Monday Mind Dump - Bevin, Teachers, and Disrespect

This has been a hard year for educators in West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, the latter being the state where I live and work (I am a public school speech pathologist).  Over the past several weeks, teachers in these states have protested in various ways ranging from "sickouts" to rallies to flat out strikes over issues such as low pay, health insurance, school budgets, and pensions.  

Here in Kentucky, our protests were about preserving our pensions, preserving retirees' health care, and to voice our disagreement and concerns over the deep cuts to public education that the legislature proposed, cuts that would make many school systems insolvent within 2-3 years.  Kentucky educators have not been protesting over pay raises like many in the media have claimed; our protests have never been about salaries.  Instead, we've been protesting to secure the pensions that we were promised, the pensions that we pay 13% of our paychecks to every payday whether we like it or not.  We've also been protesting to secure the educational futures of the children in Kentucky who need and rely on public education.  

Over the past several weeks, we've received a lot of public support, something we've been extremely appreciative of.  We've also received a lot of criticism and disrespect from parents all the way up to the leaders of the state.  

We've been accused by our governor, Matt Bevin, as being "sick day hoarding" employees (because a percentage of the cash value of unused sick days have been a part of the equation when determining one's retirement).  Obviously he has no idea that the reason educators accumulate so many sick days is not because we're hoarders or healthier than average people, but rather because it's usually easier for a teacher to come to work sick than to jump through all the hurdles of finding an adequate substitute and preparing sub plans.  Shouldn't he be proud that teachers take their job this seriously as to not abuse this benefit?

He's also called protesting teachers "selfish and short sighted" and stated that some have a "thug mentality,"  thus spawning the adoption and use of #thuglife by Kentucky educators on Facebook and Twitter.  What's interesting, though, is that many of these selfish individuals with thug mentalities organized ways to get food to their students on days when school was cancelled.  That kind of behavior doesn't sound selfish to me.

On Friday, after teachers participated in another statewide protest in which many districts closed either voluntarily so their teachers could protest or because teachers organized "sick outs," Bevin said that he "guaranteed" that somewhere in Kentucky a child had been physically and/or sexually abused, ingested poison, or tried drugs for the first time because their district cancelled school.  I, along with thousands of others across the state, are absolutely appalled by his comments and by his suggestion that teachers are responsible for whatever happens to students once they leave school.  Bevin has since apologized, but only after the Kentucky House of Representatives publicly condemned his comments in two separate resolutions on the last day of the legislative session and after he received a barrage of emails and phone calls from those in the education community blasting him for his comments.  And, most people who have watched his video apology agree that his apology was more like a "sorry, not sorry."

Bevin claims to have the utmost respect for teachers, but his words as of late do not support this claim. Here's my question - if the governor, the leader of the Commonwealth, and many of Kentucky's legislators (based on comments they, too, have made) don't respect teachers, then why would parents and citizens?

Educators don't go into this profession to get rich; we do because we want to make a difference.  There's no other reason why those of us in public education would tolerate what we do - increased class sizes, increasing behavior issues, increased workload demands, and increased student performance expectations while dealing with decreased funding, decreased support, and decreasing respect - if we didn't want to make a positive impact on the lives of kids.  Honestly, no one in their right mind would go public  education if they didn't genuinely love kids.  

We're not asking for much - a livable wage, a secure retirement, the necessary funding needed to educate children, and...  well, I think this video says it all.

P.S.  Good luck to the educators in Colorado who organized a walkout for today.  Fight the good fight, ladies and gentlemen!