Insulting to teachers

The Democrat-Gazette editorial Sunday was predictable but disappointing. To suggest that the Arkansas Department of Education is the savior of the Little Rock School District stretches the imagination. But what is most disappointing was the cheerleading you performed for the discarding of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association. You wrote that the move “will make it more possible to focus on educating students, instead of jumping though union hoops.”

How demeaning and insulting. What do you think teachers do every day? They are not writing lesson plans for union activities, purchasing school supplies out of their own pocket for union rallies, nor are they arriving early and staying late to configure new union hoops for administrators to jump through.

They show up every day to teach. Some children are easy to teach, and others are not. My wife did it for 34 years, from low-income schools to magnet schools. Now retired, she still shows up at schools of various grade ratings to help colleagues teach and to tutor.

Why? Because she knows teachers make a difference in young lives. She was a proud member of LRCTA because it represented the interests of teachers and students.

When administrators abandoned the best literacy programs they had going like Reading Recovery it was the LRCTA that spoke up. When administrators embrace a publishing company’s latest teaching gimmick, it’s the LRCTA that asks why are “teachers left out” of the decision-making process. And when administrators want teachers to give up planning time so they can supervise playground time and save the district a dollar on aides, it’s the LRCTA that says “stop that nonsense.” LRCTA gives a voice to teachers who are working hard to educate our children.

Here’s the assignment for the editorial desk. Before you write the next condemnation of Little Rock teachers, go visit a classroom. Better yet, be a substitute teacher for a day or a week and manage 20 6-year-olds and teach at the same time. RON BLOME Little Rock