After five successful years of our effort to democratize contract negotiations through open bargaining, we were far more prepared to run our statewide campaign to resume educating our students #OnlyWhenItsSafe. During the COVID-19 crisis, you and your co-workers have taken part in union actions at unprecedented levels — whether virtually or in person — to demand safe schools and colleges, fight layoffs and furloughs, and assert your right to develop strategies for teaching during a pandemic.
Our movement is based on a broad set of antiracist common good principles. Our agenda for a just recovery calls for adequate funding for public services, progressive taxation, safe working conditions for employees, power for workers through unionization, a moratorium on housing evictions, universal health care, affordable child care and a green new deal.
And then there is the election, fraught with disinformation, attempts at voter suppression, the rush to get one more conservative justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and a president who tells armed white supremacist groups to "stand back and stand by." In any other country this would be understood not as a constitutional crisis, but as an attempted coup. Many of you have already participated in the MTA/NEA initiative to call educators in the swing states to support the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidential ticket. Continue your activism. The nationwide movement composed of labor unions and our community allies is preparing to respond to circumstances as they unfold.
All of this is part of the ongoing struggle for a more just society. We’ve had some important victories. We still have a lot of work to do.
So what have you done together since the sudden shutdown in March? You and your co-workers joined in the MTA’s statewide campaign for a safe reopening. You participated more often than ever in local meetings to identify solutions and took collective action. You have protested, driven in car caravans, rallied for Black Lives Matter, signed up for endless bargaining sessions over memorandums of understanding, signed petitions, posted messages on social media and contacted elected leaders.
In Sharon and Andover, you stuck together in true union solidarity and refused to go into buildings that had not been found to be safe. Though it came with a cost, you struck a blow for all who believe in #OnlyWhenItsSafe.
You have also been there for your students, giving up vacation time to figure out how to teach during a pandemic and continuing your self-education during the 10 days we negotiated for preK-12 preparation. At all levels of public education, you have grappled with unfamiliar technology and spent countless hours developing plans for virtual and hybrid instruction.
In your communities you have worn face masks, kept your distance and washed your hands over and over because you are educators and you believe in science. You are teaching your students how to tell fact from fiction — truth from lies — in our social media-distorted world. Indeed, media literacy is as important as any other subject we teach.
Where do we go from here?
I find hope in how you have taken on these challenges and become involved at all levels of the union.
First, we must not let education officials push us into teaching under unsafe or untenable conditions. We are not sacrificial lambs. The end of the pandemic is not in sight. The coronavirus is in fact something "to be afraid of," particularly for vulnerable populations. Even when a vaccine is available, it is not going to be 100 percent effective or accessible to everyone. You need to keep organizing for health and safety measures as well as adequate staffing to educate and support students, whether they are at home or in school buildings.
With the arrival of the flu season and cold weather, there is a good chance that the pandemic will get worse before it gets better. If your district or campus isn’t taking appropriate measures, you and your co-workers have the power to stand up forcefully for the health and safety of students and staff alike. The MTA supports you.
We also need to build a better future by addressing the root cause of the problem. Austerity, which has led to disinvestment in public education, has left our schools and colleges without the necessary resources to educate our students. Yet the money exists. Billionaires nationwide — including the 19 who live in Massachusetts — have collectively grown their wealth by an estimated $685 billion since the beginning of the pandemic.
But our elected officials refuse to raise the revenues needed to fund the staffing and equipment that pandemic education really requires. Instead they push us to teach the regular curriculum — as if times were normal — and go to new lengths to get it done, depriving our students of the education they deserve during these incredibly difficult times.
As Haverhill Education Association President Anthony Parolisi stated in an interview for an important story in this issue of MTA Today: "We’ve had a failure of leadership at all levels — federal, state and local. We’ve underfunded our schools for too long. To do this the right way, we need the kind of investment we haven’t seen since FDR."
We are demanding more federal and state funding for education, paid for with progressive taxes.
At the federal level, the MTA and the NEA are advocating for the HEROES Act, a funding bill passed by the House but blocked in the Senate. This measure would not only extend unemployment benefits, but also bail out hard-hit states, municipalities, schools and colleges. No matter who sits in the White House after the election, we will need to push to roll back President Donald Trump’s giveaways to billionaires — including tax cuts that benefit real estate developers like him.
At the state level, we are supporting a slate of progressive revenue measures with our allies in the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, including increasing taxes on "unearned" income and on highly profitable corporations.
If we are to make any headway, you need to speak out for these bills as loudly as you did against Question 2, the unsuccessful 2016 state ballot initiative to lift the cap on charter schools.
We need to pass the Cherish Act or a substantially similar measure to greatly increase funding for public higher education. We must prevent layoffs and privatization, and we must reduce student debt.
We need the Legislature to fund the Student Opportunity Act with all deliberate speed.
We need to stop the MCAS tests this year. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said she won’t give states waivers on standardized testing despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis, and Governor Charlie Baker supports that position. That won’t stop us. We are still planning to take down MCAS in 2020-2021.
As you know, there is much to be done. I find hope in how you have taken on these challenges and become involved at all levels of the union. You recognize that there is power in united action — power that cannot be achieved by individual acts alone. Stay involved and stay safe.
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