This past week we just saw the pomp and fanfare associated with the election and inauguration of a new President. The divisive and contested nature of this last election is evidence that most Americans see the Presidency as an important and powerful office in creating/maintaining the desired way of life. As Commander in Chief, head of the Executive branch of the government, and leader of international relations, the President of the United States is easily identified as one of the most important people in the world.

And so it is with the recent election, wrestling for power, and inauguration in mind that I’m going to make a bold claim: School teachers are, without a doubt, the most important people in our country.

This blog series is an attempt to capture and explore the lessons learned as hidden or ignored things were revealed for everyone to see as the pandemic disrupted the foundational structures of our lives. And as with most conversations about power structures, it is not sufficient to talk exclusively about the subject at hand, but also to explore the forces at work that shape that subject. And so while I will absolutely get to a point where we celebrate educators for all that they do, we first need to deal with Apocolypse 2020; the revelation of hidden truths.

2020 revealed clearly a truth that many of us outside the field of education may not have ever given much thought: The system of education in America is not primarily driven by the desire to educate children for the sake of their becoming well-informed and critically thinking citizens. The system of education (not the teachers, but the forces that shape education in America) is driven by the needs of the labor marketplace.

As the threat of Covid quickly spread throughout the country it disrupted most of the systems and structures that governed and shaped our lives. And as things that we would consider fundamental to our society started to breakdown some of the hidden forces that shape our lives were clearly revealed.

For example, the outcry of powerful and wealthy people who demanded public schools remain open exposed that a primary function of school in our society is not simply education; but rather its childcare which allows parents to work. Obviously parents had concerns about their children’s mental health and social lives. We were sad to see our children miss out on some of their activities. As a parent of three children, I think I can speak for all parents and say that we understood the impact of this on our children better than anyone.

But in all the various discussions about school, it was concerns about killing the economy that raised above all the other voices. There were some discussions about students “falling behind.” This created anxiety for some parents and students as they were concerned about the level of preparedness to enter the competitive worlds of higher education and the workplace. If there were any doubts, the role of the education system to provide a qualified workforce to the labor market was finally discussed openly and with little hesitation. The often unspoken, yet widely understood goal of education is to provide a pathway to the jobs those who control the marketplace deem most important.

Why are college and university boards filled with CEO’s and other leaders of powerful industries? They are there to influence and shape the education system to meet their needs. Your child wants to be a philosophy major in college? Or an English major? Historically those who could master philosophy and literature were held in the highest esteem. Plato, a foundational thinker in regards to Western Civilization declared that society should be ruled by philosophers.Yet today, we passively and actively discourage students from being educated in those fields because it does not create a clear pathway to employment. The labor marketplace does not have much use of philosophers.The underlying assumption is that only education that leads to employment is worthwhile. This explains why standardized testing and other methods derived from the business world are being forced into classrooms. Many experts in education acknowledge that this is not the best way to educate children. Yet these policies continue to be developed and enforced. And so in some ways it has been easy to see the role that education plays in our capitalistic and consumeristic society

But in 2020, that dynamic was revealed to be even deeper and more connected than I imagined. Powerful and influential people demanded that children remain in school so parents could keep working.Not only do we see that the current education system provides a future supply of labor, but schools provide the opportunity for greater workforce at a lower wage.

Imagine the most stereo typical family from the 1950’s. (This will of course lead to gross overgeneralization, but it speaks to the ideals of an era and not necessarily everyone’s experience.) Are you picturing this family? A father who works the “9 to 5” job is the sole wage earner in the family. The mother stays at home and manages the affairs of the house and family. A few kids in school participate in some organized activities. Now imagine the impact on that family if schools had to shut down and children had to stay home in that situation. Of course there would have been disruption and some adjustments needed. But in most cases children being at home would not have prevented father from going to work. The success of the workforce was not dependent upon the schools.

Leaving our imagined scenario of the past, let’s again look at the present reality. Two income homes are the standard in today’s family. One income will simply not cover the costs of living in most families today. While we can blame some of that on a more materialistic society who are less finically disciplined than previous generations, we also have to acknowledge that wages have not increased with the cost of living and inflation over the past several decades. In many families, the combined wages of the family members barely reach the equivalent value (adjusted for inflation and cost of living) of a single wage even a few decades ago. Simply put, businesses are not paying their employees what they used to.

And so what the crisis of the public school shutdown reveals is that those who control the workforce discovered that they benefit from the publicly funded system of education that actually allowed them to increase their profits by lowering their payroll costs. Millions of women who in previous generations could have chosen to be a stay at home mother are now in the workforce, not because they found their vocation and calling in life, but because a single wage was no longer sufficient to meet their family’s needs.

This is not my area of expertise, so I hope I’m painting a clear enough picture of how the education system has been pulled into the world of capitalism and has been used as a tool by the most powerful to increase their own profitability. And while this was probably hidden from most of us in the past, the loud shouting of the rich and powerful that schools must reopen exposes that their system of “private business” is built upon and heavily reliant on a publicly funded service.

Last summer there were strong calls to “defund the police” in response to police violence and militarization. This demand to reallocate some of the billions of dollars spent each year by the US to other services was met by an equally strong resistance to that idea. It was a line in the sand about the value of the (publicly funded) police force in our society.

Yet at the same time public schools around the country are already being defunded. Most schools do not have the funding they need to operate as it is, and yet, local and state governments are cutting budgets for education, and the federal government has not stepped up in a real way to meet those needs.

The point I’m trying to make is that we simply do not understand the value of school in our society. Despite it being THE cornerstone that allows the rest of our country to run, despite it being the primary tool that generates a skilled workforce and provides opportunity for an expanded workforce, government and businesses neglect schools way too much.

We’ve witnessed this past year what happens without schools. The demands of our economy and labor marketplace have made public school the lynchpin of our society. And it’s about time we start acknowledging that reality.

Which brings me back to school teachers being the most important people in our country…

Despite ever increasing demands and intrusions into classrooms by powerful corporations and businesses, despite underfunding and continued cuts in the funding, despite a lack of support for those who dare to take on the financial liability of student debt in order to become an underpaid, under-resourced, educator, our children can still go to school and be met by good and loving educators who sacrifice their own personal time, money, and comfort, in order to fulfill this critical role. Our children grow to love and care about their teachers because they know their teachers love and care about them.

To my teacher friends, THANK YOU! I am sorry that we don’t see that collectively we put the success of our society completely on your shoulders, ask you to meet demands from powerful institutions that have varying priorities, put you in classrooms with more students than we should, and then provide you with far too few resources. It is not right. The government should see the importance of your work and fund you better (give the schools the same budget as the police or the military for one year and see what happens). Businesses should see that their profitability and stability is dependent upon you and do something to acknowledge your role in their success.

Teachers, you make America work. And we don’t acknowledge it. We don’t appreciate it. We don’t support the work that you do nearly enough. You are the most important people in our society. 2020 showed us that. And sadly it required pushing you all to the edge of your physical and mental health in order for us to truly understand. I pray for you often. I am grateful for you and all the other educators out there. You stand in the gaps for our children, help them in ways we cannot or do not know how to. May we never forget this lesson that we’ve learned in this past year.

And for the non-educators reading this. We’ve got to do better. We have got to take care of our teachers. We have to give them the resources to do this important and difficult task. We’ve got to create environments that support their work, and not ones that create barriers. We have to fund education and educators. We have to find ways to encourage and support those who want to become teachers overcome the barriers that prevent so many from doing the required studies and preparation. Before they even open a textbook, teachers provide so much for our children, our families, our communities, and our nation. We’ve got work to do. Teachers went into their profession to make the world a better place. And even with all their hard work, compassion, and sacrifice, they need our help and cooperation. Let’s do our part. We need to treat teachers as the important and valuable people that they are.

And we need to start right now.

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