Do you remember when teachers and principals brought the economy down in the fall of 2008? Remember how they caused the stock market to collapse?
You don’t? Neither do I.
No matter. States are busily figuring out how to take away teachers’ pensions to right the economy, and reformers are blaming “bad” teachers for the outsourcing of jobs to China and India. The reformers say that the jobs are being outsourced because Americans aren’t skilled enough to do the work, but it seems more plausible to believe that they are being outsourced because educated workers are cheaper in China and India than in the U.S. Know any engineers willing to work for 1/3 (or less) their current salary? Know any workers willing to sleep in a dormitory at the plant and be available 24/7 to assemble Smartphones for $17 a day?
A reader comments on the great pension robbery:
The raids on pension systems across the land are accompanied by the exact same kind of noise machine that accompanies the movement to privatize our public school system. You will never hear a peep against any of it from the President. I don’t know what these union presidents talk about when they’re on the bus with Arne Duncan, but they certainly haven’t been persuasive in getting him to acknowledge that one of the greatest robberies of all time is taking place in fast motion. Our states have run up a credit card debt with these underfunded pension systems, and now they’re walking away from that debt, and somehow we keep talking on and on and on about teacher evaluation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sad, isn’t it? They either kick us out or drive us out and then steal our pensions as well.
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Yes, &–as I had predicted–since the Chicago strike is over, the pension issue (the Chicago teachers’ Pension Fund–CTPF) has come up there, as well. If you can’t beat teachers down with anything else, threaten their pensions.
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If the Social Security COLA were threatened, there would be mass protests across the country. When the teacher pension COLA is threatened, barely a whimper is heard.
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So much for the social contract and the implied/implicit honoring of past contracts and obligations. If our pensions are wiped out or reduced; we can’t even rely on Social Security and Medicare. Both are under assault. R.I.P. the middle-class.
See the following:
Liberals Slam Obama on Social Security
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/260395-sanders-and-liberals-slam-obama-on-social-security
More freightening is this report/expose on Naked Capitalism
Obama’s Second Term Agenda: Cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid
By Matt Stoller, a political analyst on Brand X with Russell Brand, and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-social-security-medicare-andor-medicaid.html#aQq2sIUXpbUCF6Dr.99
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During the debate on Wednesday night, President Obama stated that he and Mitt Romney probably agree own the need to cut Soical Security benefits.
Obama has from the first been a Trojan Horse to enact austerity and privatization, by splitting the traditional Democratic coalition. A black neoliberal, chosen to divide and conquer: how insidious can you get?
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In the 2011 non-fiction award winning book, Pension Heist, all the grim details of massive pension raids in America and elsewhere in the industrial world are listed and explained. The author suggests that public pensions are now being targeted using the same and similar methods.
Once we all see this as a massive financial raid on our own money and our financial security, we can address it for what it is – corrupt/legalized theft on a grand scale.
We are not alone, and we need to fight back.
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Everyone wants pensions funded, except nobody wants to fund them. The more money a city or state contributes to pension funds, the less money is left in the budget. Public employee unions generally prefer to kick the can down the road rather than face budget crunches, layoffs, and a public discussion of what the pensions actually cost. Public officials don’t want to ask taxpayers to pay more to cover the cost. So unions and politicians have been complicit in this for a long time.
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Remember When Teachers Crashed the Economy?
Yes. January 1, 2000. That is the day our nation missed it’s educational goals, including math, science, equity, and school readiness. The result was a “permanent national recession” rivaling the great recession–which also had roots in the Clinton administration.
OTOH, maybe it wasn’t teachers. Maybe it was politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, or lobbyists. Or perhaps bureaucrats hired by politicians supported by union lobbyists and advised by union lawyers–the problematic lobbyists and lawyers paid via teachers’ union dues.
It’s four minutes ‘itl midnight on the public education doomsday clock–do you know what your union dues are buying?
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The 100,000 + teachers that left AFT and NEA knew what their union dues were buying.
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Oh My! Eric- A blast from the past – I remember Goals/America 2000.
You know when this first came out I thought-how will we be # 1 in math and science in a little less than 6 years? It was lofty and under funded, but had admirable goals. It also involved parents, teachers, and the community.
How this morphed in NCLB and the the truly hideous RttT is something future generations; if they’re educated and can THINK -can delve into, research and explain. I’m still at a loss to explain how this happened.
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/stw/sw0goals.htm
“By the Year 2000 –
All children in America will start school ready to learn.
The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent.
All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics an government, economics, the arts, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation’s modern economy.
United States students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.
Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
The nation’s teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.
Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.”
The Act establishes a National Education Standards and Improvement Council to examine and certify national and state content, student performance, opportunity-to-learn standards, and assessment systems voluntarily submitted by states. The movement to develop voluntary national standards has already begun. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has developed standards. The U.S. Department of Education is funding development of standards for the arts, civics and government, English language arts, foreign languages, geography, history, and science. These standards will identify what all students should know and be able to do to live and work in the 21st century.
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Key to this plan is the first goal: “All children in America will start school ready to learn.” To what degree has this been realized?
How about, “No child in America shall go hungry, unhoused, poorly
clothed, be abused, or go unloved.” When THAT is the case, the “ready to learn” will be a given. Once again, since when have the elected officials of this country seriously addressed poverty and its baggage? (Hint: not since LBJ.)
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How this morphed in NCLB …
The Clinton administration didn’t know how to nurture Goals 2000. Hillary (cf the “Marc Tucker” letter) mobilized religious conservatives against G2K and “school to work.” G2K implementation languished; Bill was sought to be the education President, but was derailed by impeachment. Tommy Thompson took the reins of G2K on the eve of the millennium and made significant progress with getting organized–the work needed years earlier. Overall, a case study in ineptitude.
The stage was set for another round of bipartisan education reform. Kati Haycock had gained influence but lost patience: NCLB was born. My thoughts at the time: A bipartisan declaration of marshal law in public schools.
Had we only listened to David Mathews of the Kettering Foundation: “Originally published in 1996, there still remains a public for Is There A Public For Public Schools? In this book, David Mathews reports on troublesome trends in public education, which suggest that the historical compact between Americans and their public schools is rapidly eroding. School reform efforts often fail because they assume a public commitment that may no longer exist, he writes. Real improvement of the schools can only be achieved when citizens reclaim ownership of them as part of an effort to build community.”
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Aha. I remember……. But, actually, Diane and others, we do bear a wee bit of responsibility for a public that can believe such an utterly absurd excuse the faults of hedge funders, bankers, etc. Reforming them seems low on the political agenda.
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I have been barking about the pension system since the 70’s when I entered teaching in Illinois. And here I am, newly retired and worried sick that my COLA will be reduced, my health care premiums will become an issue, or the system will collapse. Each governor in Illinois has used my pension contributions as if it were a credit card without ANY accountability, and then the public has the audacity to get angry with ME?? Are you kidding?
The American public needs an intervention lesson on ‘the commons’ their purpose and the responsibility of the public to maintain the commons, for the good of our future. I am very disappointed that President Obama has not yet done so.
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This happened to us in RI. We lost our COLA for 20 years. Many retirees won’t live to see it return. We also have our pensions slashed, and our retirement age increased. Teachers must work until age 67, at a fraction of what we would have received before. We only accrue 1% a year, while we have been contributing 9.5% of our salaries each and every year. We now have the bulk of our pension as a 401k style deal.
We are in court, and I hope we prevail.
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Christie eliminated the teachers’ pension COLA for current and future retirees for 30 years. Over the past 20 years, the teachers have contributed billions to the pension fund while the state has contributed nothing some years and a mere pittance other years. The state has used the money that should have gone into the pension fund to balance the budget or to give tax breaks to the millionaires. Now the teachers are being blamed for the pension fund shortfall, the teachers are being scapegoated as the cause of NJ’s financial woes and Christie has successfully waged class warfare between the public and private sector workers who have no pensions or those phoney baloney 401 K scams. How dare those evil greedy teachers have defined benefit pensions.
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Put that in your October 17th letter!
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I’m sorry–vp–the comment about the October 17th letter below was to have been a reply to you!
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” Know any workers willing to sleep in a dormitory at the plant and be available 24/7 to assemble Smartphones for $17 a day” – hate to break it to you… but some teachers are sleeping at school #satire http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2012/09/pallets-for-pedagogues.html
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@Students Last
Wow. These are some very lucky teachers. With gas prices so high, these teachers ought to be thankful that the school allows them to save a few dollars a week by sleeping in at the old school house. And what’s not to like? You get a comfy cot, short morning and evening commute, close proximity to a library, media center, gym and maybe even the school nurse. In addition, you can take advantage of the school’s Government Grade A affordable and nutritious meals for breakfast and lunch. What a great deal. I can’t believe teachers are not being forced to pay for these arrangements! I sure hope they’re happy and not complaining and whining. #satire
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We are advancing to the good old days when teachers worked for food and board. Maybe we can move in for weeks at a time and stay with the families of our students. We can’t get the social security we paid for (a pittance anyway), and now pensions are under attack. Tell me again how rich and lucky I am, I keep forgetting.
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Who in their right mind would enter this profession today? My own children tell me they would never become a teacher after seeing what we have to put up with.
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And that’s the plan. TFA & newer, cheaper teachers. 401k’s for the investment bankers. Virtual charter schools–no building maintenance, no free breakfast/lunch, no teachers to pay.
Makes it appear that the taxpayers are saving money. Divide & conquer.
Ka-ching. More $$$ to the privatizers & profiteers.
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If the Social Security COLA were threatened, there would be mass protests across the country. When the teacher pension COLA is threatened, barely a whimper is heard.
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Here’s what I wrote in a similar vein http://wp.me/p1N9yC-9
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