Activism Is Good Teaching
Reclaiming the profession
It was a sunny afternoon in May 2015. Several dozen Albuquerque Public School (APS) teachers gathered around a metal garbage can outside district headquarters just a few minutes before the final school board meeting of the year. As local news cameras rolled, the teachers came forward one by one to burn their end-of-year evaluations. Like many states across the United States, New Mexico has adopted a value-added model of teacher evaluations, basing 50 percent of the overall score on student test scores. Whether rated as “minimally effective” or “exemplary,” the teachers individually and collectively made a powerful case for why their evaluations were arbitrary, unreliable, and deeply damaging to the profession of teaching.
As I watched from sidelines, I recognized Michelle Perez and Amanda Short, two teachers from High Desert Elementary, a high-poverty school rated “F” by the state of New Mexico. The event, which Michelle helped organize, occurred at the end of a tumultuous school year, characterized by drastic decreases in teacher autonomy and a growing culture of surveillance and fear. Michelle worked on the event because “these evaluations are not a reflection of a teacher’s abilities and should not determine our worth as professionals.” She wanted to create a way teachers could share their frustration with the public as well as with the local school board, who, for the most part, have been complicit in the policies mandated by the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED).
High Desert Elementary School is a Title I school with 100 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch. The diversity of the school’s population is representative of the state: 5 percent African American, 30 percent white, 55 percent Latina/o and 10 percent Native American; 33 percent are English language learners and 29 percent qualify for special education. Students live in Section 8 housing, in motels along the interstate, and in homes close to the local university. Throughout their teaching careers at the school, Michelle and Amanda have noticed a decline in diversity due to decreasing enrollment among middle-class families, a demographic shift that can be attributed to the poor grades the school has received.
Michelle and Amanda, who teach 2nd and 4th grade respectively, are veteran teachers with an impressive array of credentials. Michelle has a master’s and endorsement in reading instruction and helped write the district’s 2nd-grade math curriculum. Amanda is National Board certified. Both teachers have spent their careers at High Desert Elementary in part because of a desire to serve children from historically marginalized backgrounds. Last spring, both received overall evaluations of “minimally effective” on the state’s evaluation rubric. Their principal gave them failing grades in the category of “professionalism” due to their ongoing activism against high-stakes accountability policies.
For example, on Amanda’s evaluation, the principal wrote: “Because she is respected by the adults that she works with, her dissatisfaction with requirements has been shared with others resulting in similar actions. . . . I feel that she has had a negative impact on the culture of [High Desert] this year” and “Ms. Short has been very vocal in speaking out against mandates from the district level, which has led to discord in the building and which has even moved to the district level.”
A School-University Collaboration
My colleagues from the university, Rebecca Sánchez and Kersti Tyson, and I met Michelle and Amanda through a school-university partnership that originated with plans for a curriculum project on Japanese lesson study. Soon, however, the restrictive policy environment at every level of education compelled us to join forces to resist. Over the past two years, we have worked collaboratively to oppose key mandates, march on the state capitol in support of teacher autonomy, and design classroom initiatives based on authentic inquiry and critical engagement with elementary students.
As educators who work at various points across the P–20 spectrum, we have all noticed a decline in teacher autonomy and a notable absence of teachers’ voices in shaping policy. As this phenomenon has intensified, there is a growing need for teachers to reclaim our profession though activism. Although schools, administrators, districts, and the state increasingly define professionalism as a willingness to comply with mandates, no matter how problematic, we offer a different definition: professionalism as activism.
Professionalism as activism recognizes that we enter our role as teachers in a democratic society with a set of commitments and responsibilities to advocate for children and for ourselves as educators. That means we must speak against policies and leadership decisions that undermine our work and devalue our expertise about children and learning. As one popular protest sign states, “You cannot test your way to a great education, you teach your way there.” Amanda and Michelle were marked down for speaking up, but we see their acts of opposition and resistance as a necessary means of preserving intellectual integrity and democratic principles.
Professionalism as activism, then, is characterized by action to defend and promote meaningful instruction and collaboration among teachers, action to inform families about current reform initiatives and their rights, and action as protesters against unsound policies that compromise the integrity of teaching and learning in our public schools.
Professionalism can be used as a class marker—a way to divide teachers from teaching assistants, cafeteria workers, and others whose work is integral to creating schools that serve all students’ needs. We recognize this as Activism Is Good Teaching • Reclaiming the profession:
