A question should President Obama’s healthcare plan become law: How will unions respond to the first school district that, in an attempt to save money, seeks to eliminate private healthcare insurance in the contract, and recommends teachers utilize the government option?
With school districts across the state running deficits and looking at all options to keep costs down, it seems logical that administrators would seek to unburden the districts of the high cost of health insurance.
I became involved in a debate — unfortunately a short one — with Justin at Anchor Rising. Justin leads the right leaning blog that offers a far more reasonable commentary than the often mean-spirited and attack-oriented RI Future.
Justin has become particularly tough on teachers and their unions. In most cases, rightly so. But his argument that teachers should buy supplies for their students and classrooms with their own money is born out of anger rather than logic. His idea that teachers have developed “the sense that they ought to be collectively entitled to a well-stocked supply closet courtesy of the taxpayers” shows how little Justin understands the profession that is teaching. The supplies in the closet are not for teachers, but for students.
I, for one, don’t expect a “well-stocked” supply closet. I do expect, however, the basic supplies needed for kids to learn. Writing supplies and learning materials are important; a well-stocked and updated classroom library is crucial.
I realize that a greater and greater percentage of educational dollars are used to pay teacher salaries. This cannot continue, and is one of the reasons I advocated, unsuccessfully, for a pay freeze; much of my union and even some school administrators disagreed. The solution is not to cut supplies or extra-curricular activities, but to find ways to save money without negatively effecting children. So much has changed; unions and administrators must be willing to start over, and write contracts from scratch.
Advocate for better ways to spend educational dollars. But don’t dismiss the teachers who spend parts of their paychecks at Staples or Wal-Mart or Borders. They deserve credit for doing so. It’s not teachers who benefit from this expenditure, but the kids.
Tom Ward, editor of the Valley Breeze, is often called anti-teacher by unionists and those on the left. Ward, however, advocates for more financially efficient school systems, while praising teachers for the work they do. In his column this week he writes:
I’ve written about the growing cost of state pensions, and for that I’m considered “anti-union” or “anti-teacher.” I am neither.
Let me re-state my position with clarity. I’m not sure I would have the patience to be a teacher today. For a host of reasons, teachers are no longer held in high esteem by parents. Some parents do a lousy job of raising their kids, and those kids are dumped on the teacher/baby sitter. Layers of administrators bug teachers without end, and they are made to answer to a dozen different bosses. I could not do their job, and I admire them for trying.
Ward understands what it means to be a teacher today. I wish more would take the time to do so.
What a waste. Officials in NY decided to give away more than $140 million to parents on welfare so they could buy school uniforms and supplies for their children. For each school-aged child, $200 was added to each welfare voucher card, money that could easily be converted to cash.
The result? Local stores reported this money was being used to buy video games, flat screen televisions, beer, cigarettes, and other none-school related items. Some parents readily admitted they would use the money to pay credit card and cable television bills.
The cash came from two sources: a $35 million donation from a philanthropist, and some $140 million in federal stimulus money. A spokesman for the state office administering the grant, Anthony Farmer, said, according to the NY Times:
“We can’t limit what people can buy with this. Ultimately, it’s a cash benefit. But we’ve timed the release of this to the back-to-school period. We’ve encouraged people to use it that way.”
More of our tax dollars are just given away. It’s simply called a “back-to-school grant” to make everyone feel better.
