The Day I Got Political (or Vote No on Props 1, 2, & 3)

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of "Vote No on Props 1, 2, & 3" yard signs. My husband, Dan, and I have never decorated our lawn or our cars with political statements around election time.

But, as a school teacher, this issue directly affects me. And as a teacher of the arts, an academic discipline that is constantly marginalized in the current test-taking culture, this issue really could be the difference between having a job and not having a job. Unlike most of my votes in the red state of Idaho, this one could actually count.

Anyway, I came home with two signs and posted one of them in my yard. I didn't know what to do with the second sign, but I figured I could keep it in the garage as back up. I was a kind of paranoid about crazy people vandalizing the sign or kicking it down in the middle of the night. Like I said, I had never espoused political views from lawn before.

When Dan came home from work that afternoon, he greeted me with, "So we're those sort of people now."

I told him I had a spare sign in the garage.

"What are we supposed to do with a second sign?" he asked.

"I don't know. Give it to a neighbor?"

Later that week, Dan and I were taking a walk and saw a "Yes, Yes, Yes for Education" bumper sticker on the back of a neighbor's truck, right next to a Tea Party decal. ("Yes for Education" is the opposition if you hadn't already guessed.)

Dan stroked chin and said, "Hmmm . . . I think we found a use for our second sign."

Of course, we would never do that. It sounds pretty illegal.

Then I was recruited for a "Vote No" commercial, and the inevitable finally happened. I took a stand.

When the commercial first aired in Twin Falls, my dad called me, cracking up.

"You got political," he said, in between bouts of laughter and hilarity.

A little background information: My father is the one whose lawn is decorated with candidate signs. And he is always championing some sort of social cause. Right now, he is working on Kiwanis International's Eliminate Project which provides tetanus vaccinations to women and children. (There's a plug for you, my partner in social cause crime.)

"I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," I responded as he continued to chuckle.

In the faculty lounge (our school's "Free Speech Zone"), I overheard one of our maintenance and operations workers asking, "What do you think the outcome of these props will be?"

Another staff member replied, "Well, my sixteen-year-old son came home the other day with a warped textbook. Something had been spilled on it, and it was tattered and beaten up. And I thought, 'Even better if that was a laptop!'"

Prop 1: Limiting Negotiations
"They" say "they" are busting up the 1920's mafia-style unions. 
"Union" is a taboo word here in Idaho. But the teachers' union in the right-to-work state of Idaho does not have nearly the amount of power that "they" would like you to believe. In fact, our so-called union is an association made up of teachers. We have voluntarily joined this so-called union and pay union dues because the association negotiates things like class sizes, prep times, and extra duties. Also, the rhetoric about "teacher tenure" is misleading. Teachers are not tenured in the college professorial sense. The "tenure" refers to continuing contracts. We can be fired. But we get due process before we are let go. Hmmm . . . sounds like a fairness issue to me.

Prop 2: Merit Pay
"They" say "they" are giving "good" teachers bonuses. 
First of all, none of the "bonuses" we are getting make up the salary decrease we have experienced in the last few years. And second of all, NEWS FLASH: Teachers don't go into teaching for the money! Plus, we Boise District teachers are baffled as to how the merit pay "bonuses" were determined.

According to the Idaho Statesman: "The state set a measure for rewards based on how well students perform on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test. Individual districts had the option to add criteria, such as student graduation and dropout rates, the number of students taking AP classes and more."

However, according to Idaho's new academic accountability system, the Five-Star Rating System, many of the Boise schools that received four stars will receive less in bonuses than some schools that received three and even two stars. And the majority of the schools getting maximum bonuses? High SES (socioeconomic status) schools. Hmmm . . . sounds like a class warfare issue to me.

Prop 3: Laptops for Everyone
"They" say it will catapult our kids and districts into the 21st century.
Since when do kids need to be catapulted into the 21st century? They all know how to use technology quite effectively. And handing a bunch of laptops to kids who already have access to SMART Boards, iPads, smartphones, iPods, etc. in schools across Idaho is hardly cutting edge technology. Plus, the lease agreement (yes, the districts won't even own these mobile devices) is almost three times the dollar amount originally proposed by our Superintendent of Public Education, Tom Luna. Hmmm . . . sounds like a fiscal responsibility issue to me.

For more information, please visit the Vote No website.

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