First of all a heartfelt "thank you" to all who viewed my post.  In answer to some questions, I am in the process of figuring out how to allow people to "follow" this blog.  Also, some have expressed an interest in posting and are not having luck without a gmail account. I WILL do some homework to get this resolved.

     I never have to think about what I'm going to write - information seems to come at me from all fronts.  Two unrelated scenarios really got my wheels turning tonight.  First, I heard on the local news (out of Albany, New York) that a fairly affluent school district was once again going to have trouble coming in at or under the mandated 2% property tax cap.  For the past 2 years they have let many teachers, administrators, and support staff go.  They are a district that takes pride in the quality of their program. The Superintendent stated, "you can't cut your way to excellence".  The story went on but for this post, that is the salient piece of information.

    Then I read a post from a Facebook "friend".  Quotation marks because we have never met yet we share a profound concern over the lack of respect shown to teachers throughout the US. Bear in mind, this "friend lives in North Carolina. I live in New York. I'm paraphrasing, but this person, a teacher with a Masters' Degree makes $15.00 an hour. The family qualifies for assistance. When I read that I truly wanted to cry. Why should a teacher, in a state that is anti-union and where teachers do NOT have the right to unionize, have to work for $15.00 an hour?  My nephew, a high school dropout, makes $15.00 an hour. So I asked, "How on earth do you get teachers?" The reply, "3 letters...TFA..." (TFA = Teach for America).

    It all makes sense, doesn't it? New York State teachers - watch out. The goal is to ALLOW schools like the one referenced above to fail.  This district won't fail because of test scores. No, we'll save failure from test scores for those districts with high poverty rates.  So how to force failure on an affluent school?  Easy.  The community, which is already paying very high school taxes (perhaps some of the highest in our area) will say "ENOUGH!!  We can't pay any more than what we are already paying!" At that point, the door is open for privatization of a district.  The parents want great programming for their children.  They want excellence. I don't know at what point frustration over loss of programming for AP courses, sports, music, and the arts outweighs concern over whether or not the school district is run by a company.

    And so, I will now remove the quotation marks from the word friends.  You truly are my friends. The folks that I have met through political action on Facebook share a common ideal.  We know each others' hearts. We know the passion that we have for the profession.  We didn't go into it for the money, but we are tired of being made the scapegoat for all that is wrong with society by our politicians. And we darned well believe we are are worth more than $15.00 an hour.

     What are we going to DO for my friend in North Carolina? What are YOU going to do to effect change? What are YOU going to do to hold on to the right to unionize and to maintain collective bargaining rights? The time has come for more than idle chit chat. Spread the word. Get involved. Write letters. Opt your own children out of testing. Call politicians every single day. Join a phone bank to support those few politicians who stand up for unions and for teachers. Create a data base of all the home e-mail addresses of the teachers in your school and send them newspaper articles, internet articles, and so on. March with signs at your State Capitol. Organize a rally even if you have to start with a few people. If you can think it, you CAN do it.