By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor

In Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss, only the kindly elephant with his enormous ears can hear cries for help from residents of a microscopic community he can’t see — the Whos in Who-ville — who populate a speck of dust blowing in the wind.

Horton protects the speck, but other animals don’t believe and want to destroy it, so Horton urges his tiny friends to make noise: “Don’t give up!” he shouts. “I believe in you all! A person’s a person, no matter how small!”

A similar idea was behind a huge local Day of Action organized by more than a dozen MEA units from coordinating councils 7-A and 7-B in Oakland County. The organizing message: We need lots of people making a big noise about an out-sized threat with potential to cause devastating destruction.

In the Seuss story, the town’s mayor grabs a tom-tom. “He started to smack it. And, all over Who-Ville, they whooped up a racket.” The effort doesn’t work until the mayor discovers “a very small, very small shirker named Jo-Jo was standing, just standing, and bouncing a Yo-Yo!”

The tiny lad joins in, his shout tips the scales, and the Whos’ voices are heard.

In Oakland County, about 1,000 people turned out to line Woodward Avenue between Interstate 696 and 16 Mile Road amid evening rush-hour traffic last Thursday — on the evening before a holiday weekend — to oppose federal threats to public education and to protect our schools.

Educators from numerous districts in Oakland and Macomb counties, joined by parents and friends of public education — along with a few very small Jo-Jos — whooped up a racket to raise awareness of Republican plans to shut down the U.S. Department of Education.

Among other supports, the federal Education Department provides critical help for Michigan students with special needs and disadvantaged kids attending a wide range of rural and urban school districts.

Like protests happening across the country, the event dubbed Collective Action on the Avenue was meant to spark involvement by Michiganders who think their singular voices won’t make a difference. Polling shows two-thirds of Americans are against eliminating the Department of Education.

Stay up to date on events happening by visiting MEA’s Protect our Schools calendar – including information about a rally at the Capitol in Lansing on Saturday, April 26, by People for Public Education.

It took a news helicopter to fully capture the Woodward event’s more than five-mile scope along both sides of the fast-moving six-lane road. Car horns honked and blared in a show of support for protesters above the regular din of engines revving and tires screeching.

MEA member Alyssa Reese, a school social worker in Ferndale, said she drew energy from the spectacle. “Lots of honks, lots of waves, lots of double thumbs-up. A lot of back windows down with kids waving to us from their car seats, and that’s been really endearing.”

The high school students she serves watch the news and often come to her with thoughts and worries about what they see, which was a big motivation for showing up to be part of the action, Reese said.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that our kids feel like they can grow up safe and be themselves and learn authentically.”

Standing next to Reese along a stretch of Woodward in Berkley, MEA member Karen Wilkinson is an elementary school social worker in Novi who said she’s fielded questions and concerns from anxious parents of children who receive special education services.

Wilkinson tells worried folks to be active and speak out, so joining the protest was taking her own advice. “I’ve been an educator for 12 years. I want to stay in education. My mom was an educator; my grandma was an educator. This is a small thing I can do to put my voice out there.”

Last year, Michigan school districts received $461 million in funding from the federal Education Department to help students in special education. Title I funding to serve disadvantaged urban and rural students added $440 million for Michigan schools.

MEA member Christina Friday-Hooks, a 25-year social studies teacher in Southfield, said she participated in the protest because the threats are so dire. Everyone should be raising their voice right now, she said.

“I wanted to bring attention to the fact that education is already in a deficit, and the policies they’re putting in place are causing a further deficit,” Friday-Hooks said. “Things just won’t get done or taken care of the way they need. And who else is important in our country but our children?

“Staffing schools is already hard, and then you’re taking money away? You’re taking supports away? That is going to mean a lot more students without (certified) teachers in front of them.”

In March President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to shut down the Education Department, and newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon abruptly fired half of the department’s staff. Michigan joined 20 states in filing suit.

Trump also has issued broad and vague threats to pull funding from schools that value diversity or promote inclusion. NEA and AFT have filed lawsuits over the administration’s unconstitutional and unlawful attempts to dictate education programming, standards, content and methods.

In the final weeks of a 32-year teaching career in Southfield, MEA member Alyce Howarth showed up and brought along her mother because she’s “completely freaked out” by what Republicans are trying to do with their control of the White House and Congress. Howarth retires in June.

“People have to get out and do everything they can to put pressure on Congress to do the right thing,” Howarth said. “People support their public schools — they really do. The time to get active is now.”

The Day of Action was a huge success in terms of turnout and response from passing motorists, said Matt Bury, president of the Novi Education Association, one of the local units that jointly organized the event. “I’d say the ratio of honks to fingers was 100-to-1,” he quipped.

Bury was heartened to see a variety of MEA members joining the effort, including some who haven’t engaged in rallies or protests before but expressed a need to do something in this moment.

“It was invigorating and inspiring to see people rally around a positive message that has to do with supporting our kids,” Bury said. “This struggle is about the future of public education.”

Many participants brought along family members, including Bury whose parents joined in.

“My parents are old hippies, and my dad was crying. He’s like, ‘This reminds me of Vietnam (protests), and I’m glad there are still people who care.”

It’s important for educators to understand Republicans’ motive for gutting federal supports for public schools is to enact a private schools voucher mandate nationwide, Bury said.

“Vouchers would just line the pockets of private companies that already have a lot of money and want to make more,” he said. “I really do see it as an attack on democracy. Public education is the cornerstone of democracy, and that’s why I do the work that I do.”

The idea for Action on the Avenue arose from the grassroots level and took several weeks of planning and organizing to pull off, said Grat Dalton, one of several MEA directors and staff in the Lathrup Village field office who assisted in the effort.

Dalton drew from a scene in the Disney/Pixar film A Bug’s Life to describe the inspiration —  when the mean grasshopper trying to steal the work of thousands of ants tells his band of bullies: “Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one and if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life!”

To empower themselves and their members, the leaders from 13 local units set an enormous turnout goal and worked to draw participants from schools, churches, and parent and community groups. The end result was incredible, said Dalton, who drove Woodward with other staff and took video.

Now it’s important to keep the momentum going, so he hopes next time everyone will show up again and bring five friends.

“I think it gave everyone the hope that we were looking for to know we’re not alone,” he said. “People felt powerful, and my message was, ‘That’s it — you are powerful, and we are more than what’s happening to us.”

Sign up to attend this Saturday’s Rally for Public Education, organized by People for Public Education, from 12-2 at the Michigan Capitol building — or find other actions near you.

And follow the latest education- and union-related news around what’s happening at the federal level at mea.org/protect and nea.org/protect.