Opinions/Editorials
See other Opinions/Editorials Articles
Title: Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin
Source:
Wall Street Journal
URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100 ... 4132204576190260787805984.html
Published: Mar 10, 2011
Author: Scott Walker
Post Date: 2011-03-10 08:41:30 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 11084
Comments: 20
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best new teachers in the state be one of the first let go? Because her collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be made based on seniority. Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union leadership would not accept reasonable changes to their contract. Instead, they hid behind a collective-bargaining agreement that costs the taxpayers $101,091 per year for each teacher, protects a 0% contribution for health-insurance premiums, and forces schools to hire and fire based on seniority and union rules. My state's budget-repair bill, which passed the Assembly on Feb. 25 and awaits a vote in the Senate, reforms this union-controlled hiring and firing process by allowing school districts to assign staff based on merit and performance. That keeps great teachers like Ms. Sampson in the classroom. Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in property taxes—or both. In Wisconsin, we have a better approach to tackling our $3.6 billion deficit. We are reforming the way government works, as well as balancing our budget. Our reform plan gives state and local governments the tools to balance the budget through reasonable benefit contributions. In total, our budget-repair bill saves local governments almost $1.5 billion, outweighing the reductions in state aid in our budget. While it might be a bold political move, the changes are modest. We ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions and a 12.6% contribution to their health-insurance premium, both of which are well below what other workers pay for benefits. Our plan calls for Wisconsin state workers to contribute half of what federal employees pay for their health-insurance premiums. (It's also worth noting that most federal workers don't have collective bargaining for wages and benefits.) For example, my brother works as a banquet manager at a hotel and occasionally works as a bartender. My sister-in-law works at a department store. They have two beautiful kids. They are a typical middle-class Wisconsin family. At the start of this debate, David reminded me that he pays nearly $800 per month for his family's health-insurance premium and a modest 401(k) contribution. He said most workers in Wisconsin would love a deal like the one we are proposing. The unions say they are ready to accept concessions, yet their actions speak louder than words. Over the past three weeks, local unions across the state have pursued contracts without new pension or health-insurance contributions. Their rhetoric does not match their record on this issue. Local governments can't pass budgets on a hope and a prayer. Beyond balancing budgets, our reforms give schools—as well as state and local governments—the tools to reward productive workers and improve their operations. Most crucially, our reforms confront the barriers of collective bargaining that currently block innovation and reform. When Gov. Mitch Daniels repealed collective bargaining in Indiana six years ago, it helped government become more efficient and responsive. The average pay for Indiana state employees has actually increased, and high-performing employees are rewarded with pay increases or bonuses when they do something exceptional. Passing our budget-repair bill will help put similar reforms into place in Wisconsin. This will be good for the Badger State's hard-working taxpayers. It will also be good for state and local government employees who overwhelmingly want to do their jobs well. In Wisconsin, we can avoid the massive teacher layoffs that schools are facing across America. Our budget-repair bill is a commitment to the future so our children won't face even more dire consequences than we face today, and teachers like Ms. Sampson are rewarded—not laid off. Taking on the status quo is no easy task. Each day, there are protesters in and around our state Capitol. They have every right to be heard. But their voices cannot drown out the voices of the countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets and, more importantly, to make government work for each of them.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Exactly right. The entire government monopoly school system is hopelessly broken. It needs to be ripped out at the roots and built from the ground up based on choice and performance. That's means we need to reward teachers who get results and jettison those that don't. This is what the lazy left is most afraid of.
What a filthy lie. http://teacherportal.com/salary/Wisconsin-teacher-salary Average Teacher Salary Rank: 20th Starting Teacher Salary Rank: 49th Starting Salary: $25,222 Average Salary: $46,390 The WSJ did this sort of lie before when it would lie about how much union auto workers - converting their pension plans and health care costs into a figure to show them as overpaid. I am sure such fudging was used by the WSJ liar here.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
You are the filthy liar because you only talk about salary instead of total compensation. The fact is that unions have put more focus on benefits than salaries over the years. The average private sector employee gets about $9,000 in benefits a year. The average government bureaucrat gets about $41,000 in benefits. Average total compensation for teachers in Milwaukee is $100,000 a year. There are suburban areas where it is substantially more. There are rural areas where it is less. On top of this, teachers barely work 8 months a year. They get 10 weeks off in the summer, 1 week at Christmas break, 1 week at mid-winter break, 1 at spring break, plus 11 holidays. That's 15 weeks off. On hourly basis, the average teacher in Milwaukee earns $68 an hour in total compensation. That's good money. They earn this in spite of their poor performance. This all has to change to save the country.
I don't know where you get this - my wife is a former teacher, she had to take at least two courses each summer to maintain her certification, which ate up 2 weeks. During the school year her typical work day started at 6:50 AM. She came home around 5 PM and then spent a couple of hours each night grading papers and planning for her next day's activities. She typically had work on the weekends as well. And all through this, she made about 60% of what I made in the private sector (she took a big pay cut to become a teacher as well). Still, how do you propose improving education by reducing pay/benefits for teachers, thus discouraging people from going into the teaching profession? It sounds like your goal is to turn teaching into something akin to a minimum wage job.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
So what? I'm in the computer business and I have to work until the wee hours of the morning keeping up with new technologies. It's a function the career I've chosen and no pays me to do this. But if I don't do it, I quickly become obsolete. I've seen this happen to many people.
I propose improving eduction by eliminating the government's monopoly over it. Teddie Roosevelt was right -- we need to bust up the trusts. The trusts today are coercive government monopolies like the public school system. It sounds like your goal is to turn teaching into something akin to a minimum wage job. Now you are being completely disingenuous. I've posted on this many times. Bad teachers need to be fired. Great teachers should get paid more. We won't fire bad teachers because of "tenure" and crazy union contracts, like the one described in this article.
I knew these pigs were doing some sort of alegbullshit math to make it seem teachers make more. Why? to minimize sympathy for teachers plight - make it seem they live high on the hog on people's tax dollars. That is your cookie analogy from before. Secondly, after they complain teachers are paid too much they also complain teachers are ineffectual - so their salaries need to be cut for doing a poor jib - yet how will get get good teachers by paying them less money?????? I think they want teaching to be a low paying job smart people do as a religious calling - like someone who enters the priesthood and takes a vow of poverty. Maybe we should have firefighters and cops be teachers because conservatives say they don't want to end their collective bargaining rights or lower their salaries (they do but don't have the votes for that yet).
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Before public education there was only the private sector and illiteracy was near 90%. No advanced nation on earth has an education system like the one conservatives advocate for. In fact the best performing nations on earth in terms of education have very strong centralization of education.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
What a load. Walker just wants to break the unions. He is a Koch puppet.
That would make teacher's hourly pay in Wisconsin equal to legislator's pay. As for poor performance: Texas, which forbids teacher's unions ranks 45th (1462) to Wisconsin's 3rd (1778) in SAT scores. Using ACT scores as a measure, Texas ranks 35th (20.8), and Wisconsin 13th (22.3). 2010 data Capitalist Texas forbids unions and still has under funded pensions and a budget deficit the size of socialist California. Texans should take heart though. High oil prices made Texas late to the recession, and the return of high oil prices may save its behind.
You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you. Ludwig von Mises in a letter to Ayn Rand
My guess is that you are not paid by the hour.
You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you. Ludwig von Mises in a letter to Ayn Rand
Interesting how that doesn't apply to CEOs.
You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you. Ludwig von Mises in a letter to Ayn Rand
what monopoly? We have several private school options in our town, along with charter public schools.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
They control the curriculum. Non public schools must meet "no child left behind" standards for the three S's, Socialism, Statism, and Sheepleism, or their graduates won't make it in higher education, or be able to find a job. The government unions have a monopoly on educational standards.
I recall a re-run of MASH I saw where this uber right winger named Colonel Flagg... But you still have to pay for the government monopoly schools even if you send your kids somewhere else. If I choose to buy a Ford, I am not forced to still pay for a GM. If I choose to shop at Kroger, I am not forced to still pay for Safeway. If I choose to buy an Apple Mac, I am not forced to still pay for a PC. Most people cannot afford to pay for school twice. This is called a COERCIVE monopoly because it's backed by government FORCE and it can only survive because of that FORCE. That's the problem.
yep, because I benefit from everyone getting an education. Are you really suggesting that we should go to a system where people can choose whether or not their kids get an education? Or, do you want to adopt the private school model that allows schools to reject kids they don't want to accept and have society move away from the idea that everyone is entitled to an education?
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
The government monopoly schools aren't giving everyone an education. They are failing miserably. That is something that you leftists just REFUSE to address other than repeating over and over and over again that we need to throw more money at the failed system. The SYSTEM has failed. It needs to change.
Because she is just another greedy union PIGGY who is ears deep in the public trough while the taxpayers who pay her are losing their jobs and houses. Slurp slurp slurp Eat it ALL up little PIGGY.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
Nope, that was Bush. Duncan and Obama have taken a much different approach.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
Yeah, and the professional left is up in arms... The NEA has blocked any and all reform of the schools. Here is a typical reaction. Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, presided over the implementation and expansion of an agenda that militarized and corporatized the third largest school system in the nation... Duncan largely defines schools within a market- based and penal model of pedagogy, but also because he does not have the slightest understanding of schools as something other than adjuncts of the corporation at best or the prison at worse... Duncan's neoliberal ideology is on full display in the various connections he has established with the ruling political and business elite in Chicago... This guy sounds like Godwinson! LOL
In 2010, Megan Sampson was named an Outstanding First Year Teacher in Wisconsin. A week later, she got a layoff notice from the Milwaukee Public Schools. Why would one of the best new teachers in the state be one of the first let go? Because her collective-bargaining contract requires staffing decisions to be made based on seniority.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#2. To: A K A Stone, jwpegler (#0)
Ms. Sampson got a layoff notice because the union leadership would not accept reasonable changes to their contract. Instead, they hid behind a collective-bargaining agreement that costs the taxpayers $101,091 per year for each teacher,
#3. To: Godwinson (#2)
(Edited)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#4. To: jwpegler (#3)
(Edited)
On top of this, teachers barely work 8 months a year. They get 10 weeks off in the summer, 1 week at Christmas break, 1 week at mid-winter break, 1 at spring break, plus 11 holidays. That's 15 weeks off.
#5. To: go65 (#4)
she had to take at least two courses each summer to maintain her certification
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#6. To: go65 (#4)
(Edited)
how do you propose improving education
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#7. To: go65, jwpegler (#4)
till, how do you propose improving education by reducing pay/benefits for teachers, thus discouraging people from going into the teaching profession? It sounds like your goal is to turn teaching into something akin to a minimum wage job.
#8. To: jwpegler, go65 (#6)
I propose improving eduction by eliminating the government's monopoly over it.
#9. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in property taxes—or both.
#10. To: jwpegler (#3)
On hourly basis, the average teacher in Milwaukee earns $68 an hour in total compensation. That's good money. They earn this in spite of their poor performance.
#11. To: jwpegler, go65 (#5)
So what? I'm in the computer business and I have to work until the wee hours of the morning keeping up with new technologies. It's a function the career I've chosen and no pays me to do this. But if I don't do it, I quickly become obsolete. I've seen this happen to many people.
#12. To: Godwinson (#7)
I think they want teaching to be a low paying job smart people do as a religious calling...
#13. To: jwpegler (#6)
I propose improving eduction by eliminating the government's monopoly over it.
#14. To: go65 (#13)
(Edited)
what monopoly?
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
Godwinson posted on 2011-02-23 11:47:32 ET
http://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=18011&Disp=46#C46
#15. To: go65 (#13)
We have several private school options in our town,
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#16. To: jwpegler (#15)
But you still have to pay for the government monopoly schools even if you send your kids somewhere else.
#17. To: go65 (#16)
(Edited)
yep, because I benefit from everyone getting an education.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#18. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Why I'm Fighting in Wisconsin
#19. To: jwpegler (#17)
The government monopoly schools aren't giving everyone an education. They are failing miserably. That is something that you leftists just REFUSE to address other than repeating over and over and over again that we need to throw more money at the failed system.
#20. To: go65 (#19)
(Edited)
Duncan and Obama have taken a much different approach.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]