What the Republican war on public teachers actually looks like, from a Houston-area classroom

This November, the wellbeing of Texas children is on the ballot. 

Governor Abbott and the Texas GOP’s agenda of sowing disrespect and distrust in teachers was designed to push educators to their breaking point. So while we should be horrified and alarmed at the long term harms we will see unfold from this strategy, we shouldn’t be surprised that 70% of Texas teachers are considering quitting. 

An extreme but powerful faction of the Texas GOP has made it clear they think teachers are all in this profession to tarnish and brainwash children – and this tiny minority of people are the ones who are making it impossible for teachers to continue showing up for our kids.

If you want to know why Texas teachers who have dedicated their entire lives to educating, supporting, and caring for our children are being driven to leave, look no further than this one recent viral post from a Houston area teacher:

Here is my classroom library.  This is over 1,600 books chosen for my elementary students.  This is over a decade and thousands of dollars and countless donations of collecting.  This is my students’ favorite place to go in my classroom.  This is where I go when I have a reluctant reader to find something just right to spark their interest. 

According to the state of Texas, this is dangerous.  This is a place where children may be indoctrinated or exposed to inappropriate content. This is just one more area where teachers cannot be trusted as educational experts.  This is a battleground.

By November, every single teacher in my district, no matter their grade or subject, has to enter the title, author, and year published for every book in their classroom into a spreadsheet.  Then we have to go through a painstaking process to vet each and every book---even if we’ve read them, even if we grew up reading them---to make sure that “real experts” have determined that the book content is appropriate for the age level we teach, and also enter that data. 

Over the summer, I took every one of these books home and scanned them into my own library system.  All I had to do was scan the barcode on the back.  This process alone took me over 6 hours.  With this new process, each book alone will take a few minutes. 

So what am I going to do?  I already don’t have on-contract time to do all the things we are required to do.  What I’m going to do is box up every one of these books and put them away.  And these shelves will be bare.  I won’t be the only one putting away all of my books.  Classrooms across Texas will be bare of libraries because of this.

I ugly-cried this morning.   One of my favorite things about my job is getting emails from parents telling me how enthusiastically their child is now reading at home.

How are kids going to learn to love to read if they can’t hold books in their hands? Putting barriers between kids and books is one of the worst things I can think of.

And here's the real kicker:  they already have the world at their fingertips.  They can find ANY illicit material they want on the smartphones and tablets they are parked in front of constantly.  

Sure, there are some vigilant parents who make sure their children are never exposed to anything they don’t want them to see.  And while these parents could have chosen to take their kids to the public libraries themselves and choose books they deem appropriate, instead they chose to raise up their voices against teachers like me and decide that everyone’s child should be restricted; every child should have to live up to whatever standards they have chosen for their own children. They've made it clear they think we're all in this profession to tarnish and brainwash their children.  This TINY minority of people are the ones who are making things like this happen.  And just like with everything else in our under-funded, under-respected, overworked, under-paid, under-staffed industry, we're probably all going to roll over and take it.

And more teachers will continue to quit.

I LOVE my students.  I would NEVER put anything in my classroom library that I thought might expose them to something inappropriate or too mature. I know I can get parent volunteers to come in and donate their time to help me catalog my extensive collection.  But what I'm really mourning is the absolute lack of trust in highly-trained educators who have poured their souls into this profession and the children of people who believe we're indoctrinating them.

How much more of this can we withstand?

—

Texas kids and Texas teachers deserve better than this. That's why we will show up for our children, our communities, and our state’s future in November’s election. We will vote out those who vilify our teachers – the same teachers who Abbott expects to take a bullet for your kids under his lack of leadership. 

For the sake of our kids, we need as many people as possible to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. Early voting starts October 11th. Election Day is November 8th. 

###