Wisconsin's Plight, Unionization, and the Impact on Education

As future educators, what can we take away from the Wisconsin union protests? What do they mean, and why are they so significant? This standoff between legislation and state-employees truly works to place the reality of what education in the United States has (unfortunately) become--a system that is far more focused upon minimizing budgets than providing our nation's youth with a high quality education. With that being said, as Patrik Jonsson suggests in his article, "Wisconsin Protests: Why "Week of Rage" Matters for the Rest of America", the line between politics and educational welfare has been undoubtedly crossed--Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), in an attempt to rescue his state from a budget-based nightmare ( however, in many people's opinion, Scott is simply attempting to slight Democratically supported unions), has just recently passed a bill that will require both local and state employees (most notably in our case, public educators) to fund close to half of their own overall pension costs, and to pay for just over 12% of their annual health-care, which is close to twice the amount of their current annual payments.Similarly, Governor Scott is developing plans to significantly reduce the collective-bargaining rights of state employee groups, thus virtually stripping away the purpose behind unionizing (i.e., unions will be required to hold annual elections to remain certified, and will only be able to discuss the wages that they receive). But, news has just broke that a federal judge has suspended this anti-CB bill, and that Walker's reforms are now under heavy scrutiny and investigation.

What we, as aspiring teachers, are able to take away from these ongoing protests is that, regardless of our efforts, we can not avoid the fact that, during this time of nation-wide economic uncertainty, education has become more politically and financially mandated than it ever has before in our lifetimes--our pre-service instruction has, in many ways, provided us with a somewhat unrealistic depiction of what we will face in a real world classroom. Education has become a potent form of business and a crucial component of debt-management-- business is money, and money, especially now, is meant to be saved. It's an unfortunate reality that we face as instructors, knowing that, as we dedicate our blood, sweat, and tears to the well being of our students each and every day, we are simply being used as pawns in a political game--not only are our livelihoods impacted (financially, benefits-wise, etc.), but, more importantly, our students suffer as politicians attempt to slap together the cheapest educational format that they can muster up. Yes, it's unfortunate, but it is still a reality. Today, with our soon-to-be profession in a state of flux, we need to collectively become more educated about the politics surrounding our profession--without educating ourselves about our rights and what we can control, we won't be able to protect and adequately represent ourselves in the future.