“Get Cancer and Die”

There’s been a battle between teachers’ unions and conservative stalwarts all across the United States. Unions have been built on notions of seniority and tenure, but many believe that there has been failure in a system built on these precepts to instill individual accountability. A number of communities have gotten just plain angry at protecting under-performing teachers generating under-performing students. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker built his reputation as a union buster as he disempowered teachers’ unions in his state. Other states have followed suit, following these conservative steps.

In other parts of the country, teachers’ unions are a political force to be reckoned with. In California, for example, oppose the teachers and a candidate will most probably remain on the outside looking in.

But there are legitimate gripes about the application of “tenure” to primary and secondary teachers. The concept of “tenure,” unlike “seniority” which is a hallmark of traditional union agreements, is about academic freedom, the willingness to let professors speak their minds and push the envelope even if it means ruffling a few feathers. Primary and secondary schools are not cutting-edge academic institutions, driven by research and controversial exploration; they are supposed to teach the same basics all over the United States. And frankly, as academic performance drops, as educational budgets are pared to the bone, the ability to get rid of bad or mediocre teachers has become a political rallying cry.

So in 2013 when taxpayers in Jefferson County, Colorado (near Denver) got so fed up with the quality of their schools, they elected a conservative majority of three to their school board, candidates who had pledged to make big changes. The new school board diluted the power of teachers’ unions by agreeing to fund new independent charter schools with the same per-student contribution that supported the existing public school system. The teachers in the charter school system weren’t subject to the protections of the public school unions. OK, so what? The teachers’ union was flummoxed, but teachers could be rewarded for excellence and more easily discharged for ineffective teaching.

Perhaps, if the conservative majority had stopped there, things would have simmered down in the struggle between left and right. But the three elected conservatives decided that they also need to adjust the curriculum of even the public schools to provide an education more appropriate to right wing values. In September, conservative board member Julie Williams suggested that the advanced placement U.S. history course in the local high schools needed to shift away from traditional academics and instead focus on “patriotic” values, moving away from topics covering subjects like “social strife,” civil rights and “civil disorder.” Thousands of students literally walked out of their classrooms in protest.

“It was a moment when festering disputes among parents, students, teachers and the board leapt into the national news. Even though the curriculum was never changed, many voters around the district say they are still upset.

“‘When you have high school kids having walkouts trying to get an education, it’s astonishing,’ said Randy Kubes, who answered [a knock on his door by concerned parent Tina Gurdikian]. He said he was planning to vote against the conservative majority, adding, ‘Those people are taking us back to the Dark Ages.’

“Six miles away, outside Yummy’s Donut House, staff members of Americans for Prosperity [a conservative organization heavily funded by the Koch brothers] were handing out green T-shirts and iPads to a handful of volunteers as they prepared to fan out and make sure conservative-leaning voters planned on casting ballots.” New York Times, October 28^th. Why the door-knocking campaign and slogan-laden T-shirts? A recall campaign exploded to remove those conservatives, a backlash that has rent the community into two very opposite and vituperative halves, a split very much along ideological lines.

The new history advanced placement tests have riled the GOP big time; they deal with socially unpleasant topics conservatives find offensive. Texas-approved text books, very much supported by the Republican Party, downplay slavery and the civil rights movements, stressing virtually only the positive in heavily edited versions of U.S. history. “[Every fall], 500,000 American high school students enrolled in Advanced Placement (AP) US History will be taught from an entirely redesigned curriculum. Instead of quizzing students on presidential trivia and the heroic exploits of our founding fathers, the new test will ask students to think more critically about America’s past. Students will learn, for instance, how racism was a foundational ideology of the early colonists and that immigrants have long been exploited for their labor.

“This all seems entirely appropriate for an AP history class, which is after all intended to offer challenging coursework to gifted high school students on their way to college. Colonists in America killed off indigenous peoples and enslaved men, women and children from Africa; it’s not an anti-American stretch to call them racists, even if it’s a blow to the national ego. But to hear some conservatives describe it, our best and brightest are being taught to hate their homeland.

“Peter Wood of the right-wing National Association of Scholars calls the new test ‘a briefing document on progressive and leftist views of the American past,’ which is to say: bad. Glenn Beck’s been nursing public outrage all summer [of 2014], while Concerned Women for America, a Christian group, is encouraging its members to complain to the College Board, the nonprofit that drafts the AP exam.

“The Republican National Committee… meanwhile, is accusing the College Board of presenting a ‘radical’ and ‘inaccurate’ version of US history. It’s demanding that the new curriculum be changed to ‘accurately reflect US history without political bias.’” Vice.com, August 20, 2014. A bias that speaks candidly about the good, the bad and the ugly of our history. Truth can be scary. And the new school board in Jefferson County was taking steps in line with their perceived conservative mandate to rewrite history accordingly.

What began as a battle over union protections for teachers devolved into the subject matter being taught in local classrooms and the nature of those running the programs and the teachers they engaged. Tempers flared. Piles of money, both from the local community and “interested outsiders” like Americans for Prosperity poured into the recall campaign. That the board was stepping into areas well beyond their original mandate was infuriating to too many in this Colorado community. Left and right factions were soon at each other’s throats.

“Critics accused the board of secrecy and of trying to turn the 86,500-student district into a petri dish for conservative educational ideas. Board meetings turned into shouting matches. Upset parents spliced the live-streamed meeting video — an innovation of the new board — into outrage highlight reels…

“In this suburban [recall] election, lawn signs are being stolen and minivans vandalized. One candidate says she received an email telling her to get cancer and die. Money from the billionaire Koch brothers is funding one side’s commercials and fliers, and upset parents, teachers and labor unions are pouring in cash for the other.” NY Times.

The schisms represented by this struggle, pretty much the same issues that were supposed to have been resolved by the Civil War, are tearing this nation apart. The values are irreconcilable, often defended under the guise of God’s mandate, breaking apart a nation that once prided itself on the unity of purpose that gave the United States such profound victories in two horrific World Wars. We accomplished a lunar landing; scientific and engineering excellence once defined who we once were.

We did much together. We could do more if we figured out how to get back together again. If we do not, as has happened repeatedly throughout recorded history, the United States will simply fracture into component parts. Remember the “former” Soviet Union? Are we begging to be the next “former”?

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we do not find that middle ground that can unite us, what exactly do you think will happen as sides just dig in their heels?