Teachers’ Union Responds

Kudos to the Daily News for publishing this letter.  Here’s a snippet.  

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The West Bend Education Association sent this letter to members on March 3, in response to the letter West Bend School Board members sent to teachers Feb. 26.)

   Dear West Bend Education Association Member: Recently, you received a letter from the West Bend School Board blaming the teachers and the state for the district’s budget problems. Our organization of professionals sees things differently. Teachers, who stand at the front of the district’s classrooms, will not quietly stand by and let quality education suffer as short-sighted solutions are offered up for long-term problems. The root cause of West Bend’s funding troubles is Wisconsin’s outdated school funding system, not teachers.

   Here is an overview of where we stand:

   After parents, teachers have the greatest impact on student learning - an impact that benefits the whole community. We take pride in our work, and this pride shows in our students’ performance on ACT exams, Advanced Placement tests and in our high student graduation rate. The West Bend economy depends on excellent schools and staff. It attracts and retains businesses and families to our community. To keep pace with surrounding school districts like Cedarburg, Germantown and Slinger, West Bend must continue to attract and retain the best teachers, and part of that requires offering competitive compensation packages.

In other words, “FU taxpayers, gimmie gimmie gimmie.” 

I would love to have an experiment with this.  If we cut teacher pay by 10%, what would be the effect?  In a community with 12%+ unemployment, would they seriously leave?  If they did, would it be difficult filling their positions with comparable talent?  I’d say “no” to both questions. 

Again, I put the onus on the actual teachers.  If the union speaks for you, then fine.  If not, then you need to speak up because YOUR union is forcing a crisis that will result in some of you losing your jobs and all of you being viewed as leeches.

While the union wants to whine about the funding formula, the reality is that it won’t change before this contract is written.  You have to play the hand you’re dealt.  The money has to come from somewhere.  Teachers have a choice to insist on an increase, which with result in unemployed teachers, deferred maintenance, programming cuts, or worse, or do what they said they would do in the Fall and accept the circumstances of our economic climate.  For those who shouted last year that a tax increase would deprive me of a latte a week, it’s time for the teachers to show that they actually care about the kids and are willing to make the same trivial sacrifice.