> But listening to him talk about LatAm and the Middle East really brings home how backward we in the USA are. The Bolivian teachers, for example, called for the state to pay for uniforms and shoes. Imagine if our teachers unions were doing something similar. It's almost like they want to make the right's task of demonizing them easier.
A further thought: Is anyone talking to US teachers' unions about this? If not, why not? What would be an appropriate set of demands? Obviously school uniforms don't make sense in the US context, but what's to stop us putting forward a radically new set of demands for an emancipatory curriculum for US learners and the resources to make it meaningful? Why (other than out of despair) have we accepted (as it seems to me we have) the prevailing framing of the debate in terms of OBE and "entitlements"-as-a-dirty-word? And how the fuck did "entitlement" become a dirty word anyway - as opposed to an ethical imperative which our collective failure to meet should be experienced as ear-warming, spine-chilling moral failure?
How the fuck have we forsaken the moral high ground that is our political birthright? They're fucking killing our kids' futures, for fuck's sake. How are we not outraged about that every waking moment of every fucking day? Okay, adrenalin fatigue, fine - I get that. But once we've all taken a breath and re-centred....
I trust list participants will understand the sharper edge of that anger is not directed at them.