Tag: education

Elections Matter

In my previous post, I said that I don’t think it’s too early to contemplate some lessons we’re learning from the events of the past nine months. I said that one of those lessons is that leadership matters, and that we might not have been reminded so forcefully of the importance of leadership if we hadn’t been reminded of how elections matter.

II. Elections matter

It is interesting how educators’ experience with the Obama administration parallels our experience with the Strickland administration in Ohio. If they are as similar as I think, then it is critical that our colleagues on the national level learn from our experience here.

In both cases, we were thrilled with the election of an ally. Expectations were high for both Ted Strickland in 2008 and Barack Obama in 2010. Strickland would fix Ohio’s unconstitutional school funding system. Obama would reverse the excesses of the absurdly misnamed “No Child Left Behind.”

And in both cases, we were disappointed. While Strickland produced an elegant formula for school funding, the funding itself wasn’t institutionalized–and probably couldn’t be without an increase in state revenue that he wasn’t able to get. Worse, even this improvement came with annoying compromises, like an increase in the time needed for teachers to be considered for continuing contracts.

On the federal level, the Obama administration offered improvements in school funding through Race to the Top; but those improvements were flawed in at least two ways. First, they were competitive and unavailable to all, and thus didn’t offer a genuine increase in school funding. Second, they were conditioned on acceptance of teacher evaluation premises that many of teachers and leaders were reluctant to endorse and which required levels of labor-management cooperation that don’t exist in most school districts.

In both cases, educators came to believe that elections didn’t matter. Our world didn’t end under Bush and Taft, and we didn’t reach paradise under Strickland and Obama; so why not send a message? And many Ohio educators, faced with disappointment in the Strickland administration, decided to do just that. They sat on their hands or even supported Kasich in 2010, and by doing so helped give us what we have seen this year.

Let’s be clear here–Kasich didn’t win just because Strickland lost some support from educators. There were plenty of other factors at work, not all of them under Strickland’s control. But some of our people became convinced that elections don’t matter.

Kasich’s supporters were under no such delusions. Strickland faced in 2010, and Obama will almost certainly face in 2012, a political landscape characterized by historically deep divisions between political ideologies. For generations, American candidates have run from their base and governed from the center. Kasich is the first Ohio governor in my 45 years in Ohio who’s not interested in governing from the center: he, along with the ideologues who handed him Senate Bill 5, are interested in trying out their theory of government, and they have the votes to do it. Many claim to be prepared to be one-term lawmakers, as long as they can change the status quo in the way they think it should be changed.

The Republican Presidential candidate in 2012 is likely to be just as ideological–or at least that’s what seems to be happening so far in the campaign, which features a contest among ideological extremists and panderers.

So when I say that “elections matter,” what I’m saying is that in Ohio, we have learned the difference between a weak friend and a strong enemy. And we have learned that the strong enemy is infinitely more dangerous. As hard as it may be, we need to support our friends just as strongly after we’ve learned their flaws as we did when they were our newest best buddy.

We shouldn’t leave this topic without paying some attention to the compromises made by both Strickland and Obama and considering why they felt those compromises were warranted. I’ll take that up in my next post, “Ideas Matter.”

Leadership Matters

Election Day for Ohio Issue 2, the taxpayer veto of Senate Bill 5, will finally arrive on Tuesday. Once the results are in, many smart analysts for media, political parties, unions, and think tanks will be studying the entrails to determine what we’ve learned from Senate Bill 5.

But we don’t need to wait that long to note three critical lessons that public educators should take away from these past nine months. And maybe we shouldn’t: by identifying them now, they won’t be contaminated by our reactions to Election Night.
So regardless of the outcome on November 8, I would suggest that our future survival as a profession–not just here but across the country–may depend on the intelligence with which we understand these lessons and the speed with which we apply them.
I call these the “three things that matter”:
  • leadership matters;
  • elections matter;
  • ideas matter.


I. Leadership matters.

This campaign reminds us once again of the overwhelming importance of leadership. We’ve seen over and over again that strong local leadership can make the difference between a proactive and a reactive membership. We have seen this consistently over relatively peaceful years–in negotiations, in professional development, in legislative awareness, and in member protection. If we find it to be true in calmer times, we shouldn’t be surprised that we find it during a crisis.
Among our locals, the ones that most readily influenced this campaign were the ones that were already positioned to do so. During years of relative peace, they had organized themselves so that when war came, they were ready to fight.
Let me be clear: I don’t mean to imply that many previously sleepy locals didn’t eventually do heroic things. What I do mean to say is that locals that got a crash course in local leadership would be unwise to forget those lessons now. We will need that leadership in the years ahead, no matter what happens on Election Day.
When I talk about leadership here, I am not speaking only of the actions of elected or appointed local leaders. Voicing an opinion or asking a question at a membership meeting is leadership. So is volunteering for a task that needs to be done. So is refusing to go along with an injustice. Crises have a way of bringing rank-and-file members into both formal and informal leadership roles. We must not waste this crisis. We must find ways for members who have just now become motivated and involved to stay that way. And that is the role of elected and appointed local leaders, and it will be their unique challenge in the months and years ahead.
This crisis brought the importance of leadership into sharp focus. It might never have happened in so spectacular a fashion if we hadn’t lost an election in 2010. Which brings us to my next point: elections matter. I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

2011 NEA delegate Mass

I’ll take a few moments here to write a brief account of the NEA Delegate Mass that we held in Chicago on July 3. A fair number of my music colleagues have expressed some curiosity about this annual liturgy. A few years ago I blogged about the 2008 NEA Delegate Mass in Washington, DC, and an article based on that blog appeared in The Liturgical Singer, an NPM publication for cantors.

NEA’s Annual Meeting is an eight-day gathering of leaders from the largest professional association in the United States, and it incorporates a four-day meeting of NEA’s governing body, the Representative Assembly. The RA is the largest deliberative body in the world, with between 8,000 and 10,000 elected delegates.
The four RA days are grueling: state caucuses begin at 7:00 AM, and the RA meets from 10 AM to about 6 PM each day. The RA meets right through Independence Day (and holds its own celebration during the assembly) and whatever Sunday falls within the four days scheduled for its meeting.
Obviously, this schedule creates problems for those who wish to hold Sunday worship. For decades, some delegates have gathered for Mass and an interdenominational prayer service. Since 1996, I’ve been the music minister for the delegate Mass.
Thanks to the connections of a long-time delegate who is a lay Dominican, our celebrants have included a number of Dominican priests. They have included film director Dominic DeLay, composer James Marchionda, now-archbishop DeNoia, and Emiliano Zapata, a former president of an NEA local in Texas. This year’s celebrant was Father Richard LaPata, a former principal of Fenwick HS in Oak Park, Illinois.
The delegate Mass has a number of unique challenges.
  • We never know just when the Mass will start. NEA provides us a room in the convention center, but only after the RA has adjourned for the day. Delegates have to hoof it there quickly, and this year we started the entrance hymn while they were still arriving. At this Mass, the “processional” is frequently for the congregation, not the priest.
  • The time available for Mass is limited by the transportation schedule. NEA uses a system of chartered buses to transport delegates back and forth between the convention center and their hotels. Those shuttles run only for a limited time, and cabs are expensive, so the Mass needs to be “expeditious” while also being reverent.
  • The room is frequently arranged however it was left by the last session. We can usually set an altar up on a speaker’s platform, but typically delegates sit at tables for the Mass. This year we had a unique configuration: round tables–no aisles!
  • We were fortunate this year that NEA had left directions for the microphone and speakers to be left on..

Other than that, what is the Mass like? Most members of this annual congregation say that it is very moving. We do our best to make it like other Masses.

  • We have a cadre of Eucharistic ministers from all over the country. Usually the first six who arrive are the ones who distribute Communion.
  • Similarly, the first several lectors who arrive are put to work with copies of the readings for the day. This year’s Mass was the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, and that’s about where the NEA delegate Mass typically falls in the liturgical calendar.
  • We never have any problem finding a hospitality and ushering ministry: these people are educators, and they’re used to taking over their space, whether it’s a classroom, bus, library, or in this case, makeshift chapel. Collections are put into whatever convention bags we can commandeer.
  • I’ve scheduled pretty similar music for the past few years: entrance hymn “Here I Am, Lord,” “I Am the Bread of Life” and/or “Pan de Vida” for Communion, and “America, the Beautiful” for the recessional.
  • When the convention is driveable, as it was this year, I bring my electronic keyboard and associated gear; when I have to fly to the convention city, I lead with just my voice.
  • We have a worship aid.
  • We have an emailing list to provide announcements and updates.

We typically have a congregation of a few hundred for this Mass, and delegates report that they look forward to it each year. We’ll be in DC again next year, and my guess is that we’ll be celebrating again in a room at the Washington Convention Center on Sunday, July 1.