The following is the text of my final message as President of Waco TSTA/NEA for the school year ending in June 2011.
… And Now We Come to the End of the Road
It’s amazing to me how quickly time goes. As I look back over the first year of my tenure as your President, I am amazed at how much change we’ve seen over the last year. I am more amazed at how much we still have to do.
This year started for me with a group of fresh, young faces, mostly recent college graduates, who appeared at New Teacher Orientation. This is one of my favorite events of the year, as it takes me back to that day twelve years ago when I first met the people I would share my inaugural teaching experience with. It reminds me of the successes I had as a first year teacher, and of the failures that I had (which were far more numerous, it seems) and that I learned from. New Teacher Orientation is always so full of promise. The joy that our young colleagues feel at the realization of the dream they’ve shared to become teachers is an almost palpable force in the room as they sit through lectures, PowerPoint presentations, and question-and-answer sessions. It reminds you that if you taught your class this way, you’d be called on the carpet for not using best practices to engage student learning, but I digress. Bright eyes and fresh faces are the order of the week and it is almost comical to see the realities of the profession start to sink in to these “rookie” educators. And, as each starts the journey of their career in public education, we see the impatience to finally get in the classroom, to finally get to feel the true joy that is teaching. Thinking back on this year’s NTO is a bittersweet memory.
Convocation and cheers, teacher in-service and meet the teacher night, we met our new colleagues and renewed the friendships that came with our ol…, “veteran”, colleagues, and we were off to the races. The question on every mind related to the search for a Superintendent for Waco Public Schools and there were many school board sessions, many community discussions, much to make of who would lead the district going forward.
Before we knew it, the first semester was wrapping and, as it always seems to fly by, it was the holiday season. We still didn’t know who our new Superintendent would be and we really did not know the problems that were going to come from a quarter that most of us give little, if any, thought to.
We found a new Superintendent, but as we were seeing and hearing about that decision, there was a new sound on the horizon.
The first rumbles were that distant thunder over the mountains. A group of newly-elected legislators were talking about a conservative budget. It was nothing new to political observers. Heck, the last time Texas had a liberal budget was ……. (I’m still trying to remember if Texas has ever had a liberal budget). But this was a group of legislators who had been elected by a new force, a new wing of the political landscape, a wing that had taken as its boogeyman the President and he was the guy they had all been elected to beat. Medicare, Social Security, and Public Education were all concepts that were anathema to these people. You can forget the fact that both parties have championed all three of these causes over the years. They certainly had.
As the Texas legislative session ramped up, moderate Republicans and Democrats of all stripes seemed to be running scared. The Tea Party favorites were carrying a big set of shears and they were aiming to take money out of the hide of every public service you could think of.
Health insurance for kids? Cut it. State contributions to Medicare and Medicaid? Cut them, too. Public education? Yep, here comes the butcher to cut away the fat. Ignore the fact that all of these programs are already as lean as they can get in Texas. Ignore the fact that there is no excess when you’re 44th in the country in spending-per-pupil. These guys didn’t want to hear that.
Now, I try not to talk about issues outside of education and I just use these to bring out a point, but you have to wonder about the mentality of a group of people who are against public education. Every important thinker in history, from Aristotle and Plato to Franklin and Jefferson to Lincoln to Somerville and Roosevelt (all of them) have celebrated the importance of education, particularly in a democratic republic. Maybe that’s the problem. The people I just listed are folks who thought. Maybe that’s where the disconnect lies.
Regardless, the word came out of the legislature that there were going to be cuts to all sorts of State services and that public education was the biggest dog in the fight. Therefore, public education was also the biggest target. They came for us. It is time to recognize that there were many members of both Houses of the Texas Legislature in both parties who worked to minimize, even to eliminate, these evil cuts. Their dedication to making Texas the best State in the Union for education should not only be noted, it should be celebrated. Unfortunately, their support of public education may have made them bigger targets for those whose ignorance leads them to deride education.
Who are these who deride public education, you ask. These are people who believe what their masters tell them when they say that public education is not necessary. These are people who believe in a utopia of libertarianism in which they will be nothing but servants to the whims of their wealthier neighbors. They simply take up the torch and the pitchfork and march off shouting that the monster must be killed. And they have identified the monster as public education.
Thankfully, we did not simply sit on our hands and do nothing. Thankfully, we made the calls, sent the emails and letters, made the visits, attended the rallies, and garnered support from our communities to fight them off. We have won a victory for public education. But with victory there is always a price. Some of our friends and colleagues, some of those bright, shining faces that greeted us in August will not be in the classrooms next year. They have become casualties in a war against education, a war against enlightenment, a war against the very light that brings a people from slavery to exalted liberty.
For all of our successes, I will carry with me forever the pain of knowing that not everyone who started this journey in our ranks will end it there. For all the euphoria that comes with winning, I will never forget those teachers who will now leave classrooms and children’s lives empty of their particular light.
We must never forget those who fell by the wayside in a war where politics became more important than the lives of children. We must never surrender to the forces of dark ignorance that would snuff out the shining example of public education. We must never stop fighting until every single member of the Texas Legislature and every single occupant of the Executive Offices of the Texas government has an appreciation for public education.
Never give up.
Never surrender.
We are Waco TSTA/NEA. And we are public education.
