I have some ideas for action that teachers can take instead of striking to address inequity issues. I've tried to come up with actions that are about denying service to our employers (district, state) while continuing to provide service to our students. Most of these have some sort of financial consequence attached to them, too, which might make them more effective actions:
- What if we refuse to administer Standardized tests? We still come to work, but we just teach on those days and don't do the tests. Far from being something that hurts our students, I think this would actually help them (since taking those tests is of no benefit to them at all), and at the same time throws a monkey wrench into the district and state bureaucracies.
- (This is my favorite) What if we refuse to comply with district requests that we kowtow to "high profile" parents and bend over backward to meet their demands at the expense of the vast majority of our poor students who are not politically connected or economically powerful? What if we instead partner with the Union and the district to encourage those parents to join class action lawsuits against the state and federal governments for not adequately funding education to allow us to provide mandated services to all students? I personally would feel very free to tell a parent that I cannot provide a service to their child that I would not also be able to provide at the same level to every child in my charge with similar needs within the parameters of my contract. Let's turn these parents with financial and political clout into our allies to fight for funding for all students!
Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be worthwhile? Wouldn't it be better directed at those who are perpetuating the problem and victimizing our kids (especially the poor kids) instead of turning those same kids into "collateral damage" in a messy battle that they have no control over?
What do you think?
- "...but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!"
Showing posts with label strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strike. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Why I Won't Strike: Second Draft
Okay, here's my second draft. I'd appreciate feedback! Feel free to send this to anyone else that you think might have thoughts on this topic. (The first draft is the post immediately preceding this one.)
Funding education is the primary way in which we as a people collectively invest in our children. While everyone is willing to invest in their own education and their own children's education, our fiscal policies betray how little other people’s children are valued; for a budget is surely a moral document, setting forth those things that we deem worth investing in and those we begrudgingly allow to pick up the crumbs which fall from the table. Children are politically and economically weak and vulnerable, and the machine that drives our policy is at best indifferent (but more often hostile) to the needs of a demographic that doesn't vote, pay taxes, or contribute to political campaigns.
That is why I am a teacher. In a world where children receive a clear message that they are not valuable to society at large, my hope is that my presence, my work, and my care for my students communicates to them that one person, at least, does value them and has chosen to link my life and my fortunes to theirs. The ethos of the teaching profession is a frank rejection of the prevailing culture’s assumption that our career paths are determined first and foremost on the basis of economic factors, since all of us have a degree of training and education that would qualify us for a substantially higher pay scale in the private sector. A teacher’s salary does not represent fair compensation for services rendered, for if it did, we would surely be paid far more. Instead, our salary allows us to spend our time in the classroom with our students rather than being forced to go out and find other employment to provide food, clothing and shelter for ourselves and our families. This stance makes us vulnerable, for the powers that be know that a people driven by compassion for those they serve will not readily forsake those served for their own economic self interest. Our willingness to forego a higher paying career for the sake of our vocation opens us up to be taken advantage of by those who are counting on our unwillingness to abandon our students.
So, how are we to respond when our vulnerabilities are exploited? One option is to call their bluff, and walk out on our position, forcing those who hold the purse strings to meet our demands or lose our services. This option is an attempt to turn an inherently weak and vulnerable position into one of strength; to use threats and power to force others to our will. If we take this path, we offer validation to those who operate under the presumption that might makes right by adopting their methods as our own.
I will not take this path. It is true that our children are not valued, and they are left weak and vulnerable to those mercenaries in power whose influence is available to the highest bidder. By virtue of my education and socio-economic status, I have access to the benefits that the system holds out to those as fortunate as I have been. My students do not have the options that I have. I choose, therefore, to throw in my lot with my students, to let their fortunes be mine, to give up the level of control over my own life that society offers to me and instead subject myself to the caprices of the powerful. I will raise my voice to decry the injustices that marginalize my students and their families, but I will not abandon my students when those same injustices throw my life into the same kind of uncertainty that is their daily reality. I am a teacher, and my professional life is lived for the sake of those I serve. Though they are despised by society, I honor them, and to the extent that I am able to join them in their suffering, I receive it as an honor that the world at large cannot recognize, but which is of greater value than any concessions that can be won by the threat or enactment of a strike.
- "If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don't have the strength to live in a world like that..."
Funding education is the primary way in which we as a people collectively invest in our children. While everyone is willing to invest in their own education and their own children's education, our fiscal policies betray how little other people’s children are valued; for a budget is surely a moral document, setting forth those things that we deem worth investing in and those we begrudgingly allow to pick up the crumbs which fall from the table. Children are politically and economically weak and vulnerable, and the machine that drives our policy is at best indifferent (but more often hostile) to the needs of a demographic that doesn't vote, pay taxes, or contribute to political campaigns.
That is why I am a teacher. In a world where children receive a clear message that they are not valuable to society at large, my hope is that my presence, my work, and my care for my students communicates to them that one person, at least, does value them and has chosen to link my life and my fortunes to theirs. The ethos of the teaching profession is a frank rejection of the prevailing culture’s assumption that our career paths are determined first and foremost on the basis of economic factors, since all of us have a degree of training and education that would qualify us for a substantially higher pay scale in the private sector. A teacher’s salary does not represent fair compensation for services rendered, for if it did, we would surely be paid far more. Instead, our salary allows us to spend our time in the classroom with our students rather than being forced to go out and find other employment to provide food, clothing and shelter for ourselves and our families. This stance makes us vulnerable, for the powers that be know that a people driven by compassion for those they serve will not readily forsake those served for their own economic self interest. Our willingness to forego a higher paying career for the sake of our vocation opens us up to be taken advantage of by those who are counting on our unwillingness to abandon our students.
So, how are we to respond when our vulnerabilities are exploited? One option is to call their bluff, and walk out on our position, forcing those who hold the purse strings to meet our demands or lose our services. This option is an attempt to turn an inherently weak and vulnerable position into one of strength; to use threats and power to force others to our will. If we take this path, we offer validation to those who operate under the presumption that might makes right by adopting their methods as our own.
I will not take this path. It is true that our children are not valued, and they are left weak and vulnerable to those mercenaries in power whose influence is available to the highest bidder. By virtue of my education and socio-economic status, I have access to the benefits that the system holds out to those as fortunate as I have been. My students do not have the options that I have. I choose, therefore, to throw in my lot with my students, to let their fortunes be mine, to give up the level of control over my own life that society offers to me and instead subject myself to the caprices of the powerful. I will raise my voice to decry the injustices that marginalize my students and their families, but I will not abandon my students when those same injustices throw my life into the same kind of uncertainty that is their daily reality. I am a teacher, and my professional life is lived for the sake of those I serve. Though they are despised by society, I honor them, and to the extent that I am able to join them in their suffering, I receive it as an honor that the world at large cannot recognize, but which is of greater value than any concessions that can be won by the threat or enactment of a strike.
- "If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don't have the strength to live in a world like that..."
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Why I Won't Strike
I wrote a while back about my struggles over the question of whether to join in a strike if it comes to that in my school district. Here's where I've landed after a lot of reflection, discussion, and prayer. This is a first draft, so I'd appreciate your input, especially since I'm thinking of reading this at our union general assembly where we're supposed to vote on whether to grant strike authorization to our negotiating team. (First of all, I think it's much too long, so I'd appreciate you letting me know what points seem worth making and what seems to just be repetitious or tangential. Any other feedback would be great, too!)
Education is not valued by our society. Everyone values their own education, and their own children's education, to be sure, but when it comes to funding the education of other people's children, our budget betrays our values; for a budget is surely a moral document, setting forth those things that we deem worth investing in and those we begrudgingly allow to pick up the crumbs which fall from the table. This relegation of education to the basement of our fiscal priorities is evident when we look at the budgets and policies of government at national, state, and local levels.
Funding education is the primary way in which we as a people collectively invest in our children. The woeful state of education funding is direct evidence of how little other people's children are valued at a political and economic level. Children are politically and economically weak and vulnerable, and the machine that drives our policy is at best indifferent (but more often hostile) to the needs of a demographic that doesn't vote, pay taxes, or contribute to political campaigns.
That is why I am a teacher. In a world where children receive a clear message that they are not valuable to society at large, I hope that my presence, my work, and my care for my students communicates to them that one person, at least, does value them and has chosen to link my life and my fortunes to theirs. We all know that the ethos of the teaching profession is not driven by economics: all of us have a degree of training and education that would qualify us for a substantially higher pay scale in the private sector. For us, our salary does not represent fair compensation for the services we render, for if it did, we would surely be paid far more. Instead, our salary allows us to spend our time in the classroom with our students rather than being forced to go out and find other employment to provide food, clothing and shelter for ourselves and our families. This stance makes us vulnerable, for the powers that be know that a people driven by compassion for those they serve will not readily forsake those served for their own economic self interest. Our willingness to forego a higher paying career for the sake of our vocation opens us up to be taken advantage of by those who are counting on our unwillingness to abandon our students.
So, what are we to do? One option is to call their bluff, and walk out on our position, forcing those who have the power to determine our financial fate to deal with us or lose our services. This option is an attempt to turn an inherently weak and vulnerable position into one of strength; to use threats and power to force others to our will. This brings us into the extended family of those who embrace force and power as the means to enforce our will on others. We make ourselves distant cousins to both those who set US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan on one side and with the leaders of the street gangs with whom we too often find ourselves in direct competition for the loyalties and future of our students on the other. We at once validate their methodology and deny our own better selves by declaring that yes, strength is the ultimate arbiter of truth and the arena for deciding our values.
I will not take this path. It is true that our children are not valued, and they are left weak and vulnerable to those mercenaries in power whose influence is available to the highest bidder. By virtue of my education and socio-economic status, I have access to the benefits that the system holds out to those as fortunate as I have been. My students do not have the options that I have. I choose, therefore, to throw in my lot with my students, to let their fortunes be mine, to give up the level of control over my own life that society offers to me and instead subject myself to the caprices of the powerful. I will raise my voice to decry the injustices that marginalize my students and their families, but I will not abandon my students when those same injustices throw my life into the same kind of uncertainty that is the daily reality my students live with. I am a teacher, and my professional life is lived for the sake of those I serve. Though they are despised by society, I honor them, and to the extent that I am able to join them in their suffering, I receive it as an honor that the world at large cannot recognize, but which is of greater value than any concessions that can be won by the threat of a strike.
- "If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don't have the strength to live in a world like that..."
Education is not valued by our society. Everyone values their own education, and their own children's education, to be sure, but when it comes to funding the education of other people's children, our budget betrays our values; for a budget is surely a moral document, setting forth those things that we deem worth investing in and those we begrudgingly allow to pick up the crumbs which fall from the table. This relegation of education to the basement of our fiscal priorities is evident when we look at the budgets and policies of government at national, state, and local levels.
Funding education is the primary way in which we as a people collectively invest in our children. The woeful state of education funding is direct evidence of how little other people's children are valued at a political and economic level. Children are politically and economically weak and vulnerable, and the machine that drives our policy is at best indifferent (but more often hostile) to the needs of a demographic that doesn't vote, pay taxes, or contribute to political campaigns.
That is why I am a teacher. In a world where children receive a clear message that they are not valuable to society at large, I hope that my presence, my work, and my care for my students communicates to them that one person, at least, does value them and has chosen to link my life and my fortunes to theirs. We all know that the ethos of the teaching profession is not driven by economics: all of us have a degree of training and education that would qualify us for a substantially higher pay scale in the private sector. For us, our salary does not represent fair compensation for the services we render, for if it did, we would surely be paid far more. Instead, our salary allows us to spend our time in the classroom with our students rather than being forced to go out and find other employment to provide food, clothing and shelter for ourselves and our families. This stance makes us vulnerable, for the powers that be know that a people driven by compassion for those they serve will not readily forsake those served for their own economic self interest. Our willingness to forego a higher paying career for the sake of our vocation opens us up to be taken advantage of by those who are counting on our unwillingness to abandon our students.
So, what are we to do? One option is to call their bluff, and walk out on our position, forcing those who have the power to determine our financial fate to deal with us or lose our services. This option is an attempt to turn an inherently weak and vulnerable position into one of strength; to use threats and power to force others to our will. This brings us into the extended family of those who embrace force and power as the means to enforce our will on others. We make ourselves distant cousins to both those who set US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan on one side and with the leaders of the street gangs with whom we too often find ourselves in direct competition for the loyalties and future of our students on the other. We at once validate their methodology and deny our own better selves by declaring that yes, strength is the ultimate arbiter of truth and the arena for deciding our values.
I will not take this path. It is true that our children are not valued, and they are left weak and vulnerable to those mercenaries in power whose influence is available to the highest bidder. By virtue of my education and socio-economic status, I have access to the benefits that the system holds out to those as fortunate as I have been. My students do not have the options that I have. I choose, therefore, to throw in my lot with my students, to let their fortunes be mine, to give up the level of control over my own life that society offers to me and instead subject myself to the caprices of the powerful. I will raise my voice to decry the injustices that marginalize my students and their families, but I will not abandon my students when those same injustices throw my life into the same kind of uncertainty that is the daily reality my students live with. I am a teacher, and my professional life is lived for the sake of those I serve. Though they are despised by society, I honor them, and to the extent that I am able to join them in their suffering, I receive it as an honor that the world at large cannot recognize, but which is of greater value than any concessions that can be won by the threat of a strike.
- "If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don't have the strength to live in a world like that..."
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
To strike or not to strike...
I just had a really helpful conversation with my colleagues in the math department here at Mission High School. We talked about why we became teachers, and why we teach at Mission. I'll share my story, and suffice it to say that there was significant overlap in key areas among the department.
I knew I wanted to teach at MHS before I even knew what MHS was. When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to teach at the high school where the Latino immigrants went. If you teach in LA, that description fits a lot of schools, but in SF, Mission High School is the place to be.
I grew up in a family of teachers: my mom and her three sisters were all elementary school teachers working with Latino immigrant kids in the LA area. My uncle is an actor and writer, but his biggest gig up to that point ("that point" being the year I graduated from college) had been as part of the ensemble cast of "Square One Television," a PBS show that did sketch comedy about math... so we can count him as a teacher, too. My mom's family had immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was 7 years old, and I knew from my own family's history that immigrant children face a monstrous barrier to education in the fact that they don't speak or understand English. A child immersed in English can become conversant in a year or two, and functionally literate in five to seven years if they are just thrown into the same classes as the other students that speak English as a native language. The price they pay, however, is all of the content in their other classes while they're learning English. Around the time I was finishing college, it was clear that the general population of California was trying very hard to believe that immigrant students did not need (or perhaps, did not deserve) additional support while they learned English. There were propositions trying to do away with bilingual education as well as trying to make sure that undocumented immigrants (whose work is vital to the functioning of our economy... but that's for another blog entry) were denied access to services like emergency medical services that are paid for by public money.
I knew that there were kids who needed more help than society was willing to provide, more help than their families had the resources to find, and I knew that those were the kids that I wanted to teach.
So now I do teach those kids. I teach math to students who have been in the US for less than 2 years (4 semesters). I get new students almost weekly from all over the world, and they all come into my room with one thing in common: they don't understand English.
Now back to the title of this entry: to strike or not to strike? Our union has been deliberating with our district for three years over our contract. We've been working without a contract for over two years. The most immediate bone of contention as we lead up to the possibility of a strike is over COLA (Cost Of Living Allowance) money from the state. The way it is now, we've gone five years without a cost of living increase, although the cost of living (especially in San Francisco) has certainly gone up in that time. For years, we've been hearing that its because there just isn't money; not from the state, not from the feds, not in increased tax revenue, nowhere. We learned recently, however, that money had been released by the state to our district to cover a COLA of 15%! Great news, right? Well, in negotiations, the district offered our union a COLA of 2%, and not retroactive. If the state had just given us some long overdue money into the general budget and it had gone to cover other vital expenses, that would be one thing. The problem is, the state released this money specifically to cover a COLA. So where did it go? Nobody knows.
For the diehard unionists, this is the rallying call to a strike. It serves as proof-positive of the district's corruption, incompetence, intractability, mean-spiritedness or some combination of all of these. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't necessarily follow the logic that leads inexorably to a strike. First of all, I see a strike as the labor-relations equivalent to war: you don't go to war until all diplomatic options have been thoroughly exhausted. A strike is the ultimate action... there is no next step after a strike.
Second of all, I am aware of the ways that the position of teacher is different than say, a hotel worker or airline mechanic or factory worker. Those people produce a product or provide a service that directly lead to their employers turning a profit. The pressure on their employers is economic: without workers productivity goes down which drives down profit. The public-relations hit is a secondary pressure, but it's not the primary pressure. For teachers, we don't contribute to a profit-bearing product. Our employers only spend money, they don't make any, and they spend the same amount on education regardless of how effective we are as educators. The only pressure on our employer is public relations, and since our employers are politicians, that PR pressure only affects them at the level of possibly costing them votes in the future.
The problem is that shifting more money to education would get them votes in the future, if the public were accurately informed about it. The political machine, however, is funded and powered by interests outside of education with enormous bankrolls who spend countless dollars to bombard the public with messages of dubious authenticity and almost no relevance to the issues at hand. These messages serve to accomplish one goal: get the guy elected whose gonna make sure I pay as little as possible and get back as much as I can. Not too many of these power brokers are educators. We're busy with, well, with education.
So we have unions to do that work for us. But the reason we need unions to do it is because it's work that runs antithetical to the ethos of the teaching profession. It's a Catch-22 situation: it's work that teachers don't want to do (and for some, the work they got into teaching to avoid). If it's not done, however, the powers that be will continue to whittle away at the teaching profession to the point that even those who care nothing for money will have to leave their students to find jobs that pay them enough to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families.
So I ask again: To strike or not to strike? Is a strike morally permissible? Is it politically expedient? Does it have a chance of accomplishing what it's meant to? Does it matter? Is it standing with the marginalized professionals against the government machine, or is it standing with calculating careerists against helpless students? Or are we spending our time and energy fighting the wrong enemy? Who has the money... the district? Is the district spending billions on unwinnable wars instead of on education? Is the district finding new ways every day to give tax breaks to millionaires while decreasing tax-breaks for the middle classes? Is the district shifting money away from local governments by requiring them to spend millions on "special elections" to get around the elected legislature and try to snow the public with slickly packaged initiatives that blame and punish teachers for the failures in education and give excuses to try and fix the problem by making it harder to become and remain a teacher?
I think that every teacher in California should strike together. Our struggle is not with the SFUSD, it's with Sacramento. All of the teachers in America should strike together. We should be addressing these problems to those who have created them. These are strikes that I would gladly join in.
But should the teachers of the SFUSD strike? And if they do, should I join them? Should I cross picket lines with my students and teach them?
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you.
"Anyone? Something -D -O -O economics? Voodoo economics."
I knew I wanted to teach at MHS before I even knew what MHS was. When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to teach at the high school where the Latino immigrants went. If you teach in LA, that description fits a lot of schools, but in SF, Mission High School is the place to be.
I grew up in a family of teachers: my mom and her three sisters were all elementary school teachers working with Latino immigrant kids in the LA area. My uncle is an actor and writer, but his biggest gig up to that point ("that point" being the year I graduated from college) had been as part of the ensemble cast of "Square One Television," a PBS show that did sketch comedy about math... so we can count him as a teacher, too. My mom's family had immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was 7 years old, and I knew from my own family's history that immigrant children face a monstrous barrier to education in the fact that they don't speak or understand English. A child immersed in English can become conversant in a year or two, and functionally literate in five to seven years if they are just thrown into the same classes as the other students that speak English as a native language. The price they pay, however, is all of the content in their other classes while they're learning English. Around the time I was finishing college, it was clear that the general population of California was trying very hard to believe that immigrant students did not need (or perhaps, did not deserve) additional support while they learned English. There were propositions trying to do away with bilingual education as well as trying to make sure that undocumented immigrants (whose work is vital to the functioning of our economy... but that's for another blog entry) were denied access to services like emergency medical services that are paid for by public money.
I knew that there were kids who needed more help than society was willing to provide, more help than their families had the resources to find, and I knew that those were the kids that I wanted to teach.
So now I do teach those kids. I teach math to students who have been in the US for less than 2 years (4 semesters). I get new students almost weekly from all over the world, and they all come into my room with one thing in common: they don't understand English.
Now back to the title of this entry: to strike or not to strike? Our union has been deliberating with our district for three years over our contract. We've been working without a contract for over two years. The most immediate bone of contention as we lead up to the possibility of a strike is over COLA (Cost Of Living Allowance) money from the state. The way it is now, we've gone five years without a cost of living increase, although the cost of living (especially in San Francisco) has certainly gone up in that time. For years, we've been hearing that its because there just isn't money; not from the state, not from the feds, not in increased tax revenue, nowhere. We learned recently, however, that money had been released by the state to our district to cover a COLA of 15%! Great news, right? Well, in negotiations, the district offered our union a COLA of 2%, and not retroactive. If the state had just given us some long overdue money into the general budget and it had gone to cover other vital expenses, that would be one thing. The problem is, the state released this money specifically to cover a COLA. So where did it go? Nobody knows.
For the diehard unionists, this is the rallying call to a strike. It serves as proof-positive of the district's corruption, incompetence, intractability, mean-spiritedness or some combination of all of these. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't necessarily follow the logic that leads inexorably to a strike. First of all, I see a strike as the labor-relations equivalent to war: you don't go to war until all diplomatic options have been thoroughly exhausted. A strike is the ultimate action... there is no next step after a strike.
Second of all, I am aware of the ways that the position of teacher is different than say, a hotel worker or airline mechanic or factory worker. Those people produce a product or provide a service that directly lead to their employers turning a profit. The pressure on their employers is economic: without workers productivity goes down which drives down profit. The public-relations hit is a secondary pressure, but it's not the primary pressure. For teachers, we don't contribute to a profit-bearing product. Our employers only spend money, they don't make any, and they spend the same amount on education regardless of how effective we are as educators. The only pressure on our employer is public relations, and since our employers are politicians, that PR pressure only affects them at the level of possibly costing them votes in the future.
The problem is that shifting more money to education would get them votes in the future, if the public were accurately informed about it. The political machine, however, is funded and powered by interests outside of education with enormous bankrolls who spend countless dollars to bombard the public with messages of dubious authenticity and almost no relevance to the issues at hand. These messages serve to accomplish one goal: get the guy elected whose gonna make sure I pay as little as possible and get back as much as I can. Not too many of these power brokers are educators. We're busy with, well, with education.
So we have unions to do that work for us. But the reason we need unions to do it is because it's work that runs antithetical to the ethos of the teaching profession. It's a Catch-22 situation: it's work that teachers don't want to do (and for some, the work they got into teaching to avoid). If it's not done, however, the powers that be will continue to whittle away at the teaching profession to the point that even those who care nothing for money will have to leave their students to find jobs that pay them enough to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families.
So I ask again: To strike or not to strike? Is a strike morally permissible? Is it politically expedient? Does it have a chance of accomplishing what it's meant to? Does it matter? Is it standing with the marginalized professionals against the government machine, or is it standing with calculating careerists against helpless students? Or are we spending our time and energy fighting the wrong enemy? Who has the money... the district? Is the district spending billions on unwinnable wars instead of on education? Is the district finding new ways every day to give tax breaks to millionaires while decreasing tax-breaks for the middle classes? Is the district shifting money away from local governments by requiring them to spend millions on "special elections" to get around the elected legislature and try to snow the public with slickly packaged initiatives that blame and punish teachers for the failures in education and give excuses to try and fix the problem by making it harder to become and remain a teacher?
I think that every teacher in California should strike together. Our struggle is not with the SFUSD, it's with Sacramento. All of the teachers in America should strike together. We should be addressing these problems to those who have created them. These are strikes that I would gladly join in.
But should the teachers of the SFUSD strike? And if they do, should I join them? Should I cross picket lines with my students and teach them?
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you.
"Anyone? Something -D -O -O economics? Voodoo economics."
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