First of all, let's address test scores. Kristof argues that poverty does negatively impact student test scores but that, "Some Chicago teachers seem to think that they shouldn’t be held accountable until poverty is solved." Standardized tests are mired in inequities to begin with. Tests are culturally biased and inefficient at actually measuring learning. However, my ability to teach will be, in large part, based on how well my students, two of whom entered the ninth grade reading on grade level, can perform on a standardized test.
More importantly, Kristof has effectively equated the concept of being educated with that of test success and desires a teacher population that willingly acquiesces to this concept. For someone who writes about human rights and advocates for equality, the push to denigrate workers who fight against the business model as applied to a far more difficult to measure concept like education, is counterproductive. Does he think that classrooms where teachers are pressured (for their own survival) to ensure that students pass tests where the culturally elite have determined what body of knowledge is most important will produce an analytical, creative, and critical body of citizens? To be educated means far more than earning a 65 or higher on the New York State Regents Examination. It means having an ability to "read the world." While students who enter school with higher literacy skills will go on to have an education in which they are learning to think critically and thus will take on the roles of policy makers and advocates in the future, students who enter school at a far lower literacy level, will likely be "taught for the test" as a mere function of their teacher's self preservation.
To argue that he doesn't see how these Chicago teachers are putting their student's rights first is baffling to me. This strike goes beyond his myopic view of teachers simply fighting for concessions in regards to evaluations based on tests or a longer school day, or a "re-zoning" act that, in turn, ensures that schools can staff their teacher population with a new and cheaper work force. This is about students and their right to a fair, just, and critical education in which inequities are not reproduced through schooling.
But, oh right, clearly I, and all teachers, are in this profession for the money, for the glory, for the respect, for the short workdays, for the abundance of classroom resources at our fingertips every single day, for the summers off, for finding the one job in which there is absolutely no evaluation, and for a career in which our innate laziness is rewarded. Because really, that is the true nature of unions and strikes, right? To protect mediocrity. To reward laziness. To justify not going to work for a few days.
I invite you, Kristof, to take my job for one year. Then, let's talk.
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