Voice in process

I've been thinking all week about time and what it's worth. I've also been thinking about the power of a lone voice, along with the strength of voices raised collectively. The two are related intimately, as you will see. I, it seems, am already by choice living the future of public employment. You see, I'm a public school teacher who is not in a union. I have the same at-will contract that you do at your private sector job. I'm paid a reasonable salary over 12 months. This salary is determined by my employer. I can leave (or be fired) anytime with a few weeks notice. I don't have a pension, but rather a 401-K that I alone contribute to. I willingly work a hefty number of hours a week because I believe in the mission of my organization with everything I am. Nothing has changed that. Yet, an arrangement that seemed reasonable just a few weeks ago now strikes me as precarious, and I'm trying to figure out why.

Let's start with time. Earlier this week, my principal told me that I needed to undergo three hours of training so that I could then participate in a state-required evaluation process that will take another 5-6 hours. No problem. As per usual, schools like ours don't offer any release time or extra money for duties like this, but that's the way it is here. We hang together, get it done--and this makes it OK. No one is lining their pockets with my extra labor. It's only the kids who benefit. We're all on the same train: principals, teachers, families, kids, building a bridge across the achievement gap--what's a few additional hours a week when you're doing work like that? (And as long as there's still time for yoga...)

But then I read this http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/diane-ravitch/ravitch-a-moment-of-national-i.html)

It's by Diane Ravitch, someone I consider the John the Baptist of the education world. In her recent book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch was a voice crying in the wilderness advocating for the hard work of thoughtful, rigorous national standards (rather than standardized multiple-choice tests) and a renewed focused on the humanities and science to ground our schools in authentic academic excellence. I didn't agree with her on every point, but I embrace fully anyone who wants to dive into the real and complex work of making our schools better.

In this piece, I can (and do) quibble with her cavalier dismissal of "corporate school reform" across the board, knowing full well that my school and those like it are full of dedicated, passionate educators who care tremendously (and for a huge numbers of hours per week) about children and education. And yet, I agree wholeheartedly that the voices of the "corporate reform" movement my school is a part of should be speaking out against the injustices happening in places like Detroit, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Idaho to the low-income students of color we are so vocal about serving. And we should stand shoulder to shoulder with the teachers (and, yes, unions) protesting these moves. Otherwise, Ravitch's 'corporate' accusation becomes valid. Even in an environment of increasing scarcity, we shouldn't act like a corporation with our only focus on preserving and perpetuating ourselves. When I think of 60 students to a classroom in Detroit, I want to kick something. No, no, no, no...if I believe in educational equality, those are my kids, too. They are all our kids.

So then I got this sinking feeling in the very pit of my stomach. There was a voice at the bottom of the pit, and it went something like this, "If your leaders aren't speaking out against the gutting of urban schools and the injustices served on kids like ours, what are you really working all these hours for? A mission or an institution like all the rest? We've always said that unions hurt public education, but how are unions hurting our kids now? What happens when there are no more voices raised collectively to say No, or Wait a minute! What happens when there are 60 kids in every classroom? Who will speak for us then?"

OK, that little voice had a lot to say. It also had lots of voices talking back to it. Believe me, my head's been spinning. One of the loudest, talking back voices came from my heart, which said, "OK, stop this philosophizing and think instead of your 102 students, who matter about a million times more than Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's latest press release."

Then my head chimed in and reminded me to take a deep breath, "While trusting your gut is certainly an option, you know full well the issue is more complicated than that. What are your leaders supposed to do in the insane political climate of the moment? Risk what has been built? Who exactly will that serve?"

But it's noticeably disturbing, voices from internal organs notwithstanding, to feel that the train I thought I was on might not be heading exactly where I want to go. Then again, it may still reach the destination--or take a different, but no less valuable route. I'm nowhere near a place to make any sort of pronouncements but writing this has helped. It has also allowed me to raise a voice at a time when speaking out for true equality in urban education matters more than it ever has before.