If teachers had turned out to vote–teacher Justin Katz would have been in the runoff for the Palm Beach County school board. He lost by 54 votes of 15,400 votes cast.
Teacher Joshua Katz lost in Orange County by 67 votes out of 14,500 cast.
The moral of the story: if you want change, get out and vote!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sadly, some teachers make NO effort to work in their own self interest. Same thing happened in LA and Dist.1.
This should be a wake up call that EVERY vote counts in close elections…and our next one for our LAUSD BoE will be financed by all the billionaires…so please LAUSD eductors, heed this Florida lesson…VOTE.
So true. It’s part of how Bloomberg win his ridiculous third term. Many thought Thompson had no chance, so they sat out the vote.
So true. So many sat out the vote for Bloomberg’s third term, because they thought Thompson had no chance.
Mulgrew himself thought Thompson had no chance of winning and that sent a strong message to teachers. In the end, the vote wasn’t a mandate for Bloomberg.
During the debates, Thompson did not hit hard enough outlining Klein’s major mishaps like changing the bus schedules in the middle of winter.
Later we learned that Bloomberg gave financial support to Thompson’s wife. This led to speculation that he didn’t want to win. But after Bloomberg won, Thompson did support no raises for teachers.
I hate to say it, but many of the excellent teachers I know love to complain about the state of things, but won’t do much to change it because it is seen as “rocking the boat.” Just my opinion, but sometimes the boat needs to be rocked…
“because it is seen as “rocking the boat.”
Yep, They’re called GAGAers:
Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
At least there is a elected Board. Here in Montclair, NJ it’s an appointed Board. Not good. I agree with the above poster, teachers need to get out more to protect their own self interest.
Wow.
This situation needs to be shared with my fellow North Carolinians. I shall share it now.
Teachers are their own worst enemy. I just get enraged at the stupidity they show when they sit around and wonder why all this is happening. I think they probably deserve what’s happening to them, but I don’t. And sadly, I am swirling the bowl with them.
I said something about Arne Duncan at school last week and the teacher said, “Who’s he? A friend of yours?” ARGH!
A blessing and a curse sometimes when we are left in our own little insular worlds, ie. our classrooms. We know which this one is.
I totally agree that teachers are their own worst enemy and live an insular life both in and out of the classrooms. They are not as union-oriented as teachers were in the 60s-90s. And given the political climate against teachers, it makes this behavior more mind-boggling.
Justin lost by 40 votes. That’s 41 teachers that could have gone out to support him.
Teachers have no right to complain when they sit on their laurels and do not support causes that can help them in the long run.
Diane,
If teachers had gotten out to vote, and voters in general actually respected and believed that teachers ARE the education experts, Joshua would have won, and I would have won as well. But Duval County, like Orange County, voted the only teacher (me, a veteran teacher of nineteen years) into last place out of four candidates. Then again, they did the same thing to the only teacher who ran four years ago here as well (John King).
People may say they want change, that they are tired of big money being in control, that politics and politicians have no place in our schools, but they don’t show it. I am at a complete loss for why people are thinking. Really, is this what we work so hard for and have dedicated our degrees and lives to?
~ Shannon M. Russell
Former candidate for Duval County School Board, District 2
http://www.facebook.com/electshannonrussell
The entire public has become like the humans in Wall-E.
If Crist wins, he will make sure districts like Lee County won’t go against testing. It no longer matters if we vote for Democrats because the Democrats in power will not back pro-public ed candidates like Nan Rich. However, I do believe teachers were the main reason the governor of Hawaii lost the primary. Last year they formed a grassroots coalition across the state without any help from their union and got the attention of voters and public opinion. So why can’t teachers in other states, cities, and districts wake up!!
Turns out I was early in this prediction. Lee County is holding a meeting to revote this issue after a Bd member said she regrets her vote. And on top of that, the meeting is not scheduled in the evening when parents can make it!!!
I would also add that if more teachers and so-called public school advocates had supported Nan Rich, things would be different in Florida. Those who turned a blind eye and deaf ear towards Nan will have to live with the consequences.
Justin Katz lost his race in Palm Beach county by 39 votes out of 15,000 cast. Turnout about 11-12%.
If teachers turned out for one of their own, he would have won. The guy who beat him had more money; he is a member of board of for-profit Imagine charter school.
Now why are teachers not informed about who are the real puppet masters in these elections?? I believe it’s by choice.
btw Diane, here is the link to the Lee County story which can be saved if enough parents and teachers contact Board members and demand that this revote meeting be held like the majority of their meetings at 6pm! Parents have a right to be there!!
http://www.news-press.com/story/news/education/2014/08/29/lee-county-school-board-to-reconsider-opt-out-vote/14792243/
For those of us who have had to live for decades with puppet school boards appointed under mayoral control, the prospect of an elected school board is our greatest hope.
Don’t squander your right to democratic representation. Get out and VOTE!
It takes organizing over time. Here in Chicago, nominating petitions are now going around for the February municipal elections. Karen Lewis’s team is circulating petitions for her run against Rahm while Karen does her “Conversations with Karen” tour. Almost as important, at least nine teachers (or non-teaching CTU members) are circulating petitions to run for alderman in many of our 50 wards. The petitions do not have to be turned in until November, so there is lots of time to get the 473 signatures for each ward race and the 12,500 signatures for the mayoral run by Karen. But this being Chicago, everyone is aiming for double the number of nominating signatures. One Chicago political industry is challenging nominating petitions, so our people are being trained in how to get the right number and how to do it right. By pros. But the reason why this activity is possible in 2014 in a serious way is that CORE began organizing in 2008 to challenge for power in the Chicago Teachers Union and the CTU began reorganizing immediately after Karen and the CORE team won in June 2010. So… While it’s true that more teachers should have voted in those elections, let’s not forget that organizing takes time, patience, and a strategy. As Diane knows better than most, our class enemies have been implementing a strategy against the unions and public schools since “A Nation at Risk” and “Chicago’s schools — America’s Worst!” more than a quarter century ago. And we can’t catch up overnight without realizing how those packs of lies (plural in both cases) wedded to the corporate “model” for “school reform governance” fit into what we are facing in 2014. Happy Labor Day.
Thank you for your wholly accurate account of how much effort power change requires, and how it CAN happen. Strategy matters! Rosa Parks began her bus ride preparation in the 1930’s! She was not a rogue and they worked 20+ years, just to BEGIN. Teachers are well-suited to patient, inexorable campaigns, once they get ORGANIZED. Thank you, CTU CORE for your model.
“. . .they worked 20+ years, just to BEGIN.”
That was the religious right’s strategy back in the 70s. They started small, school boards, county commissioners, etc. . . and worked on building a coalition, anyone remember the “Christian Coalition”. Little by little they worked at getting judges appointed, worked on lawsuits attempting to break that great “wall of separation”. You know what, it has worked, bigtime so that we are fighting against what is now a quite entrenched far right wing that has captured even the Democratic Party.
The election for the Governor of Florida will have a huge impact for teachers and public schools in Florida. We must give teachers a reason to go to the polls. Here’s a list of issues we would (at least I would) like to see Charlie Christ address on the campaign trail http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/what-teachers-want-a-letter-to-charlie-christ/. Feel free to comment here or on my blog to add to the list.
While I agree that teacher turnout could have made a difference in these elections, please remember some things here:
1. Florida teachers’ unions and their members are forbidden by law of doing, saying, or even referring obliquely to anything political during school hours. We have had each district’s PAC in place for years and years to advise and endorse candidates but we can no longer meet with members to discuss political issues during the school day — we can only communicate through mailers which are often thrown away and ignored. I was able to urge my members to go vote only after 3:30 PM (end of school day) when many were already leaving or gone.
2. Governor Scott rolled back much of the voter convenience system. It was a good system that allowed early voting at multiple places for 14 days before an election, including weekends,at multiple polling places and has now been reduced to 7 days before an election in one polling place only, with no Sunday and limited Saturday operating hours, often in an inconvenient spot and requiring long waits on weekdays.
3. All voter registrations had to undergo revision and ‘updating’ so that there is/was major confusion about polling places and registrations. My own county reduced the number of polling places drastically in traditionally democratic neighborhoods. It is being litigated but stands for now. Many voters simply stayed home in confusion and dismay since it was an election in the middle of August during extremely hot and humid weather (heat index 105 and most polling places require long outdoor waiting periods) with little promise of relief.
4. Photo ID requirements and polling place harassment and intimidation by Tea Party members of anyone whom they think looks non-Republican and not conservative enough is a standard feature in many polling places. They challenge voters frequently.
5.. All of these changes were designed to ensure low voter turnout, especially among traditionally more liberal and progressive voters, so that Tea Party fanatics can continue their minority rule of this state.
Voting in Florida is always an adventure but it has become even more complex and fraught in the last couple of years.
Fact: In Palm Beach County, we had 14 days of early voting, including Sunday. Why do we keep making excuses for the non-voters?
Barbara, why did only 11-12% of voters in Palm Beach county bother to vote? If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the decisions of the board.
I don’t know why there was such a small turn-out. The mailbox was full with flyers to vote and the local papers (which I know few people read, including teachers) offered advice on voting and published profiles of those running for all offices. I do know, that many people registered to vote in Florida aren’t in residence year-round and I have often questioned why we hold any elections during the summer months.
Barbara, we had the same problem w/ early voting in Manatee County. It was open for 8 days (saturday to saturday, including sunday) the week before the primary election. Only 3,369 voted during that those 8 days.
Overall, In our school board elections, there were 43,000 votes cast county-wide… 22612 (52.2%) vote-by-mail… 3369 (7.8%) early voting… 17356 (40.0%) election day
Clearly, pushing vote-by-mail is becoming the best way to increase turnout. It also has the benefit of allowing voters to take their time to study candidates.
Diane, I am a high school teacher in Manatee County, FL and I just won a seat on our county’s school board. I beat an opponent who had every endorsement, had doubled my fundraising and was supported by local developers and entrenched interest in our area. It was quite an upset and it wasn’t really close. I will have to leave the classroom to take my seat on November 18, but I’m anxious to serve the 45,000 students of our county. I will rely heavily on the advice and guidance of all parts of community that are committed to high quality public education. Every decision will be guided by what best serves students. charliekennedy.org
Congratulations, Charlie Kennedy, for wining a seat on your school board. Your knowledge and experience will help the board make wise decisions. If I had known about your race, I would have written it up. As it happened, you won on your own, despite the funding for your opponent.
Diane, thanks for the reply. I’ve found your twitter feed (and the links and stories you share) to be a great place to get informed on the pressing issues affecting public ed. Thanks for helping all concerned teachers and stakeholders stay updated and activated. Best wishes, Charlie
Teacher unions have the responsibility of educating their members about what is happening around them, good and bad. This requires more than just emails or posts to websites. It requires face to face discussions at meetings and in faculty rooms. Union leaders need to make themselves impossible to ignore.