POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Absolutely.
It is a terrible waste of precious resources to give
teachers the total package they now receive.
Their wages, considering many of them have little more than
a general BA and 9 months at an academically worthless teachers' college, are
extremely high.
The next best job most of them would qualify for is as a
salesperson or clerk, and that is not a sarcasm.
And we only ask them to work for less than 9 months a year,
and those are comprised of short days.
We give them the most ridiculously generous days-off
benefits on the planet. Paid substitutes every time they are off plus, of
course, their own salaries - so each day off costs taxpayers roughly double.
They are also permitted an inordinate number of days off -
24 per short year - and many treat this allowance as almost an additional
vacation time they would be foolish to miss.
"Banking" of sick days, something almost unheard
of in private business, is pure abuse.
Then they get all those "professional development' days
off. They are supposed to be doing worthwhile things on those days, but in
reality they amount to still more vacation.
They, unlike most comparably paid people in industry, are
never expected to work one minute of overtime, at least not without being paid
more.
They are responsible to virtually no one for their skill and
performance levels. After being hired, they are never, never checked out by
anyone. There is no such thing as a meaningful assessment of performance.
And what do we get in return? An undistinguished level of
achievement for our young people which is absolutely not competitive in the
world.
And our children spend roughly half a year in school each
year.
The pay for performance is actually rather disgraceful.
_________________________________________________
"That's why
teachers vote liberal."
It has little to do with Liberals, although McGuinty has
been especially grovelling towards teachers.
Conservatives have no record - none at all - of doing
anything serious about the gross excesses of teachers.
Every politician is afraid of a teachers' strike.
We really need someone ready to take one to pare the
excesses down.
Once we have one, it won't last long, and we can get back to
a real world set of conditions applying to teacher employment.
Teachers would fold in short order when they found they
would not be able to manage this year's holiday in France or the payments on
the BMW.
We desperately need not only budget savings but a new sense
of purpose and urgency to become competitive in our public schools.
