Saturday morning, March 21, 2015, I attended one of seven gatherings around Washington state to address K through eight funding. The event I attended was standing room only at Nathan Hale HS in north Seattle. There had to be at least four thousand educators and parents in attendance who are fed up with lack of funding for public education.
Recently a bill was introduced in Washington state to tie teacher evaluations according to student test scores. This bill has outraged teachers, who firmly believe that children are more than just a test score. A test is a mere snapshot into how a student is learning. It’s like taking a picture of Seattle on a sunny day and claiming it’s always sunny in Seattle. Currently Washington state ranks 47th in class size. Twice Washington voters have voted to reduce class size and raise teacher pay, once in 2000 and again last year. Neither has happened yet. Back in 1995 baseball team the Seattle Mariners wanted the tax payers to build them a new stadium with all the bells and whistles. At the same time teachers were asking for a 15% raise. The legislature at the time told teachers to scale their request back to 12% and they’d negotiate. No one told the Mariners to scale back their requests, say do away with the retractable roof and we’ll talk. Both were put to a vote with the stadium losing by a narrow margin and schools winning. The legislature funded the ball park anyway and teachers never got their raise and class sizes are bigger than ever. Gary Locke, who was governor at that time froze teacher cost of living raises. The very man who campaigned on the slogan, “Education will be my top priority. I want to be known as the education governor . . .,” froze our wages. I wrote to him and complained that voters said they didn’t want to pay for a ball stadium, but did want to pay for smaller class sizes and higher teacher pay. His response was that the ball stadium brought in revenue.
Five state representatives and two state senators sat at a long table facing the bleachers. They had signs with the word YES on one side and NO on the other. On several occasions they were asked to hold up the sign as to whether they supported smaller class sizes. They all held up YES. They were asked whether they supported better teacher compensation. They all held up YES! All the senators and representatives in attendance were democrats. Unfortunately, both the house and senate are controlled by republicans who consistently vote against public education spending.
One teacher got up and spoke how he has twenty-nine students in his class and just can’t help all the students who need help. In his class he has students still learning English and students with special education needs who just aren’t getting the support they need to succeed. The crowd was asked to stand up if their class had more than twenty-five students. Nearly everyone stood.
Then the subject of compensation and medical coverage came up. Again Washington ranks 47th in the nation in teacher compensation. Another teacher went to the podium and spoke of being married to a school teacher and at one point her husband had a medical emergency and she had to drive him to the emergency room to avoid an ambulance co-pay (15 years ago that co-pay was $400). She stated that their student loan payments are over $700 a month, they have no savings, and don’t know how they’ll pay for their own kids’ college educations. An instructional assistant came up and explained how she has ended up having to work three jobs because her pay is so low ($1200 a month after taxes, etc.). She’s hoping her health doesn’t give out as she’s approaching sixty. She can’t even think of retiring. Unfortunately her situation is the norm. Many instructional assistants are leaving one job and heading to another and/or working seven days a week. Although it was stated that it’s been six years since any cost of living raise, it really has been much longer as those raises were only one to two percent. Adjusting for inflation, that one to two percent puts teacher compensation in the negative. Again the representatives were asked to hold up a yes or no sign stating if they’d support raising educator pay and again, they all raised YES signs. They did the same when asked if they would support legislation to increase the state’s contribution to educator health benefits.
Finally, the subject of standardized tests came up. Once upon a time teachers wrote and distributed tests. This gave teachers an indication of which lessons they needed to go over with again with students.
Essentially, all teachers are working for testing companies as everything rides on test results. Arne Duncan (Obama’s secretary of ed) has threatened to withhold federal funding for districts who withhold the tests. I know the MAP test in Seattle costs around $450 thousand a year. Personally, I sat with profoundly autistic kindergartners and tried to guide them through the computerized MAP test. These students were non-verbal and couldn’t use a mouse, yet here they were, being forced to take a computerized test. Arne Duncan is in the hip pocket of the corporations who are selling these tests. One teacher testified how she’s spent four months out of the school year either training teachers or proctoring tests. All emphasized that testing takes time away from learning. The tests are graded by a third party who know nothing about the kids who are being tested. Teachers have a personal relationship with their students and know what their students need far better than this third party. Emphasized also was the fact that parents have the legal right to opt their children out of taking any of the standardized tests. Another teacher explained the harm the tests do. Many children become highly anxious when tested. I’ve seen this with many of the special education students I’ve worked with. Yet special education students are required to take the same tests as their neuro-typical peers.
The McCleary ruling by Washington’s supreme court ruled that the state legislature has failed to fulfill its paramount duty under the constitution to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…”
It is unclear if any progress in Washington will be made since, as I mentioned before, republicans rule both the house and the senate and are generally not friendly to public employees, particularly school teachers. I was heartened to see such a large turnout and this battle will continue.
– Holly Homan
