Keep Up the Fight!

The redoubtable Peter FitzSimons “Quotes of the Week” should serve as a warning shot across the bow of every one of the 83% of people who support teacher’s demands for higher wages. The fact that FitzSimons chose to highlight the attack by Education Minister Sarah Mitchell on the NSW Teacher’s Federation is deeply worrying. The fact that it included the accusation that the Federation was running a “protection racket” is more than worrying. It points to the Sisyphean task that public school teachers, and their supporters, face. Many politicians acknowledge that public school teachers need to be paid a wage commensurate with their professional standing if we are to attract young people to the profession and, crucially, stop the flow of disillusioned experienced teachers out of the profession. The problem is, they don’t have the political will or the courage to take the action needed to raise teacher’s salaries.

There is nothing new about this fight. It’s been going on since I first walked into a classroom as a student teacher 50 years ago. Gallons of ink have been spilt on arguing that teacher’s salaries need to match those of other professions, in step with many countries around the world, if we are to lift standards in Education in the public sector. It might be a start to match the wages paid to teachers in the private sector. This might also stop the steady stream of teachers dedicated to public education who are forced to jump ship for financial reasons.

I have no doubt whatsoever that FitzSimons is a supporter of the teaching profession and public education. Nor do I doubt that many of the journalists, like him, that continue to implicitly attack Federation and, ipso facto teachers, are more than sympathetic to teachers concerns.

But here lies the rub. By not holding governments to account for their abject failure to address these issues they are complicit in the continual eroding of public education that has gone on for at least as long as I have been teaching.

The ABC’s coverage of the recent strike, attended by 150,000 teachers, young and old, is a case in point. The ABC led its news coverage of the strike with images of closed schools and stories of parents being inconvenienced by the strike. They took their cameras and microphones to a western suburbs primary school and asked a few parents about how they felt about the strike and the disruption it had caused them. The parents replied that they totally supported the teachers and thanked them for their efforts.

Undeterred, the ABC then interviewed the Minister for Education. The piece began with images of the Minister reading to a handful primary school students in a half empty classroom. The implication of this bit of editing was that, if teachers weren’t going to do their job, the Minister would do it for them.

The interview itself focussed on what students were missing out on without ever questioning the Minster about the concerns raised by the striking teachers.

That afternoon on ABC’s The Drum, the panel discussion again focussed on parental inconvenience even though the host led off with an excellent analysis of the strike and what it was about.

Other news outlets predictably engaged in teacher bashing.

This is what we are up against and always have been up against. We need to enlist the support of parents who, during Lockdown, came to understand just how demanding teaching is and who almost universally praised teachers for adapting to the incredible demands of teaching classes online. Somewhat ironically, many of those parents are journalists. Significantly, most of them send their children to private schools believing the private sector will better serve the needs of their offspring. The question is, have any of them publicly questioned why they have made this choice and, crucially, why the local public school isn’t deemed good enough for their children? Given that I am absolutely certain that a good percentage of them support public education, why have they remained so quiet on this?

The same applies to many politicians whose hearts might be in the public sector but whose wallets are emptied in the private sector.

There is no judgement here. Parents are entitled to send their children to wherever they choose although, it has to be said, many parents don’t have a choice. What I question is why don’t these people, who often feel conflicted about sending their children to private schools, do something about supporting Federation and the teachers they represent. Why don’t they support public education?