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“The answer to ‘But what about the children?’ is ‘Exactly’. . . We are fighting for a better world, and
one of the battlefields is in our schools.”
-Marcia Howard, Minneapolis educator

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"Dozens of National Guard Army and Air Force troops in New Mexico have been stepping in for an emergency unlike others they have responded to before: the shortage of teachers and school staff members that has tested the ability of schools nationwide to continue operating during the coronavirus pandemic."

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"A lot of people quitting will force education as a whole to really rethink what it is and what it's doing to make sure that teachers are taken care of."

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"Teachers say they identify strongly with the challenges Janine and her colleagues face on a daily basis: a persistent lack of funding, behavioral problems of students and struggles with introducing new educational technologies."

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"It's a clash between competing visions for how to improve schools, which in Chicago have come into unusually sharp relief. Among the bones of contention: The role of testing in evaluations, the strength of job security for teachers and the number of kids in a class."

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Barbara Madeloni reports on teachers and ESPs in my hometown of Minneapolis, who have authorized a strike for more mental health staff, a living wage for ESPs, smaller class sizes, and more support and retention initiatives for educators of color, among others. These are similar concerns to those held by teachers across the country, particularly as a result of the pandemic. Minneapolis educators are also informed and impacted by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which remains relevant to the city, country, and world.

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Three contracts, two unions, one voice. On February 18, three groups of educators in the Twin Cities all announced strike authorization votes.

Two are bargaining units in the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers: 3,000 teachers, who voted by 97 percent to authorize a strike, and 1,000 education support professionals (ESPs) such as teachers aides who voted by 98 percent. Each chapter had over 90 percent turnout.

Meanwhile a combined unit of 3,600 teachers and ESPs in the St. Paul Federation of Educators voted by 78 percent to strike.

Both unions are expected to file an intent of strike notice later today. That notice, required under state law, means union members could be on the picket lines in 10 days, unless an agreement is reached before then.

The unions are feeding off of each other to build power. "St. Paul has the experience," said St. Paul special ed teacher Jeff Garcia. "Minneapolis has the energy. They are really fired up."

A fourth group followed close on their heels: on February 21, 200 Minneapolis Public Schools food service workers with Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 announced they would take their own strike authorization vote on March 2.

These unions are part of a larger coalition of Minnesota unions threatening strikes-including unions that represent county and school clerical staff (AFSCME Locals 56 and 2822), social workers (AFSCME Local 34), and janitors and security guards (SEIU Local 26).

"At a time when billionaires' wealth is exploding and our state is sitting on a $7.7 billion surplus, it is maddening we are still stuck in a debate where one side insists there is not enough to provide for the common good," wrote leaders of the coalition in a joint op-ed. "That is why our locals have been forced to consider strike actions to move decision makers to listen to their workers and negotiate fair deals that will address the urgent and necessary demands we've put forward that meet the requirements of the moment.

"Despite keeping our state running during the pandemic, the educators, social workers, school lunch staff, nurses, library clerks, janitors at the Star Tribune, workers who assist homeless neighbors, and the people who facilitate medical and economic assistance represented by our unions are fed up with those in power refusing to do what is right for the communities we live and serve in."

PUSHING FOR STABILITY

The unions in both cities are demanding a living wage for paraprofessionals, more mental health workers, and smaller class sizes. These demands, educators say, are necessary to provide stability and supportive learning opportunities for students.

"Nobody is going to let the teachers be gaslit into thinking that these demands are not necessary," said Marcia Howard, an educator in Minneapolis since 1998. "The answer to 'But what about the children?' is 'Exactly.'"

The MFT's additional demands include more counselors, caseload caps, lower health insurance premiums, and policies to support and retain educators of color.

SFPE is also trying to hold the line against the district's demand for givebacks of hard-won gains on class size.

SEIU Local 284 is fighting for higher wages for its members, mostly women and people of color, who top out at $28,000 a year and have to work second jobs to make ends meet.

And all three unions face a threat to the very existence of public schools: a proposed constitutional amendment to end the state's mandate to fund public education, opening the door to deeper cuts to already underfunded schools.

"We've always looked over at St. Paul to try to take from their playbook," said Ma-Riah Roberson-Moody, ESP chapter vice president in the MFT, "and how they are building power in their union."

Eventually, said Shaun Laden, president of the chapter, there was "recognition that we were doing things separately, but some of our circumstances were such that it made sense politically to work together. Teachers in Minnesota are in the crosshairs of ed reform." And ESPs are being paid poverty wages and living out of cars on both sides of the river.

Educators have experienced the pandemic as "two years of 'They don't care if we quit or if we die,'" said Greta Callahan, president of the MFT teacher chapter. That's made them ready to strike.

GETTING STRIKE-READY

It's been 50 years since the MFT last struck, so the union had some work to do to get strike-ready. "When we knew the strike could happen," said Callahan, "we had meetings in every site and let people get their fears out. What if the parents don't support us? What if the special education students don't get their needs met? What if the boss comes after me?

"'What is the alternative?" Callahan would ask in response. "And that question galvanized members," she said.

In the ESP chapter, they decided to find out what members wanted at the bargaining table with a paper survey (rather than an online one) that was carried from person to person as part of a conversation about what they would want in the contract. The organizing for a potential strike and the focus on ESP demands across both chapters has increased the MFT ESP's chapter membership by more than 100.

"If you do something that the members feel deeply about, they are there for the fight," said Laden. "If we are doing something like 'Every year go and tell your legislator your story,' they will not be engaged, because they do that every year and it doesn't matter."

NO MORE SILOS

Not only did the unions in each city have to learn to work together, but teachers and ESPs also had to overcome years of operating in silos. Education support professionals work with individual students with learning needs, most often side-by-side with teachers. But, says Laden, "We are strangers working together who don't know each other."

Both chapters made a point of talking about cross-chapter solidarity at chapter meetings and events. But for Minneapolis art teacher Silvia Ibanez, the difference was in "talking with co-workers. In my school we got together and some ESPs were talking about how they need to have more than one job and haven't had an increase in salary for many years. We didn't know until we had an opportunity to sit down and talk."

Teachers also joined the ESP open bargaining sessions-all made easier since negotiating sessions were on Zoom.

"Schools operate to create intentional isolation," said Laden. "There is a lot of tension-classism plays into that, racism plays into that, and how we operate as a district, but as people have learned more about each other and talked to each other it has been transformational. Especially for ESPs, hearing teachers say, 'I am going on strike for ESPs to have a living wage.'"

REIGNITING ST. PAUL

St. Paul educators are more accustomed to striking. They were on strike two years ago when the pandemic first hit, and reached a tentative agreement after three days, pressured in part by concerns about health and safety as the pandemic loomed.

That left "unfinished business," Garcia said. "With the pandemic it was laid bare for teachers and licensed staff how much we rely on each other for learning to happen."

Mandi Jung, a Spanish-immersion teacher in St. Paul, said things changed over the past two years: "People are pissed about how they handled George Floyd's murder and pissed about how they handled virtual learning. People attacked us and our district did not defend us. We saw the failure of so many trusted institutions that we figured out who to blame-and once we figured that out it became easier to make a plan."

Jung has been informing educators and the community across the Twin Cities about the conditions and the strike through TikTok.

'NO JUSTICE, NO STREETS'

The coalition these unions have built, and the courage and conviction members have in taking the vote, emanates from the power of the uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. "It showed everyone we need to be in control of our lives, our jobs, our cities," said Callahan, who is white.

Floyd was murdered 263 steps from Marcia Howard's front door. Howard took a leave of absence to help lead the occupation of George Floyd Square. She's back teaching now, but still maintains the fire in the square each morning before school and each afternoon after school.

"All of the educators in Minnesota were keenly aware that what happened impacted all of our students," she said. "At 38th and Chicago [George Floyd Square] we say, 'No justice, no streets.' Teachers are saying the same thing. We have decided that we will hold our ground until our demands are met."

The majority of teachers in the Twin Cities are white; the ESPs are majority people of color. District leaders have tried to present their decisions, such as redistricting plans that the union and much of the community opposed because it displaced students and educators, as a civil rights issue. But the educators won't have any of it. "It is all the same fight," said Callahan. "When we are fighting for our schools we are fighting for Black lives."

Howard, who is Black, agrees. "It wasn't until there was a rally with teachers, some in red [SPFE's color] and some in blue [MFT's color], walking across the bridge to St. Paul [that] I knew: this is what solidarity looks like," she said. "I was in tears.

"I am aware that I am in a racialized and gendered profession. They expect the white Midwestern women will hear the words 'What about the children?' and they will capitulate. But we are fighting for a better world, and one of the battlefields is in our schools."

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Twin Cities Teachers and School Employees Gear Up for Strike

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Three contracts, two unions, one voice. On February 18, three groups of educators in the Twin Cities all announced strike authorization votes. Two are bargaining units in the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers: 3,000 teachers, who voted by 97 percent to authorize a strike, and 1,000 education support professionals (ESPs) such as teachers aides who voted by 98 percent.

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Cedar Attanasio of the Associated Press reveals not only some of the barriers teachers have faced that have resulted in the teacher shortage but also the particular nationalism associated with the American National Guard. According to the article, New Mexico teachers were absent due to "illness, professional training, or family emergencies," as well as a "surge of retirements" and the inability to find childcare. These are all issues that are pertinent to discussions of teaching as a profession/teachers as workers, though this is not the lens the article takes per se.

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ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) - On past deployments Army National Guard Spc. Michael Stockwell surveilled a desolate section of the U.S.-Mexico border during a migrant surge, and guarded a ring of checkpoints and fences around New Mexico's state Capitol after the January 2021 insurrection in Washington.

On his current mission, Stockwell helps students with assignments as a substitute science teacher at Alamogordo High School.

"You can't act Army with these kids. You can't speak the same way you would with another soldier with these kids. You can't treat them the same way. You have to be careful with corrective actions," he said with a laugh.

Dozens of National Guard Army and Air Force troops in New Mexico have been stepping in for an emergency unlike others they have responded to before: the shortage of teachers and school staff members that has tested the ability of schools nationwide to continue operating during the coronavirus pandemic.

While many other states and school districts issued pleas for substitute teachers amid omicron-driven surges in infections, New Mexico has been alone in calling out its National Guard members. In 36 of the state's 89 school districts, guard members have traded in mission briefs for lesson plans to work for school systems.

When Stockwell first walked into the freshman science class, wearing camouflage fatigues and combat boots, some students thought he was just visiting, like a recruiter. Then he took a seat in the teacher's chair.

"When he started taking attendance, I was like, 'whoa,'" said Lilli Terrazas, 15, of Alamogordo. "I was kind of nervous because, like, you know - a man in a uniform. But it was cool. He helped me."

Roughly 80 service members have volunteered to work in schools. The troops have gone through background checks and taken brief courses required for substitute teachers. As substitutes, they don't have to learn much about curriculum, but they need to be attentive to students.

Stockwell has been filling in since late January when his students' teacher moved to an administrative role in another school. One recent day, he shuffled through the rows of school desks, kneeling to meet students eye-to-eye as he helped them with assignments calculating the depth of the earth's crust, and other layers of the planet.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called out the guard to help with the acute shortages in a state that like several others has struggled to find enough educators. At least 100 schools had reported closing down for at least one day this school year.

New Mexico saw a surge of teacher retirements last fall, and there are currently around 1,000 open teaching positions in a state with about 20,000 teachers. Grisham stressed the guard deployment is a temporary measure and state officials are working to bolster the teaching force and school staff through increased pay and other strategies.

At Alamogordo High School, the teacher shortage peaked on Jan. 13, when 30 teachers, about a third of the teaching staff, were out due to illness, professional training, or family emergencies.

"Everybody was enjoying their holiday and things like that, and then they came back and were sick," said Raeh Burns, one of two Alamogordo High School secretaries tasked with filling teaching slots each morning. "I know I'm going to have Mr. Stockwell every morning and that he's OK to go where I need him to go."

In some communities, there have been concerns raised about soldiers going in classrooms. In Santa Fe, the school district was asked if soldiers would wear uniforms and carry guns, school district spokesperson Cody Dynarski said. Guns were always out of the question. The district decided that soldiers would wear civilian clothing.

Ultimately, Santa Fe and Albuquerque, two of the largest urban school districts, did not receive any soldiers despite their requests as the deployments have prioritized smaller and more rural school districts.

Elsewhere, when given the choice, some soldiers have opted for military fatigues over civilian clothes to command respect in the classroom, particularly if they're not much older than their students.

"I think I look like an 18-year-old out of uniform," said Cassandra Sierra, 22, of Roswell, N.M., who has served as a substitute teacher in a high school in Hobbs.

Sierra already works with kids in her day job as a student coordinator at a military boarding school in Roswell, which has given her an edge as a substitute.

"Kids just need patience," she said. "I think I just have a lot of patience."

At a middle school on Alamogordo's Holloman Air Force Base, students are used to seeing people in uniform, but not in classrooms.

"I was like, 'Oh, we have somebody in the uniform that's going to teach us. That's kinda awkward.' It was weird," said Andrew George, 12, of his computer classes led by a woman trained in combat and with experience leading a platoon overseas. "Once she introduced herself I was like 'Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.'"

The substitute, Lt. Amanda Zollo, works in the 911 dispatch center in Albuquerque when she's not training or serving with the guard. She kept students on task during a lesson about cybersecurity, as they created and then attempted to break each other's passwords.

She was subbing for a teacher who was having trouble finding childcare. The principal, Whitney Anderson, said that having Zollo's services meant that for the first time that week she didn't have to take over a classroom herself.

Zollo doesn't talk about her work as an infantry officer with her students, which, after a nervous laugh, she describes as "engaging with and destroying the enemies of the U.S. in close-quarter combat."

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that it was the high school missing a third of teachers, not the entire district.

___

Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow Attanasio on Twitter.

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National Guard deploys for new emergency: Teacher shortages

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ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) - On past deployments Army National Guard Spc. Michael Stockwell surveilled a desolate section of the U.S.-Mexico border during a migrant surge, and guarded a ring of checkpoints and fences around New Mexico's state Capitol after the January 2021 insurrection in Washington.

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I will be referencing “Teachers' strike: Chicago's just the beginning,” an article written by Josh Eidelson and published on September 17th, 2012. Eidelson’s overall argument is that, regardless of whether one supports the strike or if its accompanying demands would be fulfilled, it would likely have an impact on teachers, unions, and politics nationwide.

Eidelson makes space for healthy criticism of teachers' unions, particularly those who emphasize “a narrow ethic of professionalism rather than a broad ethic of solidarity,” but suggests that this isn’t the case for the CTU, who has strong parent and student support. This aligns with Myers’s argument that an emphasis on the service aspect of the job would result in a more positive view of teachers by the general public, including parents and students. Speaking to how professionalization necessarily means distancing an occupation from other “less deserving” ones, Myers writes, “elitism is foreign to most teachers” (10). On the contrary, and as discussed by Eidelson, the CTU’s approach was to unify their communities around shared goals. A notable part of Eidelson’s article is how the CTU’s former leadership’s disapproval of CORE rested on the belief that it would “hand off” power to the community. What Eidelson's account of the strike seems to show is that the merger of power between the community and teachers is what made their strike so successful.

Eidelson’s account of the strike also aligns with Nuñez et al.’s assertion that “teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions” (3). In the article, Eidelson, quoting a teacher, brings attention to the fact that Rahm Emanuel’s own children went to a private school that embodied many of the CTU’s demands for CPS. Another teacher featured in the article said the situation was “a clash between competing visions for how to improve schools,” which calls to mind the four ways of viewing education discussed by Nuñez et al. Again, Eidelson highlights how the CTU’s efforts took into account the needs of students and parents as well as teachers.

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Seven days in, Chicago teachers are still on strike. Yesterday, elected delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union voted not to end the strike, opting instead to reconvene Tuesday after discussing a proposed contract deal with CTU's broader membership. Soon after their meeting, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he'll seek a legal injunction declaring the strike illegal and forcing the teachers back to work. So the next few days will bring either a resolution or a major escalation of Chicago's immediate crisis, which pits a famously strong-willed mayor against a local union intent on defying the "education reform" consensus.

This much is already clear: At a moment when teachers unions are everywhere on the defensive - from legislatures, to bargaining table to Hollywood - the teachers have wrung major concessions from the mayor. In the process, they revealed - and began to reshape - divisions in the education debate, in the Democratic Party and within the labor movement itself.

"A lot of us look at the school that Mayor Emanuel sends his children to as an example," said striking history and social studies teacher Xian Barrett. He was referring to a unionized private school, tied to the University of Chicago, which boasts a broad curriculum, smaller classes and ample resources. Barrett, a 2009 Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellow,said, "We want that for our students, too. And we think they deserve it as much as the mayor's children deserve it." (The mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment.)

By law, the teachers could only strike over compensation. But the strike has been about much more. It's a clash between competing visions for how to improve schools, which in Chicago have come into unusually sharp relief. Among the bones of contention: The role of testing in evaluations, the strength of job security for teachers and the number of kids in a class. In a Sunday morning press release, CTU described a proposed settlement with major improvements over what the city was offering a week ago. But in interviews last night, CTU activists said it's not clear whether it will be good enough for members to accept. "If we were only fighting for money, then we certainly came out more on the positive than the negative," social studies teacher Rivanna Jihan said last night. "But in terms of the other stuff, it's a mixed bag."

Chicago was long destined for a showdown. In 2010, the members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted out their incumbent officers in favor a slate from the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), a group promising more aggressive grassroots organizing, deeper partnerships with the community, and fewer concessions. The next year, the city voted in Rahm Emanuel.

The month after Emanuel took office, the national reform group Stand For Children scored a major victory when Illinois' legislature passed SB 7, which weakened seniority and job security, and narrowed the scope of collective bargaining. The law also raised the showing necessary for CTU to authorize a strike, requiring that three-quarters of the membership show support.Jonah Edelman, Stand For Children's CEO, told a crowd at the Aspen Ideas Festival that the union "will never be able to muster the 75 percent threshold necessary to strike." But in a June strike vote, CTU mustered a reported 90 percent. Last week, they followed through on the threat.

Union opponent Rebeca Nieves Huffman, the state director for Democrats for Education Reform, told Salon last week that the strike was "clearly a referendum on the agenda of our mayor...the eyes of the country are on Chicago right now to see what's going to happen."

The strike was a rare show of mass resistance against the bipartisan-blessed education reform consensus.In Emanuel's Chicago, that agenda includes testing-based evaluation, more management discretion over discipline and layoffs, and lots of charter schools.In a February report, "The Schools Chicago's Students Deserve," CTU offered a 10-point alternative vision, including reduced class size, expanded pre-K, redistributed resources and additional support staff.

Interviewed during the strike, national critics of Emanuel-style reform described a chance to reshape a debate in which they've long been on the defensive. "They're the ones that have been able to define it as a civil rights issue, or as an issue to get poor kids better education," said former Connecticut state legislator Jonathan Pelto, who's consulted for unions. "And our side, the unions and public education advocates, have had a very difficult time - one might even say, have failed completely - to change the narrative." A strike in which teachers emphasize issues like class size, said Pelto, "actually provides a perfect opportunity to educate the Democratic base about what's going on...the good guys are the ones that are out on the picket line working to defend the profession."

"What happens in Chicago will tell us, really, what might happen in other major cities," said John Matthews, the executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., the local union whose walkout helped spark last year's Wisconsin uprising. "Including Madison, frankly."

While drawing national attention to teachers' grievances, the strike has cast individual teachers as protagonists. Much of the education debate reflects the premise baldly articulated by Jonathan Alter in "Waiting For Superman": "Teachers are great, a national treasure. Teachers' unions are, generally speaking, a menace and an impediment to reform." That film's fictionalized counterpart, this month's "Won't Back Down," takes the same line - as did GOP keynoter and New Jersey governor Chris Christie. While it's possible to believe teachers are a "national treasure" but are wrong about their working conditions, too often the media storyline implies that union officials and the worst teachers are the only ones objecting to charter-ization. But last week, Chicago's teachers were very visibly voting with their feet: According to Jihan, a CTU activist, union sign-ins suggest that each day 90 percent of teachers were on the picket line.

They've been joined on those picket lines by students, and by parents. A GOP-leaning polling group found two-thirds support for the strikers among Chicago's public school parents, and majority support among the city's voters - despite the condemnations issued by left-of-center pundits and editorial boards on the kids' behalf.

That support reflects the breadth and depth of CTU's organizing with parents and teachers going back years. Teachers unions sometimes earn deserved criticism for emphasizing a narrow ethic of professionalism rather than a broad ethic of solidarity. In Illinois, opponents successfully pushed laws to make it harder for teachers to bargain or strike over issues beyond salary, then framed teachers as greedy. But CTU has been relentless in making common cause with low-wage union members and public school parents, and framing its struggle as one about the conditions of teaching and learning. "The best community organizing tool we have," said Jihan, "is to strike for working conditions, because that's the best tie that we have to the students."

That hasn't always been CTU's approach. In the lead-up to the 2010 union elections, CTU's then-leaders mounted blistering attacks on the insurgent CORE caucus. Barrett, a founding CORE member, said the incumbents put out flyers warning that if CORE won, "the power of the union is handed off to the community and parent groups." CORE, said Barrett, countered that working closely with parent groups "will build more power...and that's something that has been vindicated in how everything has played out."

"Only in Chicago do you have a teacher's union local strong enough, and independent enough of the national union, to do something like this," said Mark Naison, who directs the urban studies program at Fordham University. "If it encourages other locals to strike," former assistant secretary of education Diane Ravitch said over e-mail, "it could have a huge impact."

In an e-mailed statement last week, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said the national union and its members "stand firmly with the CTU, and we will support its members in their efforts to secure a fair contract that will enable them to give their students the best opportunities." But AFT has often taken a different tone on education reform issues than its more confrontational affiliate CTU. In a June interview with Salon, Weingarten touted a statewide compromise in Connecticut (backed by both national unions) which included school takeovers with limited collective bargaining, and a union contract for New Haven, Connecticut which give management greater discretion in firing teachers.

Barrett said the Chicago strike's example could inspire other teachers to take their unions in a different direction: "Whether or not the national unions, with their current leadership, will choose to embrace a grassroots, bottom-up method of union organizing, or choose to it resist it -- and, in my opinion, face serious challenge - remains to be seen." At a 2009 event honoring former Chicago schools CEO and current Obama education secretary Arne Duncan, CORE members were outside protesting while CTU's then-president was inside attending.

That reception reveals a tension within the labor movement, and another within the Democratic Party, whose members are often the ones pushing hard bargaining - or no bargaining - with teachers. Emanuel just stepped down from co-chairing Obama's re-election campaign so he could help raise cash for a pro-Obama super PAC. Hours into the strike, Mitt Romney claimed that Obama had sided with the union (his evidence: a speech Joe Biden gave to a different teacher's union last year). Asked about Romney's claim, Emanuel praised Obama for passing Race to the Top, which incentivized reform laws like Illinois'.

Naison called Emanuel's policy Race to the Top "on steroids," and said the strike "has pulled the covers off immense teacher discontent with the Obama Administration." Asked repeatedly about the strike by reporters, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the president "has not expressed any opinion or made any assessment about this particular incident."

With an election weeks away, Obama no doubt counts himself among the Chicagoans eager to see an end to the strike. But whether or not the strike ends tomorrow night, the intra-party tensions it's stoked are far from settled. By highlighting rank-and-file teachers marching with parents for alternative reforms, and by offering inspiration to union members seeking a different form of unionism, the strike has shifted the terrain for battles still to come.

"We'll see what the democratic process brings us Tuesday," said Barrett. "But either way, whether we're back at work on Wednesday or not, we've got a lot of fighting ahead of us."

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Teachers' strike: Chicago's just the beginning

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Seven days in, Chicago teachers are still on strike. Yesterday, elected delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union voted not to end the strike, opting instead to reconvene Tuesday after discussing a proposed contract deal with CTU's broader membership.

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In this article, Julia Jacobs describes educators' reactions to the mockumentary show Abbot Elementary, which humorously portrays the lives of elementary teachers in a fictional underfunded school in Philadelphia. The teachers featured in the article marvel at how relatable the show is for its portrayal of the hardships of teachers, particularly the divide between teachers and administration and the lack of resources provided to teachers and students. I think this piece and show speak to how teachers' perspectives are increasingly becoming part of mainstream discussions about education. It's not surprising to me to see this show come out a handful of years after a national teacher strike movement in 2018/19.

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A new sitcom by Quinta Brunson about a Philadelphia public school is a relatable balm during a period of intense stress for educators.

In ABC's new mockumentary "Abbott Elementary," Tyler James Williams, left, and Quinta Brunson play teachers at a public school in Philadelphia. Credit... Raymond Liu/ABC

In the second episode of "Abbott Elementary," a new ABC mockumentary about a group of (mostly) dedicated educators in an underfunded public school in Philadelphia, a second-grade teacher named Janine resolves to fix a flickering hallway ceiling light that the school had ignored.

"The more senior teachers are just used to giving in," says Janine, the bright-eyed protagonist (played by the show's creator, Quinta Brunson), "but I, however, am young, sprightly and know where they keep the ladder."

For Maurice Watkins, a 28-year-old music teacher in Maryland, Janine's take-charge approach was laughably familiar. Just recently, he had taken a trip to a discount store to buy mops and brooms to clean the classroom floors of the three public schools where he teaches. While the traditional classrooms undergo a regular cleaning, the spaces where he teaches band and orchestra do not.

"As a teacher, you're left to fix it yourself," said Watkins, who works with fourth through sixth graders. "Almost every day I go through one of those situations."

(Luckily, Watkins's attempts at janitorial duties did not go sideways like Janine's did: After she adjusted a loose wire, much of the school's power went out.)

Six episodes in, Brunson's "Abbott Elementary" has quickly become a talker among teachers who see themselves and their colleagues reflected in the show's main characters, who are repeatedly pushed to their wits' end by administrative chaos, paltry resources and the antics of their students. On social media, some viewers gushed about how relatable the show is to them.

The ratings have been strong thus far, with more than 7 million total viewers across all platforms over roughly the first month after the premiere, according to ABC. (There's Hollywood buzz, too: On Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show, the host brought on Joyce Abbott, Brunson's sixth-grade teacher whom she named the show after, bringing the actress to tears.)

Teachers say they recognize the fictional school's staff in their own halls: the young teacher who is too new to be cynical, the self-serving principal, the ace veteran teacher who is stubbornly set in her ways and the white teacher who falls all over himself trying to seem progressive around his Black students and colleagues.

Watkins said that the day after the first episode of "Abbott Elementary" aired in December, "every teacher at school was talking about it." For some, though, it hit too close to home.

"Some teachers I know can't even watch it," Watkins said.

Teachers say they identify strongly with the challenges Janine and her colleagues face on a daily basis: a persistent lack of funding, behavioral problems of students and struggles with introducing new educational technologies.

"D - all of the above," said Alisha Gripp, a principal at a charter middle school in Kansas City, Mo. One aspect of the show that she adamantly does not identify with, however, is the school's incompetent principal, Ava Coleman (played by Janelle James), who spends her time trimming her Chia Pet and organizing student files by who has the hottest dad.

"I think she's hilarious - but I am nothing like her," Gripp said with a laugh.

In one episode, teachers take to TikTok to drum up school supplies for their students; Janelle James, right, plays the principal. Credit... Gilles Mingasson/ABC

Gripp, who has been an educator for 17 years, said she thought "Abbott Elementary" was a more true-to-life depiction of teaching than those in much other Hollywood fare, including "Boston Public," a Fox drama from David E. Kelley. That show tended to lean into melodrama in the fictional high school where it was set, making Gripp think to herself, "They'd be fired; they'd be fired; that kid would be suspended."

"It really is cool to have a more realistic, but still entertaining, take on education," she added.

Much of the show's background comes from Brunson's mother, who was a public-school teacher in Philadelphia for 40 years, according to two of the show's executive producers, Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker. The producers and writers also interviewed teachers, school staff members and board members about their jobs.

Many of the plot points come from real-life educators, including the main arc of an episode in which Janine becomes wildly successful at using TikTok to ask people to donate school supplies. It comes off as both funny and grim because she has to resort to social media for basic materials like scissors and glue.

The TikTok episode reminded Kristina A. Holzweiss, a 52-year-old former teacher and librarian who is now an education-technology specialist at a Long Island high school, of a time several years ago when she independently raised more than $100,000 to buy enrichment materials like Chromebooks and a 3-D printer for her library. This was before TikTok took off, but teachers could use a website called DonorsChoose, which helped them with crowdfunding for their classrooms.

"Teachers should not have to do this; this is not in our job description," Holzweiss said, "but teachers always put their students first."

For some, a show that highlights hard-working, committed educators is particularly welcome right now. As schools across the country reopened after extended pandemic closures, teachers were put in the center of battles over mask mandates and in-person versus remote learning.

The struggles of teaching during a pandemic - as well as long-term issues around low pay, benefits and erratic hours - contributed to a nationwide labor shortage at schools, which have struggled to find substitutes for sick teachers and teachers who quit.

Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter, left) and Janine in an episode about a new gifted program that goes awry. Credit... Liliane Lathan/ABC

"When the pandemic happened and everything closed, teachers were heroes," said Jennifer Dinh, a 31-year-old second-grade teacher in Chino Hills, Calif. "But as soon as the next school year rolled around, it all went out the door."

"Abbott Elementary" tackles the issue of teacher burnout from the outset, showing a young teacher walking out of the building carrying a box of her belongings and raising a choice finger on her way out. ("More turnovers than a bakery," quips Barbara Howard, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, who has been teaching in the school district for 20 years.)

A theme of the show is the clash between young, newer teachers like Janine, who are learning the physical and emotional toll of trying to fix a dysfunctional school, and the more experienced teachers, who have learned to accept certain things - a flickering light, for example - so that they avoid burnout.

"If we burn out, who's here for these kids?" asks Melissa Schemmenti (played by Lisa Ann Walter), a straight-talking, Sicilian American second-grade teacher.

After more than three decades of teaching, Jocelyn Hitchcock, a 57-year-old fan of the show, is determined not to burn out. After 20 years as a music teacher, she grew frustrated by dwindling funding for the arts and shifted to the core subjects. This past fall, Hitchcock started teaching at a small elementary school on the Walker River Paiute reservation in Nevada.

Her school has recently dealt with a serious shortage of teachers (the principal has had to teach in the classroom), and she now spends time before and after school tutoring children to help them catch up from the learning deficits created by the pandemic.

In "Abbott Elementary," she said, she finds validation in seeing people on TV going through what she experiences day to day.

But because the show is set in a nonpandemic world (at least thus far), Holzweiss said she thought the show was missing an exploration of the greatest challenges that teachers face right now: hybrid teaching, staffing shortages and students lagging behind academically and socially.

"It's an entirely different world now," she said.

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Broken Lights, No Glue: 'Abbott Elementary' Has Teachers Talking

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A new sitcom by Quinta Brunson about a Philadelphia public school is a relatable balm during a period of intense stress for educators. In the second episode of "Abbott Elementary," a new ABC mockumentary about a group of (mostly) dedicated educators in an underfunded public school in Philadelphia, a second-grade teacher named Janine resolves to fix a flickering hallway ceiling light that the school had ignored.

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In this article, Chloe Berger highlights the burnout teachers are facing today as a result of staffing shortages and insufficient pay, leading many to leave the profession. I have noticed this attitude of burnout and general dissatisfaction with the job among some teachers at my placement school, which I have found discouraging. I already have so many doubts about my ability to do this work, so news like this makes me very scared for my future.

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Burned-out teachers are sharing their Great Resignation stories on TikTok

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They are using social media to discuss career pivots, burn out, and stories of quitting.

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What the screenshot above and the headlines featured in this digital scrapbook highlight is an education system in crisis. Save for the first entry, these articles are all recent explorations of teachers' working conditions and the particular moment in education and history we find ourselves in. A common thread between these articles is the sense that educators, and the education system broadly, are lacking in resources and facing distress. This has been exacerbated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the first article makes clear, teachers have been fighting for better working and learning conditions for at least a decade.

Given the news coming out every day, it is a scary time to become a teacher, with little security, guidance, or resources. However, by bookending this scrapbook with coverage of powerful displays of union power, I put forth the proposal (or really, hope) that collective organizing can address the many problems teachers face today.