Make Room at the Table for Teachers

Abstract

Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen. --Woody Guthrie Some will rob you with act of Congress. --Educator Roundtable IT DOES not surprise us that we have much in common with NEA leadership. After all, a number of Educator Roundtable founders have a long history of strong union activity. We agree with Joel Packer when he argues correctly that NCLB not working, that AYP (adequate yearly progress) policies are fundamentally flawed, and that legislation is an unfunded, unfair, and unattainable mandate that largely labels and punishes schools and denies all children their basic right to a great public school. Despite these statements, we fear that NEA leadership--by insisting that it cannot work to dis-mantle NCLB and replace it with education policy more suitable to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness--teeters close to moral bankruptcy. We call on union leaders, members of Congress, and their Business Roundtable allies to do something radical: we ask them to listen to highly qualified teachers who work with children every day. People who claim to care about survival of public education need to know that No Child Left Behind is sucking very life's blood from our profession, demanding that teachers become readers of scripts rather than professionals engaged in critical work of educating children in their care. As long as union leaders refuse to insist that teachers' voices be brought to forefront in curriculum decisions, teachers remain muzzled and impotent. Make no mistake about it: this silencing of teachers is catastrophic to health of our nation. What is at stake is not only status of teaching as a profession but very future of a generation of children who are being regimented into Stepford automatons. Finding little resistance from educators, corporate reformers have replaced language of growth, development, creativity, ingenuity, and responsibility with words straight from factory floor: performance, accountability, standardization. An education system that valued informed voices of America's teachers would look much different from system that teachers and students currently suffer under. And it is time to give teachers respect that most of them deserve, by inviting them to become central figures in shaping classroom practices and local education policy. We make these issues quite clear in our petition (see sidebar, page 273) and on our website, though Mr. Packer continues to push NEA lie that our organization does not propose any changes or alternatives. The duplicity here is twofold: 1. Mr. Packer was privileged to witness our earliest conversations and knows exactly what our proposed positive change is: give teachers a genuine voice in policy setting, implementation, and evaluation. 2. The NEA leadership agrees with that position. As Mr. Packer put it: We know that top-down programs and mandates developed by those far removed from classroom don't work. Programs that actively involve educators and parents in shared decision making with their school leadership and that include support from federal government--through technical assistance and useful educator-friendly guides to best practice--should be focus of next Note use of phrase the next ESEA. Don't they mean the fixed NCLB? The NEA leadership cannot use acronym NCLB because they know what we've maintained for better part of a year: NCLB will never allow type of shared decision making that NEA leadership correctly calls for. NCLB is premised on belief that teachers and administrators are primarily problem and not worthy of being part of solution. This is a fundamental tenet of law. Furthermore, NCLB mandates a predetermined path to educational salvation--regardless of what parents or teachers might desire--as failing schools must follow NCLB's sanctions, sanctions that ultimately lead to firing of very teachers and administrators that NEA leadership claims to support. …