When I heard about Strongsville, I thought I was reading a children’s storybook about a wonderful, all-American city, a city where all the families are happy and have nice houses, and the children play in well-equipped playgrounds, and go to wonderful schools.
Think of it: Strongsville. It evokes Wheaties and Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy, the town where everything is just fine.
But then I got this letter from a teacher:
My name is Christina Potter and I have taught in the Strongsville City Schools in Strongsville, Ohio for the last eight years.
When I was hired in Strongsville, a great community with excellent schools, many other teachers said I was lucky, and they were jealous of my new job, and during the first two years, they were right; things were great with all sides working together,and we earned Ohio’s highest ranking, Excellent with Distinction.
As time went on a division started to occur between the administration and the teachers. During our 2010 contract negotiations the school stated that times were difficult and they needed the teachers to make concessions. In good faith, and promise of a levy, we agreed to an additional two year pay freeze on top of the three years we had already taken. We also increased our medical expenses, took on an additional duty period, and agreed to work two days unpaid. Times were tough, but everyone was striving to make Strongsville great.
Then, everything went haywire. With the ink still drying on our contract, the Board tried to take the levy off the ballot but failed, so instead, they informed the community to vote the levy down. Then we learned that while the district cried broke in 2010, it spent $500,000 to hire an attorney who publicizes himself as a union breaker. Every school district in this area that has hired him has either gone on strike or threatened to. Needless to say, the teachers, who negotiated in good faith, were outraged.
When our contract ended in June 2012, the district asked for extra time before negotiating to get its finances in order, so on July 19th, the first negotiation session took place. Upon walking in, their attorney put a contract down on the table and told us it was a take it or leave it offer and refused to negotiate one item at a time. After months of failing to negotiate a contract, our Education Association declared an impasse, and a Federal Mediator came in to oversee negotiations. Here is the timeline of recent events:
1. On February 15th, 2013 the teachers of the Strongsville Education Association (SEA) overwhelmingly passed a strike authorization.
2. On February 22nd, SEA submitted a 10-day notice of our intent to strike.
3. On March 1st, I had to hand in my I.D. badge and keys and have all of my personal belongings out of the building by 3:15 p.m. After 3:15, the doors would be locked, and anyone still on school property would be arrested even though we had not taken a final strike vote; we also had another negotiation session scheduled for Saturday morning. For all intense purposes we were not on strike yet but we were being locked out of the buildings, our email accounts and our grade books.
4. On March 2nd, both negotiating teams and the School Board members met with the federal negotiator. At that time the school gave its final offer which was only slightly different than their original.
And that takes us to where we are today, on strike. Many of my fellow teachers are also Strongsville residents, who have children in the system. They fear we are destroying our great public schools by trashing the teaching profession within them, instead of working toward a settlement. They feel the Board has chosen to waste tax payer money and painted teachers as greedy; meanwhile, it has forked over another $500,000, for a total of $1 million, to an attorney instead of using the money for books and technology.
Why are we striking in the cold, wind, and snow from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. We, the Strongsville teachers, feel we are not just standing for the SEA, but for all of our fellow public school teachers in the Ohio and across the nation during this statewide/national epidemic of privatizing our public schools. If this contract goes through other school districts may soon go after their teachers, and we cannot in good conscience allow that to happen. As a teacher and a parent of two, I believe in public education and its hard working teachers, who too often are the brunt of undeserved bashing.
The teachers of Strongsville will hold a rally this afternoon at 4 pm in the center of Strongsville, at the gazebo, at the corners of Pearl Rd. and Rt 82.
I support the hard-working teachers in all of our public schools.
I think all the striking teacher should be let go and hire new ones. You have no place in the teaching system. Shame on you.
Wendy.What do you base your comments on? Fiction or Fact – if your so against the teachers please expand WHY? If you have valid reason good for you,otherwise SHAME ON YOU.
No one is bashing the teachers! As a resident of Strongsville and a mother of 3 in the school district, I can say that MOST of the teachers are excellent. But since 2009, times have been hard on most of the residents here. We can not afford to pay 80% of the teachers salaries as their pensions. We can not afford to pay for their healthcare like we used to. I pay $400 pay to play for each sport my high schoolers are in now. $300 each middle school sport. We want our teachers back, but times have changed. The board took the 9.9 mil levy off the ballot when they knew it wouldn’t pass and was not money worth spending ($25,000 for each item on the ballot). The text books are old, buildings are in disrepair, and all they think of is themselves! They have to look around. And look to the future. Debt for everyone is going up. If the Board doesn’t act now, classes and bussing will have to be cut in the future.
Poor Christina. She makes $60,000 a year ( look it up, its public knowledge) and the poor thing only gets 15 weeks of vacation. She only gets $6.000 put into her pension plan each year. She has to pay 10 % of her medical ! Rotten job.
Donna, that is not a handsome salary for a professional. Do you want teachers who collect welfare?
$60,000 is not a terrible salary, a little more than historians, police officers and respretory therapists earn, a little less than anthropologists, archeologists, and cartographers. The BLS provides an interesting table that can be found here: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm
Depending on family income and size, a ways away from qualifying for TANF.
TE, does it bother you that an experienced teacher earns $60,000?
It does not especially bother me. Does it bother you that the average historian earns $58,240? The average curator earns $54,800? The average archavist earns $50,810? What income level should these folks be earning? How would you decide how much a physician earns relative to a welder?
Oh my – you have been hanging out in Strongsville tooo much. That salary would take care of a family of 4 in Cleveland. She is light years away from Welfare….Welfare is for people who can’t afford to EAT. Are you really going to tell me Christina can’t afford to eat? C’mon,,,,
Donna, go to church and pray for a kind heart. It can’t hurt.
I must dispute (once again) the use of the word “professional” for teachers. One can teach with a BA, and if one gets an MA no more training is needed. There is not the professional licensing exam that lawyers and doctors and engineers have to take. Teachers are more like craftsmen than professionals. I don’t think we should use professional as merely metaphorical glorification. We could as well say hair stylists are professionals, or car mechanics, or pole dancers. A good, experienced, class room teacher, is indeed, worth her weight in gold from a sentimental point of view, but in the strict sense, she is not a professional because as yet there is no science of education or some extensive of body of knowledge that MUST be mastered to function effectively (as in law). Any sweet person with an ability to relate to children and a modicum of intellectual competence in language, math, and science can be a teacher if they are interested in learning the craft, the knack, of wading in amongst the ankle biters and getting them to sing songs, draw pictures, and read aloud to each other. It is hard work, it is good work, and benefits from a sense of collegial integrity among its practitioners, but a profession it is not. A craft, yes, and a worthy one. For a craftsman, $60,000 is a fair yearly wage, especially given the summers off. We teachers know that they are not REALLY “off.” Good teachers work at improving their craft all year round. There are no teachers in heaven during the summer because they’re all down in hell taking summer courses. Been there. Done that. A socially necessary craft, a delightful craft under good conditions, a holy craft under bad conditions. But let’s not confuse it with a “profession.” An unfair comment, DR.
There are some professional athletes without anything more than a high school degree. Perhaps you dispute that characterization as well.
This a purely semantic question. In the context of sport “professional” means an athlete who accepts money to play. It’s antonym is “amateur.” in the context DR was using the word, that distinction is irrelevant. The question is whether “public school teaching” is a “profession” in the sense that law, medecine, or engineering are. The adjective “professional” seems the same but is not because the contexts are different. Often words that seem the same in isolation have more than one denotation. Thus I do not dispute the usage “professional athlete” because it has no reference to the individual’s level of education. When we call teachers “professionals” I see it as an attempt to lift the status of the occupation by borrowing and misapplying a word. If there were a science of education that a teacher had to learn in order to practice, the word would be appropriate. My teaching certificate required 15 hours of methods. Two courses of the five were good, especially Ed. psych, but were orientation to some tools. The other three were typical phony Ed school courses. Some jargony reading, a Mickey Mouse project or two, and voila, a certified teacher, but not a professional in any sense of the term. Knowing one’s way around a classroom is not the same as knowing one’s way around the eye, or the heart, or the intestine. Perhaps Ed schools have tightened up, but I doubt it. It’s more like apprenticeship, a good thing in itself, but not preparation for one of the professions. If you find some flaw in this analysis, I’d be glad to have it brought to my attention.
That is certainly a narrow, and somewhat idiosyncratic, definition of what it means to be a professional. If I understand your argument, it is based on the idea that the designation of a professional is based on the existence and rigor of a national or at least state based qualifying exam. Thus a commercial truck driver is a professional while university professors like Dr. Ravitch are not. A CPA is a professional, but actors like Daniel Day-Lewis are not. A physician is a professional, but chefs like Rick Bayless are not.
Your expansion of the range of examples is good philosophical strategy, but largely irrelevant. Do you agree with my semantic distinction between “professional” in the context of sports and “professional” in the context of law, medicine, accounting, and so forth? My main underlying assumption is that to have a profession one must have an underlying science. Plato thought that “cookery” was not even a kind of art, but rather a flattery. Acting can be thought of as a craft with practitioners such as Laurence Olivier and Daniel Day Lewis raising it to what some might call an “art.” I think teaching is much like performing. It can be done as a craft but among great practitioners rises to art. I do not, therefore, accept your characterization of my definition as idiosyncratic in the least.
I certainly agree that teaching and acting have much in common, but disagree that my examples were not relevant. I am feeling around for the edges of your definition of professional.
I am now confused, however. I thought that you were defining a profesional as one who must pass a suitably difficult qualifying exam given by some competent authority like the state or federal government. I now see that I was mistaken and to be arofesional you need not be certified, but have an underlying science. If I may feel around for some more corners, writers are not professionals but reperatory thearapists are professionals? Where would you put acupuncturists?
Harlem, you can create any social construct you desire. I think most in this society feel that teaching is a profession. New York requires that any profession has to be licensed by the NYSED. Just go on the state website to look up my three professional licenses. And yes, there is a science behind this professon. It is called psychology and child development. Sadly, it is those who are trying to destroy public education who do not believe in this science. I think you should look up Piaget.
Thank you for your exploration of the focii and peripheries of the term “professional.” I do include the criterion of state certification, as doctors and lawyers must be, but I also add a component of an underlying “science” or “body of knowledge” that must be mastered in order to be licensed to practice independently with a presumption by the public of competence. That does also include some sort of “bar exam” such as lawyers must take and “boards” which physicians must pass. I am contrasting those requirements with what is required to become certified to teach in the public schools. Would you not agree that there is a substantive difference with respect to “knowledge” between what a doctor, lawyer, engineer, and so forth must be master of and what a public school teacher must be master of? If you do agree, I would want you to take the next step and apply the term “professional” to the former group but withhold it from the latter. I would argue that such a differentiation is necessary because there is not sufficient “science” underlying teaching for there to even BE a bar-like exam or medical boards for teachers. Rundi Weingarten has proposed that teachers be required to take such an exam, but I doubt there can be agreement on what awarenesses (I don’t call them knowledge) should be on such an exam. It could be stipulated but would be arbitrary, where in law one must know about contracts, torts, constitutional law, and all the other parts of a bar exam, and likewise for medical boards. Perhaps my long absence from contact with a School of Education has deprived me of awareness of a modern, coherent, science of education. If there is such a science, I would be glad to have my ignorance of it removed.
Sent from my iPhone
Perhaps there is a science after all. Piaget is relevant. Child Development is relevant. I suppose Freud is relevant, too. A possible criticism of the CCSS is that the skills described for the various grade levels are not developmentally appropriate. If there is a true “science” of education, psychology and child development would be where it is located. I suppose I should suspend my objection to the use of the term “professional” until I learn more about what is actually “known” about child development. I am currently interested in HOW children learn arithmetic, and I do concede that it is a complicated matter worthy of science. Apparently some extraordinary work is being done in that area by Dean Lowenstein of the Ed. School at the University of Michigan. Perhaps I can find a way to get admitted to one of her workshops this summer.
Harlan, there is a professional licensure exam for teachers…..it is called the Praxis….you must test in principals of teaching and learning and you must also test for your specific licensure area. Once you are tested and pass, you can be hired but then you must undergo some type of mentoring with a teacher that meets certain guidelines set by the state. Teachers no longer receive “forever” contracts.Contracts are 5 years and within that time you must complete 6 credit hours or 18 ceu’s. The rigor of today’s teacher is very different from that of past teachers. Come visit schools and see what is required of us now and you may change your mind about whether or not we are professionals. I agree that we are craftsman, but we are certainly professionals.
The truth is Market place determines worth. So the question really is…, can Strongsville find another Teacher as good as Christina for less money who might even be willing to pay 15% for their health premiums???? i think YES !!!!!! So the market place tells us – she is replaceable.
Donna, do you want your children taught by the cheapest teachers? No experience necessary?
I can’t believe that Christina Potter sent a letter saying that she did not get any raises during the last 6 years. She states that only first 2 years were good.
These are her words from above in quotes
“During our 2010 contract negotiations the school stated that times were difficult and they needed the teachers to make concessions. In good faith, and promise of a levy, we agreed to an additional two year pay freeze on top of the three years we had already taken”
Please go and check this site
http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/teacher-salary
and PDF file http://www.strongnet.org/cms/lib6/OH01000884/Centricity/Domain/79/August%2016%202012%20Agenda.pdf. Document from Board of Education meeting from AUGUST 16, 2012
You will find there her last income and the increase, but she said that she did not receive any raises. What I see that in last 6 years her income increased by over 21 thousands. How is that not a raise? How is that a pay freeze? Why is it again that “Salary Upgrade” is not a raise?
Let me repeat – AS GOOD AS CHRISTINA did I say cheapest ? did I say without experience. I think there are EXPERIENCED, GOOD teachers who would take Christina’s job and be willing to make even less, pay a little more for benefits than she currently does. I hope we get the chance to find out if I am right!!!!!
Who are we – any of us – to determine what a teacher is worth???? Its the MARKETPLACE . Supply and demand. If we could find lots of unemployed Brain Surgeons that were excellent than they wouldn’t be making $350,000 a year. But they are. Why? there is no one else qualified for their jobs.
And so apparently, due to “market forces,” we are making teachers join in THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM: who will be willing to work the most for the least? Who will be willing to pay the most for health insurance while going the longest without receiving a pay increase? Inflation rises, gas prices rise, rent goes up… but your pay is frozen for years! Unpaid work?? As inexcusable as it is disgusting. And which SCAB teacher will be willing to slave away in such conditions? They’ll be applauded by human scum as they cross the picket line. Surely our glorious capitalistic marketplace will determine the price of the teacher commodity. This is WAGE SLAVERY. If you’re not fighting it, then you must be some sort of lazy bourgeois half-wit.
While doing the classic “victim blaming” of trying to point out the “high salaries” of the striking teachers, one should also investigate the truly high salaries of the administrative bureaucracy. The worthless bosses will always make far more money than the people who actually do the work and teach the kids. Do the bosses have to work unpaid and experience a wage freeze? Hell no!! What sort of concessions are the administrators making? Seriously, go find out! Stop blaming the victims and find out how the bosses are being affected. (hint: they are not affected)
Do any of you foolish opponents to the teachers strike know anything about labor history? The teachers could possible enlighten you, but they can’t right now because they are striking in order to fight for their BASIC RIGHTS AS WORKERS. Fun fact: Workers in this country have DIED for the basic labor rights that are continuously chipped away by the scourge of capitalism. And as you read this, workers are dying all over the world in their fight for these same basic rights…
Solidarity with the striking teachers! An injury to one is an injury to all.
Basic rights? Spare me the drama ! Not to worry. Heard theirs a tentative settlement. So yeah ! You can make your lexus payment and take that cruise this summer…we are all paying for it – why not !!!
We wouldnt want to force you to DIE for your $75,000 a year plus – ya know your BASIC RIGHT LOL
The teachers don’t need the respect of a crusty scab like you. Perhaps you can provide some level of proof that one of the striking teachers owns a Lexus and makes a $75,000 salary? Right-wing radio rumors are purely anecdotal and will not pass as actual proof.
Seems as though you are falling into some sort of delusional anti-worker mindset, grasping at worn out bourgeois notions, totally removed from reality – a reality in which the working class must continue to fight against the continued threat of things like “austerity measures.” So… Happy May Day, donna! Millions of working people around the world, all of us owners of luxury cars and high salaries, will be celebrating International Workers Day and showing solidarity to the striking teachers of Strongsville and beyond.
It seems the average salary in Strongville is not far from $75,000.
“The ODE lists the average Strongsville teacher salary at $65,558 for 2010-2011, but the SEA itself admits that its effective salary is actually $73,746 because the school district pays the teachers’ share of the State Teacher Retirement System contribution, which the SEA says adds an additional 10.3 percent onto their average salary.”
Here is the source:http://www.cleveland.com/strongsville/index.ssf/2013/04/strongsville_teachers_say_thei.html
TE, $75,000 is not a high salary for a professional with a masters’ degree.
I never said it was a high salary. A poster asked for evidence that teachers in Strongville were actually paid $75,000, so I did a little something (just a Google search, to find out)
I appreciate the salary research, but am still waiting for proof that striking teachers drive luxury cars…
I think that a person who valued automobiles would certainly be able to lease a Lexus for $360 a monthf on an income of $75,000 a year. I would not do it, but a car is more of a tool for me.
We are concerned with teachers driving nice cars…..first check what occupation their spouse holds. Second, why are you concerned with teachers driving nice cars when politicans have their own drivers!!!! Look at the big picture people…..teacher’s salaries are not huge and teachers aren’t living high on the hog. I live in a modest house that has needed a new roof for years. My van has 160,000 miles on it. I don’t make a killing but I make a livable wage. I make an honest wage. I don’t live like a politician and I work my tail off for the kids…..complain about politicians and welfare recipients….not teachers!!!
I have lost all respect for the Strongsville teachers it will take me awhile to get over their behavior
Uh duh….salaries are on line….and I’m not a scab teacher….just a tax paying Strongsville resident who works 12 months a year for my salary….and if you want to check out the real “working class” ….come down 71 to the streets of Cleveland where $60,000 is not considered chump change. Hey – be happy – you got your contract…you can’t be fired no matter HOW bad of a teacher you are….why the anger???
First, you may want to get your facts straight before you go spouting off at the mouth. Teachers absolutely CAN be fired. I have seen teachers get fired….2 so far this year (and no I don’t work for Strongsville). Second we work on contract. If we make 60,000 a year, we “loan” the local government part of our salary over the school year and they repay us over the summer. So the government is actually collecting interest on OUR money!!!! YOU ARE WELCOME!!!!!
Again the anger – so defensive. Okay so we should be THANKING you for allowing us to use your average salary of $74,000 a year for a short time before we give it to you ???? You’re kidding right?
Time for you to chill – hey look at the bright side – you only have to work 6 more weeks and you are back on vacation !!!
No anger here, just looking forward to a nice couple months off. I sign a contract every year that indicates that I work for 180 days. You too can sign that same contract. All you have to do is go to school for a degree in teaching. Then you can do all the work that I do (many many hours outside of the classroom and many hours in school continuing my education). Then you can deal with disrespectful children, who could care less to learn. You can deal with parents, who could care less if the kids come to school. And you can deal with the community, that believes we are soooo overpaid. And finally, you can deal with the lawmakers, that have never stepped foot in a classroom (since high school) but feel compelled to take all of my instructional time and test kids half to death. If that sounds like a great job, please, become a teacher and quit complaining about us having 50 less work days a year than you…..many of those are working on lesson planning, grading and going to workshops!! But no I am not angry at all….I just can’t understand why you are so bitter!