"Michelle Rhee Chancellor of Schools in Washington, D.C. has just fired
a lot of teachers based on students' test scores. Amazingly she has
procured $20 million for the schools from the private sector, but here's
the rub: no one gets a cent unless SHE is Chancellor of Schools.
Talk about a stacked deck, securing YOUR job, while ensuring others lose
theirs for specious reasons."
Wilma,
For many years, I studied the delivery of addiction services (social
work) and the jobs of front line workers. Like teachers, they were
scapegoats through the same type of simplistic focus on flawed
assessments to distract from the failed policies and the sabotage of
their profession. Destroying a public behavioral health care system was
the ultimate goal, just like destroying a public education system is the
goal of No Child Left Behind/Race to the top.
Substance abuse counselors are blamed and evaluated only for the drug
use of clients and evaluated on pathetic paperwork checklists. AND THE
REAL POLICY FAILURES ARE NEVER LOOKED AT! I believe the comparison of
these two professions is very important and warrants serious discussion!
From a feminist perspective, the two professions can be looked at as
traditional woman's work in a patriarchal system. Consequently, both
vital professions have been traditionally undervalued and receive low
pay. But the condescending ideology from the elite researchers in the
fields leads to two important structural problems, which are not
understood by the general public.
First is the failure to create the structures for individuals to develop
as professionals. (Both professions lose an extraordinary number of
young professionals in the early years.) Second is the refusal to
allow the ancillary services necessary to improve outcomes among the
population with multiple and complex issues.
It is not the front line workers who are lazy idiots, but the elite
policy makers who ask for water to be made from wine!!!! We, the
people, need to understand why outcomes are less than ideal when the
systems and individuals are sabotaged. We have the grapes and the wine
press, and poor outcomes come from poor policy.
Public school teachers and social workers in public systems are not
generally engaged like other respected professionals. They deal with
complex problems but their jobs leave them immediately isolated in
complex situations. Trainings and manuals tend to be useless and
condescending. They have no built in structure to allow them to be
researcher practitioners. They don't have journal clubs, mentors or
collaborations with other professionals to advance themselves or their
field. The continuing development structures for other respected
professionals are the right way to engage a developing professional!
Teachers and social workers are told to develop in isolation by studying
condescending and useless interventions by elite researchers.
As for making wine from water- Addiction therapists are told to keep
their homeless, depressed, unemployed clients with low literacy skills
from using drugs. When they don't, they are blamed for being lazy and
stupid, like teachers who have children with multiple life issues. (The
systems have no way to coordinate the care for the individuals being
served. By not addressing the child's problems in one area; poor
outcomes in other areas like reading will emerge.)
Using ridiculous measures to blame front line workers is a deliberate
distraction from the underlying structural problems in the systems.
Should teachers and social workers continue to accept blame in the midst
of such broken systems and the failure of the elites to stand up and
educate the general public about the real reasons for less than ideal
outcomes???
I think front line workers in these two fields need to act up and fight
back in solidarity!
Glenn
PS: Yes the corporate vultures are ready to profit from the sabotage of
front line workers!
On 7/23/2010 11:20 AM, Wilma de Soto wrote:
Michelle Rhee Chancellor of Schools in Washington, D.C. has just fired
a lot of teachers based on students' test scores. Amazingly she has
procured $20 million for the schools from the private sector, but
here's the rub: no one gets a cent unless SHE is Chancellor of Schools.
Talk about a stacked deck, securing YOUR job, while ensuring others
lose theirs for specious reasons.
