Monday, February 28th 2005
All Work and No Pay?
Berkeley School District teachers protest; students rejoice:
Berkeley teachers, demanding a pay raise after two years without one, are refusing to work any more hours than their contract requires, and the impact is being felt throughout the school district.
Kids within the Berkeley Unified School District are not being assigned written homework because teachers won’t grade papers on their own time. A black history event was canceled Friday evening. And parents had to staff a middle-school science fair one recent night.
Power to the people! Down with homework! Something like that…
Redonha Means, the mother of a daughter in the second grade at Emerson, was not pleased, though in general she believes the teachers are underpaid.
“I’m disappointed in the timing,” said Means, vice president of the Emerson Parent Teacher Association. “It is a very significant month for African American students.”
Your daughter is receiving a substandard education in reading, writing, math, science… All you’re worried about is her missing Black History Month?
More details from the Daily Planet:
Flanked by a phalanx of red-armband-wearing teacher representatives from each of the district’s schools, a visibly angry BFT president Barry Fike told district directors and Superintendent Michele Lawrence at this week’s board meeting that beginning next week, teachers would work the exact hours called for in their contracts, but no more.
I wonder if the armband had a hammer and sickle?
In a chant delivered in unison following Fike’s presentation, teachers said the red armbands “show our anger and our passion. We want the contract to be completed so only our passion remains.”
Catchy chant.
The American Thinker has a short opinion piece on the issue. Putting aside the negative impact unions have on the education system, maybe cutting this and cutting that and cutting some more could leave some extra cash for the teachers.
I wonder if the red armbands had a swastika in a circle? LoL my sense of humor is abit off to a point someone tells me its’ rude and politically incorrect. Haha. I have nothing against black history month, it’s made to dedicate things by one people’s contribution to a nation at large, but what I seen is public schools are failing in the fields of reading, writing and arithmetic and other classes: science & history are behind. I noticed public education is underfunded from government budget cuts (state & federal) for years and the reason for cutting public school funds is all the needed money goes to some bullcrap program the state doesn’t need. What I observed in public school officials’ payrolls are much higher than someone working in the fields or McDonalds or Wal-mart. and public school teachers are better off than my own economic situation. I’m not a neo-con or rightist, just a liberal Democrat who feels the time has come to promote better public school funding, not some greedy NEA leader abuse their power by wanting more cash in his fat pockets. +
Comment by Michael — 3/1/2005 @ 3:03 am