Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
By Paul Takahashi (contact) 
Friday, Aug. 24, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Dwight Jones, the Clark County School Superintendent, is photographed in his office Thursday, January 20, 2011.
Related stories
- School District resists health trust’s attempt to pull more money from teachers’ paychecks (8-23-2012)
- Teachers union rejects three-day furlough concession (8-21-2012)
- Recent rulings in teacher salary disputes put arbitration on Legislature’s radar screen (5-13-2012)
- With arbitration ruling, teachers union wins battle but comes out a loser (5-4-2012)
- With pink slips looming, arbitration victory is bittersweet for teachers union (5-2-2012)
Sun coverage
Strained contract negotiations between the financially beleaguered Clark County School District and the teachers union may end up in court, with management saying union leadership is bargaining in bad faith because of its unbending demands.
In June, the district declared an impasse in negotiations, sending the contract matter into arbitration. The district and union are now choosing an arbitrator who will decide between the their proposals for concessions.
Just like last year, the cash-strapped district wants teachers to agree to a one-year salary freeze to help erase a $64 million deficit, and the union is fighting to preserve teachers’ annual pay raises.
“I can’t pay for raises that I can’t afford,” Clark County Schools Superintendent Dwight Jones said, adding that the district has cut more than $500 million since the recession. “I don’t know how much more we can cut.”
Part of those cuts included the elimination of more than 1,000 teaching positions this summer, including 419 actual teachers in the classroom. The other 600 scrapped positions were unfilled.
After four months of negotiations, the district and the union in late July zeroed in on how to bring back those 419 laid-off teachers. The district said it needed $22 million in concessions from the union, which the union said could be achieved through mandatory unpaid time off versus an across-the-board pay freeze for a year.
The district asked for four furlough days and the union pushed for two before settling on three furlough days.
The union agreed to deliver the proposal to its members at its back-to-school meeting on Monday, according to Jones and district negotiator Edward Goldman. The meeting was closed to the media.
In an email to the district this month, the union’s executive director and chief negotiator, John Vellardita, said the union would neither recommend nor oppose the deal to teachers — but said the negotiation committee reserved the right to comment on it.
District officials — pointing to a Las Vegas Review-Journal account of the meeting — said that’s not what happened. Vellardita reportedly told union members to vote against the furloughs, Goldman said.
Meeting attendees — who included union and non-union members — “overwhelmingly” rejected the proposal, according to a union news release sent Monday night. The exact vote was not revealed.
Top district leaders were floored. Months of back-and-forth negotiations went down the drain and Vellardita went back on his word, Goldman said.
“You negotiate with these particular union bosses, and it’s all for naught,” Goldman said. “It’s frustrating.”
The School District may file a bad-faith bargaining lawsuit against the union with the state’s Employee Management Relations Board, Goldman said.
Vellardita said his comments against the furlough came after 40 teachers made their public comments about the proposal. All 40 teachers were against it, he said, adding it illustrated how his members were planning to vote.
Besides, Vellardita said, the furlough proposal no longer makes sense because the School District has invited back all 419 laid-off teachers, to fill vacancies in the district created by more retirements and resignations than the district anticipated. As a result, there is no longer a need for teachers to make contract concessions, Vellardita said.
But Jones points out that while the 419 laid-off teachers are being rehired, they are not filling their old jobs. With the loss of 1,000 positions that will still be unfilled, the average class size when school opens next week will increase by three students, Jones said.
If the teachers were to agree to the furlough days — or accept a pay freeze for one year — some of the 1,000 trimmed teaching jobs could be filled and class sizes could be lowered, Jones said. (The district's other three major unions have accepted two-year pay freezes.)
“Kids deserve better,” Jones said. “If we don’t solve this (contract) problem, then the kids suffer.”
My pay has been frozen for the last two years and it looks like it will be froze again this year. All I can say is at least I still have a job.
Dwight Jones ought to step down...
Has there ever been a more feckless, ineffectual 'leader' than he?
"the kids will suffer"...
With all due respect, sir...'the children' will suffer not from the district acting honorably and using available funds to pay the teachers and/or working out a REASONABLE compromise.
What the district & Jones REALLY mean;
'We have other priorities for our dollars than paying teachers. We've earmarked that money for other things. We have our hearts set on it, and these teachers just won't listen. Such greed! Please; it's FOR THE CHILDREN!"
The manner in which Jones has handled negotiations publicly, pitting the district against the 'evil union', has been farcical, inept & clumsy.
CCSD & Jones are playing A SHELL GAME WITH MONEY.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl...
this is school district that bought all teacher IPAD last year wtf
This proves once for all to see that teachers unions don't give a damn about education. Money is above all else.
Republicans should never agree to one penny in new taxes unless there is significant REAL government union reform.
CCSD continues to advertise for and hire new teachers. We have five vacancies. Three are filled by long term subs with no teaching backgrounds. How is that good for our students?
I have received CCSD recruiting ads since last May from national recruiting agencies. When will the Sun get the real story? Do a little work and check it out. We now have a shortage of qualified teachers and students will suffer.
I was at the union meeting on Monday. The proposal from CCSD offered us one thing and one thing only -- the rehiring of those teachers who were laid off earlier in the summer. Everything else was a concession on our part. Why would we agree to a proposal that was offering to hire back teachers IN EXCHANGE for monetary concessions when the District had ALREADY hired back those teachers who were laid off? Where did CCSD find the money to hire back those teachers absent our concessions? Jones cited poverty last year, cried wolf, threatened lay-offs, and CCEA conducted a forensic audit of District money that showed they HAD THE MONEY to pay teachers. Our case was then vindicated before an independent judge. We have seen this movie before. It's Groundhog's Day and teachers are Bill Murray.
Perry you are a liar. The district did not buy all teachers ipads last year because if they did my wife would have one. When I see flat out lies like that it just shows that is all union supporters do.
I guess I'm confused . . . they have no where to cut? Perhaps they can stop all those out of town trips? The admin seems to do a lot of traveling - maybe they can use technology? In just the pieces of the budget I can see - there are many budget items that are not directly helping students - let's work on that first. No more extra special admin expenses. It's hard to convince people you need money - when you publicly seem to be spending so much.
I guess I'm even more confused . . . because 400 teachers including my friends were called back to work PLUS 350 teachers were NEWLY hired. That seems like a lot for the district to hire, just such a SHORT time after they were demanding concessions because of layoffs. One day we will never make the budget - the next day we rehire/hire 750 teachers? How can that be?
Am I the only one that seems to be thinking - someone keeps calling WOLF. But there is no WOLF.
I want to believe they have my best interest in mind - but what they are actually DOING is screaming so loud, I can't hear what they say. People are figuring out this cruel game. Teachers want to be treated fairly.
Please let's get back to making plans and connections to create a more balanced revenue funding for Clark County Schools. CCSD could be a force in asking for an adjustment in the funding disparity in this state - the Nevada Plan - which unfairly pays more to every other district in this state. Vegas is shorted financially in every way by the Nevada Plan. This will help everyone in the district - instead of being so focused on union-busting tactics - which help a few . . . but it will NEVER help teachers or students.
Go for it CCSD. Salary freeze is NOT ENOUGH. We must have CUTS IN COMPENSATION. Absolutely ridiculous that average teacher comp is $74K and maxes out about $96K for 7-hour days, 184 days versus the real world of 8-10 hour days, for 245 days. 50th in results but 24th in pay? TIME FOR CHANGE.
Angie, the "Nevada plan" has long been complimented by the feds and national media as excellent. Further, if we took total dsa divided by all students state-wide, CCSD portion would go up maybe $3-$5 a student. It's not worth the media hype you're trying to generate. Courts have long held that the State has an obligation to rural areas--even to the point of building their schools--so you really don't want to go there. A legal settlement would probably result in LESS funding for CCSD so a few million could be pulled out of dsa for replacing school buildings that are more than 80 YEARS OLD.
Hey Teach. CAN you read the writing on the wall? You might use some un-common sense and try to establish civil communications with taxpayers, parents, administrators. We will decide your future, like it or not. Intimidation and bullying have you painted into corners.
cnev: CCSD is looking for GOOD teachers in science, math, learning disabled, probably a few for advanced placement classes. Clearly the "average" teacher won't do. And perhaps CCSD administrators know that some of the new teachers are not going to be offered renewal. We need GOOD teachers with some versatility and ability, and we need teachers who want to teach, not those who want to foment anarchy. Compliments to the dedicated teachers who DO THEIR JOB and EARN their pay.
Roslenda...
Nobody is paying any attention.
Jones,the CCSD Trustess,administration,and the bleached out lying harpy Amada Fulkerson have been caught in so many lies they no longer have any credibility. The fiasco of last year which was nothing more than out and out lies by all of them is enough proof to have them all removed for not only serious character flaws but incompetency.
With Nevada ranked last in education in America and CCSD ranked behing Guam it is time for tax payers,parents and concerned citizens to literally throw these self serving bumbs out of the building.
This is nothing more than a play ground for these arbitrary and ruthless old women with nothing else to do but intimidate and harass parents,students and teachers. When is the last time these over paid jack asses took a pay cut? They are so unpofesional that they show up to meetings looking like they have been a two day drunks or they are going to a fish fry and jazz concert, only to bully people. Every superintendent including Jones has used this job as a stepping stone to some other job that enriched them financially more while not giving a damn about CCSD.
According to the current CCSD phone book, these are the people who work in the Superintendent's Office. The pay data, which include benefits, came from Transparent Nevada.
Superintendent, Dwight Jones, $396,202.83
Secretary to the Superintendent, Elizabeth Carrero, $143,720.44($44,487.44 overtime/callback pay)
Administrative Secretary III, Joyce Pistone, $88,633.98($1,733.58 in overtime/callback pay)
Administrative Secretary II, Debbie Eloi,$98,583.43
($17,736.94 in overtime/callback pay)
Administrative Secretary I, Carmen West, $75,587.00
($3,238.80 in overtime/callback pay)
Secretary III, Pamela Banaszynski, $61,262.93($427.55 in overtime/callback pay)
The total for these 6 people is 863,990.61, including $67,624.31 in overtime and callback pay.
The pay and benefits for a teacher with a bachelor's degree and maximum experience is $57,563. For a teacher with a master's degree and maximum experience the pay and benefits total $71,919.
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl............
This is a link to the CCSD phone book.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou............
This is a link to the Teacher's pay scales.
http://ccsd.net/employees/resources/pdf/............
According to the CCSD school phone book, there are currently 310 principals listed, 342 assistant principals, and 131 deans. This is a link to that phone book.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou............
According to NPRI in Transparent Nevada, the total salary and benefits for those people in 2011, the last year data is available is $90,603,092.43. That averages out to $115,712.76 per person.
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl............
There are approximately 38000 employees for CCSD. Those 783 school administrators make up less than 2% of the employees. Based on the projected budget for 2012-2013 of 1.7 Billion, the 2011 salaries make up approximately 5.3% of the personnel budget.
The CCSD website has two phone directories on line. One is a school directory and the other is a directory of the administrative offices in CCSD.
This is a link to the administrative phone book.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou............
This is a link to the school phone directory.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou............
The first directory that I looked at was the administrative directory. The first thing that I did was to eliminate duplicate names that appeared in more than one listing in the directory. After I did that, I had a listing of approximately 2072 names. In the listing, I then looked at positions with titles such as Director, Coordinator, Facilitator, Academic or Program Manager, Principal, Assistant Principal, Dean, or Regional Trainer, as well as Superintendent, Deputy/Associate/Assistant Superintendent. There are 595 positions with those titles. That is approximately 28.7 % of the names on the list. That doesn't include positions listed as supervisors, mentors, or other non-academic positions. The administrative listing makes up approximately 5.46% of the 38,000 CCSD employees.
To put that number in perspective, if you add the number of elementary school assistant principals, the number of middle school administrators (principals, assistant principals, deans) and high school administrators (principals, assistant principals, and deans) the total is 572. The administrative phone directory shows 495 names with the titles Director, Coordinator, or Facilitator. That is 95 names more than the total number of middle school and high school administrators (principals, assistant principals, and deans). If you just look at the number of directors and coordinators, the total is 337. The total number of administrators (principals, assistant principals, and deans) in high schools is 209. To reach that total of 337, you would also need to include the assistant principals and deans in middle schools. If you included those numbers, the total would be 342, or slightly more than the number of directors and coordinators. If you wanted to, you could do a one for one replacement of for the existing staff. I would suspect that the personnel costs of the people listed in the administrative directory is the same, if not higher than the names in the school directory. The duties and responsibilities of school based administrators are understood, but what are the duties and responsibilities of those directors, coordinators, and facilitators listed in the administrative phone book?
There are two phone books listed on the CCSD website. The first is the administrative phone book. . After you remove the duplicate names, there are 2072 people listed with a total salary and benefits for 2011 of over 170 MILLION. That is 10% of the projected budget for 2012-2013 school year. Not one name in the list is a teacher.
The second phone book is the school directory. It lists the principals, assistant principals, deans and office managers for every school. There are 1096 names on that list with a salary and benefits package for 2011 of 110 MILLION. CCSD spends over 16% of the 2012-2013 personnel budget on less than 8% of the employees.
If you total the number of directors and coordinators in the administrative phone book, you can replace every high school principal, assistant principal, and dean as well as every middle school assistant principals and dean. Yes, there are almost 350 with the title of director or coordinate that do NOT deal with students.
If you total all of the administrative personnel in both phone books, you get a teacher to administrator ratio of just over 13 to 1 for CCSD.
Using the current telephone book for CCSD and the Transparent Nevada salary information for CCSD for 2011, I found the salaries and benefits paid for the following people in the CCSD Communications Office.
Chief Communications Officer, Amanda Fulkerson, 51,209 (she was only employed for part of 2011)(Salary is 130,632.00 WITHOUT BENEFITS)
Director, Cynthia Sell 123,290.99
Coordinator III, Michael T. Rodriguez, 103,033.75
Public Information Specialist, David Roddy, 98,481.06
Public Information Specialist, Dave Sheehan, 104,389.96
Public Information Specialist, Penny Ramos-Bennett, 70,332.10
Public Information Specialist, Melinda Malone, no information available, probably not hired until 2012
Communications Assistant, Anthony Springer, no information available, probably not hired until 2012
Photographer, Michele Nelson, 69,928.21
Graphic Artist II, position vacant
Office Supervisor, Loreasa Nary, 55,262.63
Secretary III, Jacquelyn Robinson, 64,009.61
Office Specialist II, Keely Brown, 61,177.34
Total cost for pay and benefits for 2011 is $696,724.99 with three positions with salary data not available. I would guess that the salary range from positions not listed is similar to the other positions.
Just as a comparision, a teacher with a bachelors degree and maximum experience makes 57,563 including pay and benefits. A teacher with a masters degree and maximum experience makes 71,919 including pay and benefits.
This is a link to the CCSD phone book.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou............
This is a link to the teacher salary schedule.
http://ccsd.net/employees/resources/pdf/............
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl............
@Roslenda. DSA funds can't be used for construction by state law. Construction projects for school districts must be funded by Construction Funds.
According to Transparent Nevada, there are 174 people in CCSD in 2011 who had the title administrative Secretary. Of those 174, 151 made more in total salary and benefits than a teacher with a bachelor's degree and maximum experience who earned $57563. There are 62 names that made more than a teacher with a masters degree and maximum experience. That amount is $71919.
This is a link to the listing in Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/se...
Of the 174 people who have the title of administrative secretary, 166 of them had a higher base salary than a 1st year teacher with a bachelores degree. For that teacher, the base salary is $34,688. 151 administrative secretaries had a higher base salary than a 1st year teacher with a masters degree who had a base salary of $40,282. The base salary of a teacher with a masters degree and maximum experience is $51,985. There are 52 administrative secretaries whose base salary is higher than that amount.
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/se...
This is link to the current CCSD salary schedule for teachers.
http://www.ccsd.net/employees/resources/...
@Roslenda. Please share your definition of a "good" teacher. How do you define an "average" teacher?
The demands by the Teachers Union is the primary reason I am voting against the special property tax that CCSD wants for what they say is maintenance and repair of facilities, plus building two new schools. The problem is, I doubt the money would ever go for the intended purpose as it would be diverted to the general fund to pay teachers and raises. The CCSD has used the past money for maintenance for everything but maintenance it appears. No planning, just passing out raises, etc. The Taxpayers need some sort of guarantee that new taxes won't go to salaries and benefits. No Arbatrator should be able to take the property tax money for maintenance or money from the State's allocated funds for maintenance and use it for pay and benefits.
The legislature needs to require that all contracts with the unions be released to the public. Since these contracts are authorizing the expenditure of public funds, we the public should be able to review the contracts so we can advise our elected officials to our opinions.
Until the public is able to comment on the contracts before the elected officials vote on them, I can not support any increase in funding for any form of Government.
Itsumo, you are spot on. New taxes will only go to pensions, as stated in this Bloomberg piece. The NVPers website states that its pensions are based on an assumed Ponzi 8% annual growth in the PERS pension fund--even Spanish and Greek bonds and some junk bond funds like the Fidelity High Income fund (SPHIX) only pay 7%. Tanker, you should be concerned about what's going on in Calif. After the bankruptcies in Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino, Warren Buffett dumped a lot of his municipal bond holdings--and it is going to be harder for any city to issue bonds to borrow money to pay salaries and pensions. They will have to pay high interest rates on their bonds and the bond insurance companies will charge them a lot more to insure their bonds.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-23...
Building funds cannot be "diverted". Ask Mr. Jones- don't use you anti-union sentiment to avoid doing the right thing. Get the facts.
Roselinda- You are guessing. Go to some of the national teacher recruiting websites. CCSD is recruiting teachers for ALL levels.
Why won't they answer my question? What is it that teachers spend thousands of thousands of dollars for in the class room? The kids don't get any of it--no pencils or paper handed out.... Must be just another hype by those teachers who think they are still the center of the universe.
Mark and Army: so glad to see some other rational posts here. Cnev: Perhaps CCSD is facing reality, unlike many teachers, and PREPARING for a LOCKOUT.
Roslenda,
Yes, please tell my wife who has been putting in 60 hours a week working on ActiveInspire lessons for her students how she "only" has to work 184 days. I would love for her to NOT be so dedicated to teaching that she feels she lets the students down if her lessons/presentations are "good enough for Donald Trump's boardroom".
Last year, she did the same thing only to be told at the last minute that she was teaching a different subject. That wasn't a big deal, right? She had nothing better to do.
Please tell her what an easy job she has when one of her students has to drag his sibling under the bed to keep them both safe from the father when he's killing their mother. Tell her that she doesn't have to do anything beyond "seven hour days".
Tell her when she's been at school today since 6:15am and is now stuck in traffic at 5:37pm so we miss dinner together tonight...again.
PLEASE TELL HER SHE ONLY HAS TO WORK SEVEN HOURS A DAY. Please tell her how things are in the "real" world where you only have to work eight hours every day.
Please tell her how she should be compensated less than the SECRETARY for the Superintendent for her cushy job. Let her know how all of those extra training days she does to renew her license are just something she wants to do instead of spending time with family and friends. Tell her how she didn't HAVE to be certified as "highly qualified".
I would love to hear the conversation.
Thank God she is only seven years away from retiring so we can get out of this place where teachers are demonized by administrators who make six figures a year.
Comment posted by Tanker 1975 reveals that, "There are two phone books listed on the CCSD website. The first is the administrative phone book. . After you remove the duplicate names, there are 2072 people listed with a total salary and benefits for 2011 of over 170 MILLION. That is 10% of the projected budget for 2012-2013 school year. Not one name in the list is a teacher.
The second phone book is the school directory. It lists the principals, assistant principals, deans and office managers for every school. There are 1096 names on that list with a salary and benefits package for 2011 of 110 MILLION. CCSD spends over 16% of the 2012-2013 personnel budget on less than 8% of the employees.
If you total the number of directors and coordinators in the administrative phone book, you can replace every high school principal, assistant principal, and dean as well as every middle school assistant principals and dean. Yes, there are almost 350 with the title of director or coordinate that do NOT deal with students.
If you total all of the administrative personnel in both phone books, you get a teacher to administrator ratio of just over 13 to 1 for CCSD."
Tanker 1975 is dealing with straight facts, for what they are.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
@itsumo. The arbitrator found exactly the opposite in his decision. CCSD was taking operating fund monies and using them for expenses that should have been paid for by bond funds. Any decisions to divert that proposed bond money would be MADE BY THE TRUSTEES, not by the union. CCEA has no say in how the board of trustees allocate CCSD money.
@Roslenda. CCSD imposing a lockout is illegal under state law. You never answer questions, so why should teachers answer yours?
@manfromuncle. Why do you care about NEV PERS which is for all state government employees, not just teachers. I thought that you live in California. I hear they have lots of problems with their version of PERS. I would suggest that you worry about that one.
@Retired Army. The contract for any public employee union is available for review prior to the governing body votes on it. The current CCEA contract is posted on their website. The administrators contract is NOT posted on the union web site. Why not?
This is a link to the contract on the CCEA website.
http://ccea-nv.org/images/stories/pdfs/C...
@Daydreamer. How do you feel about my earlier posts about the salaries of the 2072 people in the Administrative phone book? You know the salaries and benefits the total over 10% of the current personnel budget for only 5.3% of the CCSD employees.
Roslenda -- Try to let go of the anti teacher bitterness you hold so clearly. It is not contributing anything positive to your life.
Try to take that bitterness out of you and insert something satisfying in its place.
Tanker:
I feel like you are an impassioned observer that is commenting from the heart. Outside of the salary mess what would be your top 5 challenges you see as immediately fixable in the school district?
@Jeff.
The first would be a change to the tax structure in Nevada. It is unbelievable that national businesses pay NO tax on profits earned in Nevada. The mining tax mess needs to be addressed as well.
The second would be a cultural change in Clark County to recognize the importance of education.
The third would be a restructing of CCSD to get rid of positions that don't directly contribute to student learning, and a reallocation of resources to support student learning. See some of my earlier posts about staffing.
The 4th would be true education reform. I'm not talking about changing evaluation systems, and getting rid of seniority in reductions in force. I'm talking about the school calendar. Why do we use a calendar that dates from the 1850's? Lengthen the school day, and set strict standards for promotion to insure that students are ready for entrance to the next grade and ultimately college or the work force.
The last would be a recognition by the local news media and the school board that teachers are not the enemy. We are the ones that are in the classroom everyday, dealing with kids, trying to teach them, not only academic skills, but the life skills they will need for the rest of their lives. How can you put students first if you put teachers last? A teacher's working conditions are a student's learning conditions.
Jeff, I'm not bitterly against teachers. (Haven't you seen my posts elsewhere and wasn't it me, about 2 years ago, that told the Commission to Cut Compensation?) I'm adamantly in favor of getting what the taxpayer is paying for--and K-12 hasn't delivered in years. It is clear that our economy says we've taxed out more than enough. We must restore respect for the self reliant and REDUCE GOVERNMENT. We cannot afford to have a teacher for every 15 illegal anchor babies AND maintain SS / Medicare. Our economy cannot support American welfare AND pay for all of the third world that wants to move in. It is not the teachers that entice the illegals to keep coming here but they fail to recognize simple algebra. 15 million illegals plus all the kids they can create added to our welfare systems, added to our schools, added to our black market is too much weight.
@Roslenda. You say that you aren't against teachers, but most of your posts are cut teacher's salaries. How many of the 17K plus teachers in CCSd do you think make over 85K? Hint, the answer is not to many in base pay and benefits. Most of the teachers who make that much have taken on extra classes, coach a sport, etc.
I answered the question about the 5 ways besides salaries on how I would change education. I pose Jeff's question to you. What are the 5 most important changes you would make to education in Nevada. Hint, until the law is changed, the education of ALL children, including illegals is a requirement that has to be met.
Roslenda, believing things that aren't true doesn't make them true. Your bitter hostility toward some of the hardest-working, most decent people in the society is bizarre. Many teachers routinely work 70 hours a week per more, yet you continue to sit here typing lies about that and so much else. Truly bizarre. It's like people pre-60s who used to throw racial inferiority lies around because they could. Why don't you either learn actual facts or join Occupy and complain about the people who truly are behind many ills in this society?
You really ought to see a therapist or psychiatrist about your hatred toward teachers and apparent desire to believe whatever you want to believe despite facts. There's something dangerous about such delusional thinking.
Besides believing things that aren't true, you don't seem to be aware that teachers are not miracle workers. When we get kids in our room years below grade level (because administrators don't want them to fail because they don't want parent complaints) and we get kids who won't do any homework, plus others who won't do any work at all, and we can do nothing about it, then those things have effects on achievement. Your putting it on teachers is so ignorant that it's beyond belief. I wonder what your real name is, or if that's it, after googlin you to try to figure out what your real problem is, because there's something deeply wrong in your (lack of) thinking.
It would be a simple matter to discover the truth by talking to a number of teachers and former teachers. You obviously don't care about truth and reality.
Not caring about truth and reality. Scapegoating. Very, very creepy.
Incidentally, Ros, you might want to take a look at how much school police make, not to mention gobs of others outside of the classroom. You'll see quite a few people making more than 100K. How many of them are teachers?
http://www3.8newsnow.com/salaries2010/?a...
Incidentally, you don't have to have a college degree to be a school police officer.
By the way, Roslenda, I think I'm a decent teacher, I know I work hard, and I believe I am reasonably respected by my colleagues, yet every day I wonder how I can escape from a job where the stress is unhealthy, the expenditure of energy is enormous, and I am under attack by the ignorant all around.
People like you will contribute to teacher recruitment and retention problems in the future. Already half of teachers are out within five years nationally, apparently, and I believe it's higher here.
Who on earth do you think will do such a job for years on end? Do you think intelligent people want to go into teaching now?
Pinballfan, thanks. Ros, there is reality.