Black Teachers Fired En Masse | Black Agenda Report

Black Teachers Fired En Masse

22 Feb 2012

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Educational policy in the Obama era isn't about education at all. It's about replacing skilled, experienced teachers with rootless temps better suited to serve in the privatized holding tanks they wish to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into, for a population on its way to low wage jobs and prisons.

Black Teachers Fired En Mass

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Blacks currently make up only 29 percent of Chicago’s teachers, but they comprised 43 percent of those recently fired...”

If you have any doubt that President Obama and his cronies are at the forefront of public school privatization and the decimation of Black teachers, just take a look at Chicago. That’s where Obama’s basketball buddy, Arne Duncan, wreaked havoc as schools chief until the new president appointed him secretary of education, and where Obama’s former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, now reins as mayor with overall control of the public schools. Arne Duncan fired 1,300 Chicago teachers during his eight years at the helm, the large majority of them Black women, replaced by mostly white, younger teachers at about half the cost. The teachers union sued, charging racial discrimination – a case that is still before the courts. Now, with a thousand more teachers fired last year under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the union has filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, once again charging racial discrimination. Blacks currently make up only 29 percent of Chicago’s teachers, but they comprised 43 percent of those recently fired. Whites represent almost half the teaching force, but only 36 percent of the layoffs. The union’s lawyer calls it a “systematic effort to rid the Chicago Public Schools of tenured teachers who are African-American.”

Community groups have joined the teachers in asking the courts to ha the closing of 17 supposedly “underperforming” schools, many of them on the city’s South Side. In Chicago, such closings wipe out the schools’ entire work force, right down to the janitors – whose performance, of course, has nothing to do with standardized test scores. But wholesale staff massacres clear the way for charter schools operated by private teaching corporations. The Academy for Urban School Leadership, a national charter school founded by a venture capitalist, once employed the current CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. The new crop of young, white teachers are largely graduates of programs funded by a Who’s Who of rightwing foundations and corporations – the people educator Diane Ravitch calls the “billionaire boys club.”

“Their goal is not just to break the teachers unions, but to de-professionalize education and to sunder all ties between teachers and the communities they serve. ”

President Obama has advanced the corporate project to privatize public education with lightning speed, inflicting far more damage in far less time than George Bush ever could – because George Bush is not a Black Democrat. Bush’s men called the teacher’s unions “terrorists” and other bad names, but Barack Obama has been a much more effective servant of the privatizers. Their goal is not just to break the teachers unions, but to de-professionalize education and to sunder all ties between teachers and the communities they serve. Thats why Black teachers have been targeted for mass firing in Chicago and all across the country. They tend to have tenure and to be staunch supporters of their unions, and they live in the communities where they work, as neighbors, parents and leaders. When Barack Obama and Arnie Duncan and Rahm Emanuel target Black teachers for mass elimination, they deliver a savage blow to African American community cohesion. Privatization of public schools is a central part of the disempowerment of Black America. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120222_gf_ChicagoSchools.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio September 12, 2025
12 Sep 2025
In this week’s segment we discuss a new book analyzing the need to confront counterinsurgency and fight against repression domestically and internationally. But first we hear from an activist on the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Organizing Against the Trump Takeover in Washington
12 Sep 2025
Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Washington to discuss Donald Trump’s declaration of emergency power to take over the operations of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Confronting Counterinsurgency: Cop Cities and Democracy's Terrors
12 Sep 2025
Joy James is a scholar and a political philosopher who works with organizers. She is editor of the new book Confronting Counterinsurgency: Cop Cities & Democracy’s Terrors, which is published by…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Super Predators, Born Criminals, and the Black Misleadership Class
10 Sep 2025
The treachery of the Black misleadership class knows no bounds. While Trump’s latest racist dog whistle about “born criminals” is condemned, double-talking scoundrels may pretend to be horrified…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Extended Remarks from UNAC Webinar: Troops Out of Our Cities! ICE Out of Our Communities! September 7, 2025
10 Sep 2025
The Trump administration’s declaration of war on American cities is a logical escalation of the white supremacist project. This is not a policy shift but a clearer revelation of the settler state's…