My Personal Stake in Defending Teachers

My parents, children of immigrants who became public school teachers, were harder working and more capable than any wealthy and prominent people I met in my journey from Brooklyn streets and schoolyards to an Ivy League college and a Professorship at Fordham. And so is my wife Liz, a public school principal. Attacking the dignity and integrity of such people, while undermining their autonomy and job security, is not only destroying our public schools, it is shredding the fabric of a democratic civic culture. Proud teachers produce proud citizens. Browbeaten and fearful teachers will produce frightened, compliant servants of the Rich.