Derrell Bradford, executive vice president of 50CAN, thinks the teacher strikes happening all over the country are unseemly and distasteful. He thinks teachers should not model striking for fair wages and funding. After all, they are too college educated to engage in a dirty, blue collar, line worker struggle against exploitation. That’s for lesser folks. It’s not a good look on a master’s degree. It’s beneath them. However, it’s not beneath them to qualify for food stamps or use food pantries or wait tables or drive uber or mow lawns or sell blood or quietly scratch for survival under unfair wages. It’s not beneath them to teach on broken chairs out of ripped up books. That’s kind of noble. (Give those teachers an apple.) But unseemly demands? Pressure upon politicians? Coming out en masse? Inconvenience? No, no, no. Take that exploitation quietly and with forbearance.
Of course, we all want fair wages for teachers. Derrell wants fair wages. Anyway… he’s surely for justice in theory. He recognizes “the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized.” (Bishops of Alabama, 1963) It’s just that there must be another way. Something that has better optics. Teachers should not model fighting for justice. Perhaps they could model writing a letter to the editor for justice.
Better yet, pack up and move out of state. That’s a free market solution. Then the free market can respond by ‘naturally’ bringing up salaries or bringing down expectations or both. Win-win. You uproot your family, and the state hires anyone who’ll take the job to watch kids in increasingly “blended” classrooms… still sitting on their broken chairs, doing online worksheets that correct themselves and provide instant data. Win!
But, here’s the best solution for excellent individuals. If you don’t want to be exploited, don’t be a teacher. Do it for five minutes and then move into a lucrative career where you can tweet about it. Maybe get on panels where you can discuss the importance of education… remind us that you were almost not privileged. That’s the good look.
“The strikes feel very line worker to me”. That in a nut shell says it all. This person is a classist and quite possibly a racist. “Line workers” are just as important in society as business owners. I’m sure Mr. Bradford would never say to the person who trims his hair that he is “just a barber (or beautician)”…..imagine what he would like after his appointment?
A truly free market would not have government protected land/titles and a host of other legal ‘property’ protections. We would all simply pay the ground rent and otherwise keep what we produce. By collecting the rental value of land, holdout power of land is weakened which significantly strengthens the worker’s bargaining position significantly.
It is sad how few people understand classical economics.
It’s even sadder how few people understand the economic reality that governs their daily lives.
Back during the NYC teachers’ strike in 1968, my mother explained that the teachers had debated whether they were professionals, like doctors, or workers, like garbage collectors. They had chosen the latter, and no one had regretted the choice. My take is that a lot of doctors nowadays are regretting not being in a union these days of medical consolidation.