MTA Report Focuses on Threats to Public Education and Unions
MTA Report Focuses on Threats to Public Education and Unions
New report details the forces currently allied against public education and public-sector workers
The MTA has released Threat from the Right Intensifies, a report that informs members and others about the current status of efforts to undermine public education and destroy unions.
The new report expands on Threat to Public Education Now Centers on Massachusetts, which the MTA published two years ago amid efforts to fight what would become Question 2 on the 2016 Massachusetts ballot — an attempt to radically expand charter schools.
Threat from the Right Intensifies details the forces currently allied against public education and public-sector workers. It covers subjects including the continuing efforts of right-wing “privatization players,” the policies promoted by President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and Janus v. AFSCME, a pending U.S. Supreme Court case that poses an existential threat to public-sector unions.
The report — which was written as the result of a new business item passed by delegates to the 2017 MTA Annual Meeting — also explores the fast-growing classroom-based trend of “personalized learning” and the alarming clip at which educators are being asked to embrace it despite a lack of evidence supporting its benefits.
While the report paints a dire picture of the forces assembled to bring down public education, members are reminded that the pro-charter effort was defeated — largely because of the trusted voices of public educators. The Save Our Public Schools coalition, it notes, carried the day “despite the best efforts of corporate interests that outspent the No on 2 side by many millions of dollars, the prominent endorsement of the initiative by a highly popular governor, and the full power of the right wing.”
Check out the MTA's initiative page, Opposing Privatization, for additional information.