Fuck the New York Times. Double Fuck the Wall Street Journal.

I read the news today, and Oh Boy.

Schools are opening again at the end of Winter Break and Omicron is kicking ass with nine hundred thousand new COVID cases a day, and kids and teachers and staff are sick and scared, but according to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the problem is...?

If you said god damn teachers and their god damn unions, YOU WIN!

I tweeted out a response calling out the union-busting privatizers and profiteers along with their media boosters, and I thought I'd share that tweet here. Solidarity, Chicago Teachers Union! Stay safe. Stay strong.

 

Here's Josh Marshall on what's happening in New York schools. There are similar stories from around the country. It's not simply a question of open or closed. Does open mean safe? Meaningful? Are promised safety protocols real or CYA lip service?

Politicians and ideologues insist "Schools must be open!" and "Think of the children!" Parents, frustrated and exhausted from these last two years, shout their assent or just nod along, not really knowing what they are signing their kids up for. Many parents whose students are privileged to attend well-funded schools can be confident that their kids will be taken care of. Other parents face the impossible but inescapable decision to gamble the safety of their children against their ability to provide for them.

What a perfect opportunity for the privatizers and profiteers to bash teachers and their unions and impugn the entire notion of public schooling!

These vultures conveniently ignore the fact that their decades-long project of degrading, starving, and slicing up public schools has led directly to the crowded classrooms, staff shortages, and inadequate resourcing we are grappling with in this moment.

Oh, and you know who else ignores it? The New York Times with its faux concern for students obscuring the sideways wink to its anti-union corporate masters and privileged readership. Well, fuck the New York Times.

And while we're at it, double fuck the Wall Street Journal with its hysterical "political scandal of the year" bullshit and its call to use Chicago teachers' concerns over safe school openings as an excuse to institute a voucher program. Yes, double fuck them.

Links deliberately omitted because, of course, fuck them.

The pandemic has magnified a lot of problems with public schooling: insufficient resources (particularly technology), hapless administrations, low staff morale, flagging public confidence and the lack of enlightened political leadership and support. For teachers, these are familiar challenges in an extraordinary time.

But one of the greatest threats schools face, apart from COVID itself, is the investor class with its media allies that are using this emergency as an opportunity to advance their financial interests in the privatization project.

We know this stuff already. I plan to keep going until everyone does. Stay safe. Stay strong.

And by the way, UTLA? Are you there?