Commentary
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| Leonard Ramirez, Ph.D. |
Here are 10 things that might have been learned from
the recent strike.
1. Few
public officials in the city had the courage to stand with students and
teachers or at least try to explain the real issues at stake. The absence of
strong independent voices was daunting. Instead, teachers relied on a
groundswell of popular support bolstered by an oppositional context partly created
by local school struggles, the Immigrant Rights Marches, the actions of the
Dreamers, and the Occupied Movement.
2. Chicagoans
are less likely to swallow the old manipulative PR talking points that hide
behind the “interests of children” or some other rhetorical shield in order to
justify the reneging of labor agreements, the wheedling of more work for little
or no extra pay and that are used to deflect the criticism of educational inequality
and disinvestment from neighborhood schools.
3. Charter
schools do not as a whole raise standardized tests scores and constitute no silver
bullet solution to improve education. In fact, one of the major comprehensive
studies estimates that 40 percent of charter schools produce poorer outcomes
than neighborhood schools, while an additional 40 percent produce similar results
with only 20 percent outperforming public schools.
4. If
one is more likely to receive a better or just as good an education from a
public school, then the argument that the newest iteration of NCLB, Race to the Top, is a Trojan Horse meant
to dismantle unions and public education gains credibility.
5. The
mainstream media’s support for the mayor and criticism of unions and teachers deepened
the already growing perception that corporate information outlets such as the Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune are part of the Foxification of the news. Independent
sources like the Chicago Reader are
fast becoming the only trustworthy, non-electronic venues for discussion of issues.
6. The
strike called into question the logic of a mayoral appointed school board that does
not represent the most important stakeholders of Chicago’s Public Schools. The
Board is seen as bent decidedly in the direction of a financial elite whose children
generally attend expensive private schools that provide competitive teacher salaries
and do not rely on standardized tests that many argue are invalid measures of
teacher competence.
7. The
strike questioned the legitimacy of a so-called school reform that is reluctant
to address issues of class size, supplies for children, the inadequate number
of clinicians or the lack of libraries, music, arts, and sports programs; all
of which have been seen as important in the mix that can produce better school
outcomes for kids.
8. The
battle against unions does not need Scott Walker, Wisconsin style Republicans. Romney
and Ryan’s rush to support Emanuel suggests the influence of corporate interests
in both parties and their willingness to collaborate and sacrifice public
education in order to keep corporate taxes low and monopolize access to public
tax dollars through vehicles such as TIFS, which often comes at the expense of poor
and middle-class children.
9. The successful framing of educational issues by
teachers has been met with post-strike attempts at damage control through
editorials and expensive TV ads seeking to affirm the role of school officials
and politicians as the true defenders of the public good. However, the upsurge
in popular support for teachers and kids has left officials smarting from the
loss of public trust and the erosion of system legitimacy.
10. Deteriorating educational conditions and
diverting resources away from neighborhood schools do not resolve educational
problems but might very well contribute to maintaining the cycle of poor school
outcomes for inner city youth.
Teachers have opened up
a critical policy discussion about the importance of neighborhood schools and the
maintenance of public education and the future access that non-elites will have
to educational opportunity in an era of wealth concentration and globalization. 
