Apologies to fellow teachers. (I know, I’ve been out of the profession for 15 years, but once a teacher, always a teacher, even after you lose your class [badum-ching!]). I know how much teachers hate being told what to do. I always did. I keep promising I won’t give teachers advice, but I keep doing it anyway. My excuse is, I spent 30-plus years in the classroom, so I’m cutting myself a little slack.
My advice to teachers is, VOTE! If you have a mail-in ballot sitting around beginning to gather dust, pick it up, fill it out and mail it in. No stamp required. If not, there’s early voting at the polls. And there’s November 6.
Teachers, vote for education, whatever that means to you. More on that later.
Arizona has about 50,000 K-12 teachers. Roughly 40,000 of them work in school districts, and most of the remainder work in charter schools. That’s a whole lot of people whose lives revolve around governmental decisions. Include an equal number of non-teaching staff, and it adds up to nearly 100,000 potential education-based voters in statewide races, 3,000 per legislative district. That’s more than enough to make the difference in close races.
For some reason I’ve never understood, teachers aren’t reliable voters. I’ve heard figures as low a 35 percent show up for elections, which astounds me. Anything lower than 80 percent from a group of people who dedicate themselves to serving the public interest, who perform their civic duty every working day, seems wrong. Maybe some teachers feel like they use up their quotient of public service in the classroom, then when it comes time to vote, they think, “Screw it, it’s time for the rest of you to step up while I work on tomorrow’s lesson plan for your kids!”
OK, so this year, don’t think about voting as another civic chore to add to your physically and emotionally draining teaching schedule. This year, vote out of self interest.
Your salaries, your working conditions, your classroom supplies all hinge on the decisions the people you vote for make when they’re in office. The same goes for non-teaching staff. Some elected officials need to see tens of thousands of educators on the street before they have a “Come to public education” moment and decide, maybe it’s time to raise teacher salaries (“But that’s it, not a penny more!”). Others want to raise teacher salaries (“But that’s only the beginning, we have to do more for our schools and our children!”) from day one. Your lives and livelihoods can change for better or for worse based on which candidates win the election.
It may sound like I’m saying you should vote for your limited self interests. I’m not. More support for public education, both financial and philosophical, means our children will have full time, credentialed teachers in more of their classrooms along with more, newer, better educational resources. School staff wins. Students win. Parents win. Arizona wins.
I know what it means to me when I say, “Vote for education,” but it may mean something different to you. Here’s a thumbnail guide you can use to decide what you think “Vote for education” means.
Vote Democratic if you believe our public education should be fully funded, that Arizona should no longer occupy the nation’s bottom rung in per-student funding.
Vote Republican if you don’t want to “throw money” at failing schools and failing teachers because more money doesn’t translate to better schools.
Vote Democratic if you think charter schools need more oversight and regulation to get rid of the bad actors and profiteers.
Vote Republican if you think the current lax charter rules and regulations are just fine, that we should let the “invisible hand of the marketplace” work its magic.
Vote Democratic if you think our two backdoor private school voucher programs, Tuition Tax Credits and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, take money away from public education and favor wealthy families who would send their children to private schools anyway.
Vote Republican if you like the idea of vouchers for everyone who wants them.
Whatever you decide, teachers, VOTE!
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2018.
Thanks David. Our household will vote…Republican.
The only way we can fund the education of our children is with a strong economy, so I must vote Republican. The Democrats plan of hope and change was a farce. They hoped it would change and it didn’t. But I must admit Trump fixed all that. He has our support. Not a fan of the bickering on Twitter, but also dissappointed in the Dems “Napoleonic Law” conversion where you are guilty until proven innocent. Big mistake that cost them a lot of voters. many of us believe in the Constitution. Too bad they don’t.
This teacher will register a protest vote against the way the public sector is being run in Southern Arizona. Democrats don’t do what’s necessary to clean it up, while the Democratic Party lobbies for things that only make things worse for middle class families, like elimination of school choice policies. Voting straight R in this one, David, except perhaps on the Corporation Commission.
(In general, I think you will find that the Democrats are on their way to defunct. When they stopped being effective labor advocates, they flushed their ability to retain their historic base right down the toilet. They stand for nothing but identity politics now, and there’s not enough of a base behind that to command majorities.)
In general I think you will find that the Republicans are on their way to defunct. When they stopped being effective advocates for basic human rights, for education, or for the general welfare of Americans, they flushed the Country down the toliet. They stand for nothing but corporate profits, raping the environment, destroying public education in the name of profiteers, utter contempt for the women’s rights to control their own lives, and they have utter contempt for the very constitution they genuflect to.
Do you see the glass half empty? What a pessimist. Please, you do a disservice to rape victims when you rant about the environment. Please address all the African Americans that now have jobs and are experiencing a rise out of poverty. At least they are not claiming to be Cherokee Indians to try to get an unfair advantage. That’s the party that is becoming defunct.
Well, Frances, well see who is right about that. Its Sanders who tried in 2016 for a New Deal style agenda, not corporate cop-out Hillary Clinton, and look what the bought and purchased Democratic Party did to him.
There are a lot of women in this country who dont agree with the so-called woman-supportive portions of the Democratic Party platform, so stop trying to squeeze us all under your misguided, counter-productive policy umbrella and pretend like your cause is our cause. The Dems have deserted what was formerly the most worthy part of their advocacy program, which involved labor protections and entitlements, and have left people who work for a living with no option other than to be petitioners for mercy at the feet of plutocrats. Well done! You and Hillary can give yourselves a great big pat on the back for that, while congratulating yourselves that you did not stay home and bake cookies. But dont pretend to be speaking for WOMEN, not unless your labor agenda starts addressing all those who cant afford to spend as much time with their young children as they would like to or those who work off the books for low wages taking care of other womens children and cleaning their houses.
‘I disagree with David’s “Whatever you decide, teachers, VOTE!” No way. If your you plan to vote Democrat, then YES, and if you haven’t already voted, do so. If you’re an Independent, then just vote “D”. And if you’re a Republican, don’t bother voting, it’s a pain and with Trump on your side, it’s a waste of time because how can you lose? Rhetorical. Just just sit back and relax and have another glass of wine, and don’t think about health care or SS or the many other socialistic give away programs.
Sorry DennyG but Dems stole my great health care and replaced it with expensive crap! We have to worry about SS because the Dems have given much of it to third world countries as their residents entered our country illegally. Socialist give away programs always end up failing because they are thought up by socialists.
Good teachers should vote Republican and leave the public schools for charters and privates. Salaries will grow once teacher shortage occurs and they will be able to deal with engaged parents and better behaved kids inside schools with quality management, unlike TUSD.. It’s just that simple.