Politics, Platitudes, and Teacher Pay

Over the weekend, my wife Sam gave me a heads up on a tweet from Democratic nominee Kamala Harris that had caught her attention. Ever since I’ve been thinking about her tweet, about what it means for education during this election cycle, and about what education means to the broader voting public (I see you, you non-voters; I see you). 

A brief caveat: I don't pay much attention to campaigning at this point. I think a long, drawn out primary and election cycle only lends more power to the influence of money. The results end up being more about who can outspend, rather than who can position themselves as the better candidate. However, I think it's important to talk about the difference between what are easy platitudes and what are the kinds of education reform discussions that really need to be happening.

Teachers and their plight have been getting more and more attention both from the media and from candidates. Part of this is due to the state and city wide strikes that have won concessions from their respective governing bodies. It has led to an increase in the visibility of the issues surrounding teacher pay, namely how little it is. We saw it grace the cover of TIME magazine. It was also a key campaign point of Florida's Democratic nominee for governor, Andrew Gillum. While teacher pay is rising in people's minds, it's definitely not the only issue that needs to be addressed in education.

It would be great to get a raise. As someone who is in exactly the situation Harris is talking about, her proposal really resonates with me. I’d love to be able to leave my third and possibly even my second job behind. That would give me more time to focus on my wife, my children, family and friends even. Also important, it allows me to focus more on my practice as a teacher, to be better prepared, and to do more learning in my field about how to best approach and connect with students.

The reality is stark, because even as Harris acknowledges in an earlier tweet from March, and something I've discussed with people at length, is that the teacher pay penalty is real. So even Harris's proposed $13,000 increase would only bring us back to where we should be based on our education, training, and responsibilities. Also yes, we need to increase access and funding for early-learning in PK through 2nd, as these are fundamental times for learning and most student learning gaps can be traced back to issues at that age. And no doubt, having a public school teacher at the head of the Dept of Ed, as Warren has proposed, would be fantastic and might help reorient their priorities to a certain degree. But even these relatively simple changes face a long road to approval and implementation.

One of the more significant talking points I've heard is Warrens commitment to supporting teachers unions and the right to join unions. In theory, this sounds great. Except this runs into a huge problem in the same place all other educational reform does: at the state level. Right now in Florida I'm more than welcome to join a "union" or an Association as they’re more likely to be. I'm currently a card carrying member of the Pinellas County Teachers Association, which also includes me in the National Education Association (described as a "terrorist organization" by Bush's Education Secretary Rod Paige). But that means very little in the bigger picture. They negotiate with the district on our behalf around salary and benefits, although that seems to be about the extent of it. And that's because Florida, like so many other currently or previously conservatively governed states, is a "Right To Work" state. This is just a clever way of saying anti-union. We have no right to collective organized action, which means we have no power. Which is why we keep seeing our legislators doing things like allocating money for charter schools, virtual schools, and guns in the classroom instead of things that can actually help. And also, remember those strikes that teachers "won" in West Virginia and Oklahoma? The conservatively controlled legislatures in both states have now passed bills barring and punishing teachers from going on strike again.

At the end of the day, most of what is being proposed by current candidates is a) pretty much the same and b) unlikely to have any type of real impact on education in America. Increasing teacher pay will help with teacher morale, retention, and preparedness. But it doesn’t do anything to offset the external burdens we bear. Our classrooms are overpopulated as class size laws are ignored by officials at all levels. We teach in old, deteriorating, and poorly designed schools that are so overly swollen with students that most have portables. We are hamstrung from innovating curriculum and cultivating culture in the classroom by the tyranny of mandated curriculums and teacher evaluations. And, we are painfully over-extended trying to meet a wide range of community, district, state, and federal initiatives. 

If politicians of any stripe want to show they’re serious about helping teachers and students, and that they’re serious about fixing public education in America then there are a few things that need to start coming up in their stump speeches, town halls, and televised debates. We need more teachers, not just to get us out of our current teacher deficit, but to help improve the teacher-to-student ratio. We need new schools and more schools. Schools with enough classrooms for every child, and enough teachers for every classroom. We need freedom, the freedom to do what is best for our students under our care in our classrooms. And finally, we need an understanding that the most powerful and most important part of learning is what happens in the classroom, and that all education policy and reform should be done in support of that.

But until that happens, education and the education reform movement won’t really change much in this country. And guess what, those changes are going to cost a lot more than the $315 billion that Harris’ pay raise proposal will.