I’m noticing that my titles are a bit vague and nonspecific when it comes to what I’m going to be talking about. Partly because, the nature of these are very much unplanned, very much stream of thought. I’m not aiming for a well-researched essay. I’m just trying to put the thoughts I’m having about the state of education into mini-essays that are just a little more specific than a tweet. And partly because, these topics are very metonymic (okay, maybe I’m stretching that) towards what I’m thinking about. They’re very much small portions of much larger ideas, and I’d like to think they’re well-suited for a blog.

We’ve had one good big “brand new” idea in education this millennium, and it wasn’t even new. It was just a wide expansion of existing pedagogical arenas. Ever since, we’ve mostly lost the plot about the purpose of public education. Anything that strays from making students “college and career ready” is a distraction, and the only way to make a student “college and career” ready is to focus on the foundational skills that will get them there.

It all started with the Bush era “No Child Left Behind” which is a mix of well-intentioned and dastardly ideas towards the destruction of public education. It’s always been hard to argue against, and so we’ve seen it strengthened in some cases and moved into a more positive direction in others. Ultimately, the idea is way too flawed. One of its key tenets is the idea that all children regardless of socioeconomic status can be successful, and that it is the job of a school to make all students successful.

One thing that I see that the public doesn’t understand-- and worst yet and more importantly, a lot of teachers don’t understand either-- is that the Teachers union is teachers. Most people want to separate the two as if there are teachers and then there are teachers unions. It’s especially prevalent on the political right, but like most things that are just known, what the political right knows as true is shouted from all of the rooftops of our stupid little algorithmic bubbles that are most definitely generated based on getting people as riled up as possible.

And it makes sense, teachers as a group are overwhelming popular. Sure, there are people who are very vocally anti-teacher, but for the most part, it’s fairly overwhelming popular. It’s in that public servant group that includes doctors, nurses, firefighters, and police officers (although, the last is maybe not the most in the group.) So if you’re anti-public education, you can’t necessarily attack the teachers. Instead, you need to create some kind of boogeyman that you can put all of the blame on. So, teachers =/= teachers union. But that can’t be farther from the case.