New Jersey Updates: Lawrence Hamm, a long-time Montclair resident, received the 2016 Human and Civil Rights Award at the National Education Association’s (NEA’s) Delegate Assembly during the July 4th weekend for his advocacy for public education. It is ironic that he is from the same city where Don Katz, an entrepreneur who profits from public school privatization; Jon Schnur, a consultant for the corporate education reform Cartel; and the current majority on the Montclair School Board (MSB), that is promoting the privatization of public education, also reside. A showdown appears to be imminent.

Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop met with several anti-Sen. Steve Sweeney groups in Camden County last week, hoping to establish a get-out-the-vote beachhead for his 2017 gubernatorial candidacy in the heart of Sweeney’s base in an effort to undermine Sweeney’s prospective entry into the race.

As articulated in President Obama’s address at the memorial service last Tuesday for the five Dallas police officers, who were killed by a sniper, “… police are being asked to do too much …serving as parents, social workers, mental health and drug counselors, …” The same can be said of teachers who are being requested to overcome major social obstacles in order to educate low-income students. Moreover, these challenges may ebb and flow on a daily basis: dysfunctional family settings; domestic violence; drug, gang, and community violence; and physical and sexual abuse.

At the same time, teacher requirements are being held rigid for traditional public school teachers while being lowered for their counterparts in charter, voucher, and partnership schools; teachers are being evaluated via students’ standardized test scores; teachers’ pensions and benefits are being under-funded and reduced in scope by state governments at the same time teacher contributions are being increased; and escalating poverty is having a negative impact on students’ academic possibilities and outcomes.

Teacher Requirements: Requirements for regular, certified teacher credentials have been stiffened in recent years. Public school teachers have to have and/or achieve a “highly qualified” status in the subjects they teach in a specified time frame. But exceptions are made for Teach for America (TFA) teachers in traditional public schools and those teachers in private-sector oriented voucher, charter, and partnership schools.

TFA teachers, who are allegedly high achievers recruited from the best Ivy League and state universities, who have almost no training in K-12 education teaching methods, and who have limited background in the subjects they are hired to teach, are given a five-week boot camp and placed in the most demanding classrooms. Upwards of ninety-percent leave the profession after two years.

Since none are eligible for the “highly-qualified” designation and would be obligated to pursue it, an amendment was authored by Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and attached to the bill to reopen the federal government after the 2013 shutdown. The bill provides TFA teachers a two-year grace period to meet the “highly qualified” standard, when most would have already left teaching, before they would have to comply.

Thus, TFA teachers are essentially deemed “highly qualified” when they begin their short K-12 careers. Teachers in voucher schools were initially not required to have a college degree, and several states have passed or proposed legislation that a certain percentage of charter school teachers not be held to the standards of traditional public school teachers. These exceptions are also in effect for partnership schools which are a hybrid of public and charter schools.

Teacher Evaluation: The most dastardly plot against regular public school teachers is the employment of teacher evaluation schemes based on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Common Core principles. Both use students’ standardized test scores to assess teacher performance and to drive them from the profession, with a particular focus on veteran teachers who have high salaries. This evaluation process continues to be pursued despite the fact that this approach has been found to be deeply flawed by a number of top education researchers.

Teacher Pensions and Benefits: Perhaps the most adverse impact on teachers has been the legislative manipulation of their pensions and benefits. Numerous states (NJ, NC, WI, GA, PA, etc.) have under-funded state contributions to teachers’ pension and benefits for years while raising teacher contributions. These changes have resulted in teachers having lower take-home pay even when they have received raises in their new contracts. And the teacher contributions are tiered so that they continue to rise with years of experience when no raises are forthcoming.

For example, a Wisconsin teacher couple, with Masters Degrees and ten years of experience, had combined after-tax pay in 2014 that was $10,000 less than it was the previous year. Similar outcomes are happening in New Jersey and North Carolina. Prior to the implementation of these new regulations, thousands of teachers in the respective states opted to retire in order to protect their existing pensions and benefits. The state governments’ ultimate goals are to change teacher pensions from a defined benefit to a 401K and to reduce health benefits for retirees. Steady progress is being made on both fronts across the nation.

Escalating Poverty: However, the growth and concentration of poverty in urban and rural districts is exacerbating all of the social ills outlined above. In a recent study by Professors Seth Pollack and Barbara Wolfe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it was found that children … — especially those growing up in poverty — could experience delayed brain development that significantly harms their educational progress ….” This study “…is part of a growing body of socioeconomic brain research documenting … poverty’s most insidious damage.”

Furthermore, the researchers “… have found that poverty can cause structural changes in areas of the brain associated with school readiness skills” and that “… parts of the brain are susceptible to circumstances often present in poor households, including stress, unstable housing, nutritional deficiencies, low academic stimulation and irregular access to health care.”

Lead poisoning, which is prevalent in every poor urban school district in the nation, adds an extra level of risk for teaching and learning. And no state legislature or school board is factoring this reality into the contemporary education equation. It is particularly egregious in Newark and Camden, New Jersey; Robeson and Jones County, North Carolina; Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; Denver, Colorado; and numerous others.

Therefore, teachers are placed in an impossible situation whereby they are required, if not mandated, to overcome the poverty of their students while they are denied the resources necessary to even begin to address this issue. While under-resourced, they are held to the highest standards and demonized for not meeting them. In addition, white teachers in poor majority-minority districts are often subjected to harsh criticism and falsely accused of having low expectations for students of color.

In the meantime, the corporate education Cartel has been instrumental in reducing funding for traditional public education, forcing legislators, via campaign contributions, to send more public dollars to corporate coffers. Teachers are the scapegoats for all that ails public education. In addition, they have been victimized of late by both Republican and Democratic elected officials at the local, state, and national levels—their erstwhile so-called friends and supporters.