Teachers, their unions, and the "Human Capital" reform agenda

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An essay is being prepared for this page. The essay will outline the "Human Capital" strategy of the school reform movement, as it relates to teachers.

The school reform movement calls for teacher assessment, promotion, tenure, compensation decisions to be "driven by data." This is an anti-professional, disrespectful agenda that serves one of the fundamental reformist priorities, this being to reduce the cost of labor.

I am concerned that few teachers in SPS are aware of the efforts that are being made, particularly at the state and federal level, to get legislation passed that supports the anti-teacher agenda.

This lack of awareness may be due to union leadership cooperating with reformist advocates. I will document the nature of this cooperation.

In this article I will attempt to explain what the Human Capital strategy is, and why it is not good for the students of SPS, and why it is not good for teachers and their profession.