What was already a significant year for both public education and the Commonwealth as a whole is now shaping up to be a monumental one — with an incredible amount at stake.
After Governor Charlie Baker’s decision not to seek another term, we can look toward the months ahead in a somewhat different way.
The upcoming election holds the chance of a lifetime to loosen the grip of a system that is built on high-stakes testing, a punitive educator evaluation structure, and other ill-informed policies that have exacerbated problems for our students and our communities. Moreover, it offers the promise of creating a stable funding stream that will permanently provide resources for our public schools and colleges, our roads and bridges, and our public transportation systems. But realizing the potential before us means hard work — and more involvement than ever on the part of MTA members.
If all goes as it can, educators and other unionists will have the opportunity beginning in January to partner with a progressive governor whose cabinet appointees stand ready to address the problems that have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic — in preK-16 public education, public health, housing, and many other areas that are at the core of the common good.
Yet for that to happen, it’s vital for MTA members to use our power wisely and fight to continue building a state in which everyone can thrive and succeed.
The pandemic has been a pivotal time for Massachusetts. It has starkly revealed the injustices perpetuated by a system that serves the richest among us while failing so many others, including the state’s hard-hit communities of color. And it has shown the degree to which the power of the governor’s office affects our daily lives.
It is the governor who makes appointments at the cabinet level to spearhead the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the boards and agencies that control public higher education and countless other areas of vital public interest.
Those appointments, like so much else that originates in the corner office at the State House, are felt in our classrooms, on our campuses, and throughout our communities.
Now more than ever, as we hope that COVID-19 is receding, we see the need to transform public education. We have to break away from a quartercentury of failed accountability policy, and we must implement new standards for health and safety in our schools — things that are only possible with a new direction at the state level. In addition, we must make high-quality public higher education accessible to all without forcing students to take on insurmountable burdens of debt.
Today, all of those things are within the realm of possibility.
They exist amid the goals stated by candidates for governor, whose positions are starting to reflect the way the MTA and other educators’ unions have changed the national narrative through the #RedForEd movement. They exist in the Fair Share Amendment, which will be on the ballot in November. They exist as we see women and people of color forming a new generation of leaders in cities such as Boston, in the Legislature, and in countless other spheres of influence.
Indeed, despite the many dangers we face from the right wing, the ongoing uncertainty about the course of the pandemic, and other forces currently at play, this is an amazing moment.
As educators, we always have the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of our students. But the potential for large-scale change is greater now than it has been for some time.
The MTA, as an organization that is continually building ever-stronger alliances, truly has the power to shape history. By becoming advocates and by voting, our 115,000 members can play a decisive role in determining what lies ahead.
"While Jeff Bezos is flying into outer space in his rockets, I’m reaching into my pockets and buying school supplies for my students," Worcester paraeducator Saul Ramos often remarks. It’s a sentiment that resonates with me, as I’m sure it does with many of you — and it speaks volumes about everything that we have to accomplish.
Although our collective experience over the last two years has been beyond traumatic, it has also shown us the path forward. The pandemic has exposed the degree to which so many people — our students and their families — were suffering before the coronavirus hit. That, in turn, leads us to strategies to shape a new landscape as we emerge from the worst that COVID-19 can throw at us.
The fights ahead will be daunting. But they are ours to win when voters go to the polls this November, elect a new governor, and pass the Fair Share Amendment.
It is clear from public opinion that most Massachusetts residents believe the time has arrived for the richest among us to pay their fair share. And in our own polling, when Massachusetts residents were given two ways to approach public education, 70 percent of respondents supported the MTA’s vision of a system that addresses the whole child instead of the "information acquisition" concept advocated by the so-called reformers.
Such results highlight the degree to which the MTA has structurally changed the conversation about what our schools should provide — even as we have won victories such as the Student Opportunity Act.
This, however, is our time to achieve even more.
Passage of the FSA would put Massachusetts in a position to consistently stabilize revenues for preK-16 education and other vital investments. Helping our brothers and sisters in labor defeat the ballot initiative promoted by corporations that exploit "gig economy" employees would fend off yet another assault on workers’ rights. The election of a pro-public-education governor would help us move toward policies that would function side by side with the new funding to make our state work well for us all.
The fights ahead will be daunting. But they are ours to win when voters go to the polls this November, elect a new governor, and pass the Fair Share Amendment.
That will be Round One.
Round Two will be continuing to build our power and making sure the gains are used the right way — and put to work right away. But even then, we cannot let up. Round Three will mean ensuring that every year, we maintain the progress toward the greater good and create lasting change for students, educators and our communities.
We still have to solve the problem of massive student debt. We have to continue to diversify the educator workforce to better serve our students of color. We must stop the exploitation of adjunct faculty members and Education Support Professionals. And the state needs to rethink its approach to public health and other major areas of policy.
What that means for the MTA is that we need to understand ourselves as a powerful union with a vision — to fight, to continue to organize, and always to build on what is won.
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