I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Jesus Wants Your Kid's Teacher To Be Broke

It was only a matter of time before one of them tried this:
A Republican State Senator from Alabama claimed this week that keeping teacher salaries low is actually an order from the Christian deity figure, imparted in ancient texts written by Jewish tribesmen thousands of years ago.
Speaking at a prayer breakfast recently, Alabama state Senator Shadrack McGill praised giving pay raises to politicians, saying that it helps to prevent bribery. Then he shifted gears and went in the opposite direction with regards to teachers, arguing against a bill that would increase their salaries.
“Teachers need to make the money that they need to make,” he said, according to Alabama newspaper The Times-Journal. “There needs to be a balance there. If you double what you’re paying education, you know what’s going to happen? I’ve heard the comment many times, ‘Well, the quality of education’s going to go up.’ That’s never proven to happen, guys. 
“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach. To go and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?”
He continued: “And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity. “If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance.”
McGill voted in favor of a 67 percent pay raise for lawmakers in 2007.
Alabama ranks 31st in the nation in average teacher salaries, although the state did see an 11 percent increase in teacher pay from 2007-2009. The state’s Republicans have adopted so-called “right to work” laws that forbid public employees from collectively bargaining for better wages and benefits.
Wow, how hysterically funny! What a rube! Why, no one up here in the smart, sophisticated Northeast would ever say something that obnoxious!

Right?
Our governor just can't understand why, after two years of relentless teacher bashing, broken promises, and slashed salaries, anybody wouldn't want to go into public service:



I think for those people who are feeling discouraged right now, because they're going to have to pay a percentage of their health insurance premium, or they're going to have to pay one or two points more towards a lifetime pension, then I would suggest to you respectfully that those people have completely lost touch with reality, and probably didn't have the passion to begin with.
OK, Christie thankfully left Jesus out of it. But you tell me how what he says here is at all substantially different from this Alabama nutjob.

It isn't. Both are justifications to screw over public workers - specifically teachers - by turning their lack of greed and love of their jobs into rationalizations for shoving them out of the middle class.

And it's just as disgusting to see this mendacity and greed practiced by a man who votes himself a huge pay raise as it is to see it practiced by a man who lives like this:

Chez Christie

Just another dad at his kid's baseball game...

Nice. I suppose if you took all this away, Christie would still be "passionate" about being a corporate tool...

3 comments:

Deb said...

In the Assembly Education Committee meeting that considered local control (1877) this past week, Republican Assemblyman Wolfe (District 10) cited how few of the total number of charter school applications were approved in this last round as evidence that there is sufficient screening and vetting in the Commissioner's office and no need for local control. He voted against 1877. Obviously he chose to ignore the Regis fiasco. I would like to suggest that people in his district make sure he knows. He has time before the Assembly votes to reconsider his excuse.

Duke said...

Deb, now we're talking. I think every Republican should be held to account for that vote.

plumwalk2 said...

I worked just as hard once my salary hit $100,000.00 per year as I did when I made $6,700.00 per year with a Master's Degree. I took 27 years and a lot of extra duty for it to reach that mark. There will always be teachers who do less and blame the parents. It is good that they are in the minority. There are things about the educational process that are NOT broken and are rendered mute with all of the 'reforms' being suggested. Teachers are definitely Not being trained as we were back in the day. They DO sometimes think they are baby sitting. Well, in that case, we were babysitting for six thousand dollars a year also. To a politician this may seem as if teachers do less when paid more. What can I say? Politicians quite often miss the mark in their thinking.

Salaries should definitely keep in step with the cost of living. When a loaf of bread was a nickel things were different. I am totally opposed to giving merit pay to teachers or administrators.

We have a candidate for Superintendent that was recently given $10,000.00 in merit pay for raising the AYP of the high school. Problem is that this man was still in his old district when the HSPA was given. The merit pay should have gone to the principal of the high school who did the juggling of Highly Qualified Staff that made the difference in the scores.

Who determines merit pay? It goes right back to the age old problem of favoritism and cheating. That, after all was cheating. It could also be classified as stealing.