Teachers often feel powerless in the face of the assaults against their profession. Often they are directed to do things that they know are educational malpractice, and they have no choice but to comply.
The best way to resist is through collective action, like the testing boycott of the Seattle teachers. One person standing alone is admirable but will be fired. What is necessary is for entire faculties to speak as one. Think of the Chicago Teachers Union. Their detractors changed the state law to prevent them from striking, raising the requirement for a strike vote to 75%. Their enemies, organized by Jonah Edelman of the notorious Stand for Children, and paid for by the equity investors of Chicago, thought that 75% would make a strike impossible.
But CTU patiently educated, mobilized, and organized. When the vote came, more than 90% of the members authorized the strike. And the strike was supported by parents, who understood that the teachers were fighting for their children.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us all that mass protests could defeat big money and political power. He taught us not to be afraid. He taught us the power of collective action by the powerless. Together, in concert, when justice is on your side, mass action cannot be defeated.
A new book gathers stories about stories of courage in response to the attacks on teachers and on public education. This article profiles one teacher who organized his colleagues to resist a merit pay plan in New York City. Why resist a plan that would produce more money for teachers? Because it would harm students.
If all of us showed courage whenever possible, if all of us worked together to alert the public to educational malpractice, we could stop it.
Oh, and the merit pay plan that the city designed and implemented, the one described in the link? It failed and was canceled after a three-year trial and more than $50 million wasted. – Diane Ravitch
