This column defends - within the context of the upcoming Boston mayoral race - the association of politicians with union members. Oberal it's a good point, and I'm glad someone is publicly making it. But there's a "but" coming. Abraham stops to castigate the firefighters' and teacher's unions, the kind of unions its fashionable to dislike. In the latter's case, she writes, "Leaders of the Boston Teacher's Union, who are not fans of Walsh and haven'e endorsed anyone yet, do an injustice to dedicated educators by opposing changes that could transform many schools.
There's nothing really more specific here, so it's a little hard to get into. But there's an assumption here that measures opposed by teacher's unions would be a big boon to kids and schools, and that the representatives have only selfish and/or reactionary motives for opposing them. Selfish motives may play a part somewhere - they usually do - but I see on reason to assume the changes would be good. Educational reform needs more debate than it's getting, not less.
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I couldn't tell from reading the article what the teachers were fighting for either, but I'd also be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Educators have been unnecessarily maligned for years and kids have borne the brunt.
Well one trend in education reform that's been growing the past couple of decades is the move for charter schools. The hype - which they may live up to in limited cases - is that they give parents another choice when public schools aren't working for their kids. But in practive, the SOP for charter schools is to Hoover out the students who are doing well and get artificially high test scores that way. (Standardized testing is another hot panacea.) The Boston Globe has a reputation as a liberal paper, but all their columnists and editorial writers seem to have it in for public schools.
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