June 14, 2019
Today the Badass Teachers Association is 6 years old.
When we started I drove to school every morning to an NPR story talking about how schools were failing and teachers were inadequate to their jobs. They don’t do that anymore, and it is because BATs changed the narrative.
The war is not won. In state after state, charter companies, Teach for America, and accountability/privatization promoters are still lobbying for and instituting the old narrative with new twists of “individualized learning” and “school choice” “vouchers” and disrupting and dismantling schools that must be “improved.”
But there are voices pushing back. No longer can enemies of children and proponents of profit speak without response, because BATs are there; in every state, in the national conversation, in the public venues. We will not let defamation of our children, our schools and our profession stand unanswered.
In the last year there has been a nationwide explosion of renewed labor actions and strikes, spawned with BATs involved at every point. The mythology of the United movements coming from out of nowhere, or out of the traditional unions misses that those actions were 5 years in the consciousness raising making, state by state within BAT groups and local action groups.
It is time now for BATs to be on the forming edge of formulating the vision. For years we’ve heard from hired privatization promoters, “If you don’t want reform, what do you want?”
We want:
1. A school system as well-funded and valued as our banks and military, that provides adequate resources for Every child in the nation, and the conditions to enable them to become their most thriving and flourishing selves as children and as adults.
2. A balance of emphasis between curriculum & instruction and assessment that is formulated by teachers and communities, not billionaires, corporate boards, and legislatures.
3. A positive, healthy and safe work and learning place for every child, teacher, and support professional in the U.S. which must include a liveable planet and is free from the toxic conditions both physical and emotional that have overshadowed our days for too long.
4. A philosophy and mission in dynamic, balanced affirmation of competition & collaboration, content & skills, joy & diligence, and creativity & applied knowledge. A mission that builds a system able to change yet still maintain stability for all the children within it.
5. A nationally treasured education system that values the lives and becoming of our young people from birth through adulthood, and prepares them to guide and sustain the future; recognizing that learning, which is a key necessity of life, starts at birth and continues throughout life.
For me this is what Badass Teachers have been fighting for these six years, and what we will continue to stand for in our classrooms, in our communities, in our religious centers, and our legislatures, and in the streets.
Happy Birthday BATs! Fight on for the present and future our children need and deserve.
