Organizing
Educators…
I
attended the Representative Assembly for WEAC in LaCrosse last weekend. While spending one of the first beautiful
days of the spring inside a convention center just a stone's throw from the Mississippi River might not be anyone's idea of
"fun" the experience was, as usual, eye opening and thought
provoking. A few thoughts…
--While
driving to, and through LaCrosse I saw lots of evidence of different
organizations that represent many different groups. I found myself wondering, why is it perfectly
acceptable for farmers to group together to form co-ops to help keep the costs
of necessary supplies and other resources more manageable? Why is it fine for businesses to organize
into local Chamber of Commerce groups to better represent their interests? Why is it unacceptable to some of the people
who are part of these groups for educators to organize in order to represent
our interests?
--There
was a lot of discussion and debate at the assembly around the need to change WEAC's
organizational style and to put the focus back on local educator unions and
organizations. However, in the end the
group elected the current vice president as president and the current
secretary-treasurer as vice president.
Meaning no offense to the two new leaders of WEAC, but it was clear
during the assembly that change is difficult for many of the unions that are
part of WEAC. For whatever reasons,
large organizations like WEAC tend to be conservative in nature when it comes
to redefining themselves and changing their methods of operation.
www.suntimes.com
--To
me it seems like this is the time to put all of our emphasis on building solidarity
and engagement at the local level.
Larger organizations like WEAC and AFT have more resources and are able
to get their message out to a wider audience, but they also face the challenges
of representing districts that are very diverse in their strengths and
needs. Instead of trying to be the voice
for all educators in Wisconsin,
I believe that the state wide organizations should be using their resources to
support the locals. In my opinion,
unions work best when the energy and ideas come from the individual members in
their local organizations. WEAC will
survive and thrive when the individual unions that make up the membership are
healthy and strong.
--Everyone
needs a voice in discussions and a place to air their ideas. Larger districts tend to dominate discussions
about education, but our smaller communities must be able to represent
themselves as well. In the current
climate this is difficult for these smaller districts and the educators who
work in them. They may lack the
membership and resources, but their efforts are no less valuable in the
struggle to defend public education.
--I
was part of multiple conversations with individuals from smaller districts
around the state and their stories were extremely distressing, yet at the same time
uplifting. The people I talked to told
stories about abuses of power by administrators and school boards who are
taking advantage of the power given to them by Act 10. Yet they also told about the ways that the
educators in their districts were continuing to fight for their rights and for
public education.
--Once
again I found myself happy and proud of the ability of educators to have heated
debates about difficult issues and still work to create a collectively decided
course of action. As with any
organization, WEAC is not a single unified body, but rather a collection of
diverse groups and ideas. Instead of
silencing opposing views, listening to the different opinions and modifying
proposals creates more unity and stronger results.
--Educators face many
challenges in Wisconsin. One of them is the constant balancing act
between resisting changes that are bad for our students and our schools, while
still maintaining a presence in the debates around educational issues. The discussion about Educator Effectiveness
and WEAC's position on this evaluative process for educators is an example of
this problem. On one hand, we must
resist the continuing efforts to make standardized test scores a significant
part of any evaluation of public educators (or
schools/students/districts). On the
other hand, the current political climate and calls for accountability in education
means that we can't simply reject this concept.
How do educators resist
these changes and still maintain any sort of power in the debate? We need to make sure that we are working with
the families and communities we serve to rebuild their trust in our public
schools. If we are able to show that our
rejection of policies that call for massive testing efforts and quantifying
student learning in narrow ways aren't simply an effort to dodge accountability
then we can change the focus of the debate.
Educators don't fear accountability, we just fear being held accountable
for inaccurate and misleading information that doesn't help our students
achieve.
The
Economics of Public Education…
I find it troubling that
almost every discussion about education seems to end with some sort of budget
reference. While it is obviously true
that education has financial realities, it is my opinion that we put too much
importance on the financial aspects of education. The result of this misplaced emphasis is that
we lose sight of what our purpose is when we seek to educate members of our
population. Education isn't about a
bottom line, simply advancing a career or improving a business. It isn't about balancing a budget. Education is about hope, improving the future
and making sure we have a citizenry that is prepared to make thoughtful and
purposeful decisions for the benefit of our society.
What we are seeing as a
consequence of the misplaced focus on finances is a trend towards weakening of
educational opportunities and a transfer of power from educators to political
and business leaders. Far too many of
our decisions regarding education are made by those outside of the
profession. Our educational policies are
driven by those who would profit from implementing changes, not for the good of
the students.
Take for example the
recent efforts of school superintendents to try and influence their elected
representatives to increase state aid for our public schools. In this article Representative Nygren
epitomizes the problems supporters of public education face. He ducks questions about consolidating
smaller school districts by saying that he "didn't say that (consolidation
was a "tool" for districts to use), but you should be looking at
it." He declined to be specific
about the amount of state funding per student would be in the budget because
there were reporters present. He also
claimed that those who cut funding for schools and seek to privatize our
educational system have a valid argument when they say "it's about the
kids".
The problems for education
caused by economics go beyond state budgets and bigger policy issues. The increasing poverty that exists in our
communities, especially among families with younger children, significantly
increases the types services that our public schools must offer. Communities that haven't had considerable
numbers of families in poverty, now see a startling increase in families who
are struggling financially. Schools are
being asked to provide services above and beyond simply providing educational
opportunities to students.
Because schools themselves
are increasingly facing "poverty" due to cuts in funding, increasing costs of testing materials,
purchased curriculum and other costs, the financial difficulties of the
families we serve adds to the challenges of stretched school resources. The headline of this article unfairly uses
the word "burden" to represent these challenges. Students are not a burden to a school system,
they are the reason we exist. However,
students from poverty often have different learning needs and don't bring with
them the financial resources of wealthier families. This is especially true in an era of high
stakes testing where we see a clear Achievement Gap between students of
different economic classes.
The initiatives that
conservative "reformers" trumpet as positive and necessary are often
exactly the opposite. Their efforts are
often in direct opposition to what professional educators know works for today's
students. All too frequently, the
"reform" efforts don't even make financial sense.
Department
of Justice: DPI must ensure voucher schools accept, serve kids with
disabilities - JSOnli
How about State Senator
Mike Ellis' admission that, "Here's the bottom line: The voucher program
stinks."
"Patriotism",
Power and Politics…
One of the cornerstones of
any society or group is trust. No matter
how independent we may think we are, in the end we all rely on others to help
us survive and thrive. This is
especially true in our modern world where our work is often not directly
related to our needs for basic survival.
The same holds true for all of us as we look to create a society that
represents the values that we support.
Unfortunately, many of our
public figures are operating in ways that undermine our trust in their
actions. They say the right words, but
their motivations and loyalties are not always in line with their
rhetoric. While we hope that we are
electing our leaders to represent us, far too often we get leaders who
demonstrate the thinking Senator Ellis articulates when he says, "I know the
rules and I know the budget. He who has
knowledge can really screw people up."
The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats »
Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the
It is long past time for
the people of the United
States to put aside their lesser differences
and work to guide our leaders in more positive, unifying directions.
In order for this to
happen we need thoughtful, well educated citizens who have the opportunity and
information necessary to hold our leaders accountable for the policies they
create in our name.
There are many examples of
groups, normally not seen as allies, working together for common goals. We should be looking for more areas of
agreement instead of continuing adversarial relationships that harm our entire
society.
There are also many
individuals who are speaking out about issues and taking strong stands on
topics that may not make them "popular", but that do move our society
in a positive direction.
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