When I first decided to become a teacher, I didn't think about being part of a union. It wasn't the reason that I became a teacher. I became a teacher because I wanted to help the community by providing an excellent education to the kids that I would be serving. I truly believed in my mission that by being a great teacher that I could change the life of a child. Ultimately this could have a significant impact on the community in which I chose to serve.
Never did I think that the career I chose a little over a decade ago would be facing such horrendous attacks from the right and the left.
Every single day that I stepped foot into my classroom, I gave more of myself to my students than I sometimes gave to my own family. This is something that many of us who teach in a high poverty urban area often do. This is because sometimes the need is so great that to give less than everything would mean to be a failure -- not necessarily to our students, but to ourselves.
With the demands that are often placed on teachers in high poverty urban areas, there is a great need to have a strong contract. In my almost ten years in a classroom, I've been accused of being a racist on more than one occasion. This is the unfortunate reality that many of us face regardless of the color of our skin when we are teaching in a diverse community.
As union president, I've seen more than one complaint come through lodged by a parent against a teacher. Many of these complaints stem from dissatisfaction with something that the teacher has done in the classroom. On more than one occasion a complaint has been filed, then followed with some type of disciplinary action. This has been done before the site administrator has contacted the teacher to discuss the situation.
Imagine being accused of something without being able to give your side of the story. Is there anyone out there who really believes that a teacher shouldn't have the right to meet with a parent who has lodged a complaint against them? (Please note that this does not include complaints that clearly break any laws under the penal code.)
It has made me angry that the profession that I entered into over a decade ago has become a scapegoat for all that is wrong with our country. Teachers can no longer count on friends on either side of the aisle as we deal with both democrats and republicans who have bought the idea that public education is a failure.
Each month, I pay my bills, my husband and I provide food and shelter for our family, and we make do with what we have. In our over 25 years together, the only help we have received from anyone has been within our own extended family. All either of us have wanted was to live the American dream.
How does that make me a villain? How does me wanting to give back to my community in a real and tangible way make me a "pathetic slob" feeding at the trough of the taxpayer? (This is a line I've seen more than once in reading comments around the web.) The sacrifice of my time with my family and friends has at times been all consuming. It was all done with the intention of wanting to do what is best for the students I serve.
My own kids used to cringe when I would refer to my students as "my kids." For my three, they saw me as their mom. They have always known (for the most part) stability, something that too many of my students did not experience. It makes no sense that the selflessness that I sought to give can now be viewed as selfishness from those who have never done this job.
As assaults on teachers, their unions, and the middle class increase, it makes me even more proud that not only am I glad to be a part of a union, I am more proud to serve over 800 teachers as their leader.
Follow Christal Watts on Twitter: www.twitter.com/christal_watts
AFT - American Federation of Teachers - A Union of Professionals
I proudly serve my country as a professional educator, just like my dad proudly served this country for over two decades in the U.S. Navy.
I must say though, that I think tenure and seniority-based layoffs, need to be done away with (though some due process protections must be in place). Every day, as I substitute in classes in middle and high schools as a co-teacher or teacher, I see examples of truly terrible, or non-existent, teaching. Part of this is made possible by inept administrators, but the union is complicit as well.
San Diego just sent over 1,000 lay-off notices to teachers and my 16-year old daughter came home asking why only the good teachers got notices. She is an excellent student who knows what good teaching is--she is not talking about the teachers she "likes,"' but the ones that push her to learn. When the students themselves are commenting on this, something needs to be changed.
As far as LIFO goes, I also do not know what would be the best way to go about making this change. I've seen too many vindictive principals who use evaluations as a way of going after teachers that they do not like rather than using it as a tool to improve teaching & learning.
If this country did away with all the teachers' unions in all the nation tomorrow, there would still be incompetent professionals in the system. And they would stay there and they would continue to keep teacher seats nice warm.
Whenever I hear someone (and this could be anyone from an ignorant HP poster in the comments section all the way up the ladder to President Obama himself) go, "You know what the problem is don't you? Those teachers' unions. They're such hack jobs." I instantly know I'm dealing with someone who's looking for quick and dirty fixes, not real solutions.
But then, most people with even a loose grasp of history can see what's going on here: Somebody with VIP credentials has decided it's to their financial/political/corporate advantage to do away with pesky unions. The second NCLB was passed, I understood: somebody, somewhere, wants out of public ed bad, real bad. The teacher bashing/anti-unionizing is just the beginning.
Powerful article, and thank you for it and all you do!
EDU Solidarity--a group of education bloggers--organized a day of blogging on March 23 around the question "Why do teachers like me support unions?" More than 115 blogs have been posted, and they're still rolling in. For a full list, see http://edusolidarity.us/
And--I used to call my students "my kids," too. We all do. Thanks for a great read.
I've marched in support of you all and will continue to do so. Glad to support teachers and their unions.
I have had to argue with site administrators about the cleanliness of rooms, adequate supplies, heat, adequate desks that are not falling apart, and other working conditions. That is because I believe that my students and myself both have the right to learn & work in spaces that are just as nice as the cushy office space of our district administrators.
So, I guess if you want to believe that I'm selfish for fighting for these things that benefit my students and myself, then that's your prerogative.
If a teacher goes on strike, it may reflect the fact that he or she realizes that a short-term negative (students stay home for a few days) may be outweighed by a long-term positive (knowledgeable, experienced teachers can afford to continue teaching).
If you don't understand this, I'm glad you're not teaching. It's just too bad that you're likely to teach your kids the same short-sighted, mean-spirited way of thinking.
We can't reasonable make the argument that unions are bad for education. The most obvious conclusion is that they're good for education, and I've read studies that found that. We can make the argument that good schools tend to be unionized, but that there's some other factor making them good, and that that factor just somehow happens to be more common at unionized schools, while the union itself is a neutral factor. But the facts don't support the assertion that unions are bad for schools.
The reason so many of us are upset with the education process, and in many cases specifically with the union, is that currently those that do not perform well are all but gauranteed a job for life. The teachers in the NYC "rubber rooms" are not mythical, they pull necessary resources away from efforts to provide a quality education. While that is an extreme example there are many more dealing with some very troubling situations. At my dughters school a teacher abused young boys and admitted it upon arrest. However, he quickly learned that by pleading not guilty he earned full pay and benefits for over 2 years while he worked through the legal system - and all along the way used the threat of making each of his victime testify in open court got himself a greatly reduced sentence. That is what we see the unionization of teachers protecting and we are tired of it.
It's probably true that any administrator worth their salt wants to keep good teachers, but think of every supervisor you've ever had. Were all of them worth their salt?
Public schools (mostly unionized) perform better than charter schools, on average. States with stronger teachers' unions perform better than states with weaker or no teachers' unions, on average. And the countries we're talking about emulating, the countries like Finland that are topping lists of test score averages, have highly unionized teaching forces.
If you read the narrative that most media sources are trying to sell you, you'd think exactly what you're thinking and say exactly what you're saying. But the facts don't support it.