Teachers are on Top of the Administrators' Food Chain

An editorial submitted by Karen Horwitz

I read your article about Cheryl Mix, the special education teacher who says her termination was retaliatory, due to advocating for a child, while the administration denies this. We are back thirty years, when boys were saying that priests were molesting them, and the authorities denied it. Boys continued to be molested for another thirty years.

I hope it takes less time to end teacher abuse. I have been involved in forming an organization to expose teacher abuse, and support teachers so they will have the courage to speak. I was the only teacher who spoke on Mix's behalf.

Intimidation is so pronounced in education, that teachers cannot speak. In 1999, I was terminated as a teacher, although I had earned excellent evaluations. The administration fabricated a case against me for being insubordinate and unprofessional and accused me of child abuse. Is child abuse compatible with an excellent evaluation? Administrators have developed falsifying documents to a fine art. Silencing teachers, provides the protection they need to further their agendas. They are failing miserably in providing appropriate education for children, since children's welfare is not their agenda, as Mix's case illustrates. I saw parents desperately beg to keep a teacher who helped their children. The evaluating principal had no background in special education; Mix had three years of excellent evaluations. I watched the principal as she watched the parents protest, and her body language indicated she had no shame for the pain she caused.

Remember when child abuse or wife abuse didn't exist? That's where we are with teacher abuse. Any citizen interested in joining our organization, NAPTA, National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse, can reach me at teacherkh@aol.com. Our goal is to create a voice, so that the teacher/parent/child abuse food chain will stop and our schools will become accountable to parents.

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