The question every school owes an honest answer to
Who do you work for?
Watch how an institution behaves under pressure,
and you will learn who it believes it answers to.
Watch how an institution behaves under pressure,
and you will learn who it believes it answers to.
In 1848, Horace Mann argued that a republic cannot sustain itself on an uneducated citizenry. Public schooling was not charity extended to children. It was infrastructure, as foundational to self-government as roads or courts.
Mann was right then. The question worth asking now is whether the institutions he inspired still understand who they were built to serve.
Too many districts, under pressure, defend institutional equilibrium instead of the students and taxpayers they were built to serve. Every dollar spent insulating an administrator from consequences is a dollar that never reaches a classroom.
The union exists to correct an absolute power imbalance. When representatives point members toward the path of least institutional resistance instead of advocating for them, they have stopped representing and started managing.
The connection between the dysfunction inside our schools and the dysfunction in our public life is not metaphorical.
It's causal, and it's making us worse.
For writing, speaking, collaboration, or to share your own experience.
contact@advocateforeducators.org
Mr. Tim is an erstwhile history teacher, writer, musician, and chef emeritus. He lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, with his wife and two puppies. He started Advocate for Educators to hold public institutions to the same standard he taught in the classroom, the kitchen and the back office.
