It's NOT a freeze - it's a cut!

Go back to what Bret Schundler, the Ed Commish, told the APP:

Schundler said the savings was calculated by factoring in the average teacher contract settlement of 4.3 percent for all school employees, with a total statewide payroll of $13.2 billion. That back-of-the-envelope savings calculation amounts to about $567.6 million. The school employee contributions to health care would bring the amount to about $765 million.

Translation: we can't get to that $800 million in savings we keep jawing about if EVERYONE who works in a school takes a pay freeze: we can only get about $570 million. The rest comes from deferring computer purchases (no, really, he did say that), and from getting teachers to pay 1.5% of their salaries to their health insurance.

Stop and think (something I always tell my students): If you freeze a teacher's wages, and then you charge her an extra 1.5% for her benefits, will she bring home the same amount of money, or less money?

(Wait time (teacher lingo)...)

LESS money is correct! And that's a cut, right?

So stop calling it a "freeze," Guv - and let's the rest of us stop that as well.

It's a cut. No weasel words change that.