Last month, President Bush’s Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called America’s largest teachers’ union a “terrorist organization.” Why? Because teachers and the other professionals who run our schools told the truth: the Bush team has failed to live up to their promises on education. Please sign our petition demanding that President Bush fire Secretary Paige.
This is typical behavior for President Bush and his top officials. They say one thing — “no child left behind” — and do another — under-funding promises to our schools by $9.4 billion in the president’s latest budget. And when people dare to disagree with its policies, the Bush administration questions their patriotism and labels them terrorists in a time of war.
With your help, this petition drive will be big. MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America’s Future, US Action, ACORN, and groups representing teachers, parents, and students across the country are joining together in this drive.
Secretary Paige uses insults to defend the indefensible. Not only did the president break his promise to fund the reforms, his current budget calls for cuts in support for schools over the next five years. And he still wants to take billions from public schools to pay for private school vouchers. So Paige resorts to slurs: even in his supposed apology, he dismissed the growing teacher concerns as “obstructionist scare tactics.”
We teach our kids that calling names is not the right way to win an argument — in fact, it’s usually a sign that you don’t have the facts on your side. Making our schools better is a tough job. We need a Secretary of Education who sees teachers and their representatives as partners in this effort rather than as enemies. Join us in calling on President Bush to find a better person for the job.
UPDATE: A must-read article from the Black Commentator.
