The Nation
May 9, 2011
Summary/Key Points: Noguera and Fine give a strong, bipartisan rundown of recent events in both the teacher-bashing and teacher-lauding trends. They mention the last-in-first-out policy, recent developments from the Hill and its policymakers, and discuss some specific local teacher-friendly events. One particularly alarming piece of polemic comes from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has invoked the historically-weighted term "final solution" when talking about his plan for education, after "slash[ing] school aid by $1.2 billion."
Intended Audience: general public
Relevance: The Nation is a fun journal-- not really particularly left-leaning or right-leaning, they are just strongly against obviously broken systems and terrible ideas, and both the democrats and republicans are offering up a lot that fits within that criteria right now. Anyway! It is good to keep on top of current events in education, and summary articles like this that both lambast and uphold are valuable condensations.
Ouch! "Final Solution". I guess enough time has passed that we can use this term rhetorically without offending anyone. Good to know. I was just thinking what a great group of teachers we could have been! Is it time to start sharpeneing our pencils for the final assault on Mordor? It is pretty sad when a group of people (gross overgeneralization here) who are ostensibly committed to helping others and society in some small part are being demonized. I'm glad unions and teacher's rights groups (like the CEA) are stepping up and defending teachers. I suppose this will become a fight all of us will be involved in whether we like it or not. Seems to be the rallying cry of the day.
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