I worked for the Seattle School District for sixteen years before being laid off at the end of the 2001-2002 school year. It has been a remarkable journey down a remarkably forked road. One path was lined with children, who added a new dimension to my life, the other with a frighteningly corrupt and dysfunctional bureaucracy and some truly disgusting adults that led me to coin the term “education mafia.”
I entered the profession as an unemployed transplant without an education degree just looking for a job as a substitute. I left it as a children’s advocate, a radicalized activist targeting far more than education, and an armchair philosopher. My story can be divided into four periods—Innocence, Helpless Rage, Quiet Desperation and Awakening.
Innocence
I spent most of my life growing up in South Dakota, followed by a four-year stint in the Navy, college and several years working as a wildlife biologist, mostly in Alaska. I knew nothing about education, politics, big cities or children.
When I went to work for the Seattle School District, I never expected a bureaucracy that rivals the U.S. military, and I was absolutely astounded by the tyranny, the mean-spirited attitude that many school officials promote as professionalism.
I discovered what it’s like to be lied to and insulted on a regular basis. I dealt with petty issues that cost me money when I was barely earning enough to pay the rent as it was. For example, I once took a day off so that I could take a typing test, thinking it would be smart to qualify for as many job titles as possible. I passed the test with flying colors, but an administrator told me I hadn’t performed a trivial convention, one they hadn’t told me about—and I had to come back the next day to take the test over.
After I protested, they allowed me to take the test again, and I still passed handily. But the next day, they said they had no record of my taking the test.
I met a teacher who taught sign language, took a course from her and was inspired. I went to the administrative headquarters and asked a woman what I needed to do to qualify to teach deaf children. She shot me with an icy glare and growled, “I don’t think you’re QUALIFIED to teach sign language!”
I wanted to say, “I KNOW I’m not qualified, you stupid bitch. That’s why I came here to find out how to BECOME qualified!”
But talking back to a “superior,” no matter how stupid, obnoxious or corrupt, is a cardinal sin in education. School officials—who are frequently stupid and obnoxious and not infrequently corrupt—reign as demigods in an institution that long ago forgot its place as a cornerstone of democracy.
Helpless Rage
During my years as a substitute, I often found myself reduced to a helpless rage. Though I was consistently tormented and cheated by obviously corrupt administrators, there was no source of relief. My union was a sham, the Seattle School Board was hopelessly corrupt, and teachers were dedicated to the silence that many mistake for professionalism.
My problems went beyond insults and the loss of a day’s pay here and there. I enjoyed most of my classes—some of them immensely. But I soon learned there are three levels of problems in education.
There’s the constant deluge of insults – issued by snotty principals, clueless legislators and the treasonous media until the general public picks up the chant - that teachers learn to tune out, similar to radio static. Next are the individual problems that are serious enough to stick in your memory. For example, one teacher told me about a principal who laughed at her when her father died, and I’ve never forgotten all the work that was dumped on me at Lowell Elementary School, where I had no support from two thoroughly disgusting administrators.
The third class of education problems can be likened to traffic accidents. They may only strike you once a year—or once a career—but they can mangle your career, your reputation or even your health. The teachers I know of who were driven to suicide or were psychologically abused even as they were dying from cancer are good examples.
Some of these education train wrecks begin as mistakes. For example, an administrator can accidentally botch your evaluation or your paycheck is in error. If it’s a serious mistake, administrators don’t want it publicized. Nor do they want to be challenged. So calling a mistake to the administration’s attention can be dangerous, and asking to have things made right can be suicidal.
Other mistakes include being in the right position at the wrong time. A derelict principal who wants to hire a friend, relative or lover might want you out of the way. (I finally learned why a wonderful first-year teacher at Dearborn Park Elementary School had been let go without explanation after I discovered that a truly disgusting “computer room” teacher named Romana Crilly recruited a friend who she knew had mental problems. I had to take over some of her duties after she suffered a mental breakdown.) Or your principal might be a racist African American who wants a black staff. And if you’re stupid enough to speak up for justice or call attention to corruption, watch out!
During five years of substituting, I had two life-threatening experiences that left psychological scars. Though I was badly battered, I didn’t allow myself to become another victim. I fought back each time, winning a grievance against a vile administrator named Barbara Nielsen the first time and getting Barb Nielsen kicked out of my classroom the second.
They were hollow victories; Barb Nielsen was later promoted into a principalship, and the Seattle School District is even more mean-spirited and dysfunctional than before. But I had found an inner strength that would later explode with a vengeance.
Quiet Desperation
During my sixth year with the Seattle School District, I substituted in a first-grade classroom. I had worked with several of the students when they were in preschool, and the teacher liked me, so I accepted a full-time position. I spent four years at Loyal Heights Elementary School, one of Seattle’s best schools. That first year was one of the high points of my education years—and a badly needed rest after five years of Battered-Substitute Syndrome.
The next three years were a little rockier as I was buffeted by bureaucracy and a few jerk teachers. Wanting only to get by, I stoically went about my job, generally keeping my mouth shut. I spent most of my free time writing, hoping it might prove a ticket out of education—or at least give me some financial security—buoyed by the sale of several articles to magazines and a contract for a series of six children’s books with Lerner Publications.
I spent two years working with a frighteningly obnoxious teacher, who seemed to be at war with life. She was rude and demeaning and screamed louder than the children; a teacher on the floor above us even complained about the noise! I was reluctant to complain, as I was the newcomer, and I assumed the staff would support her.
One year she went on sabbatical, and I was paired with a wonderful first-year teacher. Our classroom was filled with parent volunteers, and everything seemed perfect. I also learned the truth about the witch I worked with the previous year, as staff members began opening up. I was shocked to learn that her previous assistant had suffered a nervous breakdown! (In fact, I had experienced a form of “shell shock” which I attributed to the noise level and her general abrasiveness.)
I discovered that many teachers knew I didn’t get along with last year’s meatloaf, and they silently supported me. I had learned a valuable lesson: Don’t keep your mouth shut. If there’s a problem, deal with it. If an individual is making your life miserable, chances are he or she has similarly injured others.
But all my learning experiences didn’t help protect me from what happened next. Due to a smaller than expected enrollment, the central administration decided to relive our school of two staff members. The wonderful first-year teacher I had worked with for a few blissful weeks was out the door. With the least seniority of the remaining staff, I was right behind. Adding insult to injury, I was replaced by a frightening caricature of an educator, a demented old hag who had made my life miserable at another school.
The principal wanted me to stay and offered me a job in Title I. I accepted it, only to be hit with yet another bureaucratic barb: Due to continuing budget cuts, I’d have to reduce my hours—and my pay.
I accepted the downsized terms, opting for whatever passed for stability in a generally nice school. At the end of the year, my funding dried up completely, and I was out the door. I had also bailed out of my contract with Lerner, after discovering that company is apparently owned by corporate wolves, too. Though I didn’t know at that time that corporations ran the Seattle School District, I was almost paranoid with mistrust and hatred of the army of cold, unfeeling bureaucratic titans that seemed to surround me.
Awakening
My tenth year in education began and ended at Highland Park Elementary School, by far the most dysfunctional and mean-spirited school I’ve ever experienced; I called it Highland Park POW Camp.
I was also hit with a sudden wave of grief over the loss of students I had known for four years, even as I fell in love with a new crop.
Some of the best teachers I’ve ever met were at Highland Park, but the bad ones ran the school, and their transparent contempt for anyone who wasn’t a certified teacher marked a change in my political philosophy. Up until then, the enemy was school administrators. Highland Park told me that there are many bad apples even among teachers.
Highland Park marked the beginning of my activism. Fed up with the insanity of public education, I decided it was time to figure out what made it tick. I began asking questions and scrutinizing the media, translating my discoveries into a tell-all book, titled Teacher With an Attitude. I wrote it too hastily and far too soon, for I had much to learn about school politics. But my initial lessons were memorable.
I discovered the fear that radiates far from the classroom as I tried to solicit information from teachers and parents. There were moments when I considered halting my quest, sometimes urged by colleagues who reminded me of frightened citizens of Cold War era communist countries. “Save yourself; don’t be a martyr!” could have been their motto.
I also discovered that networking that bonds education with the media and City Hall. It would be several years before I grasped the truly vast scope of this collusion. In the meantime, I began bombarding them with letters to the editor and editorials, several of which were published.
It was during this period that a retired general named John Stanford blew into Seattle as our new Superintendent. His extraordinary corruption and lunacy, cosmic arrogance and ruthlessness in exploiting children even as he was dying marked him as arguably the biggest abomination in the history of public education. As a spokesman for Corporate America, it isn’t hard to understand why Stanford was lionized by Seattle’s corporate media, publicly supported by an education expert named General Colin Powell and groomed for a position as U.S. Secretary of Education.
Dearborn Park
I escaped the insanity of Highland Park POW Camp for Dearborn Park Elementary School, on Seattle’s Beacon Hill. It reminded me of the movie Papillon, where “the butterfly” escaped from a hellish prison and was washed up on a beach in a tropical paradise.
Dearborn Park was a school with heart. It was a small school with a largely Asian American clientele that contributed to its calm demeanor. I have never been closer to anyone than I was with Dearborn Park’s students, who I considered my family. The principal was a freak of Nature—though not perfect, he often went out of his way to treat the teachers with respect.
Even as I enjoyed my new lease on my life, I knew I had to fight to preserve it. I continued my activism, finishing my book, launching a website and supporting a multi-talented and heavily decorated colleague in an amazing lawsuit against the Seattle Mafia. It was during this period that I began to grasp the extent of the corruption in the media and my own union, the Seattle Education Association (allied with the Washington and National Education Associations).
My second year at Dearborn Park began on a sour note when we were saddled with a truly disgusting principal named Evelyn Fairchild. Her stupidity was exceeded only by her almost unbelievable selfishness. She wore both like a badge, often pretending to be dumb when presented with questions that put her on the spot. The school went quickly downhill as our PE teacher fled for another school district and I was effectively booted out. Almost miraculously, I wound up at the very school she had come from. On the very first day of school, I acquired documents that attested to parents’ disgust with Fairchild, who had effectively been kicked out of that school.
But Evelyn Fairchild’s reign of terror continues to this day; I’ve encountered her victims at several schools.
Onward
That Fort Public Education is nearly impregnable is due largely to the complexity of school politics, the best propaganda money can buy, and the sad state of the American people. I could write a book about my continuing misadventures, revelations and the continuing school scandals that I can scarcely document, let alone stop.
I’ve documented much of what I’ve learned on my website, at http://www.geobop.com/Education/[Available from LINKS]. But it’s necessary to constantly review, condense and prioritize if we’re to make any sense of this mess. Below are some fundamental principals that guide me:
1. Corporations own our public schools. People who can’t accept this should look at our corporatized government and deregulated media, then ask why corrupt corporations would draw the line at education.
2. The corporations that control education are just as corrupt as the corporations that own the government and media. If they were “nice,” then they wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the extraordinary tyranny and child abuse that characterizes education.
3. Corporations exploit children as market shares, rather than help them. I even heard then Seattle School Board President Don Nielsen describe children as market shares at a public meeting.
4. Many of the trends in education mimic corporate downsizing—because they ARE examples of corporate downsizing. Age discrimination, teacher abuse, stagnant salaries and slashed benefits which pale next to rising administrators’ salaries tell it all.
5. The public is part of the problem. Corporations could never screw children the way they do if teachers and parents had their heads screwed on straight.
6. Public education is NOT underfunded—at least, not as long as superintendent salaries continue skyrocketing and administrators spend fortunes on public relations. Trying to fix education with more money is like dousing a fire with gasoline; it only attracts more scum.
7. Teachers unions are anything but. The National Education Association is the enemy, and no major problems will be fixed by people who try to work with the NEA or its affiliates.
8. When it comes to education, Democrats are no better than Republicans. Even Ralph Nader appears to be clueless about education—or is he working for the other side?
9. Teachers are entitled to the same rights and dignities as other Americans. People who complain that demands for justice or fair pay somehow threaten or compromise students should apply their double standard to school administrators and teachers union officials.
10. Children are the ultimate victims of education. A nation that doesn’t protect its own children from organized crime isn’t fit to call itself a nation.
11. You can’t run away from the Education Mafia. They control charter and private schools, as well as public schools and are support corrupt candidates for political office. No matter where you go, their propaganda, manipulation and taxes will follow you.
12. We CAN defeat the education mafia, but sitting around complaining that everything’s hopeless is a losing strategy. Our greatest weapons are truth, justice and children, while our greatest enemies are ourselves.
13. Don’t get hung up on civility. Too many people turn a blind eye to our monstrously corrupt prison system while shielding school officials who do immense damage to society even from insults. The establishment promotes politeness and civility because they know that words can be potent weapons if used against them. Don’t fall for their propaganda.
14. Be very careful about who you network with. Most political organizations are misguided at best and are often corrupt. Many people who call themselves activists are working for the other side. There are ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. Contact me for details.
15. Don’t give up! With virtually every formerly democratic institution around us spiraling out of control, we cannot afford to fail. History has taught us time and again that we can either fight together or hang separately. The stakes are higher than ever, now that children are being lynched.
In the spirit of Chief Sealth, who said, “All things are connected,”
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