Yeah! That’s right! We’re having t-shirts printed! Thank you to Mickey Penrod representing Tippecanoe Education Association and LEA members Cecil Shoemaker representing Tecumseh Jr. High; Rachel French, Mary Newman, Melinda Gilbert and Buffy Rogers representing Jeff High School.
On that Friday we gave up forty-five minutes of our evening and stood on the corner of 4th and Columbia with placards protesting RTW and the eventual elimination of due process rights for teachers: twenty-nine Rebuild America Coalition members and union members from UAW and Sheet Metal Workers local #20, and six teachers from LEA, plus one teacher from TEA.
You have to show up to support the values and causes you believe in. The GOP controlled legislature is not our buddy. They won’t “be nice” to us if we huddle in our classrooms hoping they won’t hurt us. Like any other bully they become emboldened when they see weakness. There need to be two or three hundred teachers standing at the corner of 4th and Main. There need to be twenty thousand teachers on the lawn of the state house. There need to be thirty thousand letters from teachers to the editors of newspapers and to our legislators. And there need to be fifty thousand teachers voting for middle-class values and public education. We have to support our fellow union members. We have to support our teachers, our schools, and our kids. That’s how we effect change. On the streets and at the polls. DEMOCRACY IS FOR THOSE WHO SHOW UP. BE THERE! — BWH