Summer School
You know, the Czar had a couple of other thoughts on the subject of teachers getting “too much time off,” but did not include them in his original essay due to an interesting combination of judicious editing and just plaing forgetting while mid-rant.
Fortunately, Nightfly—long-time reader and heir to St. Lucia (when we take over that part of the world)—put down almost exactly what the Czar forgot to add edited out due to space limitations:
| O dreadfully awesome one: Many of your minions are also educators and/or married to one. My lovely Ladybug doesn’t get three months off. She most certainly does NOT get them paid, either. Her job (like many others) is a ten-month position. Her Board of Ed withholds a portion of her salary through the school year to be disbursed in July and August. Others get paid the full rate and then receive nothing during the summer, so if they go full grasshopper during the year, they’ll starve before the new school year begins. She and her colleagues are only paid if they are actually teaching summer classes. When she goes back in – well ahead of the kids, of course – or does hours of paperwork and curriculum prep in the evening and weekends, that’s all on her time. This highlights another real challenge about school reform: many dedicated teachers catch the flack for problems caused by too much bureaucracy and graft. My wife gets to suffer others’ rants about school spending and Common Core as if she was the one in charge of both, while simultaneously hamstrung by the people actually in charge. Those who spend the public’s money always make sure that any cut is immediately felt in the classroom; this makes the teachers close ranks, joined by most parents, against any sensible budget revision – conveniently protecting the sweet racket the higher-ups have going. My wife already spends hundreds out of pocket, unreimbursed, for basic supplies each year. She begrudges every dime for understandable reasons. And she has to teach in spite of the horrid curricula and largely-pointless testing, because the kids need to learn. One could probably slash the typical education budget by a third without hurting in-class spending or teacher salaries/benefits – in theory. But that is an impossible sell when, in reality, the cut never quite reaches the bloated worms feasting at the expense of the student body. If your body reacted to a diet by trimming bone instead of fat cells, you’d have to keep eating until it killed you. Government education is a lot like that – and that’s why they never ever want parents homeschooling or getting vouchers for voluntary private schools. It cuts out the parasites entirely. If it were about learning it wouldn’t matter; they’d go get honest jobs somewhere else. But you can’t feed off a private enterprise as well or as long: folks leave or you get caught and fired/jailed. Having the State Expert Imprimatur of Expertly Educational Expertness would mean nothing then. So they need to keep the trough filled at any cost. You will notice this applies more broadly, with a few cosmetic changes, to nearly every great governmental society-betterment scheme. It makes one sound (and feel!) quite tiresome, and that’s one more protective trick for the parasites: other people get tired of saying and hearing the truth, so they go along with the scam from sheer weariness. -Nightfly From the Mobile Command Unit |
This is of course entirely correct. In the case of the Czar’s lovely and eternally patient wife, her school district offers teachers an option: receive 24 checks a year (which she took), or receive 18 checks a year plus a larger 19th check. Many choose the latter, treating the larger check as a bonus. It isn’t a bonus: you are being paid the same amount either way. Because our Царица teaches year round, the 24-checks-per-year option is easier to manage.
You know, Wisconsin managed to maintain teachers’ pay while slashing costs significantly. For those not following the story, this is what got Governor Scott Walker in such dire trouble there. All he did was drop the requirement for the State to collect union dues. If the union wanted their money, they needed to collect it their damn selves. Of course, the union was in no position to collect millions upon millions of dollars from every teacher—this basically meant teachers no longer had to pay dues since there was no means of verifying or collecting. It hurt the unions badly—resulting in ongoing protests, recall elections, and attempts on the governor’s life and job—but it saved enough revenue to slash education costs to manageable levels and (ready?) hire more teachers with the savings.
Yes: the union is the biggest waste of money in education, factoring in the quality of the final product.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.