impact on education, governors have more.

Will Trump help workers? I hope you are right, but let's see. I don't see any Federal funds for major projects in NY - just local money.

In fact, Trump and his folks seem adamant about NOT funding some very important projects that would help the "working man" such as Hudson River tunnel, etc.
Who seems to be getting support? Corporations and Business owners

We can take the collective blinders off - Obama was not all good, hopefully Trump will do some good too.

Highly Effective King Clovis said...

It's bizarre, in a world of Trump, where teachers are seen as something to look up to, when in the past, under Obama, we were demonized. I remember seeing Obama give a speech at a charter school in Atlanta, which had a "massive" turnaround. Only for the news to come out later that the grades were fixed by the principal.

I hope, as an ATR, things turn around. I'm sick of this crap. When people talk highly about Obama, I shake my head. Yeah, he was more presidential, but he was a stooge for the charter movement, dislikes public education. And while I think DeVos is a moron, it's better to have a hands off leader, than one who will work adamantly against public education.

Anonymous said...

I just came back from Paris after a 20 year absence. The Paris (ORLY) airport looks like the Middle East and the city is covered in graffiti. France and other European countries who took this Arab and African trash in will feel the effects of these decisions for years to come. If Obama had his way the same thing would have happened here. It makes me laugh how educated African Americans can tell me with a straight face what a great President Obama was.