Over the past couple years, a protest movement has spread across the country, driven primarily by classroom teachers. Some well-known protests and strikes took place in the following states and cities. In Oklahoma, teachers left the classroom in strike for over a week. Several other states, like West VIrginia, followed shortly thereafter. This past January, teachers from the second largest school district in the country, the Los Angeles Unified School District, went on strike for a week to gain a full time nurse in every building as well as librarians in middle and high schools. I watched these movements develop and wondered what would happen if someone tried to get something similar started in South Carolina, a right to work state void of unions and collective bargaining. Then I started to see notices for #alloutMay1 in the Facebook group SCforEd. I looked up the date thinking that it must be a weekend day like last year but May 1 fell on a Wednesday this year. I had said before that I would join these protests if they came my way. Now I had to decide what I would do.
A bit of background before I return to my decision making process. South Carolina governor, Henry McMaster, made education reform a prominent plank of his election campaign. Partisan politics aside, I generally hold a high level of skepticism when politicians void of any education experience apart from their own K12 education propose sweeping reforms to a system they know little to nothing about. McMaster, after his significant electoral victory, pushed forward through the Republican speaker of the house, Jay Lucas, an education reform bill. This bill passed quickly through the house, so rapid that as we discussed it in my school leadership class, we assumed overall passage a done deal. None of us really liked the bill, especially the social studies teachers among us as the bill eliminated testing for social studies entirely. (I have mentioned before the rock and hard place dilemma regarding testing so I will not rehash it here.) The legislature went into their December recess and I stopped hearing about the bill now that it had moved into the Senate. When the legislature reconvened, news dribbled out in drips and drabs with occasional outrage erupting after sporadic town hall type discussions where educators finally asked to weigh in on the bill, were flippantly dismissed by lawmakers who told them that various issues had already been considered and resolved or that the issues raised by educators should be dealt with at the district level.
IN retrospect, this callous treatment signalled the mindset of the Senate towards educators and also served as the catalyst for the #alloutMay1 protest. Weeks passed as debate progressed in fits and starts and the end of the legislative session approached. Once the session closed, the likelihood of passing an omnibus education reform bill would drop to almost nil since the upcoming session takes place in an election year.
During the first few months of this year, I read many posts in the SCforEd Facebook group and attempted to discern the objectives of #alloutMay1. I am passionate about education, as past posts here testify to, and hoped that I could join this movement if at all possible. As I continued reading, I grew disillusioned. These posts either chided lawmakers in vociferous terms, shouted complaints about how unjustly teachers – specifically themselves – are treated, or encouraged teachers to join together so their voice could be heard, without a specific message attached.
As I waited, I thought back to the previous teacher strikes and walkouts. Everything I read about those events talked about the purpose, the objectives, of the protests in specific detail. Part of that, I’m sure, lies in the fact that many of these protests were organized by teachers’ unions, something South Carolinians do not have. Still, I kept hoping that someone would post more information about the objectives since I saw little to no advantage in the chosen date. The legislative session ended in two weeks. The Senate version of the bill still held several objectionable elements. Additionally, the House and Senate bills, with all their differences, would still need reconciliation. Even if the legislators and the governor stood ready and willing to immediately modify the bills based on educators’ demands, the legislative hurdles made the likelihood of passage extremely small.
I did not end up going, although thousands of other educators in both North and South Carolina did. (North Carolinian teachers held protests at their state capital on the same day holding similar yet different demands of their legislators.) Yet my ire surged when I saw the responses from authorities on many levels from the Greenville County SChool District Superintendent who purportedly supported verbal and written responses from teachers as long as teachers avoided using their official school email accounts so that the “message would not be mixed” to the federal secretary of education who said that teachers should use “adult time” to protest. Is it any wonder that bitterness spreads through the education profession like a plague?
Undoubtedly, things need to change. Legislation concerning education should be written by educators or former educators. This legislation should have a strong research-based foundation, abandon the vanity inhibition – people won’t like how this looks – and, most importantly, keep the student, the individual learner, first and foremost as the center of attention. Legislators need to walk the proverbial mile in the educators’ shoes before assuming motives, abilities or frankly anything about those educator advocates. Yet, at the same time, I cannot get behind a movement rooted in complaint.
Too often though, when a teacher tries to show the critics the need for reform, they dwell overlong on the “woe is me” motif. Should teachers be entitled to bathroom breaks, time in the day to plan and grade, lunches longer than 15 minutes, and adequate provision of supplies so that the purchase does not come out of their paycheck? Yes! However, the most important question too often never gets asked. Why? Why do teachers do everything they do? The answer should be “the students” not “because I’m legally obliged to.” This difference should form the foundation for protest and drive education reform. If the movement could lift its head from navel gazing with arms above their head protecting from attack, education reform could be accomplished.
It remains to be seen when we will get there.