Your school superintendent directs restaffing of your child’s school; the President of the United States publicly approves of what the superintendent did. This week, exactly that happened, as this front page New York Times story reports: School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President. The reaction was mixed, but not the way you might think. The article does not say there were objections from parents or voters, although an earlier story mentions students and former students who say the school had been like their family.
Today’s New York Times article reports these reactions:
The pro-charter school Thomas B. Fordham Institute cheered: “’I think it’s going to give some cover to other school boards and school superintendents around the country that want to do something similar,’ Mr. Petrilli said.” Obama has said there should be some charter schools, so it is not surprising the charter school people are happy.
The teachers unions howled: “’I ripped the Obama sticker off of my truck,’ said Zeph Capo, a midlevel official at the Houston Federation of Teachers . . . .” “’Teachers were taken aback — and profoundly disappointed,’ said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.” Why would Obama do something so loudly in public that angers the teachers unions that backed his election?
It is a wake-up call to realize that there is not a loud public outcry at Presidential intervention into the management of a local school. And to assume Obama’s intervention is just a supportive pat on the head for reform is to be sadly mistaken. It is part of something much bigger – - as if the President sees himself as judge of what local schools should and can do. He is setting an amazing precedent with little said by parents and local citizens.
An aspect now underway of Obama’s very large intervention into local schooling is mentioned in the article: “To get a share of the $3.5 billion in what are known as School Improvement Grants, school officials can choose to transform the learning environments in failing schools by extending instructional hours and making other changes, converting them to charter schools, closing them entirely or replacing the principal and at least half the staff.”
$3.5 billion is dangling in front of those responsible for local schools across America. The deal is: follow federal rules to get some of the money. Is this Constitutional? Do we want it? Do we really think it will only affect other people’s children in schools deemed failing by Barack Obama?
