Education Reformers: The Walking Dead

I never thought I would get hooked on a show like “The Walking Dead” – especially halfway into its fourth season – but I started hearing about it from people whose opinion I respect, so I decided to see what the fuss was about. This is the description I found on NetFlix: “In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, survivors hold on to the hope of humanity by banding together to wage a never-ending fight for their own survival.” Wow! That sounds like what I do every day at my job – “wage a never-ending fight for their own survival.” Teachers do that in Oklahoma during every legislative session but that’s a war that’s gone on for a long time and we know the rules of engagement. The war for which we are woefully unprepared is the war being fought by the so-called education “reformers” who have convinced society that schools are failing, teachers are the problem, and their “product” is the solution. Those “products” take a lot of different forms and they come from some pretty disparate salespeople but the goal is the same. In the words of one of the human bad guys on the show, “What we want is what you’ve got. Period.” On the show, they never use the word “zombie.” Instead, they refer to those who have come back from the dead as “walkers.” A mysterious infection has plagued the population of the world causing people to die, then come back as a creature that does nothing but mindlessly plod forward and devour whatever living flesh is in its path. It doesn’t think, feel, or speak and it can only be permanently “put down” by having its brain destroyed. As one of the characters, Morgan, explains in the first episode, “At first, we thought we could wait ‘em out; we just froze in place.” That’s kind of how we reacted when the education reformers started walking toward us. Were they good? They look like good guys. Hey, that guy wants to give us millions of dollars! His intentions must be pure! And that guy works for the President we helped to elect – we’re sure he’s on our side! But Morgan explains further: “They look like people we know – even our own family members, but they’ve been infected and they only want to destroy.” They eat their own. They trudge along mindlessly until they hear a loud noise or see a bright light or sense weakness then they change direction and converge on the living as a devouring herd. The survivors on the show, the ones who haven’t died yet, are disoriented at first. They don’t understand what’s happening or how to fight it. They want to play by the rules of the old world but they quickly discover that just gets them eaten. Their only hope of continued survival is to band together, pool their dwindling resources, and organize a strategy. At first, infighting weakens them and leaves them vulnerable. The character who represents the group’s conscience, Dale, cries, “The group is split; we’re scattered and weak.” So they create a unit for safety in numbers and focus on their individual strengths to contribute. Their different talents keep them alive: some scout, some hunt, some heal, some shoot straight – both literally and figuratively. As they progress through the seasons, they learn that “survival means making hard decisions” and you can’t always tell the good guys from the bad guys based on appearances. A rival survivor group offers to leave them alone if they’ll just sacrifice one of their own. After a great deal of anguish and conflict, the group leader Rick declares, “I can’t sacrifice one of us for the greater good because WE are the greater good.” Kind of like belonging to the teachers union, huh? WE are the greater good because we are WE. Any “hole in the fence” and the walkers start getting in. Every lost member is a hole in the fence for us. As the young character Glenn says, “I know it looks bad and we’ve all been through hell and worse but we found each other. . .We’re together. We keep it that way.” It may be hyperbole to compare the attack on public schools to a zombie apocalypse but I think it’s a pretty apt metaphor. Just like the survivors on the show, we are focused on figuring out what kind of world we’re leaving for our children and how we can fix it without destroying everything. Wise Herschel says, “Things break but they can still grow.” The education “reform” movement isn’t about reforming; it’s about replacing. Those who see a profit to be made from taking over the public school establishment think, “What we want is what you’ve got. Period.” And those who don’t know any better follow the herd until the next loud noise or shiny sight moves them in a different but still destructive direction. The “brain” is usually from one of the “stink tanks” like ALEC and like the survivors on the show, we have to learn not to waste our firepower but to go straight for the source. Safety in numbers; individual strengths united in a common focus; no holes in the fence. That’s how we survive and overcome in the zombie apocalypse of school reform. And that’s what I really think.