Emily Talmage writes a letter to the reformers. It is civil. It is polite. It is strong and clear.
She knows that every “I Quit” letter makes them happy. That is what they want. They want to get rid of career teachers. They don’t want people with experience. They want enthusiastic young college graduates who will work a 70-hour week and then leave. Who won’t complain if they are replaced by technology.
But Talmage has news for the reformers. She is not leaving. She plans to stay and fight. And she is not alone.
I am here to tell you that there is a growing army of us – yes, army – who are refusing to quit, despite the havoc you are wreaking on our profession.
I am here to tell you that not only have we vowed not to quit – we have also vowed to fight.
We are getting organized, and are rapidly growing in our ranks.
So let it be clear that just as you have declared war on us, we have declared war on you.
Yes, you have your freakish amounts of money and the political power you’ve bought with it.
You have your strategically formed foundations and your consultants with their arsenal of devious, deceitful tricks.
You have your wickedly distorted narratives that you have spent years crafting.
You have your egos and your algorithms and your data that means whatever you want it to mean.
But we have more than that.
We have families – parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers – and the unthinkable amount of love they generate each day.
We have momma bears whose claws are out and fangs are bared.
We have whole communities who will not stand idly by as their schools go under due to your business plans.
We have deep, fiery anger at the way we, as professionals, have been treated over the last decade, and even deeper anger over the way our children have been used as guinea pigs in your covert experiments.
We also have the truth.
So be prepared.
We are not quitting, and will not be surrendering.
Sincerely,
Teachers (and mothers, and fathers, and grandparents, and communities…) Everywhere
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What do teachers do when it’s the administrators that are quiting? They are beginning to leave in my district and I don’t want to be left alone on a sinking ship.
I wish my administrators would quit. But sadly, for every insane directive coming from the state and federal government, the local admin in my district add a few layers of their own crazy on top. And smile while they say “We support out teachers. We’re all in it together. We believe in teaching ‘the whole child.'”
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
We had huge problems before 2010, and we have huge problems x 10 now.
Those who can say with certainty that they won’t quit, work in a different school community than I do. (And maybe I’m a tad envious…)
It looks like Teach Strong came out of a DC lobbying group called “Third Way”, which promotes “centrist Democrats”:
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2015/11/11/teach_strong_an_education_platform_to_unite_the_democratic_party_1241.html
Is there some upper limit on the number of ed reform groups? How many people are employed in ed reform lobbying at this point? It has to be thousands, maybe tens of thousands.
This is the latest propaganda mill to shore up the CCSS and impose McKinney & Co. efficiency models and measures on teaching.
For tthe forerunner of Strong Teacher see R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
This is a USDE initiative of the same ilk as StrongTeachers. The billionaires love to see their collective power producing these serious breeches of independent thought and judgment.
Co-pt the logo and it sure looks like a great consensus one one version of next generation corporate inspired reform.
Now if only the leaderships of the AFT/UFT & NEA would support their teachers/public education against the billionaire-boys-club funded assaults.
I don’t want them to win, but I also don’t know how much longer I can hang on. It’s affecting my health… This school year I joined the ranks of teachers on medication for anxiety/depression. I shouldn’t need medication to do my job, and I shouldn’t have to sustain health effects from long-term exposure to chronic stress.
Brenda, please hang on.
I am writing from Indiana. Our State Superintendent and sphincter-in-chief Tony Bennett was driving the crazy train down the tracks with no brakes in 2009-2011. He was defeated by a good sized margin in the election of 2012 by Glenda Ritz, an award-winning teacher. She currently is the one and only Democrat who holds a high public office in our state. He outspent her 10-to-1 that year, but she spanked him and took his lunch money. Bennett was so besotted with power he thought he could get away with anything that harmed public education and teachers while he gave us his weasel words about supporting teachers”. (Later he was fined for breaking the law, but that’s another story of deferred poetic justice. See his wiki article.)
At the height of loony season (2009-2011), my own school’s administration was going bonkers trying to salvage their own jobs by piling on more craziness. Most of it had to do with some poorly chosen professional development that had little value, wasted time, and cratered morale. Either our administrators were too spineless to stand up for us, or they were humbugged into believing all of Bennett’s reform swill.
During those bad years, a large number of teachers in my building were suffering from sleeplessness, clinical depression, heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, loss of appetite, and thoughts of suicide. One of my colleagues was a social drinker on weekends; he/she started drinking the good stuff on weeknights. Another teacher in my building claimed that some colleagues were exchanging pills that would help them get through it (one I heard about was an ADHD pill that would enable a teacher to sit still for 6 hours straight to grade papers).
I had several of those symptoms myself because I lost both my parents less than 2 years apart just before my job was jeopardized by this nuttery.
Do anything you can to pull yourself out of it. I tried to do some (not all) of the following:
(1) see your doctor;
(2) talk about it with fellow sufferers;
(3) dial it back and take less school work home;
(4) ask your administrator for help (in my building there is only 1 I would approach with this);
(5) surround yourself with your good friends’
(6) take care of your spiritual health with prayer, a visit to your clergyman, meditation, or whatever works for you.
Professor Ravitch’s forum has extended a life line for me. I’m still working as hard as ever, but I’m doing much better than I was then. I’m also channeling a lot of my hatred for reformers into my twitter postings.
Hang in there!
The reformers will continue to put forth their propaganda to further destroy public education . They will employ marketing strategies to to convince parents that they have listened and made real changes when indeed they have not. The only thing that will save public education is Opting Out of the tests, period! The goal of every person whether parent, teacher, or administrator, should be tell every family that this is the silver bullet to Dracula.
Yes, Opt Out is the solution. It is people power. It does not need money, just the truth.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Ms.Talmage,
The greatest line in your letter from my perspective was “We have the truth”.
There is nothing like the truth, because sooner or later, in this lifetime or another, in this generation or another, in this epoch or another, the truth inevitably manages to show itself because it can never go away . . . .
Corporate reformers have vastly underestimated this in all their hubris and self serving.
They forgot.
The truth did not.