Teacher Mark Weber, who blogs brilliantly as Jersey Jazzman, was invited to deliver the keynote address the New Jersey Education Association. He thought he might speak about charters or testing or teacher evaluation, but decided instead to talk about how the election of Donald Trump would affect teacher unions and the teaching profession and how teachers must help students who feel targeted by Trump’s divisive rhetoric.
He said that the battle to destroy unions would intensify:
“This union here, the New Jersey Education Association, will be one of the prime targets in the new anti-teachers union era. This union has stood strong for teachers and proudly used its political and other capital to advocate for the best interests of its members, which also – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – happens to be the best interests of this state’s students and their families.
“I am constantly amazed and appalled when people try to make the argument that somehow teacher work conditions and student learning conditions aren’t the same thing. Middle-class wages with decent benefits are necessary if we are to draw talented young people into the profession.
“Job protections, including tenure, are necessary to protect the interests of taxpayers and students, who count on teachers to serve as their advocates within the school system. Safe, clean, well-resourced schools make teaching an attractive profession, but they also lead to better learning outcomes for children.
“Teachers unions are the advocates for these necessary pre-conditions for student learning. Teachers unions are the political force that compels politicians to put necessary funds into public schools. Teachers unions are the groups who make the conditions of teaching better, ensuring that this nation will have a stable supply of educators for years to come.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that right now, public education hangs in the balance. Teacher workplace rights are in serious jeopardy. The ability of NJEA to protect the future of New Jersey’s outstanding public education system – by any measure, one of the finest in the world, in spite of this state’s recent abdication of its role to fully fund its schools – is under dire threat.
“There is only one course to take: we must organize. We must stand strong, we must stand together, and we must refuse to give into desperation. Our families, our colleagues, and our students have always counted on us when they needed us the most – we must not now, nor ever, stop fighting for them or yes, that’s right, for ourselves.”
Turning to the greatest threat from the campaign, Weber spoke about teachers’ duty to protect their students:
“No one should think for one second that our children have not been deeply, deeply affected by this outpouring of hatred. It is worst of all for any child who has been transformed into an “other” by the rhetoric that had infected this campaign.
“I fear for any child who shows up to school after the election wearing a hijab. I fear for any child who wears a hoodie and walks to school through a neighborhood that doesn’t include people who look like him. I fear for any child who is not conforming with our society’s preconceptions about gender. I fear for any child who was not born within our borders, yet who loves the promise of America as much as any of her native sons and daughters.
“The only thing that can ever hope to protect these children is the love of the adults in their lives who know better. If you know better, you can no longer sit on the sidelines. If you know better, but you stay silent, your silence will become violence.
“I pray that I am wrong about Donald Trump. I pray he will grow into his position. I pray he will find some measure of conscience, some level of decency, within himself and rise to the enormous task ahead of him.
“But even if he does, his campaign has emboldened dark forces within our democracy. We saw them in those ugly, violent rallies. We saw them when the so-called “alt-right” said and wrote unspeakably horrible words, spewed across our media and the Internet.
“Those forces will have absolutely no qualms about taking out all their anger and all their hatred on our children. We, my fellow teachers, are an integral part of those children’s defense.
“We can no longer tolerate racially biased classroom and disciplinary practices within our schools: the stakes have just become too high. We can no longer tolerate racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic language that, yes, sometimes, sadly, comes from our less-enlightened colleagues: the stakes are now too high. We cannot stand by and allow one kind of schooling to be foisted on one kind of student while another enjoys all the benefits of a truly meaningful education: the stakes are now too high.
“And we can not, we will not, we will refuse to allow politicians to use the alleged “failures” of our urban students to deprive them of adequate funding; to deprive them of a broad, rich curriculum; to deprive them of experienced teachers who look like their students; to deprive them of beautiful, healthy, well-resourced school facilities; and to deprive them of lives outside of school that are free of economic injustice and racial hatred.
“The stakes are too damn high….
“Our civil liberties have been under assault since 9-11; now, they are in even greater peril. And on Tuesday our world may well have become far more dangerous. If there is another leader of a democratic country who has said that he is fine with the use of nuclear weapons, I don’t know who he is.
“I pray I am wrong, but when I rationally consider the future, everything tells me that our students may well soon be living in a world that is less prosperous, less healthy, less free, and less safe.
“They will need us more than ever. They will be hungry and scared and stressed. They will be confused, because, even as we preach to them the importance of self-sacrifice and modesty, this country rewards too many who have lived lives of gluttony and arrogance.
“We must be there for them. We must never stop fighting for them. We must never stop believing in them.”
Reading this just brought tears to my eyes.
Well, that didn’t take long: http://www.montereyherald.com/government-and-politics/20161111/trump-lesson-drawing-hitler-parallels-costs-bay-area-teacher
Elections have consequences. There was never any doubt that Trump and the radicalized far right wing GOP had unions (especially the teacher unions) in their crosshairs. The right wing coup is complete, the SCOTUS and lower courts will be pushed even more rightward than they are now. So any judicial decisions regarding unions will be a foregone conclusion. What’s left of the union movement will be decimated. The Democratic position on unions is spotty and squishy. Too many Democrats have paid lip service to unions but have aided and abetted some anti-union policies. America will become a right to work (for less country). Unionism is still strong in NJ, no thanks to the vicious attacks of Chris Christie. Most of his attacks were against the NJEA, not the police or firefighter unions.
The truth in three words: Elections have consequences. It won’t be long before those who thought they voted for a return to 1950 will find that they are still being hurt by the same exact problems which now exist in 2016. I am much reminded of a very telling line in the second season of the show Orange Is the New Black when a planeload of inmates are being flown to an unknown destination. When, looking out the window, one inmate says something like (paraphrasing here) “Oh, it’s the Midwest,” another asks, “What’s in the Midwest?” And the answer is: “A sh**load of White people who keep voting against their own interests.”
nothing that surprising about what to expect from Trump. I would be much more interested in whether the people, who I readily admit are wiser than I am, what those people have to say about the future of the democrats to deal with Obama’s blunder with bringing in Bill Gates, and saddling the nation with Arne Duncan, and whether the democrats will be signaling a refusal to abandon the support of charter schools ala Bill Gates–Arne Duncan by naming Ellison chairman of the DNC.
I welcome being corrected about what I have seen and continue to see from the democrats, who do not seem to realize just how half-hearted they have left teachers in willingness to put up the necessary fight.
No corrections necessary joe prichard.
Rather off-topic, but since this seems to be the 24-hour Trump channel, for those worrying about the power Trump will wield, let’s take a look at how he has that power to begin with: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/glenn-greenwald-trump-will-have-vast-powers-he-can-thank-democrats-for-them/
Dienne,
This is not a 24-hour Trump channel. We just had a Presidential election, with a Republican sweep of the Presidency, Congress, and most statehouses. The Republican platform promises privatization of public schools. Many readers here are educators, parents and others who care about the survival of public education.
Trump was elected President. The question that his election raises is how it will effect public education, and what will remain after four or eight years.
Affect, not effect
And just WHAT have the Democrats done for education the last 8 years? More charters, more VAM teacher contracts, MORE testing, more devaluing the teaching profession. I work in a large urban district. The Board of Trustees (what an oxymoron of a name) are Democrats. They are destroying the district from above for the benefit of the charters.
THIS is the legacy of the Democrats controlled by the oligarchs.
I can’t imagine Trump doing worse than Obama. At worst he may continue Obama’s policies. At least he’s not controlled by your favorite hedge fund managers!
I can imagine Trump doing worse than Obama on schools. At least Obama opposed vouchers, although not very loudly. He paved the way for the all out assault on public schools with charter love.
I’ve got to admit, I was in ItsSoSad’s camp until Diane convinced me otherwise just a few short months ago. Anger with Obama and the DFERs is not a policy. I felt we might have an uphill battle against a Clinton administration, but it was a fight that had a chance to succeed. Not so with Trump and his minions. His lack of policy preparation and platform detail is, as I have said many times, the political equivalent of a Pandora’s Box–those who support him infer what they think they’ll expect, but once opened, no one knows what will happen and that which emerges may be more horrific than our fears can currently imagine. I’m having a very hard time getting motivated for the fights ahead (and there will be many). Give me a few more weeks, I might get there.
ItsSoSad,
Yes, much worse. Think Trump as controlled by sociopath Ryan, backed up by screaming shrill Guliani, advised by Christie, and education run by ether-like Carson.
I just see how he will get to continue in the same vein as past presidents. I imagine it is rather hard to resist. Kill a guy remotely as opposed to sending in troops. Chances are civilians are “collateral damage” ( I hate that term!) in either scenario. Given that a few American deaths in Benghazi freaked out Americans but not 240+/- service personnel in Beirut, I suppose that we should send in the troops, right? Obama learned to use the executive order as a way to get things done that would never get past a Republican Congress, like the Dream Act. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you roll, it will be easy to undo these actions. I guess the hope was that a Democratic administration might be able to codify some of these actions. I suppose the one positive is that since Trump has no idea what he is doing, he will respond to public outrage when he starts undoing the Obama presidency. More than anything, Donald wants to be admired and about 75% of eligible voters did not vote for him. Assuming that not all his supporters are racist, misogynistic, xenophobic bullies, he might actually do some flip flopping. After all he said about Hillary, to turn around and tell us we should all thank her for her service (before he throws her in jail) may actually be encouraging. Since he only seems capable of talking in sound bites, maybe that is the extent of his thought as well. It is easier to influence the thought of someone who doesn’t have deep opinions, and I would never accuse Trump of being a deep thinker.
Even his sound bites are incoherent. This allows all his supporters to hear what they want rather than what he says.
I don’t know who if anyone Trump will let replace Bill Gates as the billionaire in command of the USDoE. Can any other billionaire-in-charge be more whimsically invasive and destructive than Bill Gates? Is that even possible? And doesn’t Trump believe in conspiracies and want to undo Big Brother, global investment initiatives like Bridge and all mobile “learning”? Finally, the single most salient thing 2016 taught us about Donald J. Trump is that no one on the face of the Earth can predict what he will do.
I’m afraid of what’s to come, but I have no intention of forgetting to celebrate the likely nearby end of Bill Gates’ reign of centralized power. He’s a lame duck billionaire. That is an uncompromised good. Cheers to it! Bill Gates, put that on your suggested summer reading list and smoke it.
LCT,
Well, there’s always the Koch brothers
Diane,
OK, that would be worse. If that happens, maybe that raising chickens idea ain’t so bad after all… Kochs lean establishment not Trump, though, I believe.
Diane,
Thank you for this:
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/24/true-facts-about-the-dung-beetle/
It helps sometimes.
Thanks, LCT! Somehow I’d missed the dung beetle post!
Itssosad said: “I can’t imagine Trump doing worse than Obama. At worst he may continue Obama’s policies. At least he’s not controlled by your favorite hedge fund managers!”
I can imagine Trump doing worse by light years. Did you ever hear of the SCOTUS? Trump will appoint far right wingers to the SCOTUS and to the lower courts who will produce decisions that will not only be devastating to public education but also to our social programs, unions, the environment and gay rights. Trump is not controlled by hedge fund managers? Ha, ha, Icahn and several other billionaires did support Trump. ALEC, the Koch brothers and much of Wall Street support the GOP agenda.
OF COURSE Trump’s controlled by hedge fund managers. Isn’t is son in law, one of his major advisors, a hedge fund guy?
And he’s in this to get richer. I don’t care if he’s the only person who control himself (and he isn’t), he’s crazy wealthy and wants to make money. That’s the only reason for this disgusting campaign and election. He’s not in it for anyone but himself. I wish more people would realize that.
I posted a link to his speech on my FB page two days ago imploring my many friends who are colleagues to read it and not pass it by (they tend to not like to get “political” and only post and/or comment on happy archives of the personal life events).
Only two reacted to it and one of them consults for the NJEA.
The membership is riddled with extreme apathy. If you cannot even organize your members, your institutions are destined for failure.
I also wanted my many other FB friends–a few of whom voted for that man–to know why I was so passionately opposed to a Trump presidency.
JJ speaks from a place of extensive experience and careful research. The implications of this election’s outcome are far more reaching than just the professional unions–when our schools are all at risk, our communities are all at risk.
All politics of importance are local. Congress and Trump cannot affect state laws regarding unions and workplace protection.
Look, I am on the side of my union and teacher rights, but I found this article to be poorly informed and inaccurate. The extent to which a federal election will affect policy in specific states regarding the quality of public education and safeguards for teachers rights is near zero.
Some states have already had reductions in teacher protections and the quality of public education. Those are decisions that were made within those states. Public education will always be most affected by states and local education administrations. This is where everyone’s attention must turn. This blog has been very good about bringing up specific conflicts in certain states, like the referendum in Massachusetts. I do not think it is worthwhile to inflate the role of the federal government in education. This will only lead to despair and apathy. There is a ton of reason for hope, and if people focus on state by state issues then the health of public education will improve.
The rights I have in my workplace are the rights that I let my employer, coworkers, students and community know that I have.
A national right to work law or supreme court ruling over turning “fair share service fees” will affect teachers nationally and override local control. Several SCOTUS rulings have eroded workplace protections nationwide particularly in class action filings for age or sex discrimination as well as who is considered “management”. It was Republican George W. Bush who expanded testing and punitive teacher rankings.
Do not underestimate the power and reach of the Federal government, especially in the hands of anti-teacher ideologues.
The federal government cannot enact a national right to work law.
The federal initiatives to increase testing were enacted with the consent of the individual states’ departments of education. They did it for small amounts of money that was offered. If folks affect policy at their state departments of education then they could affect what happens in their schools.
All of the real “deciderers” are closer to you than you think. And yes I have added “deciderers” to my vocabulary.
This blog was active in discussion during the Friedrichs case where fair share fees were under attack at the national level. A SCOTUS decision eliminating fair share fees leads to the very definition of “right to work” for every state, overriding state laws.
The testing and teacher ranking was part of NCLB at the federal level. The Federal government coerced states by the old tactic of withholding or offering federal funds. Race to the Top started at the state level, but it was Duncan at USDOE that used more than just “small amounts of money” to force standards and testing upon recession-starved states.
I know about the Friedrichs case. The federal government can’t keep state or local employees from using collective bargaining. Unions can simply renegotiate their contracts to cover participating employees. Anyhow removing clauses that require opt in from all public employees in “right to work” states had essentially zero effect on union participation. No one who was granted the “right” to not pay dues chose to do this.
The right wingers want you to believe that they can use the law to stop union activity but test cases have proven that they cannot do this effectively.
Anyhow when you compare federal incentives to FSF money from state budgets it is a small amount. When local education agencies get smart enough to ignore federal incentives, they’ll build stronger schools.
I fear for the unions too, especially since the Culinary Workers Union fought him nobly and ferociously in NV and won there (they had a vendetta against Trump for union-busting at his casinos). Trump is all about crushing his opponents. On the other hand, a lot of Trump supporters are union-members. They might take umbrage if he crushes all unions.
Too late to take umbrage
Private sector unions are few.
Public sector unions have a target on their backs
Private sector union members who supported Trump are frogs in a pan.
About 6.7% of the private sector is unionized. Private sector unions are an endangered species.
The first thing alt-right, Koch-controlled Kasich did when elected governor of Ohio was to attack teachers with SB5 eliminating collective bargaining and union representation. Like Trump, Kasich was elected with only about 28% of the registered voters. Kasich included police and firefighter unions in his attack, much to their surprise. During this battle, the private sector unions were largely absent. Many private sector union members I spoke to had no trouble selling out teachers. The argument seemed to be public sector workers have less rights than private.
Thanks for posting, Diane.
Mark (aka JJ)
Wow, all this “sky is falling” rhetoric is scary! Oh wait, Trump is not inaugurated until January 20, 2017. In the meantime, you have ZERO influence because you and your unions supported HRC. I’ll come back in February when something is actually happening. Maybe you should keep an eye on the Dumbocrat enemy of education in the White House right now. He is liable to do something dumb and destructive in his desperation over the next several weeks.
You should also try to relax. All this running around, looking like a Chinese fire drill and yelling “the house is on fire,” has got to be exhausting.