Why Should You Care?

by Louis H Schwitzer IV

Teachers. Hear me when I say this: you have GOT to be helping elect education-friendly people to our legislative branch this fall, or bad things are gonna happen. Really, really bad things.

If you're a teacher who has said, "I hate it when people make education all political," please understand that POLITICIANS are the people who make decisions for education laws, not teachers. If you say, "Well, it isn't about the money for me," then please send me your paycheck, as I can find a way to make it helpful. "That isn't what I meant" only serves to prove that the money is important.

Indiana legislators want to "save money" by requiring teachers to use a statewide healthcare plan. This does not save TEACHERS money. Teachers will have LOWER healthcare benefit with HIGHER healthcare cost. That's the same as lowering your pay. "I'm on my spouse's insurance, so it doesn't apply to me." Yeah? What if? What if your spouse, for reasons as yet unknown, wasn't there next year? Choked to death on a stringbean in your kitchen and now you have to provide for your family alone, and now what?

Legislators want to do away with "meddlesome teachers unions who protect bad teachers." Please remember that unions only protect RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS. If you are a bad teacher, all a union can do is make sure that you get all your chances before you get fired. If you are a bad teacher, we don't want you in the profession, either, dammit. Teachers Unions intercede for you when you are at class. Did you know that a lot of the time, hearings on things which will affect the lives of teachers are purposely held when legislators know we're teaching?

Right now, Indiana is NOT a teacher-friendly state. If you screw over the teachers, you screw over the kids. Please, when you hear things about education reform in our state, FOLLOW THE MONEY. How can we cut three HUNDRED million dollars out of education funding AND improve student achievement? Can you make more peanut butter sandwiches with less peanut butter? Only if you spread the peanut butter so thinly that you can barely taste it. At some point, all you have is really sticky bread with a vague peanut flavor.

Get and stay involved. If you're in my building, you're going to hear me talk about this in staff meetings. Teaching and politics go hand in hand, and administrators are in the same bucket as we are when it comes to this stuff. ALL of us get paid by state and federal money. We stand together, or fall apart.