Confessions of an NEA terrorist

Guest Opinion

Sunday, March 7, 2004

By David McGrath

We're coming out with our hands up, Secretary Paige.

Yes, as member teachers of the National Education Association (NEA), my wife and I stand accused by U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige of being "terrorists" because of our opposition to President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.

U.S. marshals need not worry about encountering trouble if they come to arrest me at my morning college composition class. I'm armed only with bifocals and chalk, and my sophomore students will be too sleepy to realize, at first, what's going on. I would like to think that after several days, when they learn their professor is confined in a cage in Guantanamo Bay, they will write painstaking five-paragraph essays arguing for my release; or at least those few who believe it will earn them some extra credit will write them.

The marshals, however, may have a stickier time making a collar at Northeast Elementary, where wife, Marianne, is teaching fourth grade. Not that she is threatening to resist, or even that the boys and girls clustered about her in tiny chairs will try to shield her from perceived harm. But the wailing and the tears of some 25 9-year-olds who see their teacher being led away in handcuffs might prove daunting to even the burliest of lawmen.

Incarceration, though, we can handle: We've walked picket lines, and a few of our leaders have even been jailed overnight in particularly contentious labor disputes.

Of greater importance is that if we so-called NEA terrorists are tried by the military tribunal, the prosecutor or magistrate will surely recount for the judges our organization's history of opposition to politicized raids on education. And along those lines they will have a very strong case.

They will probably begin the litany of our crimes by harking back to 1925 and NEA spiritual leader John Scopes. He was the infamous biology teacher who dared to teach evolution in his class in spite of state governments across the country banning its mere mention in the schools. Though Scopes didn't technically commit any acts of terror, he was, indeed, a martyr for the cause of integrity in education, and Marianne and I and the other NEA members must readily acknowledge our association with this pioneer.

After recounting the Scopes "Monkey" trial, the prosecution will likely describe in chronological order all episodes of our active and passive resistance to political interference throughout recent American history, including forced busing, prayer in schools, privatization, creationism, classification of catsup as a vegetable, school vouchers, and any and all mandates that have been inadequately funded, or not funded at all. If we're to be labeled "terrorists" for opposing ill-conceived dictates of bureaucrats who haven't been inside a classroom in decades, or for waging rhetorical battle with a long line of federal interlopers, from Spiro Agnew and William Bennett to Dan Quayle, then Paige will have his way.

Finally, the prosecution would detail the major reason for its criminal claim, which is the NEA opposition to the No Child Left Behind Act.

Apparently, we are terrorists for disagreeing with this plan to punish entire schools if even a single of its subgroups (low-income, special ed, non-Native) does poorly on an annual standardized test. Also, apparently, all other NEA member teachers are terrorists, since not a single one believes it's fair to judge students and schools exclusively through objective tests.

But if the prosecution is successful in convincing the judge, then more indictments will be forthcoming, since principals, superintendents and school board presidents have been aiding and abetting NEA "terrorists" by short-circuiting the No Child law in order to keep their own schools open. By cooking the books or finessing the definitions of subgroups like special education, they, too, have been disobeying the feds and waging creative warfare against this latest underfunded act of the administration.

Better sic Ashcroft and company on us soon, Secretary Paige, for time is of the essence. Although the goal of real terrorists to spread fear and cripple governments by inflicting death and destruction does not exactly match the NEA's mission to enhance the quality of life by safeguarding truth and democracy in education, don't let that tiny technicality cause the posse to delay a single minute. For my literature class will be harboring an avant-garde poet one day next week (talk about sedition!), and Mrs. McGrath is about ready to strip her bulletin boards for the new month (concealing evidence?).

No, we may not semantically or legally qualify as terrorists. Marianne and I are teachers, American workers and union members. But if that's who's turning up on this administration's Most Wanted list, heaven help us all.

David McGrath, a professor of English at the College of DuPage, and Marianne McGrath, of Northeast School in Evergreen Park, recently co-authored a commentary critical of the No Child Left Behind Act (Daily Southtown, Jan. 27).