HENTOFF SLAMS UNIONS, LAUDS CHARTERS

By Brian D’Agostino
bdagostino@verizon.net
www.bendag.com

Here’s a conundrum. How many Village Voice writers does it take to screw the teachers’ unions? Answer: one, but only if he or she was a trade unionist in a previous life. In the June 2-8, 2010 issue of the Voice, Nat Hentoff joins the chorus of hedge fund managers, union-busting politicians, Eva Moskowitz-type social entrepreneurs and other custodians of public righteousness who are championing “school reform.” Before doing so, however, he makes a point of saying he organized fellow students working in a candy store during the “so called Great Depression” and was a shop steward at a radio station in Boston. From this lofty position as a champion of labor, Hentoff then confesses that he is “plain disgusted at the low point that the union crusade against charter schools has reached.”

To be sure, “some charter school managements are engaged in old-fashioned self-dealing and arrant unethical behavior that require strict accounting,” and some do discriminate against English-language learners and other students with special needs. But “a growing number of charter schools have opened their doors and are demonstrating that such students need not—and must not—be marginalized,” at least according to the New York Post (5/10/10), a credible authority on such matters for all thoughtful observers of public education.

Meanwhile, do the “leaders of organized labor” think black parents that want their children in charter schools are “stupid” or “gullible?” Well they’re not, Hentoff says—just look at the long waiting lists and superior test scores of charter schools in Harlem, at least according to the Post. Black parents want a quality education for their kids, unlike Michael Mulgrew, who doesn’t care about poor black children and only wants to use charter schools as a “punching bag.”

Some non-charter public schools, the author concedes, “create lifelong learners and future college students.” Rebelling against “the assembly-line teaching-for-tests imposed by No Child Left Behind,” they have students “charting their own academic paths with personalized student learning plans—electronic portfolios containing information about their learning styles, interests, skills, career goals, and extracurricular activities.” This should be the norm for charter schools as well, Hentoff opines, “no matter whether organized labor finds charter schools guilty of that.”

Now, I have to admit I’m having trouble following this. Hentoff says it’s the quality public schools—which are unionized—that are doing the portfolios and personalized student learning. Then he recommends this to the charter schools—which are not unionized—presumably because they’re doing too much “assembly-line teaching-for-tests?” So why would organized labor object to charter schools starting to do what unionized schools are already doing? Whatever.

Oh, and another thing. The example of state-of-the-art, personalized education that Hentoff cites was from a predominantly White and Asian, middle class secondary school in North Brunswick, New Jersey, having only 12 students for every teacher. No problem getting under-funded, inner city school districts to provide that kind of education to every minority child trapped in poverty, right? Especially now that the Post has assured us that charter schools will no longer be creaming the easiest-to-teach students. All we need is for the unions to get out of the way. But wait a minute, isn’t the school in North Brunswick unionized? Whatever.

Actually, the author realizes that poor communities can’t get the same educational opportunities as the middle class without an infusion of additional resources and services. He ends his article discussing just such a program, for which the UFT and some community groups (including Harlem Children’s Zone) are seeking federal funding. Which brings us to the moment of truth. Would Mike Mulgrew and Bill Perkins oppose this “Community Schools” program, Hentoff asks, if it chose not to have union teachers? Now there’s a knock-out blow against selfish labor leaders and misguided elected officials who don’t care about the needs of poor, minority children! What was that about a “punching bag?”

Brian D’Agostino is a former New York City public school teacher and UFT chapter leader. He is an adjunct instructor in education at Empire State College.