From Where We Sit




It's Not About Education Anymore

     I was recently asked how many educators read Ed Tracker, my ezine covering educational developments in the United States. Actually, very few. The various folks who visit the web site every month constitute a cross section of American society but, ironically, educators appear to be an under-represented group. I suppose I could have made a cynical comment about teachers not being able to read or school administrators being too busy with their work, but then I thought, why should school employees read a journal devoted to education. So much of the daily fabric of school business is non- or anti-educational that most of the current pundits are drawn from outside the education field. They tend to be sociologists, psychologists, or criminologists.

     Last year I interviewed for a teaching position at high schools, community colleges, and tertiary institutions around the U.S. To no great surprise, many of the questions (I was asked) really didn't focus on education, and several of the interviewers, like the pundits, came from non-teaching backgrounds. Here are some samples:

Question 1: Can you describe a multicultural moment?

      This was a trick question. Moment, in this context, is college jargon, while multicultural is an adjective which has a different meaning in the academy than it does on the street, and a different meaning on the street than it does in a dictionary. Being an English teacher, I recognized it as a yes/no question and cleverly deflected it by answering, "no."

Question 2: How would you handle a shoving match in the school corridor between a Hispanic student and an African-American student?

      Another trick question. The implication here is that the fight would be handled differently if the participants were White-Hispanic, White-Black, or Black-Black. Now I read that Jamaica High School in Queens, New York has police professionals to patrol the halls, so that question is becoming increasingly irrelevant. I forget how I answered it, but I remember thinking, these are tough questions.

Question 3: A female student comes to you upset and says she is being sexually harrassed by a teacher (this was an interview for a supervisory position). How would you handle it?

      Well, I would find out if the accusation is true, which isn't always easy since the definition of sexual harrassment varies from institution to institution and is often couched in language so vague that it's almost impossible to get at the truth. These questions aren't getting any easier.

Question 4: What would you do to improve the educational environment for women and minorities?

      My answer here was a frank and confident, "I would do the same as I would to improve the educational environment for men and non-minorities." Even though I gave examples, this was an incorrect answer. What I was trying to illustrate, though, was that the defining role of public education is to serve the general citizenry, the masses, not the politically elect.


      I don't mean to mislead the reader here. Obviously, interviewers do ask questions about experience, methodology, and educational philosophy, but what is going on in the schools today is so divorced from the stated core mission, that the loaded questions about diversity, multiculturalism, sensitivity, and other political issues are most often the deal-breakers in a job interview.

     Political bureaucracy is sometimes defined as "an unwieldy administrative system." When the system enters its final stages of bloat and corruption it loses sight of its administrative function and becomes solely concerned with perpetuating itself. The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are now criticized for pushing political agendas over educational ones. The NEA in particular is seen as a water carrier for the Democratic party. The situation in public schools has become so dire that education reform, once a core Conservative-Republican issue, is now being trumpeted in such liberal organs as the New York Times and Washington Post. As the "bodies keep floating down the river," it is becoming more untenable for unions and urban political bosses to justify the breakdown in the system. So, instead of justification, the public is getting denial and inaction.

      Where are we and we are we headed? Meaningful school reform may now be unfeasible. Critical mass has built up to such an extent that the end will probably be a swift collapse, something like the Soviet Union--certainly at the secondary level, in the most blighted inner city districts. Still, hope always exists, especially now that much of the liberal establishment is in the process of getting onboard the reform train. The current situation has been referred to as the "crisis in education". The Chinese definition of crisis consists of two characters, danger and opportunity. There is a window of opportunity, albeit small, now that the reform movement has become a bipartisan effort. If America fails to seize this opportunity, however, the nightmare of violent, non-performing, politically stifling schools will be replaced by another one--the enormous task of reconstructing, from the ground up, an important pillar of American society.

Summer, 2003





Adjunct Nation

      The latest embarrassment in the downward spiral of American education took place this summer when a group of adjunct teachers at Laguardia Community College in New York were summarily stripped of their job benefits. Even worse, the union representing said teachers was unable/unwilling to go to the mat for them on this issue. Talk about in your face! This triggered a large volume of emails on the internet where usually pro-union TESL-L moderator, Anthea Tillyer, weighed in supporting the teachers.

     The adjunct situation in the U.S. today is one of education's big dirty secrets. Countless adjuncts with their marginal hourly wage, no benefits, and contracts subject to termination in a heartbeat are in the same position Black Americans were in during the 1950s--egregiously maltreated in a society that, for the most part, sympathized with them, but was too preoccupied or timid to alleviate the suffering. In fact, the adjuncts are the closest we have to a truly oppressed class in the U.S. And who is oppressing them? The left wing colleges and universities who bleed for the masses. Administrator attitudes vary from viewing the adjuncts as noble victims to ineffectual losers. Most feel that the adjunct system, as it now exists, is wrong, but the unspoken subtext is that good, cheap labor is hard to find (wink, wink).

      Like all undersclasses who refuse to struggle when the boot is on their neck, the adjuncts must shoulder some of the blame. But, this time, the colleges and universities may have overgrasped. The first sparks of a struggle appear to be visible on the horizon. Adjuncts are actually starting to organize and the percentage doing the heavy lifting in the classroom is so high now that any concerted work stoppage would seriously disrupt the schools.

      The fact that liberal administrators enable the exploitation of this working class isn't the only hypocrisy at work here. Striking adjuncts could be easily replaced by a huge pool of hungry teachers who, like the teachers they would be stepping over, believe in the sanctity of worker rights.

      The Bush administration has been rather disappointing in this area--choosing ambitious rhetoric over substantive action. Unfortunately, the adjuncts probably can't expect any better from the Democrats. The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are proxies for the Democratic Party and most of their members stand to gain little from an empowered adjunct class; in fact, some feel that the attractive salary and benefit packages of the NEA and AFT members are underwritten by the foregone salaries and benefits of the adjuncts.

      Where does that leave adjunct faculty in U.S. institutions? As of this writing, not in a very good position. But as Frederick Douglass, the famous 19th century abolitionist said, "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

Summer, 2003
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