Sunday, August 4, 2013

Teachers Under Siege- And Why the BATS will Multiply When the School Year Comes




In every part of this country, teachers are under siege. Whether it is capping salaries and eliminating tenure, as in North Carolina; publishing teacher ratings based on junk science, as in Los Angeles; hiring Teach for America Corps members at the same time veteran teachers are being fired, as in Chicago; or imposing bogus evaluation schemes based on student test scores, as in New York and Tennessee, the humiliation and micromanagement of teachers continues apace, funded and supported by the nation's most powerful corporations and imposed by politicians of both parties. That is why we are here; that is why we continue to grow; that is why our numbers will explode when the school year begins. We will not be intimidated, we will not be discouraged, we will not be moved. For the sake of our students, for the sake of our profession, in the spirit of our nations democratic traditions, we will make sure that teachers voices are heard, and ultimately brought back into a central role in the shaping of education policy. No matter how hard the road is. no matter how long it takes.

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