Great MSTA Article

Will the real experts please stand up?

By MSTA President Linda Schnakenberg

I am mad as hell, and you should be, too. We educators have lost control of our profession. We have given up the ability to map our own direction. We have lost the right to provide input into policies and practices concerning our classrooms. We have stood by and allowed ourselves to be attacked by higher education, politicians and others who proclaim expertise by virtue of having attended public school. We have settled for a few crumbs thrown our way to keep us quiet.

Many entities proclaim to be education experts, but attending school once upon a time does not qualify one as an expert. For example, those in the business world are not education experts. Corporations do, however, have needs and have established expectations and qualifications for their employees, both present and future. Those expectations and qualifications need to be communicated to educators so we can determine the best course of action to prepare our students.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the State Board of Education, and the U.S. Department of Education are not experts either. More often than not, their ideas and policies are unrealistic and impractical. They expound airy rhetoric, impose impossible directives and worship the almighty test as a single determinant of what our students know and are able to do. We are rarely asked, except as token representatives, for valid contributions to any education initiative.

Although it may come as a shock, those in higher education are not experts either. When was the last time a professor spent time in a public-school classroom?

It is time to take back our own profession. We are the experts. Our opinions and suggestions should be valued and sought after, not simply paid lip service. We are in our classrooms each day teaching, working and connecting with young people. We know who our challenges are, what works for our students, when to prod, where to place emphasis, and how to motivate. We deal with parents, administrators and John Q. Public. We make thousands of decisions each day. A few more decisions on behalf of our profession would not tax us too greatly.

One of those decisions should be political. We need to become involved in local elections. We need to elect school-board members who care about kids and education, who are reasonable and who value highly qualified teachers. We also need to elect education-friendly state legislators who listen to us, who will value and seek out our expertise, and who will enact legislation that is practical and realistic.

We must initiate and pass a statewide minimum salary schedule to return some validation to our profession. We should be paid as the professionals that we are.

We need to ask DESE and the Feds questions, and we need to demand explanations. We must present our opinions and thrust our suggestions upon anyone and everyone in those departments. In addition, we should demand that anyone dealing with education issues be required to spend real time in a public school classroom, not just 30-minute drop-ins.

Now is the time. We have waited long enough. We must step outside the comfort of our classroom doors and join together to make our voices heard across the land. Real change will not happen overnight. It will take time, determination and hard work to reclaim our profession, but the odyssey will make us stronger, worthier and in control of our destiny.