Try, and you might get what you need: Schoolteachers, linebackers, and strikes
Who is more important to you as a parent or grandparent? Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh Steelers safety renowned for a mane so spectacular his endorsements include a shampoo? Or the local second grade schoolteacher? It’s a no-brainer – unless, of course, you’re related to Troy.
I ask the question because here in the northeast corner of Addison County, Vermont, schoolteachers are set to strike this Wednesday. Meanwhile, at some point today as we are watching the Super Bowl pre-game, post-game, or perhaps even the game itself – in the midst of our annual orgy of chips and dips and guac – we will hear someone on television murmur the letters, “CBA.” The letters do not stand for “Concussions But Awesome,” the NFL’s current stance on head injuries. They refer to the National Football League’s collective bargaining agreement. If there is not a new CBA by early March, there is likely to be a lockout.
The issues affecting the NFL and teachers are different in detail and scope. The teachers’ union is focused on salary, salary schedule, and how much of their health insurance they must pay; the players’ union is focused on revenue, salaries, retirement benefits, and the length of the season – whether to risk brain damage or quadriplegia 16 times a year (the current season) or 18 (what the owners want). There is more money and glamour with the NFL: TV is involved.
Nevertheless, it is worth nothing that a schoolteacher in this corner of the county could toil for 25 years and not earn what a rookie wide receiver is likely to make months out of college. And while there are still folks who believe teachers are overpaid and lead a pretty cushy life (summers off!), I think teachers are underpaid. After all, we trust them with our children’s care for seven hours a day, and our political leaders remind us frequently that if our nation has any chance at all of not becoming the next failed Roman Empire, we need the next generations to be really smart. That’s a lot of responsibility. And even people who believe passionately that teachers are overpaid have to admit: No one goes into teaching to get rich.
Of course, schoolteachers can work into their sixties; a running back’s career is over by 35 and he’ll have cranky knees and a balky hip forever. And an NFL football game is a lot more fun to watch than an AP calculus class. I confess, I have a man cave with a TV and between September and the Super Bowl, I watch a lot of football. Moreover, the players in the NFL are the 1,600 people best in the world at what they do.
But I never lose sight of this reality: A person like Alice Leeds – my daughter’s teacher when she was in the fifth and sixth at the Lincoln Community School, and one of the negotiating teachers – has a profound effect on my family’s life, while people like Eli Manning, quarterback of my beloved Giants, do not. Leeds won the 2010 Governor’s Heritage Teaching Award, and you have not seen Shakespeare until you have seen the bard performed by her 10 and 11-year-old students on a platform in the small school’s multipurpose room.
My sense is that a teachers’ strike will be dispiriting for everyone. I have not always agreed with my daughter’s teachers, but I have never questioned their commitment to the classroom.
Yesterday, the NFL and the players’ union met. The two sides talked.
Heather Parkhurst, a math teacher at Mount Abraham Union High School and chief negotiator for the teachers, says her group is committed to talking. “Let’s stay at the table until the work is done,” she says. “It’s emotional and tough, but it’s a process.”
My advice here in Addison County? Keep talking. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards don’t belong in a diplomatic corps anywhere – even if Mick has been knighted and Keith published a great memoir – but they got it right when they wrote, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”
Keep trying.
Now, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. Pass the chips, please.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on Sunday, February 6, 2011.)
I ask the question because here in the northeast corner of Addison County, Vermont, schoolteachers are set to strike this Wednesday. Meanwhile, at some point today as we are watching the Super Bowl pre-game, post-game, or perhaps even the game itself – in the midst of our annual orgy of chips and dips and guac – we will hear someone on television murmur the letters, “CBA.” The letters do not stand for “Concussions But Awesome,” the NFL’s current stance on head injuries. They refer to the National Football League’s collective bargaining agreement. If there is not a new CBA by early March, there is likely to be a lockout.
The issues affecting the NFL and teachers are different in detail and scope. The teachers’ union is focused on salary, salary schedule, and how much of their health insurance they must pay; the players’ union is focused on revenue, salaries, retirement benefits, and the length of the season – whether to risk brain damage or quadriplegia 16 times a year (the current season) or 18 (what the owners want). There is more money and glamour with the NFL: TV is involved.
Nevertheless, it is worth nothing that a schoolteacher in this corner of the county could toil for 25 years and not earn what a rookie wide receiver is likely to make months out of college. And while there are still folks who believe teachers are overpaid and lead a pretty cushy life (summers off!), I think teachers are underpaid. After all, we trust them with our children’s care for seven hours a day, and our political leaders remind us frequently that if our nation has any chance at all of not becoming the next failed Roman Empire, we need the next generations to be really smart. That’s a lot of responsibility. And even people who believe passionately that teachers are overpaid have to admit: No one goes into teaching to get rich.
Of course, schoolteachers can work into their sixties; a running back’s career is over by 35 and he’ll have cranky knees and a balky hip forever. And an NFL football game is a lot more fun to watch than an AP calculus class. I confess, I have a man cave with a TV and between September and the Super Bowl, I watch a lot of football. Moreover, the players in the NFL are the 1,600 people best in the world at what they do.
But I never lose sight of this reality: A person like Alice Leeds – my daughter’s teacher when she was in the fifth and sixth at the Lincoln Community School, and one of the negotiating teachers – has a profound effect on my family’s life, while people like Eli Manning, quarterback of my beloved Giants, do not. Leeds won the 2010 Governor’s Heritage Teaching Award, and you have not seen Shakespeare until you have seen the bard performed by her 10 and 11-year-old students on a platform in the small school’s multipurpose room.
My sense is that a teachers’ strike will be dispiriting for everyone. I have not always agreed with my daughter’s teachers, but I have never questioned their commitment to the classroom.
Yesterday, the NFL and the players’ union met. The two sides talked.
Heather Parkhurst, a math teacher at Mount Abraham Union High School and chief negotiator for the teachers, says her group is committed to talking. “Let’s stay at the table until the work is done,” she says. “It’s emotional and tough, but it’s a process.”
My advice here in Addison County? Keep talking. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards don’t belong in a diplomatic corps anywhere – even if Mick has been knighted and Keith published a great memoir – but they got it right when they wrote, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”
Keep trying.
Now, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. Pass the chips, please.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on Sunday, February 6, 2011.)
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message 1:
by
Cyd
(new)
Feb 06, 2011 08:22AM
The teacher situation is really terrible. President Obama was just saying that they needed to be more respected, better paid, and blah blah. But, here in our little tiny village they have cut our elementary school bugdet by over 300K.
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It is the same in our state. The budgets are getting tighter and the teachers are taking it on the chin. We are at an impass on our negotiations also.
You get what you pay for. Put your money where your mouth is. Stop bashing teachers,and put the responsibility on parents, kids,and on society & it's culture as a whole.State budgets,and federal dollars need to put kids first,and spend those dollars for kids,and their good teachers first,and cut out the other things that aren't needed. Things like high pay for senators, representatives,and many govt agencies that aren't education affiliated. Stop the expensive luncheons in the fancy hotels for those in government.Education should get top billing for a change,and then things will start to change for the better.
I just want to say thank you. As a teacher I am so tired of being trashed by everyone who thinks that because they went to school as a child, they know what a teacher's job entails. My own children were amazed at first when they were small & found me working on lesson plans or adapting materials (I'm a special education teacher) or staying late at school to try to catch up on paperwork. T.S. Eliot's day job for many years was working for a bank and he wrote that working 9 hours day & once monthly on Saturdays as well was far less exhausting than a semester as a college professor. It's easy to talk of the importance of teachers and just as easy to say how none of us are any good.
Thank you Ellie! I have helped in my daughters classes and have so much love and respect for the wonderful jobs our teachers do. It is not an easy job, it requires infinite patience.
It's wonderful to read positive comments-maybe it's partly that there's no forum out there. Obviously the media is only interested in scandal or at least "interesting" bad-mouthing! This has been very refreshing for me!
