September 18, 2012

BGOODMAN

So as you know the teachers in Chicago are on strike and some people are in support of this, and some are not.  Quite honestly I think that all of us as Americans need to be on strike, because the education system in our country is fucked up.  Our kids are learning based on how much money their school has, and not based on the simple fact that they are in America, and deserve the best education our country has to offer.

It makes no sense to me that because a student goes to school in a poorer neighborhood they may not learn their ABCs or 123s as well as someone in a bougie neighborhood.  It makes no sense that they may not have a physical education or music class, or may not have a school library.  America, education is how we create leaders.  And all of our children deserve to be properly educated.  Key word: properly. 

GOP vice presendital nominee Paul Ryan issued a statement showing his support for  Mayor Emanuel of Chicago saying, “Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher’s union strike is unnecessary and wrong.”

What’s wrong is classrooms not having enough desks to accommodate the influx of students.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney released a statement saying “I am disappointed by the decision of the Chicago Teachers Union to turn its back on not only a city negotiating in good faith but also the hundreds of thousands of children relying on the city’s public schools to provide them a safe place to receive a strong education […] Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children.”

Their interests do not conflict with those of our children, in fact they’re probably more aligned!  Too many parents are more worried about having a place their kid can go when they’re at work, than diligently making sure that the place they’re sending their kid is successfully providing them with the tools their child needs to not just survive but thrive in our country.

What many of my government officials fail to acknowledge is that teachers in public schools, especially ones in poor neighborhoods tend to be more than teachers. Say it like it is. Many of the  kids being bussed in come from  dysfunctional home lives, so their teachers humbly take on the role of parent, babysitter, and therapist so that these kids stand a fighting chance of not becoming another statistic in some of our other systems.  Like prison.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s fair that schools can seem to get new metal detectors, but history textbooks don’t mention the last three presidents and teachers cannot be expected to provide strong educations for our students when the textbooks they’re forced to teach from are out of date. 

America, we can do better than this. And I commend these teachers for acknowledging that. They are not the villains—they are the heroes, brave enough to stand up and say NO!  If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right. If kids are going to come to us to be educated, they will be in decent size classrooms, have materials they need on day one, and have access to the same resources any other American child has.

I don’t know about you, but I want to know, that if I put my child in the public school system, he better be learning more than ANYONE else because his school is governed by my state and country!