An insult to teachers and students

[Hannah Bell]

A NUMBER of members of Educators for a Democratic Union (EDU) and a few leaders from our union, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), attended the advanced screening of Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman. We were there to pass out some leaflets and challenge the director of the movie, who would be speaking at the end.

Guggenheim was mostly patronizing, saying that he couldn't include "everything." Regarding unions, he said he was in a union (the Director's Guild) and he supported unions and the protections they provide. Presumably, he is for protections for everyone except teachers. He also called himself a leftist, saying that believed in social justice...after bashing unions and teachers.

I stuck around afterward to invite Guggenheim to come to Mission High School and actually see how public education works to serve our neediest students. I also told him that I was disappointed by his attack on unions, which had been the only protection many of us had this year when the budget ax came swinging down. I overheard him talking to an aide saying "Wow! This was a tough crowd." She replied, "Well, it is San Francisco." I was surprised by this, because he had only fielded four or five questions at most. We hadn't even started!

Finally, for a movie titled Waiting for Superman in which "Superman" is supposed to be a great teacher (white and male, I guess), this movie did not contain a single interview with a teacher. It had a grainy camera inside a class which showed teachers reading a newspaper. It showed clips from School of Rock and the Simpsons but no teachers. Who was interviewed? Principals of charters, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and, of course, Bill Gates' ugly mug was all over the movie.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/09/14/insult-to-teachers-and-students

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Public school expertise via Sidwell Friends.

wiki:

>>>e was born Philip Davis Guggenheim in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Charles Guggenheim and Marion Guggenheim. He graduated from Sidwell Friends School in 1982, and later moved on to Brown University, where he graduated in 1986. He is married to American actress Elisabeth Shue. The couple have 3 children, Miles William, Stella Street and Agnes Charles.>>>>

A never ending mystery: how people who have never been NEAR a public school can know so much about public education, what's wrong with it and how to fix it. (See Obama, Barack.)

[mediaman007]

2. If I married Elisabeth Shue, we would have more than three children!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Same could be said of Obama who went to Punahou

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. And whose kids are at Sidwell.

We seem to be back where we started, don't we?

[WinkyDink]

21. And who appointed Arne Duncan.

[Smarmie Doofus]

25. Yet *another* prep school product. nt

[Hannah Bell]

8. he's likely the third generation of private-school boys in that family too.

great grandpa = furniture manufacturing, nyc & cincinnatti at least
granpa = same
dad = filmmaker

[dkf]

3. Did you really want him to pick on bad teachers in an international film?

[el_bryanto]

5. Yeah that's right - Ugly people and people with ugly mugs have no place in civilized society

they should be driven underground like the trogdolytes they are.

Bryant

[Hannah Bell]

10. quite a reach there.

[el_bryanto]

13. Bill Gates has an ugly mug - and of course he should be judged on that basis!

For years we have been judging a woman's worth by their appearance, while men get off largely scott free. That's not right. We should judge all people by their appearance, because ugliness and having an ugly mug is a sign that the person with such features is not a valuable person.

Bryant

[Hannah Bell]

14. pooooor biwwwyyyyyyyy

[el_bryanto]

16. ok i'm just futzing around

But, in fairness, I'm not the one who gratuitiously threw "ugly mug" in their article.

Bryant

[Starry Messenger]

6. If he thought that was difficult, he should try handling a classroom.

I'm tired of these yuppie aristos telling us what our job is like.

[trayfoot]

9. As a local government employee, AMEN!

[msanthrope]

12. I hate it when "yuppie aristos" tell us about global warming!!!!!

Oh, wait.

Seems like yuppie aristos are okay as long as they tell us what we like to hear....

[Starry Messenger]

18. I've told you more than once I have you on ignore.

But for the record, I can't stand Al Gore either so your point fails.

[msanthrope]

11. An Inconvenient Movie for Teacher's Unions---

I'm not surprised that the Socialist Worker writer reviewing the movie forgot to mention one of the movie's most uncomfortable themes....how teacher's unions and minority parents are at odds, and how minority parents are often patronized and told they don't know what they are talking about when they support alternative schools and charters. Minority parents, as Guggenheim's film deftly points out, are the ones who suffer the most from teacher's unions who refuse to help get rid of bad teachers---'bad' teachers are union protected, and many are shuffled to schools in low-income areas--since both the unions and the school districts seem to think that low-income families will complain less.

This meme, of union/minority parents tension in NYC is documented below, and is missing from this review for good reason.


"Black Parents vs. the Teachers' Union
Union intransigence hits a low point
By Nat Hentoff Tuesday, Jun 1 2010

In Harlem—as elsewhere in this city, state, and nation—there is a sharply rising struggle between teachers' unions and black parents.

That dispute is over parental choice of schools, especially in regards to publicly financed charter schools which can, and usually do, refuse to recognize teachers' unions. Geoffrey Canada, whose Harlem Children's Zone is nationally known for making charter schools a working part of the community, recently sent out a rallying cry to black parents everywhere when he said, "Nobody's coming. Nobody is going to save our children. You have to save your own children."

SNIP

As a union man since I organized my first union at 15 during the so-called Great Depression at a Boston candy store that employed students on nights and weekends—and then helped unionize radio station WMEX in Boston where I became shop steward—I am plain disgusted at the low point that the union crusade against charter schools has reached. Dig this from an April 29 Daily News editorial: " perniciously turned the world on its head by complaining that, because charter schools are concentrated in poor minority neighborhoods, they segregate 'African-Americans and Latino students in a separate school system.' " Bill Perkins also makes this "segregation" charge.
SNIP

My question to leaders of organized labor (including the other big national union, the National Education Association): Are these black parents stupid or so gullible that, seeing so many other parents mobilizing for charter schools, they go with the crowd?

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-01/news/black-parents-vs-the-teachers-union/

This movie is going to be rather Inconvenient for the teacher's unions...

I saw this movie at a film festival. When it is released this month, there will be scores of threads from teachers trying to tear it apart...think, Free Republic after F9/11 came out.

Posters here on DU should see it, and then compare what was said about it, to what was actually portrayed.

[Hannah Bell]

15. nat hentoff = libertarian shill for right-wing policy for many, many years.

he was a civil libertarian maybe 50 years ago.

that dinosaur is the best you can do to support this bullshit meme?

gee, do you remember this summer when 7 civil rights groups criticized obama's ed policy?

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1576§ion=Article

there is no such war between "black parents" as a group & teachers' unions.

There are black parents who support both.

it's just the wingers & neolibs using race to achieve their self-serving ends, as per usual.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Please explain why you support leaving teachers out of the process

If the point is to reform schools, why should one of the most significant stakeholders be left out of the reform process? Some reformers lime Rhee are excluding parents. How effective can we expect reform to be when teachers and parents watch from the sidelines as reform is imposed?

[HubertHeaver]

20. The teacher's union does not exist to supervise teachers.

That is the responsibility of the administration and school board. If the responsible administrator has performed due diligence, and has documented that performance, there is nothing the union can do to protect a "bad" or ineffective teacher.

[WinkyDink]

23. THANK YOU. I have been a lone voice heretofore, pointing out this CONSTANT OMISSION.

[Hannah Bell]

24. +100.

[Jax]

17. Thanks for the info Hannah, the usual Teacher Union haters

have arrived.

Nothing Democratic about busting teachers union at all but the right wing shills on both sides will never give up. They hate unions, workers. They are already on this thread. But then again they have been very transparent with their right wing bs from day one.

My state Senator with a "d" by his name sent out fliers bashing the Teachers Union...he will not get my vote.

Nothing Democratic about busting unions, that is racist reagan crap, but come to think of it most of those posters embrace all things racist reagan, especially economically.

They clearly got theirs.



Our house stands for teachers and unions and public schools.

That corporate charter crap is just that, corporate crap.

[madfloridian]

22. All of the "reformers" are patronizing to us average teachers.

And that is something I can not forget. It is an atmosphere that is enabled by our party's leaders.

Thanks for the nice post. The "reformers" have enough power and money to get whatever they want. Public schools teachers do not.

[Nikki Stone1]

26. Propaganda for selling the schools to the piratizers

It's so blatantly obvious.