For those who would like to know whats going on with the Philadelphia school district, Im going to break it down for you. The last pay raise for teachers was in January 2012. Thats two yearly raises the School District skipped to save money. A good way to counter this is to get a Masters degree; it includes a substantial raise. Two months prior to finishing my degree in August 2013 the school district cancelled all future salary upgrades based on educational degrees. This also saved the school district money. Last week the school district cancelled teacher contracts in order to impose a pay cut by way of insurance changes and charges. I wont go into details, but for me, this works out to a $73 per week pay cut. If I had kids (which is common for teachers) and if my spouse could get alternative insurance from her own job but didnt (which is also common), the pay cut would amount to $156 a week. Based on a 42-week salary year it comes out to $6,552 a year for families. In addition to this, if teachers of Philadelphia SD strike, they can have their teaching certificate revoked by the State Department of Education. ___________________________________________________ This financial crises is due to two main factors. In the short term: Governor Corbett cut 1 billion in educational funding in PA with Philly getting $250 million taken away. He is a Republican and he ran on the platform of cutting spending like almost all Republicans do. He no doubt fulfilled this promise. I find it entirely irrational to vote for someone based on such a platform without knowing exact specifics, and if the specifics include educational funding then it should be an automatic deal-breaker. There is absolutely no argument to be made that educational funding needs trimmed when the government is currently spending 640 billion dollars on defense every year (tinyurl/mg3gonz). Tom Wolf is promising to bring back this funding, and getting him elected as Governor is the only clear path forward for teachers of Philadelphia. In the long term: Philadelphia SD is a poorer school district. It has wealthy neighborhoods, but they certainly do not outnumber the poor neighborhoods. Because of this, local taxes dont bring in large amounts of money for schools like they do in other districts. Just recently the city started taxing cigarettes an extra $2 to fund the school district. Obviously they should also raise taxes on typewriters and rotary telephones. All three seem like stable tax funding sources as we move into the future. _____________________________________________________ Im glad I still have a job and I still make enough money to live comfortably with my wife. Its not to say there is no injustice to be found in this situation, but its to say teachers arent the most aggrieved party. In my view, the biggest moral blight in this specific situation is that such a combination of elements could only arise in a poor school district. Money distribution is segregated between haves and have-nots even when it comes to a basic fundamental right like education. Many good teachers will inevitably look for work outside of the Philly SD to find a better pay check. They will be replaced by first year teachers whos education program neglected to instruct them on the unique difficulties of urban schools. The whole system suffers as a result, over and over again. At the end of the day, the kids in the schools I work at will continue to go to school whether or not teachers quit for a higher paying job, and whether or not the school is sold off to a for-profit company hoping to turn education into dollar signs. The students will still be there hoping for an education equal to that of the richest suburb, and they deserve it.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:46:29 +0000
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