Dear Time Magazine,
I am furious, incensed, and irate at your November 3, 2014,
cover depicting every American public school educator as a Rotten Apple and a
billionaire from Silicon Valley as the savior of American public schools.
So forgive me, if
this Rotten Apple, tells you exactly what I think of your reporting since you
never bothered to interview a public school teacher for your piece.
First, let me clarify what it means to be a public school
educator in the United States today. Unfortunately, at college campuses around
this country, they are berated by their peers for their career choice. I was
told on many occasions at the University of Virginia that I was wasting my time
and talent on teaching. After graduating, the Rotten Apples are then afforded
what the Economic Policy Institute calls “the teaching
penalty”. The EPI’s studies and those of the O.E.C.D.
show that teachers earn 12% to 14% “less than other similarly educated workers”
and “60% of what their peers earn.” These Rotten Apples then spend their
summers attending conferences and classes, which most pay for out of their own
pockets, to learn skills and knowledge to enhance the instruction their
students receive when they report in the fall. They return to their classrooms
in late July or early August using their own money to pay for essential supplies
for themselves, for their classrooms, and for their students.
Is anyone in Silicon Valley paying for their own office
supplies? I can assure you they are not.
The Rotten Apples come into work between 6:30-7:30 A.M.
because most are helping students in some way before the school day ever
begins. They often feed their students breakfast. They teach all day even
during their planning periods. They get less than 30 minutes for lunch, and
many have students with them during their lunch breaks. The Rotten Apples then
work with students after school either in the classroom or out on the playing
fields coaching. After a full day they go home and grade papers, prepare lesson
plans for the following day, maintain an online classroom and gradebook, and
answer emails. Most don’t stop until at least 10:00 P.M. The Rotten Apples do
this day in and day out throughout the school year. The O.E.C.D. report
indicates that “American teachers work far longer hours than their counterparts
abroad.” In addition, they have now been asked by society to be counselors
watching for both signs of drug use and mental health issues in their students.
They buy students clothes, they provide them with meals, they purchase medicine
for them, and they worry about their safety after they leave school and go home
to what are often unsafe neighborhoods. In our society, they are expected to
keep every student safe at school as well. How many times have we recently seen
where teachers risked their lives or gave their lives for their students? These
are the people you have so crassly referred to as Rotten Apples. Shame on you
and shame on your magazine for doing this!
In the spring of each year, thanks
to NCLB, the Rotten Apples are held to a standard in this age of high stakes
testing that no other profession is held to: a 100% pass rate. If teachers are
held to this standard, why wouldn’t their working peers whom we have already
established are paid significantly more be held to this same standard? Let’s
look at doctors and nurses, for example. According to a new study
from the Journal of Patient Safety,
440,000 people per year die from preventable medical errors. In fact, this
study found that medical errors were the third leading cause of death in the
United States today.
Have you characterized doctors or
nurses on your cover as Rotten Apples? You have not. Is the government setting
impossible benchmarks for doctors and nurses to make to correct this problem?
No, they are not. Why? Because money talks in this country. The American
Medical Association spent $18,250,000 in 2013 and $15,070,000 so far in
2014 lobbying our government; in fact, they rank number 8 in terms of
organizations lobbying our government for influence. The NEA
isn’t even in the ball park with the AMA, as they rank 221st.
As Senator Elizabeth Warren has so
aptly stated, “The system is rigged,” and it is definitely rigged against
public education. In the latest Gallup
poll, 75% of American parents said they were satisfied with the quality of
education their child was receiving in public schools. However, the latest Gallup
poll showed that only 14% of Americans approve of the way Congress is
handling its job. Have you done a cover calling Congress Rotten Apples? Why no,
you have not. In fact, I checked your
covers for the last two years and not once have you said a disparaging word
about Congress on your cover. Yet, the approval rating for teachers is 75%, and
you have chosen to go after them. Why is that? Is it because as Gawker
revealed earlier this year that your writers and editorial staff are required
to “produce content that is beneficial to advertiser relationship”? So, was
this attack on teachers really about pleasing advertisers and perhaps a
billionaire from Silicon Valley with deep pockets as well?
You should be ashamed that you have
not written about and publicized what is the civil rights issue of our
generation: poverty in this country. As I was writing this response to you, JAMA Pediatrics released a study
by Dr. Glenn Flores and Bruce Lesley. Some of the highlights of their study are
as follows and directly quoted from there:
*Childhood poverty has reached its highest level in 20 years
*1 in 4 children lives in a food-insecure household.
*7 million children lack health insurance.
*A child is abused or neglected every 47 seconds.
*1 in 3 children is overweight or obese.
*Five children are killed daily by firearms.
*1 in 5 experiences a mental disorder.
*Racial/ethnic disparities continue to be extensive
and pervasive.
*Children account for 73.5 million Americans (24%),
but 8% of federal expenditures.
*Child well-being in the United States has been in decline since
the most recent recession.
When schools open their doors to
kindergartners, some of the most important connections in their brains have already
been formed. Those in poverty have had their brains
in a stressful state since birth. Moreover, they arrive on the doorsteps of
school with a
word deficit compared to their fellow students who did not grow up in
poverty. Address poverty and students will be more prepared for school from the
very start. As Ewin
Chemerinsky, Dean of the School of Law at the University of California in
Irvine, wrote earlier this year as they took away teacher tenure in his state,
“The problem of inner-city schools is not that the dedicated teachers who work
in them have too many rights, but that the students who go to them are
disadvantaged in many ways, the schools have inadequate resources and the
schools are surrounded by communities that are dangerous, lack essential
services and are largely segregated both by race and class. Taking the modest
job security accorded by tenure away from teachers will address none of these
problems.” Addressing poverty as a civil rights issue will. The American public
even stated in the latest Pew Research Global Attitudes Project that inequality
is the greatest threat to our country and to the world. So it seems that everyone understands this
issue except for you Time Magazine and the billionaires with whom you seem to
be courting favor.
Your cover infuriates me because it
is an indirect attack on poor defenseless children who so desperately need
these people you have characterized as Rotten Apples. For your information,
most people are not reading print media any longer. They will not read your
poorly written and researched article, but they will see that horrid cover
depicting every American teacher as a Rotten Apple as they stand in line to get
their groceries at the grocery store. And so you have perpetuated an attack on
the only people left it seems in this country fighting every day to help
children. In the course of the week that I wrote this response, let me tell you
what my Rotten Apples did. Rotten Apple One made sure a student had the basic
necessities needed to attend school. Rotten Apple Two and Three made sure a
student had the proper medical care when no one in the community responded.
Rotten Apple Four stood up and begged for a judge to have mercy on her student
when no other adult spoke on his behalf. Take away these people, drive these
kinds of educators away from teaching, discourage others from joining the
teaching force, and who will fight for children today? Who on a daily basis
will look after the American schoolchildren?
Marian Wright Edelman said, “If we
don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.” And Martin Luther
King, Jr. said so eloquently, "Our lives begin to end the day we become
silent about things that matter." I have been silent for too long. I will
no longer be silent as the media attacks public education.
The real question is who will stand
with me and raise your voices to protect our children?
Nancy F. Chewning
Assistant Principal
Roanoke, Virginia
