Michael Dobie, an editorial writer at Long Island’s Newsday, wrote an opinion piece in which he explained with a certain amount of embarrassment why he voted against the school budget for the West Babylon public schools, where his daughters attended, graduated, and went on to outstanding colleges.
West Babylon asked voters to approve its budget because Governor Cuomo put a tax cap on every district in the state, and the cap can’t be raised unless at least 60% of voters approve. The budget in West Babylon was turned down. The assumption of the Cuomo tax cap is that schools will keep their costs down, but costs keep rising, so budget cuts are inevitable.
Dobie wrote (in a piece behind a paywall, sorry, so I can post only the beginning and I have no link):
What have I done?
I’ve been asking myself that a lot, after I did something for the first time since I moved to Long Island 24 years ago.
I voted against a school budget.
Until this year, I never had rejected a budget proposed by my district, West Babylon. Do it for the kids, right? But this time the district was pitching to pierce its 1.36 percent state tax cap by well more than double — in a year when taxpayers will receive state rebate checks for their tax increases when their districts stay within the cap.
So I said no, as did enough other voters to defeat the budget. My hope was that West Babylon would then turn to its teachers union — personnel costs are the bulk of every school budget — to get the savings needed to stay within the cap for the budget revote to take place June 17.
Instead, the district killed the high school bowling, gymnastics, swimming and golf teams, eliminated a bunch of clubs and activities at all grade levels, and fired 18 part-time hall monitors, among other things.
Officials saved $1.3 million and got within the cap, but look at the cost. Kids lost teams and clubs, and adults lost jobs.
I’m not naive — this is usually the way such things work out. But this is my first personal experience with the consequences of voting against a budget, and it’s distressing.
It turns out the administration didn’t believe it could ask teachers for concessions because two years ago, the union agreed to open its contract and spread out one 2.3 percent salary increase over three years. That helped the district in another difficult budget year.
But the teachers have continued to get step increases — essentially, annual longevity raises. West Babylon’s teachers are due an average 3.25 percent step increase next year, which, combined with the 0.75 salary increase, means they’ll get a 4 percent raise. Who gets a 4 percent raise these days?
Please understand, this is not a screed against teachers. It’s an argument against an unsustainable system…..
The rest of the article continues in that vein, inveighing against teachers’ pay.
Dobie thinks that the step increases for teachers must end. Period.
Dave Cunningham, a veteran teacher in the West Babylon schools, wrote to Dobie to explain why he was wrong. A native of Babylon and a graduate of its schools, Dave has taught elementary school and coached high school sports in West Babylon since 1990. Here is Dave’s letter:
Hi Mike,
I’m happy to see that some of your writing is appearing on Newsday’s pages again. In fact I’ve been meaning to contact you to see if Newsday had any interest in giving a full, honest analysis of the daily assaults on public education in our state and in our local communities. Alas, my hopes were dashed when I read your column this morning.
Newsday’s stance on public education can be summed up thusly: TEACHERS BAD! AND THEY GET SUMMERS OFF! You probably know that the chief purveyor of this nonsense is your education pointman/hachetman, John Hildebrand. He never pens a story without some part of his twisted agenda being validated. On the day of the recent budget vote, he did a great job of finding two aggrieved senior citizens, ages 79 and 81, who gave him statements to support his thesis. Who amongst us wouldn’t sympathize with elderly people living on fixed budgets, besieged by high taxes which according to Newsday, are fueled by the greed of public school teachers? I’m sure they’d make good use of a $98 check from the state. How are those checks not seen as a bribe, used to influence an election?
Had Mr. Hildebrand ventured inside of Santapogue School, (rather than using it for a convenient photo op) he would have found a thriving place where nearly 40% of our students receive free or reduced lunch. He would have seen an “international” school where ELL teachers perform daily miracles with children who speak one of fifteen different languages. Had he spoken with parents and teachers, he would have also discovered that due to the state’s gap elimination program, that West Babylon had lost about $4,000,000 in state aid per year over the last four years. Such facts don’t fit the narrative, so they’re not reported.
The overarching story that Newsday continues to neglect is the stealthy, insidious campaign to privatize public education , here and around the country. I’ll leave it to you to do some research for yourself, but any honest assessment of education in New York will show that NYSED is slowly and quietly outsourcing its authority, its operations, and its soul to the British conglomerate, Pearson. The truth is that the hard-working, overtaxed people of our state are seeing their money spent on tests, standards, curriculum, and materials produced by the non-educators hired by Pearson, often at minimum wage salaries. My experience has shown me that most anything that Pearson produces is either developmentally inappropriate, substandard in quality, or both. Yet the state and school districts continue to buy their products. Pearson writes the state tests, which are not “more difficult” as Newsday and other supine media outlets report. They are designed to produce failure, adding to the narrative of TEACHERS BAD! AND THEY GET SUMMERS OFF! A google search of Pearson/Campaign contributions will tell you all you need to know. Pols from both major parties have benefited from Pearson’s largesse.
Diane Ravitch’s blog, https://dianeravitch.net/ is a treasure trove of information about public education. Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post has an excellent blog which often features the work of Southside HS Principal, Carol Burris, who is one of the most sensible, articulate voices in the push back against the hostile takeover of our schools by corporate interests. There is a ton of excellent archived work on the site: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/ If you still have anyone at Newsday who is interested in some honest, investigative reporting, (and maybe earning a Pulitizer, to boot!) please share these links with them. FOIA requests should yield information about how much school districts have been mandated and forced to spend on the implementation of Common Core and its attendant exams and assessments. In my 39 years in education I’ve never seen anything as onerous and threatening to education in this country. It’s costly, it’s wrong, and our people deserve better.
I assume that you struggled with your decision to throw the children of WB under the metaphoric bus. I’m sure today’s column wasn’t easy to write. So your takeaway that step increases are the big villain, while popular with the trolls who inhabit Newsday’s comment pages, misses the larger point. You state that the WB district was reluctant to ask the teachers for help because we probably wouldn’t be receptive. We as a faculty have “given back” on numerous occasions during the last ten years. You asked, “Who gets a 4% increase now?” Easy answer: the wealthiest. Since 2011, more than 90% of the income gains in this country have gone to the 1 %. Yet our feckless politicians, their corporate enablers, and an AWOL media rig the game against the working and middle class families who populate our communities.
On a personal note, you should know that I haven’t received a step increase in years. Since I haven’t maxed out my graduate credits, I’m nowhere near the top of the pay scale. So you and the other aggrieved taxpayers of WB are getting a bargain with me; a teacher with nearly 40 years experience at a salary of a 25th year teacher. Silly me, I should have been in grad school when I was coaching WB kids 24/7, 365 days a year. I have no regrets, my former players and students visit every now and then to say thanks and to let me know how they’re doing. Those moments represent the true rewards that a teacher receives. Those are things that nobody at Newsday will understand any time soon, apparently. Enjoy your reading assignments! I look forward to hearing from you. Pay it forward!
All the Best,
Dave Cunningham
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dave Cunnigham CAUSES A HEAD-JAM! He needs to find another job.
This district, located in a mostly middle-class community with a high cost of living and enormous local and state tax burden, spends approximately $23,000 per child, per year.
There is a reason why so few challenge votes to the state school budget cap have passed, and it isn’t because people hate teachers or don’t value public education. They are simply tapped out.
Dave
I hope to find people like you in Denver at the NEA RA, so we can start organizing teachers across the country. Unfortunately, NEA and AFT are not doing what some of us thought they would, organize a national public employee day for thousands of public workers across the country to meet in DC to get some media coverage for our deteriorating standard of living and the future of our Democracy. The media seems to be controlled by the 1%, so we need a major event to get out our message. Thank you for your letter.
I have been teaching for more than 40 years and I am very disappointed that NEA members will be hearing from Linda Darling-Hammam, a person paid by the Common Core community to try once again to sell us on the “fact” that this program will be the game saving scheme to get 100% of our students to be better at test taking than the kids in Singapore! Are we as a nation really concerned about competition from Singapore? Wow! I better start building that home on the land I bought in the Everglades years ago when we were told that we needed to learn NEW MATH to keep up with Russia! Is the NEA afraid of upsetting the Obama administration or Arne Duncan? Why are we not hearing from people like Prof. Ravitch or others with a different solution to improving the success of our students? Somehow public teachers and public employees need to organize to be heard.
Please enlighten me someone in NY! When step increases are given in OH, at least at the end of the scale with the most year’s experience, there are 3 or 4 years between each step. That means that not all teachers get a step increase each year. Is this different in NY? Do all teachers get step increases every year as Dobie says? Or is he not mentioning some important details?
I teach in upstate New York and our local union negotiated away step more than 25 years ago….so now we get whatever small -if any -percent increases when contracts are negotiated. We’ll never get step back….and we’ll never have the retiring salaries some teachers get either.
The legislature in IN took our increments away. We reached the top of the scale in 16 years through negotiations in our district. With the new evaluations, the younger teachers will remain at their current wage. Their raises will partially be based upon “data” which can come from multiple sources. Never mind there isn’t enough money to provide these raises. We have one year left on our contract before this sham evaluation system begins.
I’m a speech language pathologist & these younger SLP’s have choices to work in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes etc…they will not stay in public schools. Indiana is racing to deprofessionalize teaching. Our legislature & governor are ALEC idolizers & funded by numerous corporate organizations who want to destroy labor & workplace rights & destroy public schools & services.
Here is a piece of information to digest. In 1998 with a Master’s Plus 60 (in literacy and art) I earned 58k. If I had lasted four more years, I could have earned 70k. That was my plan, but the war on teachers had begun and I, who started teaching in 1963 when administration was there to support my practice, was blind to the deformation that had occurred.
Nowhere in sight were the INCREMENTS or a contract, as they decimated the veteran teachers in NYC. The recent contract, that distorted mess, was in the far future.
During that first assault which was well known by the union reps at the schools, and the district reps, too, the veteran staff was the target. I hope everyone on this blog has seen this… I posted it often enough… and if you have not seen it, then the process they used, the one that is working for them in LA and Chicao and Atlanta, is hidden.
Here is the site: http://gemnyc.org/2012/05/20/the-inconvenient-truth-behind-waiting-for-superman-now-online/ and here is the film itself… it is fascinating and all true!
FYI: The UFT knew exactly what was ongoing… because they handled the grievances and turned the final ‘hearings’ into kangaroo courts… Do know this much: that I have all the evidence for what I say here, and that the UFT’s top attorneys know it, as does Randi herself.
So let’s face the FACTS… the union in NYC has NOT been a friend of teachers, but was, at least able to get some benefits, in no small way because they guaranteed they would end the grievance process. Period…and you heard it here!
The caveat??? to collect benefits, YOU GOTTA SURVIVE, and THAT privilege can be eroded at ANY time… Even pensions are fair game while the real theft of national income continues. Remember, I write at a blog where I must have evidence for what i say, and/or link to data: Read the data this man collected: “$7.6 trillion — 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth — is stashed in tax havens. If all of this illegally hidden money were properly recorded and taxed, global tax revenues would grow by more than $200 billion a year”
If Congress plugged the loopholes that loot America, we could have schools with small classes, pay real professionals a wage commensurate with their service, supply all the programs and materials needed to SUPPORT the classroom practitioner, and pave the road with opportunity for every single person who washed up on our shores, with money left over to fix roads, provide health care and…well… it wouldn’t be necessary to give away due process in order to balance the school budgets, hiring novice teachers, 80% of whom leave in 3 to 5 years.
If Congress jailed the people who stole the national wealth while gambling with our savings, we would have all the money we need, and would not have to spread lies about teachers,or blame lazy people and those immigrants… so much like our ancestors who saw the land of opportunity that was America before the oligarchs took over.
Here is a link to the Chicago agreement:
http://www.ctunet.com/for-members/final-contract-language
The steps vary from district to district according to their individual contracts. Some districts provide the top salary after sixteen years, some twenty, some twenty two. Buffalo had 27 steps, but there was a three year wage freeze so it is really thirty. There are yearly step increments, except for years 15 to 24 where there are five two year increments. I might be off a little, but you get the general idea. Buffalo has been without a contract and thus a wage increase for over ten years. They are the fifth lowest paid district in the area with the other four being small rural school districts. The discrepancy is over twenty five thousand dollars a year between Buffalo and Williamsville (where I live) for the top salary.
Sweet Home actually has the best salary of any of the Western New York school districts, yet they weren’t in the top fifty for the CC assessment. In fact, several Buffalo schools beat them out. However, the majority of the Buffalo schools didn’t even make the top 100 list.
Ironically, of the top ten on the list, five schools were within 7 miles of one another – all white, upscale neighborhoods.
Perhaps a bonus would help change the results so those urban and rural schools would leap frog from the bottom 105 into the top 10.
(And I have a “Peace Bridge” I’d like to sell – it’ll get you over the border and into Canada.)
I teach in NYC. Our UFT contract stops steps at year 8, so after 8 years, you only get “longevity” increases, and those come about every 5 – 7 years. So the idea that everyone gets these “raises” every year is false. It all depends on the CBA and how the contract is structured. And it can also be negotiated in contract talks when a new contract is up. In the years from 2008, when our last contract expired, I saw NOTHING. Not ONE. SINGLE. DIME. My check stub looks the same today as it did in October of 2008, with exception of the date.
In addition, steps exist because, unlike other jobs, a teacher begins and ends a career as a teacher. In other professions, there are promotions, and other ways to move up in pay and prestige, but teachers, unless the pursue other positions like administration, remain teachers. Steps exist because of this – it is fair that a 15yr teacher should make a first year salary FOREVER, with only longevity increases every five to ten years? If I had been in a job for five years, I would definitely resent making the same pay as someone who graduate last month and is just starting out. it’s certainly not a way to retain “the best”. If i spent 15, 20, 25 years doing a job, I certainly HOPE I am making some money at it by then. Doesn’t everyone?
Life in Limbo – I hope your starting salary is more than $32,000 a year and that your steps are a respectable amount. I know what it’s like to go five years at the same salary. And your expenses must be greater than mine. (Buffalo was just voted the number one city to live in due to low housing costs).
And your comment about promotions is right on target. My daughter works in the city in the private sector. Her salary now surpasses that of any BPS teacher and matches that of some administrators (not counting her generous yearly bonus). She is 35.
Dear Mr. Dobie:
Well, I think I’ve FINALLY found my place in this world! I would like to volunteer to serve the students of your district FREE OF CHARGE! Won’t that be a wonderful thing? Your district can probably bring back gymnastics or something.
There are a few things I will need, however.
First, can you find me a nice, roomy, comfortable refrigerator box? And a nice place to put it? Not too far from the school, please, since I can’t pay for transportation. I’m sure the area you pick out will have a low crime rate. I have a few camping items and a heater, so I will be all set!
Second, I have two sons, so they will need to be with me. Perhaps a second refrigerator box for them? They’ll be going to the school where I will be teaching, of course, so they’ll at least get two meals a day on the weekdays. Lunches for staff cost money, so I guess I’ll just not eat. It’s good for your health to fast anyway! And water is free. I’ll drink lots of water.
Oh! And maybe one of my sons will get into the national news, like those amazing young ladies who were valedictorians and were homeless (that’s the only part of this that’s not sarcastic–those ladies ARE amazing). That will mean GREAT publicity for your district. You probably shouldn’t tell anyone that their mother is a teacher. That would ruin the feel good part of the story, because, you know, teachers are evil.
Could I maybe use your house to shower and wash my clothes once a week? After all, I’m sure your district has a dress code for staff, and I don’t want to frighten your poor little children with my appearance. Don’t worry–I’ll use the service entrance in the back, clean up after myself, and then spend some time in prostrate adoration of you.
I eagerly anticipate the offering of this job. After all, I’ve always wanted to be a nun and take a vow of poverty!
Admiringly yours,
One of THOSE teachers
Love your commentary TOW,
But in reality, my first teaching job paid so little I qualified for free lunch and food stamps. I got an evening babysitting job so I could fill my gas tank.
It is not uncommon for beginning teachers to have second jobs AND live at home with their parents. It’s a red letter day when a teacher can finally forgo teaching summer school or finding summer employment (lots of the guys in Buffalo work as the Border Patrol checking cars coming back from Canada).
People don’t understand. Summers off means a lay off, not a vacation. No work, no pay.
“supine media outlets” tago!
One can argue the merits of the best step scale which fairly measures average teacher input. One can argue the pay an advanced degree should be worth. But if there is no mandatory cost of living adjustment, it’s a pay cut, except in the unlikely event the cost of living goes down.
We do in New York State tend to get our steps every year. Sometimes we dely them or get a partial increase, but that is the norm.
In my district in Utah, we are not getting a step increase for the second time in five years.
I meant “delay”.
This idiot sounds a lot like the parents a district about 30 miles south of me with a fast-growing school population. Last fall, the voters there turned down a bond to build new buildings. NOW, those same people are complaining that their schools are overcrowded. How did these people not learn cause and effect?
Thank you, Dave Cunningham….
“Who gets a 4 percent raise these days?”
Let me show you who:
Bill Gates, for one. In 2012, his net worth was estimated at $66 billion. In 2014, it was $80.7 Billion. That’s an increase of $14.7 Billion or 22.2% of what he was worth in 2012.
In addition, Think Progress.org reports that “From 1978 to 2011, CEO compensation increased more than 725 percent, a rise substantially greater than stock market growth and the painfully slow 5.7 percent growth in worker compensation over the same period.
Then The State of Working America.org reported: “From 1983 to 2010, 38.3 percent of the wealth growth went to the top 1 percent and 74.2 percent to the top 5 percent. The bottom 60 percent, meanwhile, suffered a decline in wealth.”
For a comparison, according to CNN.com, “median household income fell slightly to $51,017 a year in 2012, down from $51,100 in 2011 — a change the Census Bureau does not consider statistically significant.”
What is the medium pay of public school teachers compared to that median household income?
Salary.com reports: the bottom 10% of teachers earn $39,627 annually. The top 10% earns 68,273. The median is $52,380.
In fact, let’s also look closely at the pay raise Congress gave itself in 2013.
“The annual salary of members of Congress will rise from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House and Senate majority leader, will likewise get an increase.” They get an expense account too beyond the salary.
But teachers don’t have an expense account. They pay out of their own pocket.
The Journal.com reports: “Teachers Spend $1.3 Billion Out of Pocket on Classroom Materials.”
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/07/08/teachers-spend-1.3-billion-out-of-pocket-on-classroom-materials.aspx
Story goes,the rich are wealth generators, and by casual observation it would be hard to dispute they do that, by some means anyway. But what about teachers? According to Chetty, an average teacher contributes 50K per student. Times 150 students is a whopping 7.5 million dollars of wealth generation per year per teacher! For that measly 70K of wage and benefits, not a bad ROI.
I posted this comment as a reply to beth, but I want it read by all:
Here is a piece of information to digest. In 1998 with a Master’s Plus 60 (in literacy and art) I earned 58k. If I had lasted four more years, I could have earned 70k. That was my plan, but the war on teachers had begun and I, who started teaching in 1963 when administration was there to support my practice, was blind to the deformation that had occurred.
Nowhere in sight were the INCREMENTS or a contract, as they decimated the veteran teachers in NYC. The recent contract, that distorted mess, was in the far future.
During that first assault which was well known by the union reps at the schools, and the district reps, too, the veteran staff was the target. I hope everyone on this blog has seen this… I posted it often enough… and if you have not seen it, then the process they used, the one that is working for them in LA and Chicao and Atlanta, is hidden.
Here is the site: http://gemnyc.org/2012/05/20/the-inconvenient-truth-behind-waiting-for-superman-now-online/ and here is the film itself… it is fascinating and all true!
FYI: The UFT knew exactly what was ongoing… because they handled the grievances and turned the final ‘hearings’ into kangaroo courts… Do know this much: that I have all the evidence for what I say here, and that the UFT’s top attorneys know it, as does Randi herself.
So let’s face the FACTS… the union in NYC has NOT been a friend of teachers, but was, at least able to get some benefits, in no small way because they guaranteed they would end the grievance process. Period…and you heard it here!
The caveat??? to collect benefits, YOU GOTTA SURVIVE, and THAT privilege can be eroded at ANY time… Even pensions are fair game while the real theft of national income continues. Remember, I write at a blog where I must have evidence for what i say, and/or link to data: Read the data this man collected: “$7.6 trillion — 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth — is stashed in tax havens. If all of this illegally hidden money were properly recorded and taxed, global tax revenues would grow by more than $200 billion a year”
If Congress plugged the loopholes that loot America, we could have schools with small classes, pay real professionals a wage commensurate with their service, supply all the programs and materials needed to SUPPORT the classroom practitioner, and pave the road with opportunity for every single person who washed up on our shores, with money left over to fix roads, provide health care and…well… it wouldn’t be necessary to give away due process in order to balance the school budgets, hiring novice teachers, 80% of whom leave in 3 to 5 years.
If Congress jailed the people who stole the national wealth while gambling with our savings, we would have all the money we need, and would not have to spread lies about teachers,or blame lazy people and those immigrants… so much like our ancestors who saw the land of opportunity that was America before the oligarchs took over and destroyed public education!
Thank you David Cunningham. I wonder if Michael Dobie will respond. I also wonder if Michael Dobie can find the courage and integrity to be the journalist of character needed in today’s world? He has the ability from other writings I’ve read. And, I know there are other journalists at Newsday capable of that Pulitzer , but the question is, do they have the the strength of courage to make a real difference through their writing? I won’t hold my breath waiting, but we can all dream.
Given the high level of spending in that district reported by poster Tim, wouldn’t increasing spending in this district made the gap between the education that the children of the relatively poor and the children of the relatively rich even wider?
If Congress plugged the loopholes that loot America, we could have schools with small classes, pay real professionals a wage commensurate with their service, supply all the programs and materials needed to SUPPORT the classroom practitioner, and pave the road with opportunity for every single person who washed up on our shores, with money left over to fix roads, provide health care and…well… it wouldn’t be necessary to give away due process in order to balance the school budgets, hiring novice teachers, 80% of whom leave in 3 to 5 years.
If Congress jailed the people who stole the national wealth while gambling with our savings, we would have all the money we need, and would not have to spread lies about teachers,or blame lazy people and those immigrants… so much like our ancestors who saw the land of opportunity that was America before the oligarchs took over.
The decision that this voter faced was not to fully fund all schools, but to increase the advantage that the relatively wealthy students of that district.
Might you think that he was striking the strongest blow for equality that was within his power?
Good Question. Jus t got this email. THEY are working very hard to ensure the $$$ goes where THRY want it.
Dear Public School Supporters,
Just hours after sending you an update email, I recieved this update from NY Civil Liberties Union, informing of a Republican-backed proposal to give huge tax breaks to individuals that support private, religious or charter schools. Please see link below and consider signing the letter (which you can add to) to your elected officials in Albany, urging them to vote against this when it comes to a vote in 4 days.
http://capwiz.com/aclu/ny/utr/2/?a=63147186&i=127376366&c=
Many thanks,
Sara
Any answers to the good question?
I am a parent in Upstate NY and abstained from voting for the budget. I voted for school board members. Our district administration has consistently prohibited any parents from any meaningful engagement or decision making. The PTA has become a puppet of the Superintendent, and the Budget Advisory Committee is a joke. We have eleven curriculum directors, none of which teach a class. The superintendent has also blocked any open discussion on Common Core, reform, appr, field testing, curriculum, or enrichment. Parents, and teachers, who speak up face the very real threat of retaliation. Everything that was once good in our district is being whittled away in favor of a mediocre curriculum and the almighty NYSED tests. Voting a budget down has become, for some, the only way to elicit change. Oh, and ours passed. The superintendent now believes she has a mandate for her policies and to keep running the district into the ground, through a culture of fear and deceotion.
What is your school board doing? In my state they are the employers of the superintendent. They are also the ones who approve the budget. It sounds like your district has bigger problems than an out of control superintendent.
Michael Dobie has just realized the reality that many school districts have to face – cutting services to meet budget guidelines. If this is his first experience of downsizing, he is lucky. Some places are down to the bare bones.
Dave, your response was excellent. And I love your sentiment TEACHERS BAD AND THEY GET THE SUMMERS OFF!
I love it, because it is true. When the Buffalo teachers went on strike in 2000, we got no sympathy from the majority of the public. The cry was that teachers needed to earn the same as city workers. What they meant was our pay should mirror that of fast food places, after all, we had paid holidays and summers off. In actuality, our pay was not comparable to other professionals who worked in the city, it was much less. I heard “the city can’t afford raises” and “teachers only work six hours a day and have their summers off”. Well, we got our modest raise with a three year contract, but that was the last one. It didn’t help that the city of Buffalo was put under a state control board and nobody was allowed to get a raise – they even froze our step increases for three years.
And I just heard that cry last week – teachers are overpaid, they get their summers off. The other anti sentiment is that NYS teachers get a pension. They call it an entitlement, ignoring the fact that we paid into the system (which is extremely solvent).
So yes, TEACHERS BAD AND THEY GET THE SUMMERS OFF!
There is lots of money to do the right thing, fix roads, offer health care and education
Read the data this man collected: “$7.6 trillion — 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth — is stashed in tax havens. If all of this illegally hidden money were properly recorded and taxed, global tax revenues would grow by more than $200 billion a year”
Sorry Susan –
Where there is NO will, there is NO way.
“TEACHERS BAD AND THEY GET THE SUMMERS OFF!”
Hilarious… I are laughing.