My name is Michael E.Brunson. I can sum up my biography with 4 words: I am an Educator. Yet, like far too many other tenured CTU members, I am currently a displaced teacher. This awkward position puts me in a number of schools now, and I have the opportunity to talk with many fellow teachers. My ear is to the ground. I hear a great deal of dissatisfaction and disgruntlement about the way things are going for educators right now. 

Teachers are especially concerned about the lack of action on the Union's part to defend our jobs. When my position was cut, the CTU did nothing to defend me. Like so many other tenured teachers, the Union advised me to polish my resume and find another spot.

We as educators should be allowed to practice our craft in an environment that is conducive to intellectual enrichment and human flourishing. We don't have that right now. We currently teach in a state of anxiety and uncertainty. The tension is so palpable we can touch it because it touches us. The fear is so close we dare not speak its name. It's humiliating and disgraceful that educators must suffer this type of climate. It is both tragic and shameful that anyone should endure this in a free society. It must end, and it will end, because it can only exist if we continue to allow it. Ultimately, each CTU member must ask themselves that very same question, "Will I continue to allow this?"

The times call for a powerful union with a strong sense of solidarity. Teachers deserve decent salaries, good benefits, and secure pensions. But that which teachers have earned and deserve is currently being reframed as unmerited "entitlements" that conflict with the ability to provide "quality" education for our children. All educators must question the logic, the facts, and the perspective that is being used to assert this spurious and specious claim. I contest that claim. CORE constantly speaks out and disproves it with facts, data, and anecdotal information. It is time for all educators to speak out against this falsehood. We must end the teacher bashing, the discrediting of public education, and the cynical lack of confidence in teacher professionalism and participatory democracy.

Prior to becoming a teacher I worked for a number of years in a large manufacturing plant. After many years in that environment I rose to a supervisory position. So, I have seen work from both sides of the labor/management divide. It is very distressing to me when I see that the same philosophy, mindset, language, and practices that plant managers employed are being imported to our school system. Yet it does not surprise me. It's business-think. When businessmen run our educational system what else can they do but run it like a business?

Yet public education is not a business to be run into the ground like a private bank or corporation. It is a public benefit that should be open to all of our youth, whether or not they can pay the ticket price. It is an enduring public institution that should be shielded from the vagaries of profit and loss.

The stakes are truly high and global. Beyond reducing the living standards of educators, the worst thing the present system can do is stifle our children's capacity to imagine a new and a better world. Knowledge is power. Education is freedom. Democracy requires participation. The technocrats, the experts, the appointees, and the business leaders have had their chance to sail this ship. Yet it still flounders in "crisis". It is time for us as educators to take back our union, our schools, and our dignity.

Stand with CORE, so that CORE can stand for you.