flASHback: It's never about the money
November 27th, 2009
By David Shapiro
By David Shapiro
There's more drama than learning in local education as we "flASHback" on the week's news that amused and confused:
- The Board of Education and teachers' union question whether $50 million offered by Gov. Linda Lingle is enough to reopen public schools on "furlough Fridays." That's the old "no can do" spirit that made our schools what they are.
- U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is sending an aide to Hawai'i to meet state education leaders and visit schools. If he wants to visit on Friday, it'll cost him $160 million to open the doors.
- Kids from lower-income families may lose out on preschool because of state plans to quadruple costs. They've left behind as many K-12 children as they can, so they're moving down to the nursery schools.
- Lingle attended a Republican governors conference and predicted the party can win every statehouse up for grabs next year. She figures the GOP can trump the Democrats' universal health care with "furlough Fridays" for all.
- Questioning the design and financing of the city's $5.5 billion rail plan, Lingle says she'll slow walk the project through the state's environmental review. Mayor Mufi Hannemann has already commenced his slow burn.
- The homeless in Kapi'olani Park have gotten around the city's ban on nighttime camping by staying on a grass strip between the park and road. Can't we put that creativity to work — like hiring them to solve homelessness?
- A Honolulu police effort to shame DUI suspects by posting their pictures on the Internet started shakily when most Web browsers couldn't see the photos. I hope they made the programmer breathe into a balloon and walk a straight line.
- Big Island police will test giving drivers updates about road conditions by cell phone. Don't fall for that sting. They'll text you the road info and then ticket you for reading messages while driving.
- Hawaiian rights opponents are suing to end property tax discounts for families on Hawaiian Homes lots. I think we can live with a tax break for folks who had to sit on a waiting list for 40 years to get it.
And the quote of the week ...
... from teachers' union chief Wil Okabe on "furlough Friday" talks:
"This is about the quality of education. It's not about money."
Is he sure it's not about insulting our intelligence?
Posted in Volcanic Ash | 4 Comments »
Volcanic Ash
November 27th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Did he really say, "it's about the quality of education?" Funny guy.
Maybe the kids education will improve with fewer teaching days...because they sure aren't getting much out of it when the teachers are there.
November 29th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Dave: I anticipate the Saturday paper because of your column. Here's one for you. What about the housing guy who was living in a low income unit. I guess they put him on leave without pay. I wonder if he now will qualify for the housing. By the way, as former teacher 40 years ago we did not have preparation days. That's what summers were for. If we went to school to take classes we got more pay. Now furlough Friday is just another day off. Now doubt that teachers are underpaid but when you look at the cut in pay for the days off it's not so bad. I bet there is not much motivation for the teachers to want to come back for a 5% restoration of pay and working full time for a change.
I guess I am just old fashion. If a teacher couldn't control the kids they were fired. But you had the tools. "In the old days" if the kids didn't do the work they repeated the grade. It was a great motivation to at least do the work. Teachers were respected and if you showed disrespect, skipped school, got into a fight, you had to spend time in for detention after school. If you didn't you either didn't pass to the next grade or graduate. Now you have to check with "legal" before you disclipine a kid. God forbid that a kid is sent home and it incoviences the parents.
Anyway keep on writing and poking at those who need a reality check.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Steve's post was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, HSTA made sure that responsibility, accountability and similar virtues are explicitly excluded form the Collective Barg. Agreement.
I take an issue with teachers being underpaid. Study after study proves otherwise. Here is the quatation from the study by Jay Green and Markus Winters. Please note that since 2002 these numbers becane even more lopsided - Bureau of Labor statistics pegs teacher's pay to over $36 per hour:
"Like other education myths, this seemingly plausible argument does not stand up to close scrutiny. Teacher pay, computed on an hourly basis, is not all that meager. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average elementary-school teacher in 2002 made $30.75 per hour. That is considerably more than other public servants, such as firefighters ($17.91) and police officers ($22.64). It is even more than highly skilled professionals, such as biologists ($28.07), mechanical engineers ($29.76), and chemists ($30.68), and just shy of computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51), and nuclear engineers ($36.16).
Not only do teachers reap benefits like shorter days and longer vacations, but these hourly rates do not include health and retirement benefits, which tend to be higher for public employees than for those in the private sector. Admittedly, these rates do not count hours worked at home, but there is no reason to believe that teachers bring home significantly more work than do other professionals."
Teachers are groosly overpaid especially if one considers the product - the dismal education our keikis are getting from the vaunted HSTA.
The current crisis shall be solved by making teachers to teach full school year for the same pay. This will be a reduction in pay but it is only fair in the time of recession where all private sector workers are out of work or have their pay reduced substantially. (My wife's salary was cut by 20%).
HSTA remains something akin to an organized crime syndicate - destroying the lives of our children in return for huge financial gains bourne of the unholy alliance with the Democrat party.
November 29th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Steve, that's a good one on the housing guy. I'm not above stealing it, with all due credit of course.