posted by Joe Polk at 12:36 AM /
The president of the state's largest teachers union asked its members on Wednesday to "seriously consider" Gov. Tom Corbett's call for them to accept a one-year pay freeze.
James Testerman of the Pennsylvania State Education Association said he sent a letter to local affiliates asking them to discuss a pay freeze and other cost-saving measures with their school boards.
Mt. Lebanon Education Association President Drew Haberberger said teachers there agreed to financial concessions, including increasing their health care contribution, in a contract ratified in August. He wouldn't specifically address a pay freeze, but said teachers are committed to negotiating in good faith.
"We've always been willing to work with our district and we'll continue to do so," he said. "That's pretty much how we would approach things."
Read the full article:
James Testerman of the Pennsylvania State Education Association said he sent a letter to local affiliates asking them to discuss a pay freeze and other cost-saving measures with their school boards.
Mt. Lebanon Education Association President Drew Haberberger said teachers there agreed to financial concessions, including increasing their health care contribution, in a contract ratified in August. He wouldn't specifically address a pay freeze, but said teachers are committed to negotiating in good faith.
"We've always been willing to work with our district and we'll continue to do so," he said. "That's pretty much how we would approach things."
Read the full article:
- www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_727783.html (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Labels: drew haberberger, mlea, school district
3 Comments:
Willing to DISCUSS a PAY FREEZE? Is he kidding?
Maybe this guy doesn't get it - but teaching is a calling and not a profession!
I can remember all the way back to Gov Casey [a DEMOCRAT!] in his final State of the State speech saying that local school districts need to start firing teachers because the state can't afford to carry the financial burden from their lavish local budgets.
I think that our teachers need to get a real job and learn the meaning of the word "WORK". The rather generous country-club lifestyle that has been the trademark of a Mt. Lebanon teacher for many decades has to come to an end!
Has anyone looked at the cars in the school parking lots! WOW! Our residents should be so lucky to coach themselves in that level of luxury!
- and then there are the vacations! OH MY GOD! Europe, African Safari's, The Riveria, Costa Rica, The Far East, Australia! A trip to the Jersey Shore wasn't good enough!
Not to mention hanging around the health clubs in the evenings tanning themselves when they should be preparing lesson plans and presentations for their class; or their colonization of townhomes at Seven Springs, and even the yachts and estates at Lake Chautauqua!
Our community needs to stand-up to these terrible and greedy people and with one loud and united voice we need to tell them, "ENOUGH! Our community is not here to continuously provide for you! Get a job! Start to work! The days of living on the largess of the Mt Lebanon taxpayer are over!"
Mr. Kendrick, if memory serves, you've never had a kid in our school district, but let me ask you something . . . Have you ever met any of our teachers? Have you ever spent any time talking with them? Or do you just assume they are all evil?
Dave Franklin
Mr. Kendrick,
In a democratic society, most people consider a good education to be essential and therefore worth paying for. This is not a new idea. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following in a letter to his legal mentor, George Wythe:
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness... Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
Therefore, if you are are right that “teaching is a calling and not a profession,” we are in trouble. If teaching isn’t something that talented people will choose to do in exchange for compensation offered, who will teach?
So I’m a supporter of the idea, radical though it may seem, that we ought to offer compensation to those who we would have teach. The question, then, is how much compensation.
Now this is a stickier subject. I think that a well-educated citizenry is important, so I’m willing to pay a lot for education. But I want my money to go to the most effective teachers, and I want to pay them just enough to get them to choose teaching over other professions. If “just enough” means that teachers are going to be driving 7-series BMWs, that’s fine by me. I want to pay enough to get the most-effective people we can into the teaching profession. It’s an investment that has lasting rewards for our society.
And that’s where I have a problem with the teachers unions. The unions, if you examine their behavior, seem to represent primarily the interests of the senior members of the unions. Everybody else – students, parents, new teachers, talented would-be teachers, and society as a whole – gets less because the senior members of the union take more. They have effectively instituted a policy of merit pay where merit is determined almost exclusively by seniority – not effectiveness.
For this reason, Mr. Kendrick, you ought to consider whether the problems you have with teachers are really problems with the way the unions demand that compensation be allocated. I know a lot of talented teachers, and none of them are living what I would call the “country-club lifestyle.” Most of them, I suspect, would actually be better compensated in a free market than they are now under the current union seniority system.
Cheers,
Tom
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