Proposed Cuts Strike Teachers as Attacks on Their Social Value

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Around the country, many teachers see demands to cut their income, benefits and say in how schools are run through collective bargaining as attacks not just on their livelihoods, but on their value to society.

Even in a country that is of two minds about teachers — Americans glowingly recall the ones who changed their lives, but think the job with its summers off is cushy — education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters.

Republican lawmakers in half a dozen states are pressing to unwind tenure and seniority protections in place for more than 50 years. Gov. Chris Christie’s dressing down of New Jersey teachers in town-hall-style meetings, accusing them of greed, has touched a populist vein and made him a national star.

Mayors are threatening mass layoffs, including in New York City and in Providence, R.I., where all 1,926 teachers were told last week they would lose their jobs — a largely symbolic gesture since most will be hired back.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/education/03teacher.html

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In 2005, California voters rejected , which would have increased the amount of time teachers needed for tenure by two years.

I posted on the Education forum last week an opinion column written by a former teacher in my community newspaper. The author attacked tenure as protection of incompetence.

[midnight]

1. K&R At least teachers work for their salaries vs the bankers who steal it....

[YvonneCa]

2. It is a humiliating attack on our profession, as well as...

...a personal attack. Being a teacher becomes part of one's identity.

[whathappened]

3. too bad the unions

to save our unions for the future , we need all unions to shut this whole thing down across the country and make a stand for all the unions out there who are getting picked off 1 at a time or having there benifits and wages reduced , why are we backing up in time , this nation needs to forge forward , and our unions are part of the future

[imaginary girl]

4. ... time off ... cushy

My husband is a public school teacher and gets about six weeks off for summer, during which time he often has to take classes (which we pay for) to meet continuing ed guidelines (even though he already has his master's).

My brother is an anesthesiologist, has taken at least 10 weeks off this year while making *at least* 10 times as much. Any continuing "education" required (ie drug conferences in exotic locales) is fully paid for ...

I teach full time at a local college, have a master's and 15 years experience in my profession, and earn about as much as a starting public school teacher, unless I opt into teaching summer classes.

We, as taxpayers and/or health-care (or health-insurance) consumers, pay for all of these professionals. Why do we attack the pay of one profession without questioning others?

[boppers]

6. Theory: Because so many people think they could do the job of a teacher.

"Why do we attack the pay of one profession without questioning others?"

An anesthesiologist's job requires real-time monitoring of fairly complex human chemistry, as it happens, with possibly lethal results if a mistake is made. No do-overs. If a teacher makes a mistake, much less of consequence happens.

That being said, however, I wonder what somebody *teaching* those future anesthesiologists makes?

[Psephos]

5. That's certainly how I would feel. n/t

[bemildred]

7. And we wonder why our public education system sucks. nt

[AnneD]

8. I'll say tenure is a protection of incompetence.....

a protection against incompetent Superintendents, rubber stamp School boards, and stupid Politicians that don't know their arse from a hole int the ground but think they could teach. Teachers need that protection.

Edited to add...did you know that many teachers take classes to improve their skills and maintain their PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS during all that off time they have in the summer-many times it is out of their own pocket.