[WS:] Where is it written that "taking care of the kids" is the job of the teacher or school? In the English language, the word 'teaching" means providing instruction or transmitting knowledge, not "taking care." The latter is the job of the parents or the social safety networks, no?
That's why it is so important to reframe the school debate, and on this one Carrol hit the nail right on its head. The unholy alliance of right wingers union busters school privatizers and teacher bashers use a clever stratagem of hiding their agenda behind the kid's backs. "It is all about the children, you know" - and by saying so they get on board union busters, dysfunctional parents who look someone else to blame for their own fuckups, school privatizers who salivate on the thought of public funding for education flowing to private pockets, and assorted malcontents who look for safe scapegoats to attack (schools and teachers are perfect targets). Just as poor workman blames his tool, the society that produces kids that are not available for school instruction blames the teachers - see my blog for more http://wsokol.blogspot.com/2012/01/edumacation-in-amerika.html
To this I can reply - if the kids are not ready for instruction, it is not the school's or teacher's problem to fix that. It is the problem of their parents, their communities, their social workers, the media that spread the cult of delinquency and anti-intellectualism, and the politicians that sanction it. The problem of the school, if there is any, is to create favorable environment for teaching, and that means taking proper care for people who do this job - as Carrol said.
"Taking care of the kids" is not only irrelevant - it is actually a diversion tactic to cover up a right wing agenda of attacking public education and its workers.
Wojtek