By Ashleigh Costello
EAGnews.org

MILWAUKEE – Apparently, it is sexist to criticize America’s failing education system and advocate for reform.

A recent article from Rethinking Schools, which was republished by the feminist blog msmagazine.com, accuses education reformers of being the “new misogynists” of the 21st century.

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“Attacks on teachers—and other public sector workers such as nurses and social workers—are overwhelmingly attacks on women,” reads the article.

“ When ‘reformers,’ from former D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, portray teachers as incompetent, incapable of leadership and selfish, they don’t need to specify women teachers for that to be the image in people’s minds—76 percent of U.S. teachers are women.”

So, because the majority of teachers are women, they should not be held accountable? Somehow, it’s doubtful that’s what Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first president of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, had in mind when she was fighting for equal rights.

Declaring that female teachers should receive special treatment is sexism in itself. Teachers, regardless of gender, should be treated as professionals and taxpayers have a right to demand higher standards.

The article goes on to argue that criticism of teachers unions equates to setting women’s rights back 80 years.

“The decimation of teachers’ unions and tenure structures seems aimed at forcing K-12 teaching back to the era before teaching became a profession, when young women—barely trained and constrained by regulations enforcing their clothing, living situations and drinking—taught for a few years before they got married,” according to the editors of Rethinking Schools.

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What about students’ rights?

Teachers aren’t being criticized because they are women.  They (and their unions) are being criticized because the education system is not reaching its potential to properly serve our students.  Although education spending has exponentially increased over years, student achievement has been flat or even declining in some instances.  Teachers unions stand by ineffective teachers and refuse to compromise with administrators.  In the end it’s the children who suffer.

The real question is: why aren’t more teachers, male or female, standing up for the rights of children?