This is a video of my speech at the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina, on February 11, 2014.
This was an important challenge because I strongly believe that the state is on the wrong path. Its governor and legislature are far to the right of the Tea Party. They are a government that doesn’t like public education or teachers. They seem to want to drive teachers away. They don’t want good public schools. They want charters–where only half the teachers are certified. And they passed voucher legislation, for schools with no accountability.
I was fortunate in the day’s agenda, because my keynote followed directly after a very interesting panel of teachers who quit teaching because the salaries were so low that they could not afford to teach. Yet all of them loved teaching. North Carolina, once a bastion of forward-looking education, now ranks 46th in the nation in teacher pay. John Merrow moderated the panel and brought out the best in this wonderful group of teachers, whose departure was a loss to the state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can not understand how we can have an African American president who do not see that the schools in America are becoming segrated more and more with the assistance of the federal government. I am waiting for the confederate battle flag to be raised in over of these charter. Charter schools will but the flame out from under the melting pot. We are headed to a system of separate and unequal school.
LikeLike
You may be right, Gregory, but my sense is that the issue is less color than it is capitalism.
LikeLike
Harlan,
I think, with all due respect, that you over-emphasize the capitalism bit too much.
Most business people (bankers and local movers and shakers) agree that we don’t really have a struggle between capitalism and socialism in our country (even if the threat of communism was once a palpable thing). The way I have heard things explained is that we have to be more concerned with capitalism or imperialism. So here folks don’t like the imperialism of corporations.
Having well supported public schools is a far cry from socialism.
At least that is what I was taught.
LikeLike
Well supported public schools of a certain sort. Yes a desirable. But you read the posts here. You hear the anti-business rhetoric. I MAY be completely misperceiving where the real threat comes from in our society, but I just have to disagree with your implicit linking of corporatism with imperialism. It may be true, but I seem the most damage being done to the economy by government than by the rent seekers among large corporations, though of course that exists too.
What I object most to is the knee jerk marxism of the noisiest members of the teaching cadres. Their nonsense gives good solid teachers a bad reputation and sweeps those good teachers into the troubles the radicals of the unions create for the society. All that kerfuffle in Wisconsin against Scott Walker was one of the most disgraceful displays of union mob pressure in recent years. Walker won that one.
But I am myself totally puzzled about how to convert the mindless anti-capitalists to a reasonable view of economics, and have concluded that the only way to eliminate the 30% of the avowed communist/socialist teachers is to charterize the entire education system in the country.
I doubt we’ll get worse skills education. Reading is reading and math is math. And it will have the added advantage of bringing radicals back to employment reality. The family is already and should be the organ of education in this country not the state. The kids don’t belong to their public school teachers, who are state bureaucrats; rather they belong to their parents.
LikeLike
He doesn’t care. If he did, he would have listened to educators. He puts non-educators in high places.
LikeLike
Perhaps the NC teachers should move to MI. Those teachers are paid very well according to the NEA among others.
http://www.ehow.com/about_6539129_michigan-public-school-teacher-salary.html
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/18265
http://www.teacherportal.com/salary/Michigan-teacher-salary
LikeLike
ziqueenie, didn’t you know that Governor Snyder in Michigan is replacing public schools with non-union charter schools?
LikeLike
Diane,
Yes, I do know that. My original comment was more of a tongue-in-cheek response. I spend a lot of time in Lansing talking to my legislators and those that control things trying to get them to see the error of many bad bills they have passed and other concerns such as getting the BofEd to do away with common core. However, our governor has his water carriers that believe he walks on water. Sometimes it’s like talking to a wall.
LikeLike
You would not want to come to Michigan. Snyder has cut money and promotes charters. He is awful
LikeLike
DeeDee, I know exactly what he is. He is a RINO and a progressive. The only difference between Snyder and his opponent for this election cycle is the spelling of their names.
LikeLike
DeeDee…I forgot to say that I am from Michigan.
LikeLike
Well and in jest or not, many of us are tied to our state.
We care about our state. Not just where we can make more as teachers (albeit I do not fault those who have chosen to move on–it is just not a realistic option for many folks).
LikeLike
And I am still so sad I wasn’t there because of the weather. I was registered and ready to go! Hotel booked.
Ah Mother Nature.
Glad I can watch the speech here.
LikeLike
I am so grateful for your efforts on the national level, and I am working to change things at the local level.
LikeLike
I can only speculate, of course, since I do not know any of the NC legislators or the governor, but my guess is that they indeed do not like teachers, or at least liberal teachers who might promote progressive, relativistic, statist, internationalist education rather than American exceptionalism and nationalistic patriotism. Perhaps a couple hunks of evangelicalism thrown into the political stew as well.
It’s kind of painful when metaphysics gets mixed up with politics, but in my view it was the anti-capitalist, anti-American ethos so beloved of public school teachers educated by radical ed school professors which made the first breach in the American patriotic consensus and are being subjected now to what the conservative segment of American society sees as the only way to purge public education of its socialist assumptions.
They’ve decided they can’t throw out the poisoned bath water (socialist thinking) without getting rid of the the corrupted babies (the progressive teachers) too. By making teaching too unremunerative for certified teachers, they hope to drive out of the profession those who are, in their view, ideologically anathema.
It’s a purge of the communists by the capitalists.
Communists don’t change their views. So, I speculate, that they can’t think of any other way to purify the schools ideologically than by starving out the ideologues of the left and replace them by ideologues of the right.
Unfortunately, I can’t either.
LikeLike
are you a McCarthyite?
LikeLike
And Alger Hiss wasn’t guilty, right, Sahila?????
LikeLike
Huh? The last radical thing I taught was a square root. While I teach commutative and distributive properties, I don’t see that as a path to impurity.
But it is pretty clear capitalism is failing and must evolve. Countries that are able to innovate their macroeconomic systems will prevail. Those that are stuck in ideology and fear will fall. There is always room for improvement and innovation – even in societies. Socialism is a four letter word in this country (not the same as communism). Yet America would be foolish to ignore the successes of socialist countries like Finland. Rugged individualism is a myth and collaboration and cooperation are more effective.
Yawn…
LikeLike
Your premise is false. It is not “pretty clear capitalism is failing.” You need to defend the premise before you move on.
LikeLike
Harlan, I don’t think they dislike teachers. I think they are bought and and paid for by corporate interests. They are pawns. That’s it.
LikeLike
That is a definite possibility, Joanna, but in my view underestimates the outrage in the country against the persistent lies of Democrats and their current leader. Even pawns have power. Promoted to the last rank (i.e. winning elections), they become queens. There MAY be the same kind of thoughtless corruption we have seen in the past in Tamaney Hall and in Chicago with the Daly administration, and the corrupt civic and education establishments in Detroit (filed for bankruptcy protections), but there may be a slim, slim, slim chance that the NC legislators just want to be able to pay their bills.
But, I’m not close to it, and you are, so you may be right. What do the “corporate interests” get out of diminishing education funding so much? Privatization of all public education and thus access to the public funding?
LikeLike
Joanna, I absolutely agree. However, I would add that it is also related to payback for years of NCAE/teacher endorsement of Democrats. Why else would these Republicans, immediately upon entering office, pass a law that abolished the right of teachers to have their professional organization dues (that would be NCAE) payroll deducted?? Not all state employees….just teachers. And before someone accuses me of being a Democrat with an ax to grind, I’m a registered Republican. So Harlan, you are partially correct. The Republicans in NC ARE outraged — not just at Democrats, but those who support them. These jackals passed laws targeting teachers in the middle of the night so no one knew about it until the damage was done. Their current legislation is blatantly trying to dismantle public education in favor of charters and vouchers. So yes, Harlan — to answer your question, this is what they have to gain. Who do you think own these charter schools? The NC legislature has already sucked millions and millions from public ed to give more to these charter schools, which have none of the accountability or requirements of public schools. One example — to become a teacher in NC, students must now have a minimum SAT of 1100 to even apply to a school of education but charter schools are only required to have 50% of its staff certified! They budgeted over $10 million for two years to increase Teach for America recruitment which takes recent college grads, gives them a 5week crash course on how to teach, then turns them loose in the classroom. To increase requirements for public school teachers (and colleges that produce teachers) and lower them for charters defies logic. They also budgeted $320,000 for the salaries of 3 positions to be hired to handle the anticipated growth of charter schools. I’ve been teaching for 25 years and don’t make half of the salary of one of those positions. But that is a sure indicator of where they are headed in the future. I could list NUMEROUS examples which would prove to anyone with any common sense the intent of our legislature AND the corporate fat cats who bought them. But see for yourself. Google NC Senate Bill 402 and read Sections 8 and 9 if you want an eye-opener. Have a barf bag ready — it’s sickening.
LikeLike
Pretty grim from the point of view of job security, for sure. Highly bureaucratized evaluation. VAM. Not pretty. Politically activist, radical teachers have a lot to answer for in their misunderstanding of what their function in the populace is. It is NOT to imply that America is a bad place because it hasn’t delivered equality of income. When teachers became radicalized they began their own self-destruction. Their smug superiority is always offensive. It will be interesting to see whether the requirement of earning a minimum of 1100 on the SAT to apply to an education school will work out. Lots of ferment in the country. The asinine support of global warming is another measure of the emotional thinking prevailing among Democrats. Who wants someone teaching their children who is fundamentally an idiot about economics and environmentalism?
But that doesn’t answer the question of who now will do so. Who would see teaching in NC now as an attractive career? Failed preachers?
LikeLike
Harlan you have no idea what you’re talking about. Thank goodness you aren’t in charge of anything in my state.
LikeLike
I appreciate the vote of confidence. What IS your state? And who IS in charge of education there?
LikeLike