It is time to stand and fight for our union and our beliefs

Sunday's viewpoint in the Houston Chronicle featured a point and counter-point regarding the recent consultation policy that was being considered by the board prior to being pulled off the table by formally supported board president Larry Marshall.

It is very important that we begin to pay close attention to the players out there interested in doing nothing more than placing a knife in our back. Too often we find ourselves justifying our right to advocate on your behalf as many would like nothing better than to paint us and you as anti-student, which is the furthest from the truth it could be.

My response below is intended to bring to light the fact that it isn't just Republicans that work against us, there are Democrats willing to harm us as well. Our members must be more visible in both parties and willing to question positons that impact our work.

____________________________________________________________________

Joe Williams, executive director of the so-called "Democrats" for Education Reform, is nothing more than a modern day carpetbagger quick to embrace and capitalize on the plantation mentality so prevalent in Southern education bureaucracies when it comes to their labor relations with rank and file teachers and school employees. The argument made so often by DFER that unions are the problem in education lacks merit when you consider the South is practically a union contract free zone and that our school systems often display overall inferior performance when compared to systems in other areas.

A recent reports released by MGT of America ranked the Maryland state education system as one of the top performing systems in the country; Maryland is also ninety-seven percent unionized. A quality report completed by the research wing of Education Week listed Maryland as the third highest functioning state education system in the country behind New York and Massachusetts, two other highly unionized states.

DFER, the newly hatched caucus within the Democratic party for the charter movement and other like minds are as interested in creating systems free of oversight making it easier to get the six-figure salaries they weren't able to get in the public system as much as they are concerned about student performance. It is amazing how many of these former teachers and principals call themselves superintendents because they oversee less than a dozen campuses and pay themselves on par with an urban superintendent overseeing tens or hundreds of campuses. The fact of the matter is that the majority of studies consistently show that public schools perform at or above their charter school counterparts. The kicker is that we do so with one arm tied behind our backs. Public schools are mandated to teach every child, not pick and choose the children that best fit their program or those students most ready to learn.

True Democrats should be wary of Republicans in sheep’s clothing as many of them seem to be looking for a new political home after the last eight years on easy street. It seems at least one HISD board member has made a quick turn to the left and landed in a caucus within our party that is ready, willing and able to provide asylum to spouses of former Bush benefactors. Lack of appropriate funding, bureaucracy on steroids, and failure to truly listen to those on the front lines of education are the true impediments to education reform.

Zeph Capo
Legislative Director
Houston Federation of Teachers