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Sheep story shows importance of union

It seems to happen with annoying frequency.

A letter to the editor, an editorial or a TV talking head, opines that unions are no longer needed and that public school teachers should not have tenure rights.

If people are paying attention to the news out of Piasa, Illinois, maybe we’ll hear a little less of that claptrap for a while.

Dan DeLong, who is unqestionably an outstanding teacher, included an article headlined The Effeminate Sheep and and other problems with Darwinian sexual selection among optional reading for students in his sophomore honors English class at Southwestern High School.  It’s an article based on a scientific paper that looked into alleged homosexual behavior among animals of various species.

A short time after the article was assigned, the sheep hit the fan.

One could argue that tenth graders in an honors class taught by a top-level teacher can handle reading a science-based article without sustaining damage.  However, if there was a complaint, it needed to be addressed. But how?

If you were an administrator would you…

a) Discuss the incident with the teacher and conclude there was not a serious problem?

b) Discuss the incident with the teacher and suggest he keep similarly themed material off his approved reading list in the future?

c) Suspend the teacher with pay and report the assignment to the Department of Children and Family Services for their investigation?

If you chose “C”, there is something wrong with you.  Coincidentally, that is the choice the administrator at DeLong’s high school made.

Immediately, DeLong’s students, present and former, got organized. They set up facebook pages that, within days, acquired thousands of “fans” offering support.  The community outcry resulted in a ton of publicity, virtually all of it supporting the teacher.

On Monday night, students and members of the high school community were packed together in a small office outside the room where the superintendent and board members, with their attorney, huddled with DeLong and his IEA representative.

One of the things we have learned in the advocacy business is that people who are focused solely on what they want, as opposed to what is fair, reasonable and respects the will of the community, will do whatever they are able to do, to try to get their way. If they choose, they can ignore the bad publicity, the community outcry and all the rest.

What they can’t do is ignore the law.  The union makes sure the law is followed.

The meeting to discuss Dan DeLong’s future, which started around 6:00 pm Monday, ended early Tuesday. A few hours later, Dan DeLong returned to his classroom.  See the video report.

Let’s hope that the events in Piasa help inform the public that some of the most oft-repeated myths about education employees and their unions are pure nonsense:

Myth: “There is no justification for teacher tenure”

Without a law that requires school administrations to justify its reasons for disciplining a teacher, Southwestern High School could easily have lost one of its best teachers and a man’s career could have been destroyed.

Tenure means that, if action is going to be taken against a veteran teacher, the district must have a good reason. Tenure helps ensure that high quality teachers, such as Dan DeLong, continue to be attracted and retained in the teaching profession.

In short, tenure benefits students and the community by safeguarding the rights of education employees.

Myth: “Good teachers don’t need union protection”

Dan DeLong is an outstanding teacher who was in trouble. He called IEA and got his UniServ Director (UD), Marcus Albrecht, involved. Albrecht brought with him a quarter-century of experience advocating for members, ensuring that the rights of the teacher would be respected at a meeting at which the district’s lawyer would play a key role.

The union involvement ensures that, no matter how committed a district is to its desire to discipline an employee, the law will be followed.

Because of unions, education employees in Illinois have:

• Collective bargaining rights

• The right to union representation at a hearing

• Legal representation when needed

• A political action program that lobbies policymakers on behalf of their positions

• The capacity/expertise to execute communications tactics that expose policymakers and the public to important information.

If education is as important as everyone claims it is, it must be treated as a profession and its employees must be treated as professionals. There is only one way to ensure that happens.

It’s called a union.