Let’s talk about Strongsville teachers

The Cleveland Plain Dealer had a story by Patrick O’Donnell on the Strongsville, Ohio teacher strike and the use of substitute teachers to keep the school open. 385 teachers, nurses, psychologists, and guidance counselors walked off the job on Monday, while 140 substitute teachers keep the schools open for 6,200 students. Police and guards from Huffmaster Inc. (a firm hired by the districts to maintain order during strikes) are patrolling school grounds to keep the teachers on the sidewalks and not in the driveways. The police are ticketing the striking teachers for parking on the streets.

Sounds like the teachers’ rights, specifically to assemble, are being respected.

More than 380 members of the Strongsville Education Association voted on Sunday to go on strike. The strike began outside Strongsville High school. The teachers declined to comment, but the students felt free. Ready for some really impressive idiocy?

• “I’m not too worries about going inside the school, but I think it’s going to be chaotic. I don’t really have a side, but I’d rather the teachers be back.” Luigi DiRienzo.
• “Fellow junior Kevin O’Neill said he found it disturbing that teachers are posting photographs of substitutes and people are making rude comments about them. “I think that’s a little over the line.’
• “Student David Palmer said, ‘No one can really win,” while others took issue with teachers saying they are fighting for the students. At least one teacher is carrying a sign that reads, ‘We love our kids.’
• “’They say they’re all worried about the kids but they’re worried about themselves,” Clair Repine said, as her friends nodded in agreement.”

I have to wonder if the reporter in his objective glory was feeding the kids information to color them against the teachers. He mentions some of the kids are on the side of the teachers, but doesn’t have a quote from any of them. Sounds like someone has chosen his side.

The teachers claim their salary scale hasn’t increased since the 2007-2008 school year, and that teacher contribution toward health coverage has increased (jumping from $40 a month to $150 for family coverage starting in 2011). The teachers have received annual raises until the 2011-2012 school year for years of experience and additional education they received. After that year the “step” increased were restored this year.

O’Donnell cites the average teacher salary in Strongsville for the 2011-2012 school year was $64,540 according to the Ohio Department of Education. The median salary was $68,411.

Everyone seems to agree that the district (and the teachers) has paid more for healthcare since 2008. John Krupinski, Superintendent, and David Frazee, school board President, claim the district’s contract offers reflect “economic realities” of the district which has seen little revenues increased in recent years. The district will receive no new money from Ohio if the state legislature passes Gov. John Kasich’s proposed school funding plan, and the district has sustained losses the last few years in state reimbursements for the phase-out of tax on business and inventory equipment.

Krupinski and Frazee want to show the public each side’s proposal in negotiations, but the teachers’ union declined citing both sides has agreed to keep negotiations private. Krupinski announced last week that students are required to attend school regardless of strike. Krupinski said Monday morning that 140 teachers were present at the school, “We continue to seek more substitutes as the day goes on, and we’ll continue to do that as the week progresses. We have a ways to go, but we’re gaining more and more as the day progresses. We are going to struggle for our first few days, but we are going to keep our schools open.”

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about what exactly is happening here. But it doesn’t sound great if the local media can’t find one person to come out on the side of the teachers. I’ll also point out Strongsville is one of the nicer suburbs in northeastern Ohio. This link takes you to a timeline of the strike. That being said, Strongsville used to have some of the highest test scores in Ohio so these are (by the metrics we’re forced to use) excellent teachers.  I’m also really troubled by the interviewing of students with such bias. Anyone who has more information let me know.

Sandy Hook

I’m not really sure what to say about the massacre on Friday except that no one should be shot and killed regardless of age, gender, sex, race, class, sexuality, etc. Yeah, the list can go on and on. A few things did strike me particularly the discussions around mental illness and disbelieve that something like this could happen. I don’t plan on diving into either topic at length.

We should have accessible mental health services for everyone. The End. But everyone with a mental illness doesn’t kill people. Actually the mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violent crime; we see it all the time with the homeless.

Secondly, the idea that something like this shouldn’t have happened here implies that there are places where this is acceptable. I wonder where? Intimate partnerships where one partner plays for the NFL? Poor black communities? Pakistan? This shouldn’t happen anywhere. It shouldn’t be perpetrated by white teenage boys (who may be mentally ill), intimate partners, gangs, or the US military (or CIA).

This is unacceptable behavior. Personally, I think this is the time we address the lack of fire-arm regulations in this country. I think we should also make mental health services available, and take a good hard look at the culture where these acts of violence have become commonplace. That means dismantling masculinity that promotes violence, ceasing violent foreign policy, and perhaps even pulling back the unquestioned funding of military weaponry.

This link takes you to information about Sandy Hook heroes, those who were murdered protecting children.  

And Kristof is back to being just plain wrong. What a relief I was nervous for a second I had crossed over to the dark side.

First Nicholas Kristof begins with an analogy of greedy little kids who don’t like to share because that is wealth redistribution. Ok, I get it, but the image of a little Mittens or Koch brother gives me the creeps. What he eventually gets around to saying is that 1 percent of Americans hoarders the collective worth of the bottom 90 percent. This comes from the Economic Policy Institute.

He then provides some examples:

“The six heirs of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, own as much wealth as the bottom 100 million Americans.”“In 2010, 93 percent of the gain in national income went to the top 1 percent.”“American’s Gini coefficient, the classic measure of inequality, set a modern record last month—the highest since the Great Depression.”

Kristof then discusses briefly a new book, The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz, which outlines the problems of inequality.

 Kristof advocates not a redistribution of wealth, which I guess is where we’re supposed to stop thinking about the kids from his analogy earlier. He argues:

“As I see it, the best way to create a more equitable society wouldn’t be Robin Hood-style redistribution, but focus on inner-city and rural education—including early childhood programs—and job training. That approach would expand opportunity, even up the starting line, and chip away at cycles of poverty. If the cost means forcing tycoons to pay modestly higher taxes, so be it. The economy wouldn’t suffer.”

Let’s unpack this using his analogy, greedy children should have to give up marginally more than before, let’s say what I pay in taxes 28% of the hoard, which is then given to the other children in form of “training” which we can assume is a reward system for good behavior instead of just providing it directly to all the kids. The only kids who deserve toys and the like are children who participate and excel in the programs we develop for them…of course this would be provided through non-union teachers because we all know how Kristof loves them.

Ok, so yeah, I hate bad and false analogies, but if you’re going to use one make sure it holds up. My argument would be not only to tax the wealthy and fund more training programs including early education, but to also increase TANF specifically Cash Assistance, Food Stamps, and subsidies to childcare costs while relaxing work requirements. Note, I didn’t say do away with work requirements, but relaxing them and allowing each jurisdiction to decide what works within that jurisdiction.

Kristof discusses the changes in tax rates between the 1950s and the 1980s through the present. To be honest tax rates aren’t my area of expertise, but we’re in the same place on taxing the wealthy.

Finally, he gets around to corporate welfare, which I can hear his tone in my head when he says the word “welfare” and kind of want to punch him in the face. Essentially, Kristof argues that corporate welfare needs to end or at least be modified so they pay into the system they exploit and benefit from.

The real differences here will be if we ever tax the wealthy how we use that money. Personally, I think society would benefit if people had direct access to it or in the very least could obtain it without having to fulfill some program that may or may not be useful for them. I think of job training programs paid for by the TANF block grant and how ineffective some of those are or the way much like public education recipients are tracked into specific careers, which usually provides a source of cheap labor for corporations…those same ones on corporate welfare.

This should be an interesting semester

A classmate of mine told me to take a look at the "rate your professor" comments for this teacher I have for linguistics. Here are some highlights:

has no concept of the modern student. very authoritarian. not sharp anymore, has difficulty hearing and remembering things, but is still certain he knows more than you. [this has already proved true after only 2 classes]

following directions on tests will not give you full points. marks off arbitrarily, severely. [excellent, can't wait]

He will sit there and point you out in the middle of class and pick at some useless fact about you excessively just to prove the point that he is a tenure professor and can't be fired. He made it a point to tell the class that he makes people cry. Rude.

Unfair, inconsistent and unclear in his informal and formal assessment of students. Favored the "smart" students and subtly humiliated others through callous remarks.

I'm sure I'll have some great stories. Ugh.