*See "The Myth of the 'Crappy Teacher'" which accompanies this article in the print edition.

The education reform movement currently sweeping the country has been embraced by the likes of Bill Gates, President Obama, Al Sharpton, Newt Gingrich, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey. Some may be inspired to see such a divergent group joining forces to help make public schools better for children. However, when you take a closer look at the policies involved in this reform, the reality is quite chilling.

Michelle Rhee, the former Chancellor of DC Public Schools (DCPS), is the face of what needs to be called corporate education reform. The premises of corporate education reform are: the main impediments to improving public schools are teachers’ unions because they rigidly defend bad teachers; schools need to be run like businesses to make them less bureaucratic and more dynamic; educational experience is not required to be a teacher, principal, or chancellor; the corporate education reform model is the only way public education can be transformed; and success can be measured through data-driven outcomes, with the most important data being student test scores.

When the economic ladder sinks, it’s the bottom rung that goes under first. As the rest of the country has recently begun worrying about job instability and uncertain benefits resulting from the economic crisis, those who have walked across deserts, ridden for days beneath the floor boards of buses, and those who have scrambled in the shadow economy to provide for themselves and their families are surely thinking, “Middle America, welcome to the rest of the world.”

Despite the somewhat rocky relationship between the labor movement and the Obama Administration, Democratic hopes for holding on to Congress were largely dependent on the political efforts of organized labor—still the only grassroots organization that has a track record of turning out reliably Democratic voters in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 55 percent of union members prefer to see the Democrats in control of Congress, compared to the general population, which is split down the middle.

SALT OF THE EARTH
BY HERBERT J. BIBERMAN
Independent Productions, 1954