Dean Vogel's Speech Notes 9/15/12

We are all exhausted but not giving up, because what we’re up against is so important.

Some just focus on being the best teacher possible-others do the association work

It’s hard to feel comfort because the amount of work is too much.

Koch Bros just poured 4 million into a CA PAC, but they are nervous we will win.

Celebrate the people you work with, because they were the ones.

4 years, $20 billion in school cuts-thus higher class size-and we still are raising achievement!

We want teachers to feel the same sense of urgency we do-but teachers are working to the max doing the best they can do.

We can’t say thank you to members enough, thanks for staying in it, for your resiliency.

Once we say thank you and we appreciate their efforts then they can actually hear us.

Prop 32 is really about taking CTA out of the game, because we are in almost every community in the state. Because we are telling the truth in the community, and as good communicators we can stay on message

CTA started during the civil war, when John Swett said we need to get more money into public education, and get kinds in school, not work

Businesses who are getting pressure to move jobs back to CA, and who stops them when they try to cut worker safety laws?

63-65% believe teachers, so the big boys are scared-the moneyed interests continue to look for the most vulnerable communities they can start their fear-based campaigns. People are ready to hear our message.

Since our students don’t live in schools, they live in communities that have lots of problems, and they all need health and human services. People realize they are in trouble, but community-oriented problems often polarize people. We need to be able to talk to solve problems instead of drawing a line in the sand, attacking each other and their positions. Elected folks and politicians are becoming so partisan we don’t spend enough time looking at the policy problems. The agenda is driven by politics. It’s really about how to bring communities together, talk to each other respectfully to solve problems.

How do we get back to civility? As we move forward in our ability to dialogue and treat each other like human beings, we will get better at working with legislators, community members, and our own people.

Who knows how to do this better than teachers? We can vote 15 times by talking with our friends and neighbors.

There are 2 camps on educational reform:

·      corporate agenda: test scores is the answer to measuring school/teacher effectiveness

·      teacher/researchers-this is complex problem we need to look at very closely

Foundation that organized trip to Finland got people looking at international best practices, and invited funders AND politicians, union leaders, teachers. In Finland Dean saw a culture of celebrating the birth of a child that can be a useful part of society, including:

·      Government pays 100% for poor, 85% for people with means, so everyone 3 year old is in a preschool program.

·      Kids and teachers eat the same food, with 3 year olds separating garbage and compost, and this is played out in grades 3-6 schools he looked at.  

·      Lessons were Madeline Hunter style, nothing special or innovative. Fulltime nurses are in every school, middle school graduates are fluent in Swedish, English, and Finnish.

·      At age 15 they go on career track or university track. All high schools have high tech, well-equipped woodshops, metal shops, electronics-all paid for by the government

Teacher training:

·      most Finn kids want to become teachers. It’s highly competitive to become a teacher, as the culture says teachers and helping the young-all working together

·      Year one of teacher training is pedagogy and research, including action research. Student teachers spend an entire year with a master teacher.

Some of the business-oriented participants felt “this will never work” for America because we focus on competition and comparing schools-almost full circle back to the corporate business mentality towards schools.

After the election we will be able to move forward, and work together on a positive message that will help communities work together. Some of his reflections are on Dean’s Facebook blog, but after the election his insights will be published.