Stand & Fight for Our Schools
by Chris Galgay, President
Maine Education Association.
There seems to be a new national sport in this country. It is called "beat up on public education" and attack the educators who work hard to ensure that every student in this country is afforded an equal opportunity.
Not a day goes by that I don't hear some talking head on TV claim that the teachers' unions are the cause of everything that is wrong in our schools. What motivates these critics? Is it really about education reform? Is it about money? Listen to the dialogue.
Isn't it amazing that people can claim that educators are overpaid in a country where corporate executives who drive their corporations into the ground are rewarded with multi-million dollar compensation packages?
Stop and think about it for a minute. Overpaid! We have teachers in this state at the top of the scale, with an advanced degree, earning a yearly salary of $39,625. Or how about this: four years after the state passed a law that set the minimum salary of $30,000 for a full-time teacher in this state we have two districts that have a beginning salary of $25,293.
Overpaid? I think not; it is exploitation, callous disregard and disrespect without a doubt. What this political struggle and education-bashing is really all about is power and control.
This fact was never more evident than what I experienced last month during the legislative debate over LD 1799, the bill that would remove the firewall from state law that prevented student data from being tied to teachers' evaluations.
Because Maine could not even apply for Race To The Top without LD 1799's passage, it suddenly became the hot lottery ticket, a chance to win $75 million that legislators had to have. With that amount of money dancing in their heads, legislators were in wild pursuit of LD 1799 and nothing could stop its passage.
Instead, MEA offered an amendment to LD 1799 that would put MEA representatives in the room to help decide which evaluation models school districts could use.
Well, the response of the school boards association and the superintendents association was to raise the alarm that passage of this amendment would lead to anarchy and spell the end of public education in this state.
Any attempt to give educators a real voice over their professional life is met with the angry opposition of Maine School Management. Don't be fooled by their words, judge them by their actions. It is not about the quality of teaching or learning for the school boards; it is all about power and control.
Faced with these relentless attacks, what do we do? It is time for all of us to defend public education at every level and to defend the educators who work tirelessly to lead the way to great public schools for every Maine student.
It is time to defend the bus drivers, the cafeteria workers, the secretaries, the Ed Techs, and the K-12 teachers. It is time to defend the faculty, professionals and support professionals in the University of Maine System and the Community College System.
We should be proud that we have had the foresight to embrace the labor movement and insist that our employers come to the table and negotiate in good faith with us over our wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Students, Teachers, citizens of this country are not test scores. Let's stand together to defend our values and our schools.
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