1. Introduction to the Messes Inside Of K-12 Education: We Don't Need Another Hero (Part I)

In the first episode of the Rebel Teachers Rising Podcast, hosts Trina English, Jessica Martin, and Amanda Werner introduce their mission to create a teacher-led space to address systemic issues in K-12 education. They emphasize that the podcast is apolitical, welcoming diverse perspectives from public and private K-12 teachers nationwide. The hosts discuss their educational philosophies and the motivations behind starting the podcast while highlighting several critical 'messes' in the education system, such as the teacher shortage crisis, inadequate teacher pay, excessive teacher preparation requirements, the canned curriculum mess fueled by corporate greed, and the broader K-12 governance failures. They assert that these problems are bipartisan and require urgent attention from policymakers by amplifying teachers' voices and expertise. The episode serves as an introduction to their investigative journalistic series aiming for a national professional governing board of teachers to fix these entrenched issues in the education system.

00:00 Introduction: Setting the Stage

00:20 The Real Issues in K-12 Education

01:28 Creating a Teacher-Led Space

02:09 A Bipartisan Approach

02:50 The Fight for Public Education

05:12 Investigative Journalism and Teacher Voices

09:41 Philosophies of Education

19:42 The Journey of Creating the Podcast

28:15 Introduction to the Teacher Shortage Crisis

28:48 The Reading and DEI Mess

29:56 Title IX and Sexual Violence in Schools

30:31 Connecting the Dots: Teacher Shortage and K-12 Governance

31:11 The Petition for Teacher Leadership

32:29 Exploring the Teacher Shortage Mess

38:34 Teacher Pay Mess: Unpacking the Issues

43:26 Teacher Preparation Mess: The Hidden Costs

45:55 Canned Curriculum: A One-Size-Fits-All Problem

51:24 Conclusion and Call to Action

https://www.k-12confidential.com/

Transcript

 Did you press play on this out of curiosity? 

Were you hoping for culture war porn? 

Were you hoping for political vitriol to either love or hate? 

Well, this ain't that. We are intentionally creating a space for descent. Yes, that is true. Not in the ways you may expect because the whole red, blue, and purple divide doesn't line up with the huge problems that we're gonna talk about, which are endemic in K 12 education.

Our problems are bipartisan, and if you're not a part of our world, and by that we mean you're not a current veteran, K 12 teacher on the ground floor in a classroom, and you think you know what's going on, you're wrong. And that's the problem. Folks outside of our world, politicians, NGOs, superintendents, they get to control the narrative and act like they know what they are talking about.

And teachers have just gotten very used to rolling our eyes, rolling up our sleeves, and then quietly cleaning up the messes made by their bad decisions as best we can. But the reality is that the messes that they have made are leaders. The decision makers have gotten so bad that this won't work anymore, and really it never did.

And that is exactly what landed us exactly. And that is exactly what landed us where we are today. So we're creating a teacher led space, which honors all of us public and private K 12 teachers in absolutely every corner of our nation. Get to call this podcast home. It is your podcast and your chance to tell the American people exactly how it is and how it needs to change in order to save our kids and our very ability to effectively self govern.

And while this podcast is apolitical, none of us are, and we're from all over the country with very, very different worldviews and beliefs. To pretend that we are not political, ourselves isn't honest. So the work here is to figure out how to create a bi, a bipartisan space for everyone, regardless of our politics.

But everyone here is super opinionated, and so sometimes we cross a line and when we do, we need you to tell us. So that we can fix it. 'cause we don't want to be a partisan discussion. There's no time for partisan politics here. There's way too much on the line and we refuse to give up. So if you're tired of hearing the echo chamber of your own beliefs and long for something that cuts through what you wanna hear and gives you what you need to hear, then this show is for you.

We stand united against anyone who devalues teacher expertise and attempts to defund or dismantle public education. And while that may sound like a politically loaded statement, we assure you it's not. 'cause we've seen folks on both sides of the political divide be on the wrong and the right side of this battle from time to time.

So we're gonna be calling out the right, the left, and the center on this podcast. The fight to save and preserve public K 12 education is beyond our party politics. We've created something hopeful and brave out of all the ugliness around us, and we don't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, we know that no one person does our world.

K 12 education is bizarre and operates in the darkness and is run entirely by non-experts. And those of us who are experts, current K 12 teachers are very intentionally sidelined from any position of leadership you have to leave our profession to lead it. So what is our podcast? The Rebel Teachers Rising Podcast is not just for teachers, if that's all who listens.

We wanna accomplish our goals. We need a hundred thousand signatures on our petition. So we need everyone listening. We're not here to dish though about our specific school districts or sites that would be career suicide, and we're not making a dime from this podcast. I've been pouring my money into it, so we need to keep our jobs.

But really it's more than just that we're not here to assassinate individuals or schools or districts caught up in this mess because even though outsiders, people outside of K 12. Are gonna be horrified to know what's going on here and the ins and outs that we're gonna be discussing on the podcast. We also know that group psychology and careful indoctrination and oppression in our world carefully manufactures everyone's complicity.

In short, no one person or institution is to blame for the mess. And although this podcast must be for everyone, it will always center teachers. Our podcast is investigative journalism, which aspires to allow everyone to see a real and honest glimpse of our world. We are teachers and we love all teachers.

Red states, blue states, private school, charter school, public school, pre-K, preschool, multiple subject, single subject, special education, all teachers. Our defacto stance is one of utter support of all of us because even though we have seen that our voice is missing from the big, because we have seen that our voice is missing from all of the big decisions being made in our world, and we have seen the huge costs our nation is paying as a result.

What you are about to hear is a series of discussions which unpacks our argument for a national association of teachers. It's demoralizing and infuriating that we are the only body of credential professionals in America, which does not have this, and this is the fatal flaw of K 12 schooling in America.

It is why the messes exist and is at the heart of what must change. We dug bravely and tenaciously into the problems in K 12 schooling, which we noticed the outside press would not, could not cover due to the hidden nature of our world and uncovered major themes, which all flow from the same structural problem in K 12 schooling, which is that teachers do not get a say in how teaching happens in America.

In our podcast, you will hear teachers from all over the nation come on in a true investigative journalistic manner and bravely blow the whistle on the messes in our world. It's scary and it's hard what they are doing, what we are doing, the messes are the major themes, which are evidence of how bad things are and why the nation needs our solution Framework.

In our two part introduction, you will hear the creators of the podcast introduce the messes as I've been referring to them. These are the themes that I refer to, which are the no. In our two part introduction. You will hear the creators of the podcast introduce the messes and reflect on the work we have done thus far and the brilliant, courageous people we've interviewed.

What our listeners can expect from this expose, we're calling this episode, we don't need another hero because we, the teachers are not asking to be saved. We are asking that you allow us to save you and K 12 education and in so doing the American people, we are the only ones who see the mess and we have the solution to fix it.

This entire podcast is our evidence of this statement. We love you. We know how to fix it. All we're asking is for the chance to do so. This episode is part one of We Don't Need Another Hero. In this episode, Amanda, Jess and I begin to unpack the messes that we go into great detail about. In the episodes, it will pick right back up where it left off with the second episode, beginning with our conversation of the reading Mess.

Thank you for listening. We know you sense it. You see that there is something terribly wrong in our world. Are you confused about how we got here? We have a huge missing piece of the puzzle that's been kept from you. We're rebel teachers who are shining a light on the mess in K through 12 schooling.

That is eroding our democracy from within. No one wants our job anymore. That's just the tip of the iceberg. We're creating a space for fellow rebels to speak truth to power, and offer love and hope for the world. We are Rebel Teachers Rising.

Welcome to the groundbreaking first episode of the Rebel Teachers Rising Podcast. I. This is Trina English, your executive producer and co-host, and I'm joined today by my fellow co-host Badasses, Jessica Martin and Amanda Werner. Today we're gonna try to explain why this podcast exists. A little bit about who we are and how we got here, but mainly about what you can expect.

On the long journey of all of the messes in K 12 education and really why we're doing this podcast at all, we're gonna start with our philosophy of education. If you're in the teacher game, you know that we're supposed to have a philosophy of education when we enter the biz, and then later, nobody ever asked us about it ever again.

I'm coming back full circle on our teacher journey to the beginning. 'cause I know when I did the work of figuring out what I'm about as an educator and an activist, it's way different than when I started this journey. So I'm gonna start with Jessica Martin, take it away. I. Alrighty. Well, as some of you know, I go by the whimsical teacher online, so my philosophy of education has to be very whimsical and very weird.

And the first thing is I've always really like this quote, like, you know, we're supposed to be teaching students how to think, not what to think. I think that's one of my most favorite quotes and kind of that drive something that drives me. And I believe the only way to learn how to think is by doing a lot of creative out of the box, strange activities, doing new things every day.

And that's kind of how I see myself as a teacher. My favorite educational psychologist is Jerome Bruner, and I did pull up a quote because I was told to bring a quote here. So I did bring one, and this is one of his quotes that I really, I, I, I really jive with this as a teacher. The essence of creativity is figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think.

And that's what I really like about teaching is there's so many, there's not always so many different. Paths we can take for subject level and or subject matter and grade level. Uh, I really love that we're, we're really kind of like opening, opening our students up to thinking in new ways. But that those new ways, I like to kind of foster their creativity, what they're excited about.

I see all of my students, like little detectives in the world, sort of like trying to uncover what's really out there, but everybody has a different point of view, so everyone sees things differently. So I'm really big on like the fact that we all have a different perspective and one of my most favorite.

Posters I've ever had up in my classroom. I got it out of National Geographic. It's a picture of the whole world, but all the continents are blacked out and all of the oceans are like really vivid blue. And like when you see how much of the world is like covered by an ocean, like it just really changes your whole perspective of what we know of the world and that that is kind of, and I actually have like a, you know, change your perspective.

And change everything. That's what my poster said. And then I had this, this picture of the world, but like with, with the continents all blacked out. And, and that's what that is. My teaching philosophy is just, uh, I approach things in kind of a weird and zany way. Thank you. And I love the word whimsy and I love your Margaret Mead quote.

I actually have that on my signature right now. Our job is to teach kids how to think and not what to think. We never use our teachers. Stage as a pulpit to indoctrinate our kids into any philosophy that is a crime against our responsibilities as teachers. Thank you. Amanda, tell us about you. Sure. Thanks Trina and Jess.

That was awesome to hear your philosophy, Jess. And I wish that we had more opportunities to talk about our philosophies with our colleagues. So my philosophy. Is connection and relationship and the importance of seeing children not just as students. Um, and. But as people who have knowledge and who can have knowledge that I don't have, who can teach me.

Um, and one of the teachers that I admire the most is Rita Pearson. Uh, she gave a TED Talk in 2013, um, and I have one of her quotes that I'd love to share with you. All right now. Um. That really speaks to everything that I'm about as a teacher. Okay. Teaching and learning should bring joy. How powerful would our world be if we had kids who were not afraid to take risks, who were not afraid to think, and who had a champion?

Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will, who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they could possibly be. So I, I don't believe that my. Job is just about my content. I believe that it's about empowering students and, you know, that's what my podcast is all about, empower students now.

Um, and I have a website, I, I really for a long time was obsessed with how to make. Teaching writing and, and writing in general, more engaging for students. So I started a website called Amanda right now.com and I talk a lot about, um, how important it is to engage students. And the best way that I've found to engage them is through connection and through curiosity about their own experiences and knowledge and passions.

You're so inspirational. I am very similar to the two of you. I believe in a lot of whimsy. I believe in a lot of zaniness too. I love those words. I'm gonna start using zany more frequently. It's an underused word, uh, but I also believe that students are devalued in the educational system. They, their experiences, what they bring to the table, their abilities.

Um, their potentials are all overlooked in K 12 of education. And my philosophy of education is around empowerment too, and how building re relationships with kids is your number one tool in your arsenal of tools to engage students with the learning process, like authentic love. And so from my idea of.

Love for the kids. I've been really doing a lot of work on myself to grow that love for all teachers. And as a rebel teacher, I'm annoying. Like, um, if you've had to be subjected to me as a coworker on your campus, I'm the eye roll teacher that is always raising their hand, arguing with what we're doing.

And I am trying so hard right now to be a collaborator, to be a. Culture builder to listen with love and be open-minded in my heart. And for me, the way in which I've been able to take my sadness, my grief, my hardships, and the K 12 complex and turn it into love for all teachers is through the work of Bell Hooks.

And she has a book called All About Love, and I'm reading it right now. I read excerpts for it when I was getting my, um. My master's in ed leadership, but now I'm reading it cover to cover and there's a quote in there, um, if you guys dunno, bell Hook, she's amazing, badass educational scholar who took this nebulous concept about love and turned it into like a sort of a practice for disruption of broken systems.

And what does that all look like? And there's a quote that people often quote from Bell Hooks, which is that from this book, which is that there can be no love without justice. And the sad part is people cut that quote off and they don't finish it. What she says next, and this is in the beginning of her book, is Until we live in a culture that not only respects, but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love.

I. And in my experience as a K 12 educator, I have seen that children really are their own marginalized identity group and they are overlooked and badly mistreated. And some of the radical improvements in the quality of life that we expect in the adult world have not trickled down to K 12 education.

And so this oppressive system has just gotten much and much worse over the. Last years here. And so my philosophy of education is about reform, reforming the systems and calling it out. Paolo Fieri is my North Star about, um, he's an educational scholar who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and he talks about how you bring people together, you're not their savior.

You are a co-conspirator with them and you don't know anything until you bring everyone in and let them tell you what's going on. So humility, that's a big part of my practice too. Okay. Now that we've cleared that up, listeners, if you wanna know more about us, you can go to the village page, the US page on our website.

You can see the more like. Work experience, things are projects, but we wanted to start with something really human, which, which was our philosophy. So at this point I'd like to ask both of you to talk about how you wound up involved in this work, how hard it's been to work on this podcast while also being a teacher and holding other responsibilities as women and people.

Anything you want us to know about your journey so far? I'll start with Jess. Well, you two invited me to be on your podcast. That's how I, that's how I became on here is like, you guys had already been working on this for a little bit and you invited me on as a guest. I think about culture, uh, the culture and climate mess, uh, because I think, um, I was friends with Amanda first.

I've been friends with Amanda for almost a decade now. You guys invited me to be on and it was really, uh, it's really interesting. So before I came on, I had listened to the, the teacher pay mess that you put out, and I thought it was really interesting. I didn't know how teacher pay and uh, uh, the column and steps and all of that.

I didn't know how that had all. Uh, been invented or who thought of that or what it all meant? I'd never really thought about it deeply before until I listened to that, and that's how I got involved with the podcast. And I, you just kept inviting me back, kept inviting me back again and again and again.

Now look at me now, now I'm making, now I'm making decisions about the website docs. I mean, it's just, it's taken a whole new, it's so be careful if you want to be a guest. You might get sucked in for life. Okay, so that brings us to what has it been like to work on this project? The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it.

How we've been doing this. You've been doing this with us for a year now. Over a year. So tell us, uh, some parts of it ha have been maddening because I think last year. We probably had a little bit more hope for things potentially changing in K 12. So now it, it's very different because now we're looking at like things that when we started a year ago, we weren't thinking the Department of Ed was going to get closed or taken away.

Uh, and so it's really been a, it's been a weird journey, but it's also been really nice to be surrounded by people who think the same way I do and that believe in public education and wanna like, champion public education and make it better and see a new future for it when, you know, in, in the. The, in the government realm right now, it's not looking the greatest and a lot of public services are being taken away.

I, I was just told at a union meeting, we have an association here in Nevada that we were probably gonna get our pay frozen for at least five years. And so that doesn't feel good. No cost of living raises. Yeah, and we're getting our pay scaled back. Last year we got a 20% raise after no raises for over a decade, and now we're gonna get like a 4% deduction the next year.

So my pay is gonna go down next year, and then it's gonna be frozen for five years. I'm not in a good head space right now, so it's been a really interesting journey. But I do like that Elise. We're talking about it, and we have this comradery going between the three of us, but also guests that we've had on the show.

I mean, I do feel like we're building a community slowly but surely of people, and I'm hoping that listeners feel like they're a part of the community as well. And that's, that's, that's where I'm at. It's kind of been a weird journey because at first it just felt like, yeah, there's so many great things that could happen, and now it's like, yeah, maybe like the next decade over, there'll be some cool stuff coming.

Amanda, take it away. What has been your experience working on this podcast? The good, the bad, and the ugly. How long have you been working on it? Wow. Uh, so I started working on this with Trina two years ago, I guess. 'cause we had been doing this for a year and then had Jess on as a guest. And we, we started on, uh, just, uh, uploading episodes on my podcast, empower Students Now.

Um, and so a lot of these are unedited, uh, on my, my podcast. And the reason we started to do that is because, uh, Trina and I, when we first met, I think it was 2021 Trina, um, we met and we were teaching sixth grade core. And I told you about my podcast and you were so, I felt so. Good about myself. You made me feel so good about myself because you just thought it was so impressive that I had my own podcast.

And then we started talking about podcasting and you were like, if I was gonna, and you started sort of dreaming about your own podcast and you told me that if you were going to create your own podcast, well, you have a lot of ideas. Um. You said you would want to talk about the teacher shortage crisis.

Mm-hmm. And I was really like, what? Why would you wanna start a podcast about that? And I, I was, and, and so then that is what began us down our, you know, like what two and a half year journey, uh, and you taught me so much about, about, um, the history of education, of public education. Um, and like Jess was saying about teacher pay and you're just very, very knowledgeable and, um.

And I learned a lot and I was so grateful to you for coming on my podcast and sharing all that you did. But part of me kept, I kept asking you like, why do teachers need to know about the teacher shortage CRI crisis? I kept asking you that, like, why would this be important for teachers to know? Um, and you really helped me understand, um.

Just the importance of this issue and the complexities of the teacher shortage crisis. Um, and so that's how we started. And then we just, I mean, the whole journey has been, uh, it's been very cathartic. It's been, I. Really, really wonderful to be able to talk about all these things that we never have time to talk about in our professions and with our colleagues.

Um, and yeah, and we're on Voxer and we're, we're just always on there talking about. You know, these issues and we, and I, we have our petition, which we'll talk about, I think in this episode. Yep. Um, but yeah, it, it's, it, it's been just really wonderful to, to connect with like-minded teachers and to have time to cry, to, to have time to laugh.

To have time to scream with you. Mm-hmm. And, um, but it's also been really hard 'cause we've, um, we're, we we're teaching, you know, you both are teaching full-time. Um, I'm part-time. Uh, we're moms and we just have a lot going on our own projects, but somehow we've always found time for this. And I just, that I think that speaks to how much we care Absolutely.

About, yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Amanda. I, I, I also wanna say too, like we're not making any money. To the contrary, this is kind of a money pit where we're spending all of our own money and time, but it's a, it's also a personal spiritual energy pit. But it's also the thing we use to draw strength from. Like you guys were both saying, it's been exhausting, but it's been exhilarating.

It's been something that. Has taken us from our friends and family, um, but has also restored us and made us better friends, better wives, better mothers. It is the, it is my, you know, my nexus of strength and hope, which, you know, brings me to, we're gonna talk about the messes, um, and. We're gonna talk about, just for a second, how the mess became identified in the first place.

For me, how I wound up in this and why I wanted to talk about the teacher shortage, which now it's its own mess because if we had not been working on this podcast for the past two years, we would not be positioned like we are. To do this justice now that there's this existential threat to shut down the US Department of Ed.

And although I didn't see that coming, I saw something like this coming because of the problems I was seeing and the ways in which I was like researching it and what people were telling me and how I was learning from others. So for me, it began with the reading mess simultaneously, the DEI mess. So what I was noticing is that.

I had a whole bunch of kids that couldn't read in sixth grade in an urban setting where mostly these were African American boys. And the problem I noticed was that we had no vocabulary to even describe what we were seeing. And when I would bring it up, people wanted to rename it, relabel it, hide it, call it something else.

And I thought, oh no. We are not teaching kids how to read what in. The heck are we even doing here? And so I just investigated, investigate it, investigate it, and you'll hear more about it in the Reading Mess episodes. But then simultaneously, because I had run a domestic violence shelter in rape crisis hotline, before I was a teacher, I was running a feminist student union.

Um, I am a male positive, sex positive feminists. Let me say that right now. People have weird ideas about feminists hating men. No way. No way. No. How? I adore men and boys. But what was happening was I had a bunch of kids coming to me with their sexual violence reports on campus, and I found out about this law known as Title ix.

It's a 50-year-old federal law that has some. Implementation of the collegiate setting, but not in K 12. Why? Because we're ageist. We ignore kids. We expect survivors to organize themselves. That won't work for children, right? So I'm like, oh no, kids are getting raped at school and they can't read. Oh my gosh, it's so bad.

It's so bad. How could it be this bad? And I kept trying to figure out. How these two problems could happen, and it led me all the way to the teacher shortage crisis. Why are we not able to have enough highly qualified teachers on our profession? But then I went even further and I realized it's the K 12 governance mess.

It's the bizarre and convoluted nature of the governing systems over K 12 and the lack of accountability and transparency. That's really the problem. And why. Teachers don't get to lead any of it. We are systematically excluded from positions of leadership, and we're the only credentialed profession in America today that doesn't get to do that work.

That's really what the petition's about. And so every single thing we say on the podcast, all of these episodes, all of these messes is really our evidence. For the petition of creating a national professional association of teachers where we are given actual positions of leadership within our profession and oversight.

Over the standards of practice preparation requirements, all of that. And if you're a teacher, you may be thinking, what, wow, how could that even happen? And if you're not a teacher and you're saying the American Medical Association, or you're a realtor or travel agent, you may be thinking to yourself, wait, what?

You don't have that. You don't have that? Oh no. Well, you need that. We have that right. So let's start talking about the messes, because the petition you see there is a living document. It needs all of our voices to get it right and intersects with all of the problems, the lack of teacher, autonomy, all of it.

But we wanna introduce you in this introductory episode to the basic masses. So I'm gonna let Amanda and Jess shed their considerable insight. On all of the messes very briefly, the first being the teacher shortage mess, right? What in the heck is the teacher shortage? What can the listeners expect to hear as they open up those episodes and press play?

Jess. Well, I was really interested in this mess because I work in a district where we, we have a thousand teacher deficit every year. This year is actually the smallest. We only have about 700 teacher openings this year. Usually we have well over a thousand because we're the fifth largest school district in the country.

So this has really affected me this, this teacher shortage mess. And something that I've learned is that, that we learn from having Dr. Paul Bruno on our show who studied the teacher shortage crisis and the mess at length is that every school district is so different. And some districts are not dealing with much of a mess at all, and other districts are dealing with a huge mess.

And so that's something I didn't really realize is that there's, I forgot exactly how many teacher or how many I. School districts, there are something like what, 13,000 different school districts and they all run things differently. And that's something that I didn't realize, like going into this, I just believed in my heart that there is a shortage of teachers because of what I've experienced.

And then through the podcast I've learned that. And that's why our podcast has kind of evolved as we were just the Teacher Shortage Crisis podcast. We wanted to talk about this. But there's, there are a lot more messes. This is a, this is a, an intense mess that I think the biggest districts are dealing with.

And it is, it, it is always on my mind personally because I'm living it. I'm living, I was, my school was named one of the top five schools out of 350 schools this year that had the least amount of certified teachers. Their positions. So this is something that even though now I have a more broad understanding that it's not exactly happening this way everywhere.

This was something, and this is what got me really excited about the podcast to begin with. Yeah. Paul's biggest finding is not that Paul, Paul Bruno is one of three. Authors on the only scholarly article which attempts to quantify the teacher shortage, and he gets quoted by the press every time someone wants to cover the shortage, and it gets misquoted and taken out of context.

There is a teacher shortage crisis. But it doesn't affect all places, all positions, all levels the same. And uh, the biggest takeaway is that we don't have any data to back it up. Paul had to guess by using other outside sources. And the biggest takeaway here is K 12 is not reporting, not accurately and consistently, but not all using the same metrics.

So when we talk about K 12 being a mess. We agree with people who are saying that K 12 is a mess, but we don't agree with who's at fault. It's not the US Department of Education, and we'll talk about that more in the K 12 governance mess. They came along only in the seventies, and they don't have the reach that people think it is local school boards.

It's all left to the local control, and so that is the problem, right. Amanda, did you wanna mention anything about the teacher shortage mess before? I'm gonna go to you first too, for the teacher pay mess. Sure. I think that one of the things that I learned when we were recording these episodes was how important it is for teachers to have a voice in this issue, uh, and that they don't like in the media that everyone's talking about it.

But not teachers, um, you know, talking about why it's happening and, and, and I think a lot of people are skeptical that it's happening, even teachers, especially in privileged districts, you know? And so it's just so important that we're aware, especially teachers of just the nuances of it and, um. And I think we are aware in certain areas like sped, right, that there's a shortage even in privileged districts or districts that are really, like, lots of teachers are applying.

But yeah, I, I, I asked you, you know, why do teachers need to know about this issue? Like, why is, why would this be important for teachers to understand? And I think that what I learned is so that we can have a voice. And we can talk about it and talk about why we believe that this is happening and not have to read these news stories.

You know, that don't even include teachers' voices. Yeah. That's at the center of Palo FI's practice is if you can get the information out to the oppressed people, then they can start to be activated towards change. But so much of the information is incomplete. Or straight up inaccurate because it's not coming from us.

And so this podcast is about creating a space where we all educate each other because initially you remember Amanda, we were talking about, and early on when we released our first teacher pay mess episode, somebody wrote in from taxes and was like, that's not the way we're paid out. So I, I don't know how to chime in or, I don't think this podcast really has anything to do with me.

That's the point. It's so different everywhere that the only way we're going to figure it out is we all get together and create our own body of knowledge. This podcast is just that. It is a place for us all to distill our experiences, to speak truth, to power, to fix this mess for our kids. For our kids.

So Amanda, the teacher pay mess. The big takeaway there is, okay, so everyone's saying, oh, you're gonna complain about you're not getting paid enough. That's not really it, is it? Can you explain more about what you learned as we unpack that mess? Just the big takeaways. Well, just like what you said, it's different everywhere, right?

And so it's very confusing. Yeah. So just hearing from other teachers in other districts, other states I think is, is just so vital. And it's like shocking. 'cause I've taught in many different states and cities and different grades and everywhere is different. Different charter schools, public schools, right?

Like private schools. Well, I mean, I think the big takeaway, again, just like the teacher shortage mess, it's like, yeah, there's a shortage, but there's this other weird bigger takeaway. Right? And with the shortage mess, it's that we don't have the data. I think for the teacher pay mass. Yeah. We're not getting paid enough.

I. Since the great Recession, the districts I've been involved in have not kept up with inflation, so we're getting pay cuts every year. But the step and column, that's the part that you have to seize the narrative and call it out for what it really is, which is that we don't earn a full salary until we're by near the end of our career.

It takes us 25 years to earn a full. Salary. That is what is going on with teacher pay, and that is something that you don't think about until someone turns it on its side. And think about what you would be like, what position you would be in if you were earning a full salary from the beginning. Like every other profession, there's like a little bit of, in other careers, you get, you know, you earn a little more as you gain expertise and knowledge, but not starting at less than half of a full salary.

That's bizarre. For people to be earning radically different salaries. And we interviewed some teachers that, yeah, it's just mind blowing. So I'm looking forward to listeners hearing those series of episodes. And Jess, um, would you say though that probably, uh, no single teacher can afford to live regardless of where you are, even at the veteran salary level?

Well, yeah, especially with. Cost of living right now in most places skyrocketing. Mm-hmm. It is very difficult. I mean, I know that I personally am living paycheck to paycheck, and I'm 14 years in. I'm in the middle of my, uh, I'm in the middle of my salary chart right now, and I'm still struggling. So it's just, uh, it, it is, it is, has been very eyeopening to see that, that it's.

What it's like in different places. Right. And that's one thing that I've become more aware of. And also the, the one thing that is always burning in the back of my mind and I cannot let go of it, is the first episode I listened to that you guys put out before I was on the podcast about how they calculated the first teacher salaries.

They're like, how about we give them. How about we give these teachers, these women, one third of what a man makes? And that seems like a fair starting point and I'm just like, ah. Like I always have that in the back of my mind. And then how hard teachers have to fight for their salary compared to other.

Professions mm-hmm. That have the same amount of education. I mean, what we make is such a joke compared to what, it doesn't matter where you live or what the cost of living is. What we make is a joke compared to other people that go to college for seven or eight years. Mm-hmm. It is so bonkers and the amount of training, one thing that blows the mind of some of my buddies that are in like computer science is that we have to keep.

Getting training every year, like the amount of training that we have to take just to keep our license and, and renew our license every single year, paying for more and more classes just so we can just live the status quo and get a fraction of our salary. I mean, they're just like my buddies in computer science, data analysis.

I mean, they are shocked. They are shocked when I tell them that I have to keep and I have to pay. To, to renew my license every four or five years, I have to pay a big chunk of money. Not only did I pay for classes to renew it, but I have to pay for the actual license just to keep my job. It is bonkers.

And this, this is why you guys have to dive in to our teacher pay series because it is, it is hot and juicy. And you just did the perfect segue to the teacher preparation mess. Because teacher preparation requirements are more or less decided at the state level. It's one of the few things that is not at the local control, uh, but we have these weird quasi-governmental, quasi-private public organizations not run by us deciding what our teacher preparation needs to look like.

And it is Eric's. Expensive. Expensive, expensive, expensive. This is one of the biggest reasons why we don't have the people we need in our profession and why we don't have enough people in our profession is 'cause it costs tens of thousands of dollars to get your teaching credential. And as Jess was saying, to continue to keep, get these continuing education units, which is the step and column guys, like, it's not just years of service in order to earn a full salary.

You have to earn an addit, the equivalent of an additional master. So you really need the equivalent of two master's degrees. Turn your full salary, Amanda, take it away. What do you want folks to know about the teacher preparation mess? Um, I mean, I got my teaching credential in Washington State and, and just, I don't know.

I think one of the takeaways for me was just like. All of the things that, uh, we have to go through it's, and, and continue to go through even after we have our credential. It's, it's just, I think it's just disgusting what teachers have to go through. Um, and, and then we're still not taught, treated like professionals.

Amen. And look, so much of the stuff we have to do to prove our worthiness is just a dog and pony show. It's ticking boxes. The three of us and so many of the teachers we've talked to became bad asses, um, come hook or crook in spite of the preparation system, not because of it. We have to do all this other jazz.

Induction. We're gonna talk about that. Um, teachers, if you hear the words induction coming in for you, run to the hills. It's the worst thing ever. But anyways, moving on. We got a lot to unpack in the preparation mess. You're gonna hear a lot of great stuff there. It'll help you to understand how insane.

The preparation requirements are when teachers do not get to come up with them, non-teachers are coming up with it. Could you imagine if non-medical doctors were deciding what brain surgeons needed to know? I mean, oh my God, so stupid. Okay, so we then moved to the can curriculum mess. Um, seething with anger.

With anger at the Uzi Gross. Evil ways of big textbook, and we're always trying to figure out how to not get sued. So we never say their names and we never say any district's names, of course, or individuals, but oh my gosh, we all hate big textbook. I'm gonna go to Jess first. What do you want folks to know about what they can expect from the CAN curriculum as well?

This is one of my favorite topics to complain about. That's one thing you can, you can expect I hate can curriculum. I quit being a classroom teacher and became a librarian because I could not stand canned curriculum. It is actually the worst thing for kids. It is so boring and horrible. It is not best practice.

Can curriculum is garbage. And it's basically like in a district, a big district like mine, it really is like being like you're, you have to read a script to the kids and it's boring and it's not very relatable to who your class is. It's a one size fits all bandaid of garbage. I could go on and on about this.

This is obviously one of my favorite topics. Amen. But it, it hurts. It hurts students, and I'm not a proponent for anything that hurts students and for me personally, every time I've been told to do it, I do a dog and pony show. I pretend to do it when admin's around, and then I stop doing it immediately because it doesn't set right with my soul and it doesn't work.

Thank you a hundred percent in agreement. It's not like, and we say this in this theme over and over, it's not like we're opposed to having curriculum, okay? We don't wanna just be allowed to wing it every day. But what we are saying is, who should get to make it? Folks, would you want your taxpayer dollars spent on curriculum that doesn't work, has bogus data to back it up.

By textbook companies that have failed the US children for decades, right? That is made by people who never taught your grade level or subject, or if they did, it was a bazillion years ago for only a couple of years. Why on earth are we doing this? What we are saying is we wanna make it. Now, if you're a teacher who doesn't wanna make curriculum, you don't gotta make curriculum.

But if you are a person who loves to make curriculum, like everybody. The beautiful teachers pay teachers world, but also, you know, I've never put curriculum up there and I still make my own stuff. If you have the experience, you've done whatever we decided you need to do to be qualified, you should get to make curriculum that is standards based, that you give your local groups, your local teachers on site that get to tweak it.

Because we are a diverse society, we should be able to let our content and our pedagogy reflect our kids. Amanda, I know you feel strongly about this. What do you want folks to know about that theme? Oh, again, I feel overwhelmed by, by this theme, um, because, uh, we just keep making the same mistake over and over and over again in schools spending millions of dollars on, on textbooks and workbooks that don't engage students that end up, um.

Closets, uh, collecting dust and it's just gross. Yeah. It's one of the, the first thing, the first problems as a new teacher, you know, I don't know how many years ago, 17 years ago or something, uh, it was one of the first problem, glaring problems that I noticed, like my first year of teaching, trying to teach a textbook to Fidelity because it's science backed and thinking in my mind like.

Who was this curriculum like tested on like scientifically Because it wasn't tested on my kids. 'cause my kids hate it and I really did try to engage them with it. You know, I tried, I gave it my best, you know, my best shot for months and months and months trying to engage them with this stuff. And it just doesn't work.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work. And we also wanna say, you said millions, the largest textbook company right now, there's only like four or so and they kind of shift for the top spot. But the one right now is going to clear $2 billion in profit from this year. That's only one. That is an absurd amount of money.

They are raking out of taxpayer dollars. And why Cronyism? They, they slick the wheels of the system. They get in there and weasel their way into our local school districts and wine and dine the people that have hold the purse strings and they have their bologna. Verify data to prove their crap works and it doesn't.

And because of the problem of K 12 governance, nobody is left in the driver's seat a few years down the road to be held accountable for this. And that gets to the reading mess.

Thank you for listening. Everyone, please go to rebel teachers rising.com to contact us if you would like to be a guest on a future episode and to sign the petition to save K 12 schooling and our precious and fragile democracy.