As the United States entered the space race, President Kennedy called for a grass roots movement of entrepreneurship. Uniquely enough, his pleas compelled individual teachers to grab the reigns of innovation and lead the country in a race to the moon. It worked.
Today the National Writing Project (NWP) best embodies that spirit of grass root change that promises to transform education one idea at a time. Unfortunately, the deficit threatens to squelch promises of reform. As I write, we are on the precipice of a government shutdown as Democrats and Republicans vigorously negotiate a budget for 2011. In an effort to argue on the behalf of funding the NWP, I would contend that as we move forward, we ought to consider why it is in the interest of GOP to support the NWP. Let’s start with an assumption. It is speculation perhaps but lets assume many NWP teachers work in unions, a traditional Democratic constituency. As a result teachers of every ilk are often painted with too broad liberal brush. Teachers also are saddled with being public employees and as a result, their affiliation further alienates them from the Republican side of the aisle. Think Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire and Ohio. The myth of the liberal teacher is a hasty generalization. While I would assert that some teachers are liberal, some are conservative, and others, like myself, tend to position themselves along the conservative/liberal spectrum according to the issue. The corpus of teachers is so large that it defies a categorical description. Given our differences--geography, age, race, gender, religion and yes, even politics—it is not useful to place us all in one camp or another. Complicating matters more, while I may be a fiscal conservative on Bush tax cuts, I may be more liberal leaning on issues of free speech issues. It may also be that on some speech issues like the United Citizens case I feel one way and on a case like the one involving the Westboro Baptist Church I feel another way. Since the NWP is not a union but rather a community of entrepreneurial teachers searching for promising practice, we are often times further removed from politics of unionism. We are anything but monolithic. Since the world is increasingly complicated and peoples’ needs are increasingly sophisticated, broad brush strategies of the past are bound to backfire. Alienating whole groups of people like NWP teachers from Republican Party may have dire consequences for the GOP. While some of our NWP members are certainly active in union activity, we are capable of wearing multiple hats. While it is true that many teachers in the NWP voted for Obama in 2008, it us also true that large numbers voted for President Bush in 2004 and even McCain in 2008. With 22 states enforcing open shop laws, it seems unwise to paint the NWP as an arm of teacher unions. In short, the NWP is full of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We should not be considered as the opposing party in the deficit debates. To be fair, a punish the losers mentality after a election shellacking suffered by Democrats in the 2010 Midterm is Beltway business as usual. However, the mandate from the 2010 election was clear. It was not about punishing losers, it was about Americans being feed up with business as usual. Americans want decisions based on reasoned cost benefit analysis. Republicans will benefit greatly if they can recognize the diversity in our NWP ranks and stop viewing us as a synonym for unions. Making a decision on the merits of NWP will go along way to reassure us all that the new Congress is not up to the old monkey business. Republicans may find it convincing to learn that teachers are passionate about the way NWP in general and the summer institutes specifically have changed their teaching. It would be my take that all members of the NWP who have attended a summer institute are highly mobilized around the issue of funding. The summer institute has changed our lives. It is the single most effective professional development experience ever to be offered to us, and it is done on the cheap. Our challenge to Congress is before cutting funding to the NWP, find a more cost effective way to deliver meaningful professional development to teachers. Instead of thinking of the NWP as another earmark, the NWP should be thought of as what we really are--entrepreneurs promoting promising practices in education. Cutting this earmark is not fiscally responsible. Broad strokes of the brush are responsible for painting all earmarks as boondoggles. Perhaps some are. However, the number of fraudulent or wasteful programs created by earmarks is a matter for debate. Certainly, many serve valuable purposes. My assertion is that categorical rejection of earmarks is at best irresponsible and worst self-destructive. The question should not be how do we eliminate earmarks, but rather the question should become how do we determine which deserve funding? The answer to earmark questions is simple but hard work. Clearly a determination ought to be made on a case-by-case basis. Separating wheat from chafe is the business of Congress. Failure to consider the value of earmarked programs is a failure to complete the fiduciary responsibilities of the office. I would contend that the Senators and Representatives that stand up against the current blind cuts would earn the admiration and praise of constituents and colleagues for being a voice of reason in a sea of chaos.Peter Shaheen Oakland Writing Project
