By Tom
I turned into a baby bird this week. That’s not to say I became a soft, cuddly bundle of fluff. Hardly. More like a greedy, self-serving, fratricidal maniac.
I’m no ornithologist, but from what I understand about bird families, the babies spend their days waiting for their parents to return with food. At which point they chirp loudly, push their siblings aside and compete vigorously for limited resources. They don’t look out for each other. They know full well that there won’t be enough food to go around. Their survival hinges on being more aggressive than the others.
Baby birds frequently push their weaker siblings out of the nest.
This week, Governor Gregoire unveiled her budget. It’s harsh. Public education, which claims the biggest share of state expenditures, coincidentally took the biggest hit. Among other things, early learning will get cut, classes will get larger, teacher pay will stay put, and National Board Certification bonuses will be suspended. Her budget will have a negative impact on Washington State teachers, and by proxy, the learning conditions of their students.
There’s no disputing the fact that her budget comes in response to horrible fiscal conditions. Washington is supported by a sales tax, so when people stop buying things, the state goes broke. That’s what happened. It’s not the governor’s fault, and it’s not the legislature’s fault. If anyone’s to blame, it’s us, for consistently voting down tax increases.
The governor’s budget is only the opening salvo in what promises to be a long, ugly battle. There will be two more budgets, one from each house, and the final product will be a compromise between the three. It's safe to say, though, that this governor’s budget will pretty much frame the debate.
It will be rancorous. Everyone with a stake in the state budget will be chirping loudly in an effort to convince lawmakers that they need a bigger slice of the dwindling pie. That’s called lobbying.
Educators are no different. Like it or not, we are state employees; the conditions under which we work are determined by the legislature. We need to convince them that the budget has to reflect the importance of early learning, small class sizes, adequate pay and a commitment to professional standards.
No one else will bother. If we don’t say it, it won’t get said.
And meanwhile, advocates for state parks, state prisons, state roads and state healthcare will be stating their cases. Loudly and persistently.
Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against parks, prisons, roads and hospitals. But I trust their advocates to adequately represent my interests. My primary interest in this debate will be education, and that's where I plan to focus my attention.
You should join me. We should contact our lawmakers and let them know how important it is to fully fund education. We should do it often and emphatically, knowing full well that competing interests will be doing the same.
There’s a temptation to pity the governor and the legislature for having to make the tough choices. Resist it. This is what they were begging to be able to do. Remember those yard signs? Those ubiquitous and annoying campaign commercials? That was them trying to convince us that they have what it takes to make tough decisions. Which is what they’re going to be doing.
There’s another temptation to “Take the High Road.” Resist that, too. Most of the time, “taking the high road” is code for doing nothing. Being lazy. “Taking the high road” comes from a song about walking to Scotland. Walking. Not sitting there, doing nothing. So don’t tell me you’re “taking the high road.” Get down here in the low road with the rest of us and beg.
Beg for your students. Beg for your colleagues and for yourselves. And speaking of temptations, here’s some musical inspiration to get you motivated. Or try this, in case you prefer The Stones' slightly ironic and far more chaotic version.
Either way, get busy and beg.
It will get ugly, I agree. Reading some “commentary” recently about budget cuts in my wife’s office (she also works for the state, in social services) I kept seeing the “get the government out this business” argument. I wish people would stop and listen to themselves as they berate schools for failing (or crime for not being addressed or drug dealers being allowed to roam the streets endangering others or parents being allowed to neglect the children in their own homes, or any other number of societal issues the government attempts to address) and then demand that the government take less of their taxes.
I’m writing some letters and making a few phone calls…not just about the NB bonuses but about preserving education as is. My school is already over-crowded (whose isn’t?) and we’re facing a rumored potential 10% personnel cut just as a result of the mid-year numbers from last October.
We need to not only communicate to policymakers, but to our patrons and non-patrons alike: failure to support schools causes a chain reaction. Poor education may lead to disengaged kids who turn to crime, or may limit the opportunities that children face upon leaving school. As we sit in the doldrums of this sputtering economy, how can people not see that education is a critical, CRITICAL part of the long-term solution?
Not yet, Brian! Let’s pester them!
With the loss of the Learning Improvement Days, and now the loss of the stipend for National Certification, the salary of a National Board Certified Teacher will have been decreased by about 10% over the past three years. It’s a de facto tax increase, since the state is taking our salary. I bet most of the $99.5M the governor says she will save by not paying us would be spent, which would help the economy. Teachers don’t make enough money to be able to hide it.
Millionaires get to keep their Bush tax cuts. We get to have our Gregoire salary cuts.