I had vowed not to say anything, having grown weary of being the spokesperson for things that others know as well as I but are too timid to speak, fearing I’m not sure I know what – just fearing. But , damn it, try as I could I couldn’t align my thoughts with the company line. So, I and a few others spoke of our concerns with our union agenda, an agenda that too often plays into the hands of the enemies of public education. Most in the audience just sat quietly. A few felt compelled to congratulate the status quo. I know some at the meeting yesterday are readers of this blog. So I have a very modest proposal to make.

Frontline did a story a few months ago on child poverty in America. Watch it, and then tell me how teacher accountability, staff development, multiple measures, APPR, Common Core Standards, Common Core aligned high stakes tests or any of the other educationist bullshit that passes for serious thought has the slightest chance of overcoming the challenges to survival that millions of America’s children face each year. We could do a hell of a lot more for these desperate kids if we taxed the likes of Bill Gates and the other uber-rich whose millions amplify their voices and drown out sanity, voices talking smack. We do neither ourselves nor the kids we claim to care for by talking smack too.

The vote yesterday for the budget and members of the Board of Education has me hopeful this morning. I’m hopeful too that an idea that I have been pushing for over 20 years may finally getting the attention it deserves – that we need to start working on our budget and the strategy for passing it in September instead of waiting until the middle of the school year.

In the social hour prior to our presentation members of the group let us know that the larger than usual turn-out for the meeting was due to the topic of the program- testing. These retired teachers are still concerned for public education and the children in our schools. They are concerned about the education of their grand-children and the careers of their children who followed them into teaching.

Ken ably led us through an edited version of the Race to Nowhere movie, a fantastic motivator of anti-testing sentiment. The film served to warm the audience up for what Jeanette Deutermann and I had to say.

My theme was that he jobs they left don’t exist anymore and that the creative pleasures they experienced in the classroom are rapidly disappearing as more and more of the academic program of our schools devolves into test prep. I suggested that while the teacher union movement was late to recognize the significance of the issue, late to understand its potential for organizing, way behind parents like the Opt-Out parents, we were beginning to get our act together, the evidence for that being the mass rally NYSUT has called for June 8. I suggested too that if we believe, as most of us do, that the testing regime in New York is a form of child abuse, the we have an ethical obligation to work with others who agree with us to do whatever is necessary to bring the testing regime to an end. If that means opting our own kids and grand-kids out, so be it. If we don’t act in accordance with our ethics, we not only will we have no credibility with the parents of the children we teach, we will be an embarrassment to ourselves.

My friend Jeanette Deutermann was her usual engaging self. She spoke of how her own child’s reactions to the tests got her started on what would eventually become the Long Island Opt-Out movement . It was wonderful to see the warm response of this audience of retired educators to her presentation, many of them surrounding her with questions after the meeting was adjourned. Readers on Facebook, take a look at the Long Island Opt-Out page. Sign on. Become a part the movement.

I’m on this theme again having read an article in the May 10 NEA today entitled “Six Ways the Common Core is Good For Students.” The article quotes several teachers extolling the virtues of the Common Core . The piece also links to other areas of the NEA website that weave a narrative of how the NEA was part of the development of the Common Core, a narrative clearly written to make it appear as though the voice of teachers was heard.

That teachers voices were not heard, or maybe were not expressed by the National Board Certified teachers the NEA sent to the meetings, becomes very clear when one reads the responses of teachers in the trenches to the article. Not one has anything good to say. And those comments are very much like the ones I hear daily from the members of my local union.

The national unions find themselves living a paradox. Both are trying to get back to their organizing roots. But they don’t seem to want to seriously organize around the issues that excite their members. Nobody I know is marching for the Common Core. Nobody I know is doing labor walks for the Common Core. They are not going to their state capitols to ask for more Common Core. Why don’t the leaders of the NEA know this? Their failure is frightening. In so many ways, our leaders organize opposition to themselves when they seek seats at a table that is set as a trap.

Step one would be to close down most of the existing teacher education programs in favor of a solid liberal arts education for prospective teachers and an internship or clerkship (We need a better name.) that puts teachers to be in classrooms for increasing periods of time with increasing responsibilities over the four years of their education. They should be mentored by working professionals who would begin their training with observation and discussion and evolve into more and more supervised teaching. By their fourth year, they could even be given an actual teaching assignment with a prorated salary. How much better this would be than the current approach that essentially has prospective teachers doing a few weeks of “student teaching” in their senior year of college.

Harder to do is to once and for all have a real war on poverty. Lyndon Johnson’s worked, but only for the elderly. We used to have millions of impoverished old people. Thanks to Johnson’s war we have many fewer today. It’s time to finish the job with the focus of providing gainful employment to the parents of the 25 percent of America’s children who live in poverty. It is a dope addict’s delusion to believe that we can through education lift children out of the mire of poverty, with all that that means to the growth and development of a child. How many people do you know who are willing to pony up the taxes necessary to accomplish this? How many of our leaders are willing to lead the American people to do the right thing by our children?

Finally, we need to integrate our public schools by bringing all economic classes of children into the same classrooms. If we believe that we want a country based on shared middle class values, economic integration is the only what that will happen. Our current system segregates people by where they live, causing a real knowledge gap between the classes as well as a sizable empathy gap.

There’s the plan in four short paragraphs. It would do wonders for our schools, our economy and the soul of our nation.

Complementary words are in order too for the leaders of the Schoharie School District outside of Albany for the cleaver shot they have taken at the state’s testing scheme. Reaching the mid-point of the academic quarter when progress reports are due to parents, the district informed the community of its inability to accurately express the progress of its students because it had been consumed for weeks with preparation, administration and the marking of the state tests. Here’s a taste of how their action played in the local media.

In response to Deutermann’s remarks, I spoke about the need for teacher unions to support the Opt-Out movement if we are to maintain our credibility with our parent communities. At the very least, I maintained, we ought to be encouraging our own members to opt their kids out of a testing regime that we often claim is tantamount to child abuse. Addressing the concerns of several leaders that there were risks associated with defying the education department both for individuals and school districts, I tried to bring my colleagues back to their roots.

I observed that the brave souls who started our teacher union movement took far greater risks than I was talking about. That, for example, the brave teachers who undertook the first strike on Long Island did so with a law on the books that permitted the state to terminate them for striking. However, they knew what all who strive for social justice know – that there is always risk in confronting injustice, but the risk of tolerating it is greater. Those who take the battle on are not fearless. They get scared, but they do what they have to anyway.

I don’t know if I convinced anyone. I do know I’m sick and tired of union meetings where leaders find an assortment of excuses to avoid taking action. Too many of our unions have adopted a service model instead of an organizing one, the one that brought us from what was essentially serfdom to economic security. I know too that if we rise up and use our numbers to unite with pro-public education citizens and confront the privatizers, the testocrats and the plain stupid, we can save public education and our profession.

While I didn’t know of this, even though I’m a member of the NYSUT Board of Directors, I’m not in any way shocked by this news. That the NEA and AFT have both been altogether too cozy with Gates has been clear for years. Why would anyone be surprised that the AFT’s largest state affiliate would try to translate that coziness into dollars? Where was the outrage two AFT conventions ago when the featured speaker was none other than Bill Gates talking about teacher accountability and how to measure it? Very few people walked out of the hall with me. Our leaders encouraged us to be polite to the man who has done more to discredit teachers and public education than anyone I can think of. Our leaders believed for a time that a seat at Bill Gates’ table would enable us to influence the policy of his foundation, ameliorating the negative influence of his money on our profession. I believe they have started to learn otherwise. We can see them changing course. Their policies haven’t worked. Our members are increasingly demanding action. They are starting to get it.

Both AFT and NEA have gotten considerably more aggressive in the anti-testing campaign. While they can’t yet bring themselves to openly support the Opt-Out movement, it’s beginning to lo0k as though they will have to if we are to maintain any credibility with parents of the children we serve. When AFT President Randi Weingarten calls for a moratorium on “the consequences” of the Common Core Standards because of the slipshod way in which they are being implemented, she surely knows that call will go unheeded and that the only next step open to us will be to join the growing public movement against the Common Core. Both organizations are making serious efforts to get away from service oriented unionism and back to their organizing roots. Witness the call of New York’s leaders for a mass demonstration in Albany on June 8 to demand a sane testing regime and adequate funding of our schools. Better yet, witness the organizing work being done at the local level to make this day a huge success.
So, colleagues, be angry. Let your anger move us to action. Let’s get organized. Let’s start taking some risks to defend public education. We’re going to have to do more than vote and write letters to save the institution we love.

This is all by way of introducing my point which is that those who think America’s schools are failing should have been with me the last two days talking to the outstanding, well-educated young people the Plainview and Syosset school district have turned. Had these children gone to the finest private schools, they would not have been offered broader educational opportunities, better teaching or sounder academic preparation. In fact, in many ways I suspect their preparation has been better than many of their privately educated peers. Let me be quick to point out, I know, if others don’t, that had I visited many of the school districts on Long Island, I would have found similar, bright, well-educated children, ready to pursue whatever further education they desire.

This morning, however, I found myself wondering how long it will be before we no longer do the wonderful job we’re doing. All over the state and nation, school budgets are being pared down, courses eliminated, teachers excessed and educational opportunities curtailed. Even richer districts like my own are starting to cut back. They tell the public that their kids are getting as good a program as ever, but anyone who thinks for a moment knows that’s untrue.

The simple fact of the matter is America feigns a deep concern for children. In most places, we resent having to pay for quality schools, convincing ourselves that public schools are bottomless waste pits. Our politicians thrive on that claptrap. They all want to brag about cutting taxes. In New York our pompous ass of a governor brags about bringing us a property tax can, a cap which in its short existence has clobbered the ability of public schools to deliver in many places even a basic education. We love our children, but we allow almost a quarter of them to live in poverty, voting for leaders who seek to cut the already meager programs that provide relief to these families.

Yesterday, I was reminded of what we are capable of doing for our children. Today, the world of budget cuts and unmet needs came crashing down on my momentary elation.