A Falling Facade - As Teachers Become An Expensive Joke

Buried in the over ninety articles, essays and rosters to be found on the cyberspace pages of The Waking Bear© are the salaries for district teachers, to be updated in the fall of 2000, and a tongue-in-cheek article discussing our teachers' membership in something called the "5-4-3 Club." Both are reflective of the successful bargaining efforts of the Three Village Teachers Association, the terribly disappointing representation provided by both the district contract bargaining agents and the Board of Education and, ultimately, a hood-winked community with a laissez-faire attitude, already burdened with unreasonable school taxes.

As of September 1999, TVCSD teacher salaries started at $34,513, a 12.5% increase over their 1996 salary of $30,664.

With time and additional "credentials" a teacher can earn a top salary of $92,756, a 19% increase over that of 1996. And, this is before before the provision of thousands more in stipends for sundry extra-curricular activities.

Furthermore, they get 5% of a new teacher's salary seniority increase in each of their first 16 years for just breathing, and dollar amount increases as great as $4966 in succeeding years. These increases would occur if they never again saw an increased salary offer.

Then, as though such were not enough of a "holdup," for each additional 15 credits of training [as distinguished from education] approved by the District Superintendent, they get still another 4% increase!!!

In 1998, the Board of Education approved that 1/3 of the proposed $150,000 allocated to the district's technology enhancement project be utilized to train teachers. If this proportion holds true for the balance of the projected 10 million technology investment, three and a half million dollars will be spent teaching teachers about a computer keyboard. The final and saddest irony of all is that after they are trained at district taxpayer expense they can turn about and ask for a pay raise because they are fifteen credits "smarter."

The "3" in the "5-4-3" represents salary. That 3% part is to be renegotiated early next year, as their contract expires on June 30th, 2000. Yes, having received substantial increases (5% of a new teacher's salary for Seniority & 3% compounded Salary) in each of the last three years, the Three Village Teachers Association will return to the trough for still more.

There are some in Three Village that think the world of our teachers, greatest in numbers amongst them are other teachers. There are others who think teachers are but a covey of spoiled, self-righteous, financially irresponsible and greedy children. Somewhere between the two ideas lies the truth.

Back in the 1960's, the concept of "professionalism" overwhelmed the public administrators of emergency service organizations across the nation. The military had their West Point and Annapolis for more than a hundred years. There emerged the Air Force Academy. Teachers already had their "Schools of Education." Chiefs of police and fire departments saw, in education, an opportunity to raise the perception of the their agencies as being 'professional' in nature by raising the standards for employment and promotion. They would in time find union resistance more than a little overwhelming in some communities but they pressed ahead, secure in the belief they were doing the right thing.

Two year, four year, then masters and finally doctorate degrees became available in police science, correction facility management, fire protection technology, fire science and administration, fire protection engineering and public administration [with a specialty in police, corrections, or fire]. Similar programs have emerged for emergency medical service providers. And that beat goes on to this day. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for example, now a vast campus on the upper west side of Manhattan was, into the 1970s, located within the New York City Police Department's training facility on the lower east side.

All this happened because of the belief that an employee roster filled with the names of educated personnel made for a "professional organization." It was a dream that failed miserably, for the administrators, though not for the employees. Many of them, after changing their majors, moved on to become engineers, lawyers, doctors, psychologists, medical researchists and authors. The concept of professionalizing had become so fashionable that few administrators recognized the futility and senselessness of it at the entry - worker - level. College degrees, and advanced degrees in particular, have their greatest impact at the management and administrative levels. And that failure, though very well camouflaged throughout most government service positions, extends as well to the field of education and the teachers of the Three Village Central School District. Teachers are NOT "professionals."

A Ph.D. does not a better police officer, firefighter, emergency medical technician or public school teacher make. And the skills necessary to make one an instructor in the State of New York and the Federal Government are provided in a forty hour course entitled Educational Methodology I. And according to the state authority issuing the certificate, "With practice and a good lesson plan, you can teach brain surgery."

A second forty hour offering teaches one how to develop curriculum. Strangely, it too has an amazing, unencumbered by nonsense, title: Educational Methodology II. With a certificate of completion for that course, it's said your qualified to write the curriculum for the above brain surgery lecture.

Consider these questions:

1. Is there anyone out there that believes it takes a genius to teach the difference between a circle and a square or even an ellipse, to six year olds?
2. Is there anyone who believes that there is anything taught in grades one through six that couldn't be taught by a high school graduate with an interest in teaching and a moderate degree of emotional intelligence?
3. Is there anyone who believes that someone with a baccalaureate in English, science, mathematics, language(s), history or the like, and possessing good teacher qualities not learned in a textbook, would be incapable of teaching their major to seventh through twelfth graders?

Well, if you were able to say "no" to any of the above three questions, you should do something about it. If you could answer "no" to all three, then you can see the light, and should very much do something about it. But don't just tell us. Tell the Board of Education. Tell the Teachers' Union. Tell your neighbor. Tell the world, "I'm being overcharged and I'm not going to take it anymore." And, if they choose not to listen, vote against any of their budget proposals until they wake up.