Teachers, school officials brought current crisis upon themselves

Stephen,

Well said, well written. Many teachers do care about the kids and are doing their very best. Let's face it though, when teachers feel they have to have a union to protect them, all it does is "dumb down" work ethic and protect the slackers.

We all care about our wages and benefits, no one can work for free so there is nothing wrong with trying to get the highest income that you can.

There is a rule of thumb in the private sector that you get 80% of the necessary results from your top 20% of people. That holds true in almost any company or business. What unions do though is protect the bottom 80% that do just enough to get by. Of that 80%, some are doing ok, they are not "great teachers" , but it is the 40% of the 80% that we currently call "lousy teachers". Those are the ones where you pick up the phone and demand that your kid doesn't have that teacher for the upcoming school year based on other parents input.

It truly is sad as you said when you go to a high school parking lot and see all the foreign cars the teachers and admininstators drive. For an unemployed AMERICAN auto worker or one who has taken a huge paycut it really hurts to see that. As union "brothers and sisters" why would they buy foreign cars in the first place? And then they wonder why taxpayers are not voting yes on the millage ? 2+2=4, always has, always will !!

Mr. Dezarov,
I am not sure how keeping teachers on staff is not benefiting student programs. Who do you think runs and organizes those student programs? And who would run and organize them once teachers are perhaps laid off? I am also not clear on where you got the idea that the millage was intended to increase teacher salary. By my understanding it was simply to ensure that schools could continue to offer the same level of opportunities to students, perhaps by keeping current staff members on staff but certainly not by simply transferring all of the money into teacher bank accounts. And please, to all who continue to make the analogy, I beg you to stop equating American public education to the American auto industry. Schools are not auto plants and teachers are not auto workers. Yes schools need change, as many organizations need change in this time, but to make this comparison simply shows how little you understand schools as organizations and how little you understand the role of the teacher in that organization. (Just search online for the amount of published research on schools as compared to auto factories and you will realize there must be vast differences in these organizations). Many of the citizens commenting on these articles dealing with local education are clearly passionate (and several seem to have plenty of extra time) so please educate yourselves in the facts, base your opinions on published research rather than word of mouth, and use that passion and fact-based knowledge to work together, with educators, to improve our schools. Teachers are important members of our society, regardless of what you think they are worth monetarily, and believe it or not, they are professionals who have devoted their lives and their studies to the issue of education. But as they have found, education is not always an easy subject (look again at the amount of research on the issue). So please, stop working against educators, realize they are a necessary resource in this fight, and start working together to solve the challenges that are facing education in our nation and state.

Amy,

You wrote, "And please, to all who continue to make the analogy, I beg you to stop equating American public education to the American auto industry. Schools are not auto plants and teachers are not auto workers. Yes schools need change, as many organizations need change in this time, but to make this comparison simply shows how little you understand schools as organizations and how little you understand the role of the teacher in that organization."

With all due respect, that sounds pretty arrogant to me. Also, if you are going to criticize others about not being aware of research it would be a good idea to cite something in your comments.

One similarity between the auto industry and the teachers are the Unions. They bleed the host until it dies. It should be illegal to form a Union to "negotiate" against the taxpayers. They have spread through the State government like locusts. Indeed many State workers are now represented by----the UAW! While the teachers' Union is a different Union, they operate the same way. The result is overpayed (compared to the average folks who pay taxes to support them) unaccountable teachers who work 9 months a year and have better benefits than the majority of the population. Pay is not based on merit, rather senority. It is difficult to fire underperfoming teachers. Job rules are in place that restrict flexiblity to preserve numbers of jobs, etc. Sound familiar?

Those job rules that are in place come from "No Child Left Behind". They are not created by teachers unions. The federal government made the rules on what a highly qualified teacher is and what they can teach. The unions did not set those laws into place.

Amy -

The millage was discussed as long ago as 2 years. Originally it was to "enhance" education. It included pay and benefits in it, as well as more administration and other additions.

It was only well after the millage worked through the agreement to put it on the ballot, that the budgets were cut and it became a hold the line issue.

If you look at some of the early reason for doing this millage you will be surprised.

No one is willing to admit that the millage had other purposes originally. It was driven by Ann Arbor with the others signing on in many cases only reluctantly.

We need to focus on how to support the classroom and hold it harmless. More than 40 percent of the schools money is spent outside the classroom. We need to focus efforts on efficiency there. Not on the money spent to support the classroom.

Think of it this way if you bought a $12 book on line and shipping was $8, would you buy there or look around for a better deal? Shipping is the overhead. This is the ratio today in the schools. We need to understand why the overhead exists and why cuts seem to be aimed at the classroom, not at the overhead.

More transparency and communication is critical to getting to reasonable discussions.

Don,

Although I agree with you as to the economics of the AA2 school situation, and generally agree as to your point about buying a book & paying the better part of the amount in shipping, sometimes, you do it.


Example, Michael Parker Pearson (professor of Archaeology @ the University of Sheffield in England) wrote a textbook in use by his classes. It's very hard to get. A student put one up for sale for $100, with a $40 charge to ship it: roughly making double as to what he/she paid for it. I snapped it up. It was worth it to me. Sometimes, if you want to dance, you've got to pay the fidler.

Until you convince the US and State congress to get rid of the National labor Relations Act and the Michigan Publice Employers Relation Act respectively it will be legal for unions "to negotiate against taxpayers." Good luck with that.