As Wisconsin teachers and other teachers throughout the United States lead the fight against union busting and scapegoating of teachers and other public workers, Obama is deliberately making it clear that it is he, and no one else, who is their main enemy.
He did this by publicizing a meeting in Florida on Friday which is a celebration of the anti-teacher crackdown—a meeting with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, at Miami Central Senior High. Why Miami Central Senior High? Because it is one of the many predominantly Black high schools around the country which have been forced, under Obama's "Race to the Top" (or, "Racist at the Top") program, to fire its principal and half of its dedicated teachers, as the price for a little handout of Federal taxpayer funds. RTTT can also force districts to close so-called "failing" minority schools entirely, or to hand them over to the corporate bloodsuckers of the private so-called "charter" schools
This is precisely why all the leading U.S. civil rights organizations (Urban League, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Council for Educating Black Children, and the Schott Foundation) criticized Obama's RTTT as a violation of civil rights in a joint report of July 26, 2010.
Where does Obama stand on Providence, Rhode Island's firing all its teachers en masse recently? It should be obvious: When Rhode Island's Central Falls district, the state's poorest, fired all its teachers early in 2010, Obama publicly supported the firings in another "educational" event at the US Chamber of Commerce on March 1, 2010. Those firings have since been rescinded, despite Obama.
The reason for the showcase invitation to Jeb Bush, is that he pioneered precisely the Obama type of racist and anti-teacher reforms when he was Governor, which are now being continued by current Republican Gov. Rick Scott.
As Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio are in an uproar against union-busting moves against public (and private) employees, the state of Florida, which Obama is visiting today, is considering legislation, fully supported by Governor Scott, which would: 1) tie at least half of a teacher's salary to his or her students' scores on standardized tests; 2) prevent consideration of many advanced degrees and much special training in determining teacher salaries; 3) eliminate tenure for teachers hired after the summer of 2014; and 4) require the creation of new standardized assessments for all courses. All with the full support of Governor Scott, a "right-to-work," i.e. union-busting Republican—and, more important, with Obama's full support forcefully demonstrated again.
