A Lame Duck's Swan Song

A Lame Duck’s Swan Song

by Diane Aoki

         Yesterday, a colleague told me that her brother-in-law on O'ahu told her that he reads my blog. Flattered, I thought I'd better write another piece or else I might lose my readership, such as it is. Tomorrow, I am presiding over my last Representative Assembly as Chapter President. I usually do a President's Report, but instead I will submit this, an edited version of a report I had written for the state convention. Writing this convention report gave me an opportunity to reflect on the last 6 years of my involvement as Chapter President and Board of Director. I am a happy lame duck. Happy to be passing the baton on to my trusty vice president and friend, Maia Daugherty. This is my swan song. 

Though I may not like confrontation, I have become more and more able to defend my arguments in deliberations at Board meetings.  I hope that my colleagues on the Board respected and appreciated my questions and comments as I strived to make conscionable decisions. You will have to ask them, but I am at peace with myself that I contributed to the debates, whether or not they went my way.

I was on the Board when we had to make very tough decisions about restructuring our union. Going through that gave me firsthand training for Board responsibilities. It is impressed upon us that we carry fiduciary responsibility for the decisions that we make. In the event that a member believes that our decisions caused harm to members or the Association, we would be targets for a lawsuit, should they sue. It is not always easy to know when a wrong has been committed, and to right a wrong when you know that it has been done. My advice to incoming Board members, be vigilant. Stand up for the members who put their trust in you, and seek your conscience when you make decisions on behalf of the whole. When you think you need to fight, stand up, especially if you have a dissenting point of view. 

A typical member may be intimidated by this responsibility. But among the membership, there must be leaders who feel drawn to this responsibility, for whatever reasons. Maybe your great passion is public education or unionism. It could be teacher empowerment or anger about current efforts to undermine all of the above, as in the seemingly intractable hold that high-stakes testing has on us. I have always felt that identifying injustice needs to be followed by an action to do something. I thought that the union provided that venue to solve problems, to advocate for good policies and against bad ones, to address injustice. I first got involved in convention, as a faculty rep, serving on several committees, and finally as president and board member with those beliefs in mind. 

What do I believe now? Has leadership led to victory? I guess the answer is: the jury is still out. There have been some battles won, some lost. Under Obama, and Race to the Top, education reform looks deformed, which is disappointing.  Most of the items that I have felt strongly about have passed at convention. We have sound policies about high-stakes testing. We believe in education for the whole child. We believe that our evaluation should not be tied to our students’ test scores and that any evaluation system should be fair, reliable, and based on research. Adopting policy resolutions was relatively easy - I try to fight battles in which a lot of people share concern, not just me. The actions (NBIs)  have been more difficult. Some of my efforts have been towards assuring that our convention actions are taken seriously. Though the jury is still out, I still believe in fighting for truth and against injustice, and that journey is worth taking even if you never reach the end. 

At the risk of looking paranoid, I need to stand with those who are sounding the alarm about the forces that seek to destroy us. Studying what is happening to public education across the country leads you to ask why is this happening. The only answer that makes sense, based on lots of evidence, is that “education reform” will cause the end of public education. It has been a long-term project led by those with a mentality that their money should benefit their own. Having a means to educate the populace, the poor, the disadvantaged or disabled, means little to these privatization proponents. They so strongly believe in the responsibility of individuals to take care of themselves that they do not have room in their belief system to care for others, for the common good. If they give their riches away, it is to advance their own pet projects. In fact, they believe that providing a means to care for others less fortunate is immoral because it deprives those less fortunate with the motivation to take care of themselves. 

The education reform measures that we are being hit with is bipartisan. Federal policies, from Bush to Obama, have hit us hard, even though federal money accounts for a small percentage of public education budgets. All you need to do is read the Race to the Top application to see what the DOE wanted. 

          Signs of the coming abuse are the top-down mandates, which go against the principle of collaboration that we so value. Research cites that one of the main reasons that teachers leave the profession is the lack of respect for their professional autonomy.  Yet, the trend is towards treating teachers more like mindless servants than complex thinkers and problem-solvers, skillfully adapting and adjusting to meet the needs of our diverse student population.

 Those who can, like me, will retire, taking penalties if we have to.  Some may find refuge in charter schools. Others will teach at private schools or leave education altogether.

Is there a way to take back our schools? The solution comes from collective action, as the teachers in Seattle did by refusing to give their students a flawed computerized standardized test. We had Town Hall meetings in which that kind of thinking was beginning to happen here in Hawaii. Take Back Our Schools. I do not know what happened to that idea. My guess is that unless you have a MASS movement, you cannot have a movement, and perhaps the turn-out at these Town Hall events was less than mass. Perhaps, the time will come. 

Kona was the first chapter to go to the streets to protest our current contract woes. We called it Unity Day and it was held on the October furlough after intersession. It was very successful with over one hundred teachers turning out. We also had a significant protest when the governor came to speak at a Democratic Party rally at Konawaena High School. The build-up grew as  schools across the chapter did sign-waving and wore red on Tuesdays or Thursdays at their schools. We were covered on the front page of our local paper twice. We had our second Unity Day on the January furlough day, which had a decent turn-out. I do believe that these statewide demonstrations, from the ones led by the Campbell High School teachers to the ones organized by HSTA, did contribute to the resolution of our contract difficulties. 

I am only as strong as my team and I am thankful to have such a strong team on my executive board. Maia Daugherty, vice president, will be the incoming president. She also volunteered to serve as Membership chair when those positions became vacant, due to unfortunate conflicts that occurred on that committee. We are so fortunate to have Paul Daugherty, my Negotiations Committee chair, in our chapter. He is always the star of the RA as his info is always so juicy. (There is nothing Freudian about leaving him out of my original report. it's just my swiss cheese brain. sometimes things slip out.) Brendan Poff, who has been on the Government Relations committee for most of the time I have been president, will be the vice president. Lisa Martin is currently the secretary, and always a morale booster.  Larry Denis, was extremely supportive as treasurer and until recently, membership co-chair. Hannah Loyola, my other former membership co-chair, though no longer on the team, was appreciated and is missed. Toni Reynolds, GRC co-chair, also brought incredible energy and insight to the team. Rhanda Vickery and Shannon Clemens, have brought their work ethic to bear as our representatives to the hard-working CBR committee. Kathy Penwell has provided us with a perspective from the world of the charter schools serving as YHCR chair for us. We welcome new leaders, MaryBeth Murphy, who took over as Elections chair mid year, and Jennifer Yoshioka, who ran unopposed for chapter treasurer for the coming term.

Recently, at a Board meeting, a staff person from NEA gave us a presentation about teacher evaluation systems being discussed across the country. My take on it was with so much attention on teachers and how to improve them, the attention has been diverted away from how we can improve the education experience for our students. I know they say that evaluating teachers, weeding out the bad, recognizing the good, will improve education for our students. But that takes me down the rabbit hole away from my students. I want to put my attention on how to reach students, how to connect with them, how to make my lessons ring with them, how to make them love coming to school and love learning. Can I do that without worrying about my evaluation? I don’t think so in this world of twisted education reform. 

I will soon retire.  I hope to someday have grandchildren who will be going to public schools. So I am counting on you. I wish you courage to do the right thing, to stand up for children, to recognize when enough is enough both in what your employer does to you and in what they want you to do to your students.  I hope you have a career that fulfills you, rather than depletes you. I hope you do take your schools back so that you can authentically say you are supported and encouraged  to provide your students with that most precious “precious” - education that meets their individual needs, strengthened to be able to contribute to the world we leave them. My goodness, they will need to be strong. Bless you. Bless the children. Stand strong for them. 

 

Respectfully Submitted, Diane Aoki