NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
May 5, 2017 | PAGE 3
Public
education
is
under
attack,
but
the
public
is
coming
to
its
defense
American Federation of Teachers
president Randi Weingarten was
in Portland April 25 to deliver the
inaugural “Margaret Hallock lec-
ture,” a new series sponsored by
the University of Oregon Wayne
Morse Center for Law and Poli-
tics, named for retired longtime
labor educator Margaret Hallock.
Below is an excerpt from her
speech, on “The Future of Public
Education.”
“A
s the head of the
teachers union, I sit
at the nexus of two
institutions … our system of
public education and the labor
movement. Public education and
labor unions are the gateways to
the middle class. They are the
foundation of a just society and
vibrant democracy. And they
provide paths to counter the lack
of economic security and oppor-
tunity that is tearing at the fabric
of our society.
Unions don’t just benefit
union members and their fami-
lies. We advocate for policies that
benefit all working people—like
increases to the minimum wage,
expanding access to healthcare,
and adequate support for public
schools and public services.
AFT and our affiliates use
collective bargaining to secure
fair pay, benefits and working
conditions. We always will. But
we are also using collective bar-
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten says Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a serious
threat to public education. DeVos supports a proposal to cut her own agency’s budget 14 percent ($9 billion).
gaining to pursue a quality
agenda to move ever closer to
our goal of an excellent, equi-
table system of public schools.
I don’t need to tell you that
we’re not there yet. One reason
is that self-described reformers
have successfully promoted
failed approaches that have not
worked here or abroad—top-
down, test-based accountability;
privatization; school closures;
competition; and firing rather
than developing teachers. An-
other is that America has a
Portland School Board, Zone 5
Vote Yes for
SCOTT
BAILEY
Life-long Portlander, long-time public school activist
Member of AFSCME Council 28 (State of Washington)
ENDORSED BY:
• Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO
• Portland Association of Teachers
• Portland Federation of School Professionals
• Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council
• Iron Workers Local 29 • Roofers Local 49
shamefully high child poverty
rate. Half of the children who at-
tend public schools live in
poverty, and the achievement
gap mirrors this economic gap.
But American public schools
are not the failures that anti-pub-
lic education ideologues portray
them to be. A number of indica-
tors—like drop out rates and
high school graduation rates—
are moving in the right direction.
And the wealthiest students in
our public schools do as well as
the highest scoring students in
the world. But we won’t be sat-
isfied until we do what we do in
our best schools in all our
schools—for all children.
Until now, the conversation
has been about how to do that—
to improve public schools. Peo-
ple might disagree about how to
do it, but not whether it was the
right goal.
Today, however, with Donald
Trump in the White House and
Betsy DeVos as his secretary of
education, their focus is on
abandoning public education as
Northwest Oregon Labor
Council, AFL-CIO Recommends:
KORI BASQUEZ
for
PARKROSE
SCHOOL BOARD
District 3
Position 4
4
“As future leaders of our communities, our children deserve
quality education to promote their continued success. I
would appreciate your vote to continue these efforts.”
Also endorsed by: Parkrose Faculty Association;
Erick Flores, Educator, Parkrose School Board Director Position 5.
a civic institution and value. It’s
not overblown to say they pose
an existential threat to the public
schools that 90 percent of Amer-
ican children attend and depend
on. DeVos has spent decades in
her home state of Michigan
working to defund, destabilize
and dismantle public schools.
And President Trump has given
her a platform to try to do the
same to the nation’s public
schools. They really believe pri-
vatization is the be-all and end-all
… that education is a commodity
to be governed by the market as
opposed to valuing public educa-
tion as a public good.
Secretary DeVos has called
public schools a “dead end” and
said that she wasn’t “sure how
they could get a lot worse.” I call
her a “public school denier”—
there’s really no evidence that
can change her mind. I saw that
up close and personal in a school
visit we did together last week in
Van Wert, Ohio... a very Repub-
lican area that voted for Trump
but love, love, love their public
schools.
That’s why we invited her to
this rock ribbed Republican area
— to show that support for pub-
lic school transcends politics.
In the county’s elementary
school, 60 percent of the stu-
dents live below the poverty line.
But Van Wert’s youngest learn-
ers get a strong start through the
district’s strong early childhood
education programs and literacy
specialists to help struggling
readers become successful read-
ers (paid for by federal Title I
funds which the Trump admin-
istration wants to use instead for
vouchers and privatization). We
saw a community school that
helps the kids most at risk of
dropping out stay on a path to
graduation. We saw great exam-
ples of project-based learning,
like Van Wert High School’s ro-
botics team, which won the state
robotics championship this year.
Or Mr. Hoverman’s 5th grade
class studying about kids their
age in the Depression. Or the
high school students using the
same We The People curriculum
(newer edition of course) I used
with my students at Clara Barton
High School in Brooklyn.
Van Wert’s public schools
clearly are not a dead end. They
have a 96 percent graduation and
attendance rate. Seventy-five
percent of graduates go on to a
2- or 4-year college, the teaching
force is deeply dedicated, and
people move to Van Wert be-
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