First of all I would like to start out by saying I am not a big political idealist, but lately what I am seeing with the union busting in this country is incomprehensible. Yesterday, my family and I were traveling back home and were in Houston International Airport waiting for our flight.
On the big screen TV, CNN was on and the story was how Providence, Rhode Island fired a bunch of teachers. This was the second state in many days (Wisconsin being the first), that wants to cut public employees, now I know there are bad teachers out there. Just like in any job in the world, you have good and bad at pretty much any position, and I know politicians are annoyed with tenure and that you have a job, no matter what within reason (obviously you can't hit a student and use the tenure card and expect to have a job let alone keep your teaching license). But bad teachers didn't become bad over time, they were probably bad to begin with, if their specific district granted them tenure than that is on the district.
Am I saying that bad teachers should not be accountable, absolutely not. If they are a bad teacher, then freeze their pay for the following year, get them better training, meet with them twice a month, go over their lessonplans and ask them what are you trying to do to reach your students, how about helping the bad teachers out and coaching them, show them what you want, don't judge them by test scores, which has now become the norm apparently for judging what a good teacher is and what isn't.
My problem isn't trying to remove the bad teacher, my problem is with the politicians who like to compare their public employees to weathermen (Governor Christie from NJ). I find it hard to believe that you need to cut the salaries if teachers, cops, and firemen who are averaging $50,000-$60,000, when the governor, of some of these states are making $175,000-$200,000. Now I am not a math genius, but if you are making three times as much as your state employees and are saying we need to cut government employees salaries because benefits are too high and costing the state too much money to cover them, than something is very wrong with you.
Last time I checked, most teachers, cops, and firemen do not live in mansions, unlike most governors in this country. The governors were elected by the people, and are supposed to be helping the people especially the families who have a two income household, or a single parent family, not the wealthy. If you are a governor and you are reading this, why not lead by example and you take a pay cut. Mayor Bloomburg of New York City, his salary is $1. The moment you do that, then I will listen to your idea of how to cut jobs and benefits and so on...Till then stop bashing our public employees, they work hard, and they do their best everyday. The police and the firemen put their lives on the line every day. The teachers work with all types of students, motivated and unmotivated and get them to learn. They don't have the luxury to fire them, or not teach them that day. They may only work for 10 months of the year, but they only get paid for 10 months of the year, most of them have to find a second job, like tutoring, and coaching, and a summer job, so they can survive. Most of the firemen, I know all have a second job so they can make ends meet.
The problem as I see it isn't the government employees its the guys at the top of the food chain who want to use the rule of "Do as I say, not as I do." Do me a favor, the next time you walk into your huge office, remember that some public employee, (teacher, policemen, firemen) either taught you or protected you so you could rise to this office that you now hold. I would much rather you say "Thank you," than attacking the people who thought you weren't a waste of their precious time!
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