This is the story of Mell Zinn. She got her teaching credentials, but she couldn’t find a job. She opened a licensed early childhood center in her home. Her husband is earning. Graduate degree. She is the sole support of her family. It is below the poverty line.
This is not what it should mean to be a professional in America in 2015.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
LikeLike
Hard for teachers to fight back when the major teacher union leaders (NEA, UFT/AFT) are doing the bidding of the billionaire-boys-club.
LikeLike
When they originally accepted Gates dollars it is true both the NEA and AFT made a big mistake. Since then, they have both recognized this error and sworn off money from billionaire “reformers”. And today under new leadership, NEA is fighting testing and AFT has begun supporting the opt-out movement. They need our support to be even more aggressive. The unions are not the problem. Corporate greed and its colonizer bosses are the problem.
LikeLike
Uh, I don’t know that I’d be that optimistic. I heard Lily and Randi at the NPE conference, and they both hedged their bets quite a bit, especially about testing. Randi said that parents should have the right to “opt out or not opt out” whatever that is supposed to mean. Lily said that the Opt Out Movement isn’t going to end testing, only changing the world would do that. Again, huh? And I don’t think either one is against testing, just “over-testing”, whatever that means. I think they both support Common Core.
Yes, they both did agree to swear off Gates money, but it sounded a bit like a one-week “recovered” alcoholic swearing off booze, while simultaneous looking for an escape hatch to that very promise.
LikeLike
I just disagree with you and Micheal, while I can understand your sentiments. I have been disgusted by the NEA for giving money to Democrats who support testing, charter schools and attacking professional educators. I have been dismayed by Randi trying to play a game of “wise” real politics. Her predecessor bumbled right into charter schools trying to help with education reform. So yes, they can and have done damage, but they also have the ability and desire to help our profession. Nothing is perfect and if our unions are not doing the right thing then we need to reform them. I am excited by Lily’s leadership and I think Randi has realized that today’s reform is nothing but privatizing public schools. Every time she tries to play ball and be reasonable she gets jilted. I think she is getting that.
LikeLike
I agree with Dienne 100%. When R Weingarten stated parents should have the right to opt out and OPT IN that was clearly a sop to the billionaire-boys-club. Parents don’t choose for their children to opt in since that is the default. The NEA president stated that opting out will not stop the testing madness, huh! Both these union leaders are trying to give the impression they are fighting for teachers while they are really trying to accommodate the uber rich. (Gates, Broad, Waltons etc.)
LikeLike
Open your eyes buddy. How much are these Union cronies making while teachers scrape by in a job that has seen the benefits and security eroded to the core. The teacher Unions are a big problem because they sold their members down the river. You can’t take dirty money and have a hand in the demise of public education and simply apologize and act like all is good and free yourself from the responsibility. The Unions should be ashamed of themselves and teachers should definitely not send a single dollar their way until they earn it by actually doing something other than playing both sides of the isle.
LikeLike
The original poster wrote at the end of her article, “It’s time to stand up and make our voices heard to make teaching a middle-class career that can support a family again.”
Because she came from public education originally, she might not know that Early Childhood Education (ECE) was NEVER a middle-class career for those teaching where the majority of placements are, in private child care settings. I can personally attest to this after 47 years in the field and a life dominated by poverty, because most of those jobs are not unionized, pay minimum wage or slightly above it and include no benefits nor pensions.
This is why, after a career in ECE, even if the federal government was not taking all of my Social Security retirement checks and paychecks for student loans, my SS is so low that I could never have lived on that alone and must work until the day I die. Since I am disabled and don’t qualify for disability because I figured out how to work from home, but I am now unable to pay my rent, I am going to become homeless within the next month, so death seems to be coming much sooner than later. I have been fighting against this happening for three years and now I have lost the battle. Working that long in this filed means my life-long colleagues are in the same cash-strapped boat and can’t provide financial help. I think this is precisely what politicians on both sides of the aisle would like to see happen to career teachers.
LikeLike
I ask this question sincerely because I don’t know the answer: is it easy or even possible for a person who is licensed to teach in one state to “transfer” (for lack of a better word) the license to another state?
The workforce numbers of many professions, including core civic functions like health care, firefighting, and law enforcement, are highly dependent on population and population trends. Vermont is already one of the country’s oldest states, demography-wise. Barring something unforeseen with respect to immigration, interstate migration, and/or its very low birth rate, the size of its K-12 public school population is going to decline (if it hasn’t already). It’s not surprising that the job market for teachers is tight there, or that there are layoffs.
In contrast, consider Nevada, Texas, and other areas of high growth, where there are teaching jobs that actually go unfilled. Even some suburban districts around “mature” cities in the Northeast and Midwest are hiring lots of teachers. License portability would presumably be a win-win: teachers and prospective teachers would have more potential jobs to choose from, and hiring districts would have a stronger pool of candidates.
Making a big move out of state isn’t right for everyone, obviously.
LikeLike
As you so often like to tell folks, Tim, a less than one minute Google search resulted in your answer. It is called interstate reciprocity and yes, it does already exist in all 50 states. However, due to the fact that we do still have 50 states, each with its own laws and regulations, there are some limitiations: http://www.nasdtec.net/?page=Interstate
LikeLike
Here’s another website where reciprocity agreements by state can be found: http://certificationmap.com/states/reciprocity-disclaimer/
LikeLike
There is, in fact, no such thing as “reciprocity.” True reciprocity would be the state would accept a teaching license from another state without that person having to take a ton of courses or tests to get a new license. Few or no states do this, and some, like Oregon, actually discourage out of state teachers from getting licenses by throwing up a bunch of stupid hoops to jump through.
LikeLike
States worked on improving interstate reciprocity agreements in the 90s. However, with the advent of NCLB & RttT and state partnerships with NCATE, they were required to increase the program and testing requirements for those in traditional Teacher Ed, while decreasing the requirements for those in TFA/alternative certification.
That effectively mirrored how corporate education “reform” has resulted in increased regulations for neighborhood K-12 schools, while unregulated charter schools have expanded. It also resulted in undoing most of the gains that had been made in interstate reciprocity.
LikeLike
Of course, in an era of TfA and other certification-circumventing programs, licensure might not be much of an issue for long.
LikeLike
It’s because most states require you to take a bunch of stupid courses or tests to get licensed in another state. Some of them make you take tests no matter how experienced you are in your current state. It’s idiotic and a ripoff since kids aren’t different from state to state to state. I figure by the time I get my K-8 license in Oregon–if I do given my dire financial situation–it will have cost me around 1k in license fees, testing fees, and course materials from a sub license, a sped license, and a K-8 license
LikeLike
PreK teachers have never made a living wage. In the ’90’s when economic times were fine, the true PreK’s in my NJ area consisted of privates, mostly with a rental break from associated churches or the Y, with perhaps one cheaper alternative (parent co-op) per town. Working middle class or poor counted on relatives or cheaper lower-quality daycare. Even the full-timers at our local Montessori, w/EC degrees, certification, & Montessori training made barely enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment commuting from a cheaper town. There were no fancy frills in these privates, nor highly-paid administrators, yet to stay afloat, tuitions were charged that only 2-career couples or upper-middle class could afford.
The only change I’ve seen in 20+ years is the proliferation of cheaper chain daycares-cum-PreK/K’s which can offer a lower tuition by hiring the best they can find in a $12-20/hr range. Some of them do a great job thanks to fine directors & skillful in-house training. Many don’t. And the whole enterprise rests on the premises outlined in the article: our society places little value on education; the younger the kid the less value placed on the quality of teacher; the high national proportion of single working moms ignored.
LikeLike
Investors want to make profits from preschools. They have no interest in paying the professionals in early childhood education a living wage.
Investors have launched programs in Chicago and Utah, fronting the costs, with major foundations offering back-up if the programs do not meet investor expectations.
Any professionals in early childhood education hired in these programs must submit to the discipline of the market as defined by managers of these “pay-for-success” programs. Managers give priority to “return on investment,” monitor the performance of the preschool “providers” to determine if they are meeting investor expectations. Managers can hire and fire at will.
There is no professionalism possible when money counts first and preschoolers are literally called “payout children.”
The pushers of these investment schemes are baiting public officials with false promises of getting better results than “government run” programs. The pushers are baiting investors with the promise of low risk, high ROI ( about 5%), and the aura of doing good while doing well.
The investors are not really taking on much risk. That is because the programs are designed to ensure that the kids and families with the most pressing issues are excluded from the get go; specifically, children with severe learning and physical problems and living in chaotic home environments.
For one example of how investors think about pre-school as a financial product, see the brief summary of the Utah program here. For others use the search phrase “social impact bonds.”
http://socialventures.com.au/case-studies/utah-high-quality-preschool-sib/
LikeLike
Again, this is one of those pesky “women’s issues.” Although I don’t have the data to back it up, I’d venture to say that most early childhood educators and elementary school teachers are WOMEN. As a country, we don’t care much about women or children.
A wise woman once said;
“We have made money our god and called it the good life. We have trained our children to go for jobs hat bring the quickest corporate advancements at the highest financial levels. We have taught them careerism but not ministry and wonder why ministers are going out of fashion. We fear coddling the poor with food stamps while we call tax breaks for the rich business incentives. We make human community the responsibility of government institutions while homelessness, hunger, and drugs seep from the centers of our cities like poison from open sores for which we do not seek either the cause or the cure. We have created a bare and sterile world of strangers where exploitation is a necessary virtue. We have reduced life to the lowest of values so that the people who have much will not face the prospect of having less.
Underlying all of it, we have made women the litter bearers of a society where disadvantage clings to the bottom of the institutional ladder and men funnel to the top, where men are privileged and women are conscripted for the comfort of the human race. We define women as essential to the development of the home but unnecessary to the development of society. We make them poor and render them powerless and shuttle them from man to man. We sell their bodies and question the value of their souls. We call them unique and say they have special natures, which we then ignore in their specialness. We decide that what is true of men is true of women and then say that women are not as smart as men, as strong as men, or as capable as men. We render half the human race invisible and call it natural. We tolerate war and massacre, mayhem and holocaust to right the wrongs that men say need righting and then tell women to bear up and accept their fate in silence when the crime is against them.
What’s worse, we have applauded it all—the militarism, the profiteering, and the sexisms—in the name of patriotism, capitalism, and even religion. We consider it a social problem, not a spiritual one. We think it has something to do with modern society and fail to imagine that it may be something wrong with the modern soul. We treat it as a state of mind rather than a state of heart. Clearly, there is something we are failing to see.”
― Joan D. Chittister, Heart of Flesh: Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men
LikeLike
And here’s an article from the Albany TImes Union about the declining enrollment at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. This college is/was well-known for it’s education programs and enrollment in the education program is now down to 27% from 49% ten years ago. I wonder what is happening….
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/College-of-Saint-Rose-announces-cuts-in-faculty-6271185.php
LikeLike
Middle class?
Who needs a middle class? It’s SO overrated.
Like the horribly corrupt Spiro Agnew once declared, “We don’t need a nation of intellects!”
The overclass believes the same and throws the middle class into the mix of undesirables . . .
Besides, is there really an American middle class any more? Maybe by global standards there is, but not by American ones.
LikeLike
The middle class are actually the working poor. The real poor are there to scare the shit out of us in order to keep us in check as subservient as little worker drones. This Country is in the early stages of becoming a third world dump.
LikeLike
Yes, but as we both kvetch, we can change that. There is no hope lost. Just look at Opt-Out!
Where there is solidarity and consensus, there is hope and victory! And believe me, I ain’t no Pollyanna.
LikeLike
I was at the N.P.E. as well, & I heard exactly what Dienne did. I will give the AFT this, however–Randi sent out a letter of thanks to John Oliver for all of us to sign (I’m actual NEA-Retired, but I receive AFT e-mails through the IFT local folks (I=ILL-Annoy) our IEA-R folks have forged a working relationship with. (Suffice it to say, I–& numerous other rank-&-file were very much in favor of an AFT-NEA merger.)
All that having been said, I most certainly did sign the thank you for the brilliant Oliver spot. And from NEA? Nada…zip. Are we our enemies’ friend?
LikeLike
BTW, Robt. Rendo–yes, indeed, look at the opt out movement–a House bill (championed by the extremely hardworking stalwart Rep. Will Guzzardi–kudos to you, Will!) just passed the ILL-Annoy House, giving parents the authority (I know, that sounds kinda silly, but there’s some clear language there that is definitely needed & has been missing) to opt their kids out (otherwise, the kids have to opt themselves out–& you can imagine what happened when a non-verbal, autistic student attempted to opt himself out-?!). Huge congratulations to all the hard work done by IL parents, working under the auspices of IllinoisParkthePARCC, ChiOptOut, More Than a Score & Raise Your Hand, led by the indomitable Wendy Katten & Cassie Cresswell–thank you! Now–on to victory in the ILL-Annoy Senate!!
Yes, WE did, yes, WE can & yes, yes WE WILL!!!
LikeLike
I second that!
LikeLike