Putting children before teachers undermines all of us, including children.
In recent years conversations about education in the United States have revolved around reform: Something is wrong with our schools, we are told. We've let the interests of teachers' unions rather than the needs of students dictate education policy.
What we really need to do, the story goes, is put the needs of children first. This, in turn, translates into calls for increased reliance on standardized testing, school privatization, competition between schools, and a lessening of the power held by teachers' unions. For an overview of problems with this approach, see Diane Ravitch's
recent writing. Among other things, Ravitch points out that U.S. test scores and graduation rates have actually risen over the past few decades, while differences in student performance correspond closely to parents' income levels.
Opponents of so-called school reform (such as Ravitch) typically argue that, at the end of the day, privatization and purported accountability measures are not what's really best for children. This may have some value as a public relations approach (especially when teachers feel that they have been publicly maligned), but it's an approach that cedes a lot of ground. Really, the rest of us have to stand with teachers, with whom we have shared interests.
One of the biggest falsehoods behind the notion of putting children first is the idea that education inherently leads to better economic outcomes, for both individuals and nations. So it is assumed that better education will almost automatically lead to both national economic prosperity and a path out of poverty for low-income students. On a national level, this is false in that economic prosperity typically paves the way for better educational outcomes (as in Massachusetts or Singapore), while other areas (such as Palestine) have excellent educational opportunities but nothing to show for it economically. Clearly, social and other structural factors have a lot more say in things than whether students have learned calculus, although basic literacy is a prerequisite for most economic development.
On an individual level, one can point to
the plight of adjunct university and college faculty members in the U.S., who typically live in poverty and without steady workloads. These are a substantial portion of the most well-educated people in the world, but demand for their labor has fallen drastically for reasons outside their control. More broadly, we have to realize that not everyone in a society is going to be able to work in a high-wage field, not simply because of aptitudes, but also because there isn't sufficient demand for lawyers or engineers while there is a great deal of demand for home care workers (who weren't even covered by U.S. minimum wage laws until this year) and cashiers. Higher levels of education will substantially aid employers, but not labor, who will face increased job market competition and still-stagnant or falling wages, unless wages for all fields rise.
To assume that one's survival will depend on a combination of educational attainment and unusual job market success is to consign most people in a society to poverty. That is the future under an approach that assumes that better education will necessarily lead to more wealth for individuals.
But what does this have to do with teachers? Things are getting bad for the U.S. middle class. Among other things, teachers in Chicago
are being laid off and replaced by low-wage college graduates who are typically just using a stint in teaching as a resume builder before going on to high status jobs in fields like law and politics. That's not what the Teach For America (TFA) program has been everywhere, but it is what it is becoming. And the thing is, teachers in Chicago are yesterday's students. Their children are today's students.
It does not better students' lives to undermine the very jobs that their parents depend on and that they themselves might one day fill. Should issues such as teachers' pensions be renegotiated? Possibly, but not at the cost of turning teaching into yet another low-wage (former) profession. Such an approach runs counter to the marked success of highly professionalized and well-paid teachers
in Finland (and, to a lesser extent, in Massachusetts). If anything, recruitment of highly-qualified long-term teachers for the future (not short-term TFA teachers) is necessary, but such an effort is undermined when the job status of current teachers is degraded.
But what about all the
bad teachers out there? First of all, U.S. surveys show that the general public, including parents of schoolchildren,
highly rates local schools and teachers, while believing that somewhere out there there are utterly terrible teachers who must be fired. Obviously, any profession has some less-qualified members, but public opinion suggests that belief that there are many bad teachers out there comes mostly from hearsay (or propaganda). So who are these imaginary bad teachers? Without hard research, it might be safe to guess that they are disproportionately female, older, and black or Hispanic. In other words, the same groups consistently vilified in U.S. class warfare conducted by the likes of hedge fund managers, who contribute a lot (of commentary and inflated prices due to speculation and automated trading, as well as excessive fees) to society.
Rhetorical attacks against teachers are a key aspect of a divide-and-conquer strategy against the livelihood of all middle and working class citizens.
Are there forces in society that don't support the interests of children, especially low-income children? Yes, but teachers are not usually among them. At the end of the day, the interests of children and the interests of teachers are closely aligned, because both would benefit from a society that ended poverty and treated workers decently.
