The collateral damage of education reform

By John Meeks

I, my dear friend, would add that education reformers too often believe that public school teachers are enemy combatants in the war on ignorance and illiteracy. I have yet to meet a teacher who consciously or unconsciously opposes better schools for our students. This debate is cloaked in a larger battle on organized labor under the pretenses of helping our children. We are to believe, as many corporate interests have drilled into our heads, that we have to destroy the village in order to save it. The collateral damage that we visit upon honest men and women who dedicate their lives to teaching is merely the cost of doing business for those who wish to enrich themselves as the expense of our state's public education system. I know for a fact that we draw targets on our backs when we try to speak truth to power, but someone has to continue to advocate for our cause which is larger than ourselves. The shame of this situation is that we use the livelihoods of teachers as a bargaining chip in this war on teachers and schools. True bipartisan reform can be possible only if we engage all of our education stakeholders without resorting to the same, tired bromides that treat our teachers like they are somehow bad or evil.