Right to free education is what’s at stake

By Nick Smith

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Teacher bashing is America's new sport. I have been bashed for the last 28 years, starting in 1983 with the “A Nation at Risk” publication. It was a big, fat lie, you know.

President Ronald Reagan didn't even read it. It was merely a jab at educators to undermine public education for political gain. I have often thought, “Mr. Reagan, tear up that report!”

Now the government is attacking teachers' unions. My first pre-union teaching job was a revelation. The superintendent of schools called a meeting one afternoon. “The school board determined your raises for next year.

“You men with children,” he continued, “will have an increase of $700 for next year, and you other men receive $350.” Then he said the words I have never forgotten: “You girls won't be getting a raise, but, after all, you have husbands to take care of you.”

Is it any wonder teachers unionized?

The idea that teachers cannot be fired because of their union is hogwash! It's true they cannot be fired without due process or a reason, nor can they be fired because the principal wants his wife or his cousin or his nephew employed. Teachers cannot be terminated because they are Catholic, Jewish, or black or fat or because they support an unpopular issue or are Republican or Democrat.

The idea of “market forces” to reform education is silly. By promoting a business model of competition, the industrial/corporate/Wall Street/hedge fund types expound the virtues of merit pay, competition, corporate managers and the trickledown theory. They want the unions out and tenure destroyed.

What really is at stake is the right to a free education for all children as an obligation of us, the taxpayers, to our country's future. The question is whether education will be jointly owned and democratically managed by us, the citizens of this country, or privatized and commercialized by corporate Wall Street interests.

How the ploy works is clever: Use public employees as the scapegoat for all the budget problems created by the politicians in the first place. The “bad teacher” stories, like Reagan's “welfare queen” anecdotes, create the excuse to promote for-profit schools managed by EMOs (educational management organizations). The outsourcing of school management to big business removes any local control from the school.

The least the politicians could do is tell the truth to the taxpayers: What is so hard about saying “turn public schools over to corporate America so they can get their hands on the $600 billion spent on education every year”?

Those who believe that the business model promoted by billionaires will improve education are dead wrong. Educational researcher Gerald Bracey, author of “Reading Educational Research: How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered,” writes in Stanford magazine that “NCLB (No Child Left Behind) aims to shrink the public sector, transfer large sums of public money to the private sector, weaken or destroy two Democratic power bases - the teachers' unions - and provide vouchers to let students attend private schools at public expense.”

Imagine calling New York to report your child being bullied. I can hear the taped voice now: “ ... for athletics, press 1; for academic concerns, press 2; for teacher complaints, press 3; for customer service … .”

Nick Smith has taught at Highland High School of Riverside and Ainsworth for 28 years. Comments: nsmith@highland.k12.ia.us