05.04.06

Teachers Stand With Support Staff

Posted in Commentary, Election 2006, The Lege at 3:55 pm by wcnews

There’s always a lot of talk about how underpaid teachers are, and rightfully so. But I bet almost everyone knows that as little as the teachers are paid the public school support staff – teachers’ aides, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries and school cafeteria workers – are paid even less.

For the Republican leadership and it’s anti-public school agenda, this is nothing different then what it’s trying to do with the “65% Rule”, divide and conquer. With the “65% Rule” it’s more money into the classroom, which infers more money for teachers, depending on which definition they’re using this week, and infers less money outside the classroom, which includes not only the support staff but also administrators. Pitting teachers against their staff and administrators in hope of busting the teacher’s unions.

This latest attempt at divide and conquer is even more “in-your-face” and egregious than the “65% Rule”. They will cut the stipend for school staff and give that money to teachers as part of a $2,000 across the board, annual pay raise for teachers. The driving force behind this in Sen. Florence Shapiro, R – Plano, Teacher pay raise comes at others’ expense:

“We’ve taken a position against the bill because the pay raise is partially funded by eliminating the health insurance supplement for all other employees,” Lonnie Hollingsworth of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association (TCTA) said.

Teacher groups say that pay raise comes on the backs of teacher aides, bus drivers and school cafeteria workers because it cuts their health insurance stipends after 2007.

But Shapiro said the teacher groups run the risk of ending up with nothing. “That’s almost like saying, ‘I need a loaf of bread, but I don’t want half a loaf, so give me nothing instead,’” she said.

Shapiro’s said her finance committee colleagues are turned off by teachers’ apparent lack of appreciation over the pay raise. Hollingsworth, however, said educators do appreciate the move to add the pay raise, but they also rely on their support staff.

What the TCTA and the other teachers groups are doing is perfect. The only way they are going to defeat this is by sticking together and fighting for one another.

Now that the Republican leadership feels they have taken care of their main issues they are ready to use any scraps leftover for a teacher pay raise. Since they’ve decided they have a few dollars leftover and can screw the public school support staff out of some money, and create a divide between them and the teachers, it’s worth it to give the teachers a raise. Of course the teachers aren’t playing along and Sen. Shapiro and her finance committee colleagues are “turned off’ at the ungrateful attitude of the teachers for this too little, too late offer.

This type of game playing by the Republican leadership shows their total disrespect for ALL public school employees in this state. In a government what it spends money on reflects what is important to those running that government. It’s quite apparent with this crew that it’s not teachers, schools, or the least among us. What’s the last piece of legislation that came through this legislature that benefited the powerless over the powerful? Or just working people?

The teachers are left with two choices and neither is a good one. Accept these scraps and leftovers for a teacher pay raise, let the Republican leadership claim victory and use it to get reelected this Fall, all the while knowing that it was a bad agreement and part of accepting this agreement was taking money away from people you work with every day. The other is to turn down a much needed raise, no matter how meager, which I know is not an easy thing to do. But hopefully not just turning it down but using it as a rallying point for the elections this fall and changing the leadership in this state. “If not now, when?”

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