About more than one contract

I GRADUATED from a public high school before standardized tests came along to trump creativity and critical thinking in the classroom. Or, to put it another way, before corporations trumped teachers as the most knowledgeable and trustworthy source of assessing the challenges and interests of students.

And as I've attended Portland Public Schools (PPS) school board meetings over the last few months and listened to the testimonials of teachers, students and parents, what's become clear is that this vote tonight by the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) is bigger than this one contract.

Now, do cost-of-living increases matter for teachers as much as they mattered for PPS administrators who already received these increases? Yes, they definitely do. Do class sizes matter when it comes to making schools engaging, enjoyable and (let us not forget) educational? Yes, definitely. And does it matter that teachers have time and energy to devote to their own families and to themselves as individuals at the end of a workday? Yes, most definitely.

And still this vote tonight is bigger than all of that.

I got a glimpse of just how big it really is last summer when I took a Civil Rights History Tour with a group of fantastic high school students from around the country. We stood in the spot where Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., and we stood in the Birmingham park where fire hoses were turned on children.

Those patches of land are humbling and inspiring. They compel you to think critically about the struggles that are still going on today, and, undeniably, education justice is one of those struggles.

If there's a poster school needed to prove it, look no further than Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. This school has educated the children of our country's presidents--including our current president--as well as the children of members of Congress.

I took an online tour, and it turns out that Sidwell is home to the Kogod Arts Center. This center includes a professionally equipped theater with 415 seats, an art gallery and newly constructed state-of-the-art studios where students can explore pottery, photography, drawing and painting, sculpture, digital art, theater tech, chorus and instrumental music.

Isn't that great? I love the arts, and I think that's great.

Not too far from the Kogod Arts Center is the Fox Den building, which is where the robotics lab is located. There are robotics teams for elementary, middle and high school students--or lower, middle and upper school as they're called at Sidwell. The robotics lab helps students "discover and develop a passion for science, technology, engineering and math." Just in case you're wondering, there's no mention on the website of standardized tests developing that same level of passion.

As a writer, I love books. So I was especially curious about the library. Or, at Sidwell, libraries. The Upper School Library alone contains more than 21,000 books, a language lab, a Chinese Studies collection, and "a fireplace that serves as a prime study area during colder months." There's a fireplace in the library. Now that is great!

And last but never least, there are the buildings that house the actual classrooms. Huge windows allow natural light to pour in to the Middle School building, which is the first LEED Platinum K-12 school building in the world. It includes a "constructed wetland that treats wastewater on site, recycled building materials, a green roof, sunshades, solar chimneys and rooftop photovoltaic panels." In fact, students offer tours for visitors who come to learn about "innovative environmental technologies and how they regularly inspire lessons in the classroom."

Again, no mention of standardized tests and what they inspire. It's also worth noting that, excluding what looked like choir practice, there were never more than 20 students per teacher in any of the pictures of actual classrooms.

IT IS, indeed, great that the children of the president and members of Congress are receiving this amazing education. The obvious question is, "Why aren't all children receiving this amazing education?"

After all, we know what happens in society when only some children receive an amazing education while most children do not. It's college degrees, stock options and well-padded savings accounts for some children, and it's school-to-prison pipelines, war-induced PTSD, and minimum wage or unemployment for most children.

And that's why this vote tonight is about so much more than this one contract. What PPS is offering PAT only digs students and teachers deeper into holes of inequality.

When it comes to compensation increases that are larger for PPS administrators than they are for teachers, the holes are already too deep. When it comes to class sizes that make children feel less like a member of humanity and more like a test result, the holes are already too deep. When it comes to the overall well-being of teachers who sacrifice time with their own families because they have too little prep time during their actual workday, the holes are already too deep.

The holes were deep in the 1950s and '60s, as well. The criticism came from all directions. For the troublesome people participating in the bus boycott, they just needed to be grateful they could ride the buses of Montgomery at all.

As for the unruly children of Birmingham being blasted by fire hoses, they just needed to get back to their underfunded classrooms so they could grow up to get paid minimum wage by a wealthy college graduate who received an amazing education. Which, to this day, is still an accurate description of how capitalism benefits some people while simultaneously exploiting most people.

As part of that Civil Rights History Tour, we met a few of the people from Birmingham who were on the receiving end of those fire hoses. Interestingly, they never gave credit to textbooks or tests of any kind for showing them the way toward realizing their collective potential and taking action. You know who they did give credit to? Their parents, their fellow classmates and their teachers!

Yes, it was about the buses in Montgomery, and it was about so much more. Yes, it was about segregation in Birmingham, and it was about so much more. And tonight in Portland, it's about one contract, and it's about so much more.

Tonight, Portland teachers are fighting for the schools that Portland students deserve, and they are fighting for the schools that all students and all teachers deserve in the decades to come.

And, teachers, we stand with you--all the way. Strike fund donations, picket line solidarity, whatever it takes. We are with you. Thank you for all you give and all you do!