By Jayne Matthews-Hopson
(From The Baltimore Times, September 14th, 2012)
On the fifth day of the 2012/2013 school year, 29,000 Chicago teachers did not report to their classrooms, abruptly halting the education of 350,000 mostly poor, black students. On the second day of the strike a group of Baltimore teachers gathered outside the Polytechnic Institute to show support for the “bravery” of their Windy City colleagues.
“It’s a really courageous decision on their part to stand up to a national movement that’s really against students,” said Baltimore teacher Iris Kirsch. In voicing this opinion Ms. Kirsch’s offered no support for her belief that linking standardized test scores to a teacher’s compensation is harmful to students.
Given the absence of empirical proof that picketing rather than teaching is a good thing for students, I think it’s fair to question how much courage it takes for adults who have secured their education to leave stranded thousands of students who desperately need every second of classroom time the new school year has to offer.
It’s against the law in Maryland for teachers to strike. Nevertheless, the terms of the strike’s resolution will have impact on local education reform measures. “This is going to become a long-term battle that everyone’s watching very closely,” said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow in education at the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a conservative research center.
“Teacher unions are at a crossroads: Are they going to participate in designing better teacher evaluations or resist and not change anything. The Chicago union seems to be taking the resist option, drawing their line in the sand.”
Here’s a closer look at what’s at stake as reported by Stephanie Simon and James B. Kelleher: “Chicago teachers walking picket lines on Monday, in a strike that has closed schools across the city, are taking on not just their combative mayor but a powerful education reform movement that is transforming public schools across the United States.
The new vision, championed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who used to run Chicago’s schools, calls for a laser focus on standardized tests meant to gauge student skills in reading, writing and math. Teachers who fail to raise student scores may be fired. Schools that fail to boost scores may be shut down.