Rahm Emanuel is a slime, despite the hummer bestowed on him by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in today’s editorial. http://www.startribune.com/...
Emanuel is a slime because he’s never been about being a Democrat or ever had the people’s best interests at heart. He’s always been about money and the power money can bring. He’s also been about supporting corporate interests; just look back on his records with Clinton and Obama. And it speaks volumes about them that he was senior advisor to Clinton and White House Chief of Staff for Obama. He was the pit bull for them both.
Make no mistake: this teacher’s strike is not about money, no matter how the media is intent on framing it. The two issues are reversing the education “reform” movement which has forced teachers to teach to test scores, and judging student and teacher performance solely on test scores. Many school districts have cut out the arts and even physical education from their curricula to focus exclusively on math and English test scores. This is Obama’s primary focus too and he, and they, are wrong.
Emanuel is framing this strike as being over wages and hurting the kids. The education of Chicago school kids are the last thing he’s concerned about. He is no different than the Republicans (which, like Clinton and Obama he is more like than Democrats) or the Kochs or Rove or Adelson, or anyone of those guys. He’s out to privatize education, to move it all online, thus busting all the teachers’ unions, and handing the administrative contracts to his politically-connected business associates. Instead of one teacher working with a classroom of 30 students, you’d have one online teacher handling 200-300 students. What will be produced are generations of students who are not creative, have no experience or interest in the arts or exercise, or anything outside getting passing scores on standardized English and math tests—just perfect for jobs as low-paid service industry workers.
Emanuel’s other goal is to increase the number of chartered schools paid for by public taxes. This is a core Republican goal because what wealthy parents wouldn’t want their child to go to an expensive, exclusive school on a poorer person’s tax dime? The Republicans pulled this same trick off in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of unionized teachers were fired and then re-hired as non-union employees for lower wages. It’s like being a $40 an hour union auto worker before the bailout, getting laid off, and then after the bailout being re-hired back into the same exact job for $12 an hour with the SAME EXACT LIVING EXPENSES YOU HAD BEFORE BUT CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO PAY. Chartered schools providing better education than public schools is a myth that Emanuel is helping to perpetuate along with the Republicans.
The bottom line here IS money, but not for the teachers, but for the wealthy, political campaign contributors are trying to effect a hostile takeover of the American educational system.