Educator Voice

September 28, 2020

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Rachel McCusker is the Educator Voice on the State Board

MSEA is proud to have a member-educator on the State Board of Education—the first ever elected by educators to provide the voice of on-the-ground educators. Rachel McCusker is a music teacher in Carroll County and a former Carrol County Teacher of the Year, and her voice at this unprecedented time is critical. “The addition of […]

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Explainer: Adding Transparency to Selecting the State Superintendent

Maryland’s 6 million residents wouldn’t settle for a governor whose policies, positions, and background weren’t fully vetted before election. With nearly a million Marylanders — approximately 895,000 students and 100,000 educators — in public schools, the state has a huge responsibility to a unique constituency who would constitute a major voting block if they all could vote. They all […]

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Explainer: Could Educators Bargain Class Size?

Photo © Stephen Cherry Class size has an impact on every student and educator. It matters in the development of relationships with students and their families. It is a huge factor in working and learning conditions. Yet current Maryland law prohibits the matter from even being discussed at the bargaining table when decisions are being made […]

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New Teacher Rep on State Board of Ed

Carroll County educator Rachel McCusker is the voice of educators on the Maryland State Board of Education. It took two years of lobbying by educators across the state, but there’s now an active teacher on the Maryland State Board of Education (SBOE). Carroll County educator Rachel McCusker was elected to the SBOE which, with a […]

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MSEA Builds Administrator Units

MSEA has long supported classroom educators and support professionals in many different job categories and, as we’ve seen at events like the 2019 March for Our Schools and our success in moving forward the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, there is strength and power in our numbers. That’s why we continue to build our union through […]

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10 Questions with Rachel McCusker

Educators have our first-ever opportunity to elect an active teacher to the Maryland State Board of Education to serve as a voice for educators and students. It’s so important for us to have a strong voice on the board — which currently has zero public school teachers. When the board makes decisions on issues like school discipline, […]

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Gov. Hogan: Educators Shouldn’t Have a Voice on the State Board of Education

The day before the Memorial Day holiday, Gov. Hogan vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have added two current teachers to the State Board of Education. He claimed that the bill would “move Maryland in exactly the wrong direction.” Hogan said that teachers on the State Board would be “special interest group representatives” whose participation would […]

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Betty Weller: Your Voice Must Be Heard

Too often in education, we pinball from one thing to the next. New technology initiative? Here today, gone tomorrow. Mandatory training on a new best practice? Never heard about it again. We know that there are no silver bullets or quick fixes. The most stubborn obstacles usually require months if not years of work to […]

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If I Was Governor for a Day…

Taylor Mali famously captured the hearts of teachers with his empowering response to the question, “What do you make?” This common question and one’s response says something about our values and how we define ourselves and our work. Contrast this with the Masai people of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They greet one another with, […]

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