Teaching…and fighting

Much to their chagrin, public school teachers are increasingly finding themselves thrust into the political arena, with the result that many also are finding themselves thrust out of the classroom, stripped of jobs or, at least, longterm job security. For political and budgetary reasons, legislatures in such widely separated states as Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, New Jersey, California and, of course, Texas, to name but a few, have declared war on public school educators this year, forcing teachers who want to continue being teachers to fight back or be run over.

I am regurgitating the obvious because of a comment I received following last Friday’s post about the demise of House Bill 400, which I headlined, “HB400 wasn’t the end of the fight.”

“I didn’t get into teaching to have to ‘fight’ at all,” one teacher responded, wincing at my choice of what she obviously views as a negative word. Then she added, “But I will put up my dukes, no doubt.”

No educator chose the profession because he or she was itching for a fight. But, like it or not, teachers and the entire public school system in Texas (as well as many other states) are in a political fight for their continued existence.

Why?

It’s partly budgetary. Texas lawmakers arrived in Austin in January facing a $27 billion revenue shortfall. But the attack on teachers orchestrated by the governor and the legislative leadership in Austin, in truth, is more political than budgetary.

The attack on the public schools began in earnest five years ago when Gov. Perry and the legislative leadership deliberately reduced education funding while cutting local property taxes, producing a deficit in the public education budget alone that now has grown to $10 billion for the upcoming biennium.

Instead of responding to the wishes of the vast majority of Texas parents and other taxpayers who recognize and value the critical importance of the public schools to the state’s future, state leaders are listening primarily to two groups of people:

# Private school owners and other wouldbe entrepreneurs whose primary interest in education is how to make money from it. They actively promote vouchers and other schemes to divert tax dollars to their own selfinterests.

# The tea party and other antigovernment agitators who want to drastically shrink the size of state government, a task that can’t be accomplished without gutting public education.

Compounding the problem are a legislative legacy of underfunding public education, a myth that there are mountains of waste in every public school budget and a legislative preference for taking educational advice from everyone but the real experts – educators.

Policymakers in Austin would rather slash the public education budget and make teachers – those who survive the cuts jump through hoops to “earn” the ability to continue practicing their profession.

You may not want to fight. But if you are a public school teacher, the fight has come to you.

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