Commentary and Criticism about the National Education Association
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Note: No offense to any ESP is intended in this blog post. Nothing that I am saying takes away from the job that these individuals perform in the schools around our country. My issue is with the politically correct culture that the NEA is cultivating by perpetuating the idea that more "acceptable" titles to standard jobs changes their nature. It doesn't.
I have an idea. Let’s call teachers Individuals Tasked with the Facilitation of Student Learning (ITFSLs). How does that sound to my fellow educators? So I started getting these tweets today about National ESP day. Several questions came to mind: Why is the NEA talking about extra sensory perception? Is this a new educational trend that I missed? Common core gone mad? It turns out that ESP day has nothing to do with any of this. Instead, it is a day to support Educational Support Professionals. I honestly had never heard this term before so I went to the NEA page to get some information. While there was no article directly referring to this event on the NEA website, I clicked on American Education Week 2017 Focuses on Public Schools for All by Celeste Busser. This article then led me to a booklet entitled A Guide to Celebrate National Education Support Professionals Day. Yes, that’s right. The NEA put out a 32-page booklet to help members celebrate their Educational Support Professionals. So what exactly ARE Educational Support Professionals? Most teachers are familiar with these individuals because we interact with them on a daily basis. We just don’t know them as ESPs. So for the Educational Support Professional-Challenged teacher, here is a list provided by the NEA. Next to the official NEA name I have included a possible translation: Food Services – Lunch Ladies Clerical Services - Secretaries Transportation Services – Bus Drivers Health and Student Services - Nurses Skilled Trades – Plumbers & Electricians Technical Services – Computer Geeks Custodian and Maintenance Services – Janitors Paraeducators – Classroom Aides Security Services – Mall Cop (sorry, security guard) None of my translations are meant to belittle these people in any way. I am just sick of the trend in modern society to rename things so that we don’t hurt people’s feelings. Political correctness has to go.
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I write about teacher pension problems a lot. It all sounds doom and gloom I know but I do it as a wake-up call and warning for teachers. Too many of my colleagues don't have a clue about what is coming and they will be the most hurt as a result. My basic advice is save and invest on your own - don't just rely on your expected pension. The normal response from teachers is: "That's not right. We contributed our hard earned money to the system out of our paychecks. The politicians promised us a solid defined-benefit and they are legally required to provide it to us. Period." YOU CAN'T GET BLOOD FROM A STONE Everything in that statement is technically correct - until the point where you understand that the money may not be there down the line. What happens then? Well, if you consider Puerto Rico, it defaulted on its bonds. Of course it was obligated to pay but it just didn't have the money so it didn't pay. Same for Venezuela - this country just defaulted on some of its bonds. When the money isn't there, the money can't be paid. What is that you say? Pensions are different? You say that public employees are not investors like those bondholders were? I see your point, but in the end it may not matter. When a state pension is underfunded this means that it eventually won't be able to pay out future benefits in full. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
BACK TO PENSION FACTS I normally write about this topic in reference to New Jersey because that is where I teach. But the pending pension crisis is looming for so many other states that I thought that it would be appropriate to write about it here: For reference, here are some pension blog posts from my anti-NJEA Blog Page:
Bloomberg posted an article in June of this year entitled "Pension Fund Problems Worsen in 43 States." This article came with an excellent picture to show the state of the U.S. pension system so you can actually identify how your state is fairing. The first two lines from the article state the case clearly: "The news continues to worsen for America’s public pensions and for the people who depend on them. The median funding ratio—the percentage of assets states have available for future payments to retirees—declined to 71.1 percent in 2016, from 74.5 percent in 2015 and 75.6 percent in 2014." Check out how your state is doing. And while you are at it, start thinking about saving more of your money outside of the pension system. NEA - LOOKING OUT FOR ALL STUDENTS?
I visit the NEA website pretty much every day. One thing I can say for sure is that this organization is quick to let its members know about the plight of the downtrodden – those who are getting a bad rap in modern society. Just browse through the latest articles on the site and this becomes very clear. You will find articles supporting: Seems like everyone is covered here. NEA: WELL, ALMOST ALL STUDENTS... But what about the lowly, forgotten “cognitively privileged" student? For any “cognitively challenged” people out there, I am talking about the smart kids, the intelligent kids, kids that can process information more quickly and efficiently than their peers. These are the students that any honest teacher who you talk to will be able to identify within the first two weeks of school (at the end of September at the latest). What has the NEA done for them lately? I know, I know, Gardner says that everyone has an “intelligence” of some sort or other. All teachers know this. So really there aren't any kids that are smarter than others. And no one actually wins in sports so everyone deserves a participation trophy ... Right? HETEROGENEOUS VS. HOMOGENEOUS GROUPING Added 11/26/17: My reference to light bulbs in the following paragraph offended several readers. I use that analogy because often teachers speak about the "bright" students - a term which I find annoying personally. It's politically incorrect for teachers to use the term intelligent when they are talking about the smart kids. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there ARE smart kids in your classroom - kids of higher intelligence. I not only acknowledge this, I celebrate this. Finally, if you are offended by the use of the light bulb analogy, just remember that behind closed doors, teachers are always talking about the kids. Be honest, we all complain about them when not in the classroom. Teachers at my school talk about kids with "nothing going on up there" and contrast them with the intelligent ones. My suggestion is try not to be so sensitive about my "politically incorrect" analogy. Have a sense of humor. Can't you see a Saturday Night Live skit about teachers and dim bulb students? I sure can and we would all laugh at it. Political correctness is way to prevalent in our society today. I teach in a middle school where in 6th and 7th grades the kids are all lumped together in my classroom in what are called heterogeneous groups. This means I get a mixture of kids from the lowest ability dim 1-watt Christmas light bulb types to the highest ability bright 100-watt bulbs. Of course, there is also a healthy mix of 40, 60 and 75-watt bulbs in the classroom to round things out. At least in 8th grade the district I teach in allows for an honors class made up mostly of 75-watt and up type students. Buy why not group the students by intelligence and ability in 6th and 7th also? Why not implement homogeneous grouping in all grade levels? THE NEA VIEW – “HOMOPHOBIC” The NEA states its position quite clearly in its Research Spotlight on academic Ability Grouping: “The National Education Association supports the elimination of such groupings.” As to why the NEA doesn’t support homogeneous grouping, it all comes down to “economic status, ethnicity, race … [and] … gender” The NEA fears that “poor and minority students” will be put into the “low tracks where they receive a lower quality of instruction than other groups.” So that’s it – a concern about poor people “of color.” Wait a minute, hold on there… Is the NEA really suggesting that poor people “of color” are intellectually inferior to better-off people “without color?” Talk about prejudice. So I guess that the NEA is not only “homophobic,” it’s also racist. Writing for the NEA on November 1, 2017 (Educators Stand Up to Halt Trump Administration’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda), Cindy Long praises the Frederick County School Board for their new LGBTQ policy.
The new “clear” and “just” policy, Long says: “allows transgender students to participate in sports that align with their gender identity." Let’s get this straight (no pun here). Say a male sprinter is consistently placing 3rd or 4th when competing against other members of his biological gender. After careful consideration (and numerous meetings with the guidance councilors), he comes to the realization that he really identifies as a girl. So now he joins the girls track team. Clearly his biological make-up will give him a physical advantage over his teammates. In fact, let’s say that by the end of the season this physical male (but psychological female) has dominated to such an extent against those who don’t share his biological gender that he (she) makes it to the state championship. If he (she) is victorious at the state level, will this biological male (but psychological female) be able to earn a sports scholarship to play women’s track? Can you say lawsuit if he (she) is denied? Hmmm … I wonder what future Olympics games will be like if we continue on the current trend? Well, at least the self-esteem of all transgender individuals will be protected. Social Justice Warrior
On October 31, NEA Today reported on the previous week’s NEA Equity Leader’s Summit which was held in Chicago. Get Uncomfortable: Talking About Race, Inequity, and Injustice – by Brenda Alvarez I was surprised to read that one of the participants in the Summit, Maxine Mosley (a school counselor from New Hampshire), appeared to be suggesting that the NEA is in favor of making us all social justice warriors: “Part of this learning is to lean into comfortableness and learn to be OK with that and to do something with it because you don’t build social justice warriors from just saying ‘we have a problem,’” Now, someone might claim that I am unfairly picking just one line out of a long article and making a big deal out of nothing. This is possible, I admit. But the line quoted above was also placed as a block quote on the side of the article page so at least the author, Brenda Alvarez, thought it was important enough to highlight it. THE PROBLEM WITH “SOCIAL JUSTICE” Social justice sounds good in theory – everyone wants justice in society, right? And what better way to achieve this laudable goal than having “warriors” to fight against any injustice which they might come across. But is it really as simple as that? The problem is that not everyone agrees exactly what qualifies as an “injustice.” Here is a really simple example. Social justice warriors choose to use the term “undocumented immigrants” to describe individuals who improperly cross US borders as opposed to using the term “illegal immigrant.” They have every right to do this, by the way. But because they are “warriors,” they go further than this. When they encounter someone who chooses to use the term “illegal immigrant” to describe these same individuals, they vilify these people as racist. Social justice warriors would consider “improper” terminology an injustice toward illegal immigrants. So when the NEA publishes an article which give tacit approval to the concept of a social justice warrior, it is taking a position which is antithetical to the views of many of its members. How long are we going to continue letting the NEA take money out of our paychecks when they hold positions like this? |
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October 2018
AuthorJonathan Smith - A New Jersey Public School Teacher who disagrees with the National Education Association. |