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Class Action: An Activist Teacher's Handbook
Jacobin magazine and the Chicago Teachers Union's CORE Caucus present a 118-page booklet on corporate education reform and the efforts to resist its agenda. Featuring CTU President Karen Lewis, economist Dean Baker, Jacobin editors Megan Erickson and Bhaskar Sunkara, Joanne Barken, and many others.
116 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2015
This collection of short articles really hit the nail on the head in regards to the experiences I've accumulated working in a charter school and now for a teacher's union.
The first essay "Lean Production" addresses the issue of the objectification of both teacher and student. The teacher- as "producer" of a "finished product" (students)- is stretched to the absolute limit to fulfill an increasing workload and is then blamed if the "product" is unsatisfactory. Teacher's increasingly are tasked to complete administrative tasks (such as teacher "teams") which hinder their pedagogical responsibilities (such as planning lessons, etc..) The reason for all this added workload and stress is so that students "can receive the minimum support necessary to produce satisfactory test scores"-schools are treated as businesses and the human beings within are objects to be tinkered with and imposed upon. The breakdown of teacher's working conditions is a breakdown in the learning conditions for students.
In "The Industrial Classroom", the scientific management of schools is paralleled to the characteristics of Taylorism. Taylor created a system which increased the amount of control bosses had over workers and the labor process and all "wasteful" activities ( such as gratuitous motions, etc...) were eliminated so as to increase production. In the same way, educators are forced to teach to the test, and since they are being evaluated based on test scores, anything outside of the test is irrelevant and obtrusive.Unions got in the way of totalitarian control over the workplace so they have no place in the production process. Increasing and individualizing worker pay atomizes workers and destroys solidarity while also holding individual workers accountable for their output and completely ignoring social/political factors.
Here are some highlights from this article:
"Equating good teaching with good test scores reduces a complex, human process, and the teacher-student relationship, to a cold data point, bereft of nuance. Under neoliberal reform, rote learning and "teaching to the test" replace critical thinking and problem solving."
"Teachers who balk at high-stakes testing do so because of their love of the profession and support for a lively curriculum, not to inhibit student achievement. Teachers don't "sabotage" their pupils as a defiant worker might a product on an assembly line-the "products" teachers are assembling and molding are living, breathing human beings."
"The motivations of corporate school-reformers are almost immaterial. It's evident that the consequences of the policies they push are injurious to unions. The same can be said about a panoply of reform prescriptions: we needn't speculate about nefarious intent when we know that high stakes testing narrows curricula and drains the teaching profession of its humanity. We needn't impute bad faith to Wendy Knopp when we know her in and out in two ears model vitiates teaching as a profession. We needn't think that Bill Gates, who single handedly shapes public education policy, is motivated by malice; simple disgust at its diminution of democracy is enough."
"Unremedial Education" is one of my favorites because it addresses the myth that education eliminates inequality. Education does indeed provide mobility to those who would otherwise not have any, however, much deeper structural changes in the economy are needed to eradicate inequality.
"Even if reform had improved education, it is unlikely to have done much about inequality. The growth in inequality over the last 3 decades has not been mainly a sory of the more educated pulling away from the less educated. Rather, it has been a story in which a relatively small group of people (roughly the top 1%) have been able to garner the bulk of economic gains for reasons that have little direct connection to education."
Other highlights from the proceeding essays:
"Over the past 30 years, as the focus of educational policy has shifted from equity to excellence, the gaps in achievement between black and white students and rich and poor students have widened. The implication was that social problems arise not from a specific set of policies and realities-segregation, discrimination, poverty- but from a lack of willpower. If a poor kid couldn't succeed, she just didn't have the right attitude. That is not an overstatement; it is the central assumption that animates every initiative we gather together and call education reform."
"The movement towards higher standards and market based reforms took place within the historical context of an intensifying stratification of resources along race and class lines. Its leaders are overwhelming adult administrators, philanthropists, and venture capitalists (usually men) while the people who are most affected by it are teachers (usually women) and children with comparatively little or no economic power. The crisis we face is one of ineuality and wealth distribution, not a vague collective decline towards sloppiness."
"It is questionable whether public schools have actually 'failed' on a national level, but even if hat's the case, the failure is systemic, not the product of the inexplicable, synchronized mediocrity of a few individuals who need a little encouragement. The religion of self improvement is a way of redirecting criticisms or outrage from socio-economic structures back to the individual, imprisoning any reformist or revolutionary impulse within our own feelings of inadequcy-which is why the process of improving our nations' schools has taken on the tone of a spiritual cleansing rather than a political reckoning. Now, instead of saying 'our socioeconomic system is failing us' an entire generation of children will learn to say, 'I have failed myself."
"We [file grievances] not because we believe in the process, but to prepare the groundwork to transcend it in the future."
"Most contemporary teachers' unions lack militancy, membership solidarity, and even a meaningful connection with rank and file educators. A thoughtful, well-organized grievance campaign can help build unions at the most important levels, in the schools. Such organization is the precondition for turning the tide of education reform. It would be a small step, but one in the right direction."
"Over the past 30 years and across all sectors, union membership has steeply declined and with it, workplace quality and worker compensation. Teachers aren't wholly exempt from this trend, but we are still the most unionized profession in the U.S. This is part of the reason for the well organized attack on teachers' unions. Conservatives and neoliberals attack unions not only to dilute our political and financial power, but also to develop a complaint and unquestioning workforce, unwilling to challenge initiatives that are harmful to educators and students.
It's not enough to tell our young members to 'study your union history'. Rather, telling our new members to 'go study' would have the opposite effect. It's dismissive, and potentially deleterious to the goal of organizing new members. The goal is not only to educate, but also to empower members and humanize unions and unionism."
The first essay "Lean Production" addresses the issue of the objectification of both teacher and student. The teacher- as "producer" of a "finished product" (students)- is stretched to the absolute limit to fulfill an increasing workload and is then blamed if the "product" is unsatisfactory. Teacher's increasingly are tasked to complete administrative tasks (such as teacher "teams") which hinder their pedagogical responsibilities (such as planning lessons, etc..) The reason for all this added workload and stress is so that students "can receive the minimum support necessary to produce satisfactory test scores"-schools are treated as businesses and the human beings within are objects to be tinkered with and imposed upon. The breakdown of teacher's working conditions is a breakdown in the learning conditions for students.
In "The Industrial Classroom", the scientific management of schools is paralleled to the characteristics of Taylorism. Taylor created a system which increased the amount of control bosses had over workers and the labor process and all "wasteful" activities ( such as gratuitous motions, etc...) were eliminated so as to increase production. In the same way, educators are forced to teach to the test, and since they are being evaluated based on test scores, anything outside of the test is irrelevant and obtrusive.Unions got in the way of totalitarian control over the workplace so they have no place in the production process. Increasing and individualizing worker pay atomizes workers and destroys solidarity while also holding individual workers accountable for their output and completely ignoring social/political factors.
Here are some highlights from this article:
"Equating good teaching with good test scores reduces a complex, human process, and the teacher-student relationship, to a cold data point, bereft of nuance. Under neoliberal reform, rote learning and "teaching to the test" replace critical thinking and problem solving."
"Teachers who balk at high-stakes testing do so because of their love of the profession and support for a lively curriculum, not to inhibit student achievement. Teachers don't "sabotage" their pupils as a defiant worker might a product on an assembly line-the "products" teachers are assembling and molding are living, breathing human beings."
"The motivations of corporate school-reformers are almost immaterial. It's evident that the consequences of the policies they push are injurious to unions. The same can be said about a panoply of reform prescriptions: we needn't speculate about nefarious intent when we know that high stakes testing narrows curricula and drains the teaching profession of its humanity. We needn't impute bad faith to Wendy Knopp when we know her in and out in two ears model vitiates teaching as a profession. We needn't think that Bill Gates, who single handedly shapes public education policy, is motivated by malice; simple disgust at its diminution of democracy is enough."
"Unremedial Education" is one of my favorites because it addresses the myth that education eliminates inequality. Education does indeed provide mobility to those who would otherwise not have any, however, much deeper structural changes in the economy are needed to eradicate inequality.
"Even if reform had improved education, it is unlikely to have done much about inequality. The growth in inequality over the last 3 decades has not been mainly a sory of the more educated pulling away from the less educated. Rather, it has been a story in which a relatively small group of people (roughly the top 1%) have been able to garner the bulk of economic gains for reasons that have little direct connection to education."
Other highlights from the proceeding essays:
"Over the past 30 years, as the focus of educational policy has shifted from equity to excellence, the gaps in achievement between black and white students and rich and poor students have widened. The implication was that social problems arise not from a specific set of policies and realities-segregation, discrimination, poverty- but from a lack of willpower. If a poor kid couldn't succeed, she just didn't have the right attitude. That is not an overstatement; it is the central assumption that animates every initiative we gather together and call education reform."
"The movement towards higher standards and market based reforms took place within the historical context of an intensifying stratification of resources along race and class lines. Its leaders are overwhelming adult administrators, philanthropists, and venture capitalists (usually men) while the people who are most affected by it are teachers (usually women) and children with comparatively little or no economic power. The crisis we face is one of ineuality and wealth distribution, not a vague collective decline towards sloppiness."
"It is questionable whether public schools have actually 'failed' on a national level, but even if hat's the case, the failure is systemic, not the product of the inexplicable, synchronized mediocrity of a few individuals who need a little encouragement. The religion of self improvement is a way of redirecting criticisms or outrage from socio-economic structures back to the individual, imprisoning any reformist or revolutionary impulse within our own feelings of inadequcy-which is why the process of improving our nations' schools has taken on the tone of a spiritual cleansing rather than a political reckoning. Now, instead of saying 'our socioeconomic system is failing us' an entire generation of children will learn to say, 'I have failed myself."
"We [file grievances] not because we believe in the process, but to prepare the groundwork to transcend it in the future."
"Most contemporary teachers' unions lack militancy, membership solidarity, and even a meaningful connection with rank and file educators. A thoughtful, well-organized grievance campaign can help build unions at the most important levels, in the schools. Such organization is the precondition for turning the tide of education reform. It would be a small step, but one in the right direction."
"Over the past 30 years and across all sectors, union membership has steeply declined and with it, workplace quality and worker compensation. Teachers aren't wholly exempt from this trend, but we are still the most unionized profession in the U.S. This is part of the reason for the well organized attack on teachers' unions. Conservatives and neoliberals attack unions not only to dilute our political and financial power, but also to develop a complaint and unquestioning workforce, unwilling to challenge initiatives that are harmful to educators and students.
It's not enough to tell our young members to 'study your union history'. Rather, telling our new members to 'go study' would have the opposite effect. It's dismissive, and potentially deleterious to the goal of organizing new members. The goal is not only to educate, but also to empower members and humanize unions and unionism."
September 22, 2022
Although much of the focus is on teacher organizing a s policy in the US, there are many, many lessons here that are relevant to what’s happening relight now in MB. The final section on teacher mobilization is particularly worth examining.
December 10, 2023
Everything holds up even though you wish it wouldn't
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews