“Teachers Wonder, Why the Heapings of Scorn?” is the headline of a front-page New York Times piece today (3/3/11). The article by Trip Gabriel reports, “Education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters.”
Politicians, sure, but what’s the evidence that voters–i.e., the public–have been heaping scorn on teachers? Gabriel offers nothing to substantiate this claim other than references to “online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators”–quoting blog commenters as evidence of the national mood has got to stop, guys–and the assertion that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s teacher-bashing has made him a “national star.” (I can’t find any national polling on Christie, which in itself calls into question how much of a national star he is, but his poll numbers in his own state are unremarkably average.)
Apparently it’s hard to find evidence of this anti-teacher wave because it’s already receding. In the 14th paragraph, Gabriel writes:
There are signs of a backlash in favor of teachers. A New York Times poll taken last week found that by nearly two to one–60 to 33 percent–Americans opposed restricting collective bargaining for public employees. A similar majority–including more than half of Republicans–said the salaries and benefits of most public employees were “about right” or “too low.”
Is that a “backlash in favor of teachers,” though, or is that the way people have felt about teachers all along?
And those polls probably understate the support for teachers, since they’re more popular than “public employees” in general. When CBS asked last year (1/6-10/10) about public school teachers’ salaries, fully 66 percent said they were paid “too little”–while only 4 percent said they were paid “too much.” And this is a long-held public attitude; when Gallup (8/24-26/99) asked in 1999 about public teacher salaries, 56 percent thought they were too low and 7 percent too high.
The New York Times piece is not unsympathetic to teachers, but by buying into the notion that there is a wave of anti-teacher sentiment sweeping the public, it only emboldens teacher-scapegoating politicians. The next time a journalist wants to write a piece about the scorn heaped on teachers, they might take a look at a Gallup poll (11/19-21/10) that asked how people viewed the “honesty and ethical standards” of various professions. Elementary school teachers’ ethics were rated “very high” or “high” by 67 percent; for newspaper reporters, it’s 22 percent.
I think perhaps Gabriel’s confusing Christie’s standing among his corpress colleagues with the esteem in which he’s held by the general public.
As for those selfsame journalists, I’d be curious to know the reasons for their poor showing.
I’m clear as to the basis for my own opinion of them.
Great piece in support of teachers from Jon Stewart last night (online somewhere no doubt).
This piece is a very good reminded that the scapegoating does not come from the general public. It’s often had to remember that the haters on the far right do not represent mainstream conservative views. It seems that Americans who care about the issue are more concerned with test scores, school violence, and getting the “bad” teachers out versus the low pay of teachers. It’s a strange country that we live in where the concept of “more schools, less bombs” is considered leftist radicalism.
When Oprah teamed with Gates to promote “Waiting for Superman”, it put teachers in the cross hairs around this country. I truly don’t think Oprah saw the teacher bashing aspect of all this. She swears on her website that that was not the intention. Gates on the other hand couldn’t have been so naive and I believe this “benevolent Corp. man” would undo our public school systems in a heartbeat. The privatized penal system should be a warning to us all how corps would handle things. With judges throwing our youth in jails on flimsy grounds (and seemingly unlawful grounds in one case) just to fill a private jail, I can just imagine what their schools would look like. They point at pretty stats on SOME of there private schools now , although overall they are NOT better then public schools.If all public schools were gone and they had full reign, who believes their “excellence” would shine? It would be the same ole shove the money in their bank accounts in this wild, wild west brand of capitalism that is ruining our country today.
This is truly a sick society that resents the working wage of a teacher or any other average worker. Go read the commission report that blames the meltdown in this country on the robber barons in banking. No one is doing a darn thing about their malfeasance yet we think teachers are robbing us. Good Lord!
Yes, Carol, there was very little reporting on the malfeasance of Wall Street and their enablers in the Congress–the most important finding coming out of the commission being the fact that the financial ruination of the country was deliberate and avoidable. Oprah wasn’t the only mainstream liberal gulled by “Waiting For Superman.” I mentioned here a few months ago that Rob Reiner also drank that particular Kool-Aid, and found it good. The same dynamic at work in the story above is in place–the Right tells a preposterous lie, and mainstream press and culture goes along with it. I think with the press it’s simply a matter of not wanting to find itself on the wrong side of the argument with the Rightists. Any crazy nonsense that the Right puts out has to be treated with respect, or even automatic agreement of merit, lest the reporter’s very patriotism be called into question.
. . . Maybe the most odious and outrageous “observation” of all is the declaration that Chris Christie is a “national star.” Sure, if Rush Limbaugh says so. Christie’s loved by the media because he “tells it like it is,” which means he’s a greedy liar who has no qualms about dumping on the less-fortunate among us. Much of the Corpress is as ignorant and fearful as Christie, so when the Governor manages to somehow discover that unions and ordinary working people are to blame for the country’s implacable woes and not his bosom buddies on Wall Street, they happily go along with their new love object.
I trust FAIR, donate to it and use it in my teaching. I have but one question… have you talked to any teachers about the anti-teacher wave you are so questioning?
Tim some of your observations are astute.But i think you are shooting from the hip with Christie. Before I came to understand Obama, I read everything he had written and said.That before i listened to other peoples spin.You might want to do the same with the gov. Very pragmatic man.A clear thinker who does not get lost in the smoke screens. Makes him an easy man to debate….AND a very hard men.He wont allow himself to be thrown off the scent by obfuscation. (Which by the way is Obama’s other middle name.)I think he would slice and dice Obama in a debate by the way.He has the facts to back his values.Going forward he is a huge(sic) danger to liberals.If I were you I would try to catch him with some woman.Or in some crooked land deal.Or find his best friend is a terrorist bomber.Going forward i think Jeff (from Curb) should play his life story.Not yet though. Maybe after his first term as president.
New Jersey’s public-sector unions routinely pressure the State Legislature to give them what they fail to win in contract talks. Most government workers pay nothing for health insurance. Concessions by school employees would have prevented any cuts in school programs last year.
Statements like those are at the core of Gov. Chris Christie’s campaign to cut state spending by getting tougher on unions. They are not, however, accurate.
In fact, on the occasions when the Legislature granted the unions new benefits, it was for pensions, which were not subject to collective bargaining â┚¬” and it has not happened in eight years. In reality, state employees have paid 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health insurance since 2007, in addition to co-payments and deductibles, and since last spring, many local government workers, including teachers, do as well. The few dozen school districts where employees agreed to concessions last year still saw layoffs and cuts in academic programs.
â┚¬Ã…“Clearly there has been a pattern of the governor playing fast and loose with the details,â┚¬Ã‚ said Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University. â┚¬Ã…“But so far, he’s been adept at getting the public to believe what he says.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Mr. Christie, a Republican who took office in January 2010, would hardly be the first politician to indulge in hyperbole or gloss over facts. But his misstatements, exaggerations and carefully constructed claims belie the national image he has built as a blunt talker who gives straight answers to hard questions, especially about budgets and labor relations. Candor is central to Mr. Christie’s appeal, and a review of his public statements over the past year shows some of them do not hold up to scrutiny
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/nyregion/10christie.html?_r=2&hp