Teachers Strike in Madison: Thirty Years Later

From The Capital Times:  30 Years of Clout: MTI's John Matthews and the '76 Teachers Strike

As I reflect on the strike, I keep thinking about right wing efforts to break the back of public education:

• School vouchers are more about breaking teachers' unions than the education of kids.
• In cities like Madison, where we pay teachers better than most, we get what we pay for---better schools and better educated kids.
• In the rush to create the 'competition' so as to lower the salaries of teachers, you never hear the privateers offer to pay higher salaries for better performance, like they do in the private sector.
• Most failed school districts are the result of burgeoning levels of poverty, not "lazy" or overpaid teachers.  The poverty is a result of urban disinvestment brought on by tax breaks and subsidies created by the conservatives.
• The independent studies show that where private schools do well the following factors exist:
  • Kids with learning and other disabilities are a far smaller percentage of the student population than we find in their public school competition.
  • The biggest difference comes from parental involvement, which really means that a system that has more involved parents will do better--we already knew that.

The obvious: raise corporate taxes to pay for public education.

And for more current commentary on public education and school choice: today, Folkbum's Rambles and Rants has Public School Teachers and Private Schools.

And while we are on the subject, your senses may or may not be offended by the bite in Watchdog Milwaukee on Charlie Sykes.  Woof.

Comments

[mary kay battaglia]

Paul,
While failing public schools are linked to the high number of low income students attending them, you may be interested in some MMSD data. If you go to the MMSD web site and look under their data you will find that in 1991 Madison's elementary schools had a total %low income of 24.6%. In 2005 that number almost doubled to 42.4%. Our schools are in a crisis of becoming just another urban school in trouble. That's almost double in 14 years.
Why is it that Madison city government is so UNinvolved with the schools? It seems to me for growth and economic stability the two should have a better working relationship. The district is clueless to the growth and the city does not seemed concerned with informing the district or working to help crisis areas of the city to help both the school and neighborhood. Allied is an example where they could work together.