Black Agenda Report: " Rahm Emanuel: Point Man For Obama's Bipartisan Pork Barrel Pedagogy"
[i/]KoKo here: I realize this might seem inflammatory to many here...but, the questions needs to be asked: Barack Obama is an African-American...and there are people criticizing him who are ALSO African-American ...yet it seems their voices are not getting heard on a site called "Democratic Underground." WHY IS THIS? They are people, too...Aren't they?
----------------BACK TO THE ARTICLE on "Black Agenda"-----------
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Despite universal hostility in corporate media, and new laws savagely restricting their right to strike, or even what they could bargain over, Chicago teachers mustered broad parent support behind their 7 day strike, now suspended. What does the Chicago strike mean for the national fight against privatization and corporate “school reform”?
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Rahm Emanuel: Point Man For Obama's Bipartisan Pork Barrel Pedagogy
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
By early this week, the truth was hard to avoid and impossible to deny. The Chicago Teachers strike threatened to expose the vast gulf between some of the president's rhetoric about preserving public education and protecting teachers, and the savagery of the Obama administration's Race To The Top initiative, which ties federal education funding to how many public schools are closed and privatized, how many public school teachers fired, and how many of those remaining are evaluated according to business-friendly norms like test scores.
"I want you to understand, the president has weighed in," Emanuel said. "Every issue we're talking about regarding accountability of our schools, quality in our schools to the education of our children, is the core thrust of Race to the Top."
Emanuel added that the "notion" of the teacher evaluations he proposed came from Race to the Top.
"In that sense there couldn't be a bigger push for the president," Emanuel insisted.
Emanuel also thanked Mitt Romney for his statement of support.
Besides the president, Rahm Emanuel had every newspaper and radio station in town, the Commerce Club and all the billionaires, scores of well-funded charter school operators and their contractors and hedge fund backers. He even had fake citizen groups like Democrats for Education Reform, which used money donated by its billionaire backers to run deceptive radio and TV ads (still running as of Tuesday night) aimed at inciting parents against the people who teach their children. Illinois is also one of twenty or so states that have passed corporate inspired “school reform” testing and curriculum measures into law, and drastically limited the issues over which teachers can negotiate along with the their right to strike.
But one of the signs carried by striking teachers told it all. It said “our working conditions are your child's learning conditions.” The Chicago Teachers Union had prepared months in advance for the strike by reaching out to and working with organized parents around the city and enlisting them behind its basic demands to keep schools open and well-funded, and keeping them informed on and involved in activities that fought the creeping privatization of public education in Chicago. While Rahm had the media the billionaires, armies of hired stooges and the president, the teachers enjoyed broad support among parents and the public.
More at......
http://blackagendareport.com/content/rahm-emanuel-point-man-obamas-bipartisan-pork-barrel-pedagogy
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