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Mayors Conference takes hard line against teachers unions but Nutter flees Philly controversy
In a little noticed statement, U.S. Conference of Mayors announced that it backed Rahm Emanuel's tough fight against the union. But Conference President Nutter keeps quiet in Philly.
Mayors Conference takes hard line against teachers unions but Nutter flees Philly controversy
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The bitterly contested Chicago teacher's strike is over and both sides have declared victory. But in a little noticed statement, The U.S. Conference of Mayors has announced that it backed the city's tough fight against the union, “strongly commend[ing] Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for achieving an historic education contract” and “commend[ing] Mayor Emanuel for his commitment to the children in his great city.”
In particular, the mayors celebrated the increased power afforded to principals over hiring teachers, the use of standardized test scores to measure teacher effectiveness, and the lengthening of the school day. But the Chicago strike was a phenomenal proxy war in a nationwide fight over education reform, pitting progressive defenders of public education and unions who decry funding inequities, poverty and segregation against reformers who tout privately managed charter schools, standardized tests and, sometimes, vouchers, as the solution to underperforming schools serving low-income students.
The strike was a big deal with implications for school districts nationwide. And so is the mayors' statement.
The Mayor's Conference has embraced other hard-line and controversial education reform proposals, signaling that unions in other cities could soon face similarly tough fights. In June, the Conference announced its support for so-called “parent trigger” laws, which allow “parents [to] seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management” via referendum.
The statement was signed by the Conference's Second Vice-President and Education Reform Task Force Chair Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, husband of controversial reformer and former D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is now the Conference president, which affords him plenty of time on national television and fuels rumors that he is primed for a cabinet-level position in a second-term Obama administration.
Mayors Nutter and Johnson, along with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, were described by Reuters as taking the lead to secure the Conference's support for the parent trigger measure.
But locally, Mayor Nutter, who did not respond to my request for comment, has shied away from taking a public role in this city's acrimonious schools debate, allowing Gov. Tom Corbett (budget cutter) and the School Reform Commission (privatization-minded restructuring proposer) to take the heat. When the School District announced its Boston Consulting Group-drafted restructuring plan in April, Nutter initially called it “stark but realistic" and said that critics should "grow up and deal with" it. When the proposal turned out to be extraordinarily controversial, Nutter fled the scene and let SRC Chairman Pedro Ramos make the case to a skeptical public.
Last month, Nutter reemerged to praise the Philadelphia Schools Partnership, a pro-charter group (with close ties to the pro-voucher movement) that is raising $100 million for schools (so far, none of them traditional public schools). He called the debate over public education in Philadelphia “esoteric debates that ultimately don't mean anything to these young people.”
Last night, Mayor Nutter spoke at a local screening of Won't Back Down, a Hollywood film supporting the parent trigger law that frames teacher's unions as the primary obstacle to reform. The screening was co-sponsored by StudentsFirst PA, the state affiliate of Michelle Rhee's new business- and financial-interests-funded organization.
According to parent activist Helen Gym, who attended the event, Mayor Nutter refused to comment on the Chicago teachers strike—though yes, he had just issued a statement on it via the U.S. Conference of Mayors. That statement apparently was not intended for a Philadelphia audience. After all, Mayor Emanuel took a public beating for his handling of the Chicago strike. Nutter seems afraid: if he were to take proud ownership of a schools restructuring plan that he clearly supports, he might suffer a similiar fate.
The real problem is that U.S. education is a $500 BILLION dollar plum every year. And Wall Street wants it.
How much money is that? Look at it this way. If 20% can be extracted in profit ($100 billion a year), and a nice annual Wall Street bonus is $500,000, then that profit alone is equivalent to 200,000 of those bonuses to spread around every year. That's a lot of money and influence.— John S James
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