The Twenty-First Century Teacher Bashers

Even PBS has succumbed to taking millions to strike at the heart of my profession and the public sector in general.  First, there was the supposedly neutral anti-pension PBS NewsHour series scheduled thanks to the generous donations of John Arnold of Enron fame.  This was exposed by David Sirota.

Then, there was a "Teaching Channel Presents" series promoting Common Core funded by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation.  Once again, Pando reporter, David Sirota, working with Nathaniel Mott, exposed this.  The Foundation's ties to Microsoft and "Pearson's Common Core System of Courses with the groundbreaking capabilities of the Windows 8 touchscreen environment" meant it stood to gain huge profits from the success of the Common Core.  

It's an unsettling world in which we live.  The things in which we put our trust have turned against us.  Millionaire-controlled media has its sites set clearly on public schools.  If public schools fail, private interests stand to gain millions upon millions.  Even non-profit charters may be run by CEO's who earn more than the United States president.  Witness Moskowitz, the woman who seems to always get her way!

My once-noble profession has been portrayed by the media as a stronghold of miscreants.  Teachers who, like myself, have forsaken higher-paying, higher-prestige careers to work in the service of kids in classrooms across America are twenty-first century scapegoats.  We are branded by the millionaire-controlled media as lazy perverts who perpetuate poverty, unworthy of any due-process rights.  

And, the test scores of the very same students whom I am trying to help may be used as a lethal weapon against me.  The whole idea is absolutely absurd.  It negates any past successes in my life.  It penalizes teachers who work in underfunded, overcrowded districts with poorer students with special needs and limited English capabilities.  Sadly, the politics outside my door have crept into my classroom.  And, despite the fact that I have always loved working with the kids, I begin to wonder why I became a teacher at all.  It must have been to help defend the profession I love so much!