Franklin Roosevelt said, "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." This captures so much of what we hope to do as teachers and yet simultaneously absolved us of venturing into matters beyond the classroom. The great lesson of history is that groups endure the most severe injustices when good people fail to rise up or speak out.
PA House Bill 855 is not directly about reducing deficit/debt. This is about power. About taking power from workers, from the people, and placing it even more staunchly in the hands of politicians and corporations. This is not an assault on teacher unions - this is an assault on labor, on the workers who built this country, on the middle-class. It is part of a larger effort to reduce the expectations all Americans have for pensions, health care, and security.
Without seniority, a school that is trying to resolve financial issues could furlough one experienced teacher for every two novice teachers and save nearly equally in financial terms. In turn, schools are able to preserve moderate class sizes and programs which reduces resistance from parents. Governors and lawmakers argue that schools need to be able to adopt business-like policies to be more fiscally responsible. If we believe that assertion, then furloughing experienced teachers - regardless of their effectiveness, is the most cost effective solution with minimal impact on other metrics like class size and program availability. Furloughing any teacher is devastating, but without the security of seniority, experienced teachers will be the first to go and with them goes wisdom, influence, and stability.
We cannot guarantee what the future is like for our youth - but if we don't take action, if we don't cry out in protest, we bear the responsibility for the loss of the future that generations before us have fought so hard to build. This is not just about the loss of your job. This is about the extraction of power from the hands of the people and the coalescing of power in the hands of a few.
We can no longer resign ourselves to only preparing our youth for the future; we must also insure that the future is not stolen from our youth.
Please take action against House Bill #855.
2 comments:
"This is about power. About taking power from workers, from the people, and placing it even more staunchly in the hands of politicians and corporations."
I know you have a vested interest in this because you are a teacher, but your comment above is so over the top. This is about power, the power of the local community to determine its own future and manage its own institutions. Public employees are paid by the taxpayers, not dirty corporations and big government. It is the right of the people to determine how much they are willing to pay teachers and how many teachers they need.
"This is about power. About taking power from workers, from the people, and placing it even more staunchly in the hands of politicians and corporations."
I respectfully disagree with the above statement. It is radically off base. It is about power, however, it is about the power of the local community and the taxpayer to determine its own education needs. State legislation has hampered duly elected school directors from making necessary management decisions that the local community needs.
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