The school year ended this week. And it ended on a strange note. For perhaps the first time in the eleven-plus years that I've been teaching high school, this past week I liked teenagers more than adults. That never happens, and not just because I've gotten more bitter and less patient with every year that I teach. (I have, of course. It's inevitable. But that's not why this last week was extraordinary.) It never happens because honestly, I don't like teenagers all that much. They tend to enjoy activities that I don't, like talking on phones and sending text messages and playing war simulation games on XBox Live (all at the same time) for eighteen hours straight; and driving too fast and getting drunk and trying desperately to find someone to have sex with -- also generally all at the same time. And they generally don't read, or worry about money, or spend time with the love of their life, like I do. So we have very little in common. On top of that, teenagers are regularly sullen, frequently cruel, and almost always dishonest: I can't even begin to tell you how many lies I hear every day, starting with, "I need to go to the bathroom" and ending with "I want to go to college and I believe English is the most important subject in high school." I dislike all of those things, too -- sullenness, cruelty, and dishonesty -- so, as you can imagine, teenagers and I don't get along that well. We can work together fairly well, because then I don't have to take their lies personally, and I try not to give them opportunities to be cruel, and as for sullenness, it invites either humor or indifference, and I'm good with both. And there are some that I like very much, because they are exceptions to those rules. At least some of them.
But this last week, my students were actually quite nice. I assigned a final speech, an impromptu presentation on a randomly selected topic, and I am pleased to say every one of my students -- well, almost -- at least tried, drew a topic out of my coffee can full of folded slips of paper and tried to stand in front of the class for three minutes. Several of them even had fun with it, which was largely the point of the exercise. Even nicer was the fact that they applauded each other, and apart from talking during other people's presentations, they were a generally well-behaved audience, free of mockery and cruelty and all-around barbarism.
On top of that, I got presents, which I never get, and a number of thank-yous, which I rarely get. I got a gift card for the local bookshop, which is the best present any student could ever give me, and the card came with ownership rights to the giver's soul, which just adds that personal touch that let me know that this gift was meant just for me. Gotta love that. And then I got a giant box of Cheez-Its, because the student happened to be shopping with his mom when I walked by clutching a giant box of Cheez-Its that I was buying for myself, and I stroked the box and murmured, "These are the best snack crackers in the world!" as he walked by, which made him laugh. But then he bought me a box, because not only did he enjoy my class, but he was thoughtful enough to pay attention to what I said I liked, instead of getting me a bag of Chex Mix, or a large candy bar identical to the one he gave to all of his other teachers. This kid put more thought into my gift than my own district did when Teacher Appreciation Day rolled around. That was cool.
And there was this: most of my students passed my class. One of my Honors classes even got an A average, which has never happened before. 33 grades, and the average was 90%. I don't think a whole lot of grades, not even the ones that I give out (and generally agonize over even more than my students do), but that was pretty solid, you ask me.
All in all, my students made me feel good this past week, like I was not only a good teacher, but I was also appreciated.
And then, this past Wednesday, I went to contract negotiations with my school board.
I had been planning on going to the budget committee meeting later that same night, but at my contract negotiation meeting, I found out that the budget committee had voted to accept the budget as proposed, without amendment. Which means they voted to strip all value from the in-house daycare program at the high school, a completely counterproductive and short-sighted move which only makes sense if you assume it was done vindictively -- and since they did it despite an attempt to put funding back into the daycare and subsequent discussion of the idea (which means this didn't slide under anyone's radar, nor were the implications unknown), I assume it was just that, vindictive. See, the program very nearly pays for itself, since the parents pay pretty sizable fees to have their kids cared for; in addition, the daycare makes it possible for teenage mothers to come to school and maybe even graduate, which is not only good for them and their children and the community, but it also brings in extra money from the federal government, since a young mother is worth about 1.5 times what a regular student is worth in terms of funding. So of all the programs you could cut -- and let's note, high school sports still exist, and are still well-funded, and the alternative school closure (which I do think would have been a bad idea, since it's a good program that should stay in place) that was in the budget was reversed -- the program that costs you much less than it returns in value would be the wrong one to cut, right?
Except the largest group that uses the daycare is teachers. The teachers with whom the board is negotiating, and who have a different idea of where budget cuts should fall. We think the budget cuts should come out of programs like sports, and out of administrative costs, and as a last resort, out of staff layoffs; they think the budget cuts should come out of our salary, so that we are expected to do the same work and offer the same programs, but do it for less. So in order to get us to play ball the way they want us to, they try to make the program cuts that we force them to make as painful for us as possible -- and as painless as possible for the community that refused to vote for the tax increase that would have prevented all of this.
That's right: rather than put the burden on the community members who voted against the local levy to fund our schools, the school board wants to put the burden on the teachers. Their own employees, the ones who do the work that they are ostensibly in charge of, educating the young people of this community. Seems like they'd want to work with us. But they don't.
That was never made more clear than when I sat in the negotiations meeting this last Wednesday and listened to the school board's proposal. Which, we were told several times, was a one-time, all-or-nothing offer; if we turned it down, we might as well give up on negotiating, because they were going to take the entire offer off the table, and would refuse to even consider giving us anything we asked for that wasn't in their proposal. Which was interesting, because the lawyer they hired to serve as their mouthpiece (Because they don't want to deal with us directly: are we beneath them? Or do we scare them? I dunno.) had to walk a fine line: she wanted to say, "If you don't take this now, then we're done, and you might as well give up on this whole bargaining thing, because you will never get anything out of us but this offer right here," but according to law, both sides have to continue to bargain in good faith, meaning they are willing to discuss and compromise, for as long as bargaining goes on -- and the minimum is 150 days, which isn't up until September 1. So she had to say "Fuck you, we're not listening any more," and at the same time say, "Why of course we'd love to listen to your ideas about how to settle this. After all, we are bargaining in good faith." It was a nice piece of doublespeak.
Because, you see, we turned down their proposal. We had to, because there were things in it that the teachers simply will not accept. Some things about the proposal were fine, but others were deal-breakers -- a fact we had made clear several times in the last two months we've been going back and forth on this proposal. They knew we wouldn't accept merit becoming one of the criteria for teacher retention in case of layoff; teachers are retained based on fitness for the available positions (In other words, if we have an elementary teacher for a high school spot, that teacher can get laid off and a new high school teacher hired, but if there's an elementary spot and an elementary teacher who can fill it, that teacher gets the spot) and on seniority, because apart from the fact that experience and the constant training teachers gain with each passing year means that the most senior teacher is also the most qualified for the position, seniority is the most objective and fair way to decide who gets to stay. Any other measure is too arbitrary, and too open to subjective decisions, based on who the principal or the school board or the community likes better, or based on test scores that are influenced by so many external uncontrolled factors that they are a joke.
And by the way: lest any anti-union person read this and think less of me, let me note that I am quite popular and would probably win any decision about retention based on who they like better. My test scores are pretty good, too. It's still not fair to judge teachers based on merit and thus I oppose it.
They knew that we wouldn't accept their proposed cap on our benefits. And they knew we wouldn't agree to give them the power to cut days out of the school year -- and thus dollars out of our agreed-upon salaries after we have already signed our yearly contracts (Does that mean I can cut duties out of my contract, too? Like, if you cut fifteen days out of my year, then I can drop fifteen items out of my syllabus, teach fifteen fewer concepts? I could drop the parts of speech; there's eight things right there. Maybe history teachers could drop fifteen years they don't like. Or could I cut fifteen students out of my classes? I expect to have about as many students as I have school days next year, so the numbers would work out pretty well. I think we should propose that in our counteroffer, actually -- the one they won't really be listening too because we rejected this one.) -- because that is, again, putting the burden of budget shortfalls on the teachers, rather than on the community that refused to fund us. It's not like we refused to do our jobs; we've done them successfully for the last few years even as the budget has gotten worse and worse: despite losing money every year, our test scores have gone up. We actually made AYP, Adequate Yearly Progress, as defined by No Child Left Behind, for the first time since its inception. Shouldn't we be rewarded for that? Apparently not.
Shouldn't you at least listen to what we have to say? The toughest part of that negotiation meeting for me was when I tried, rationally and carefully, to explain why the union believes the best solution to budget shortfalls is to cut teachers and increase class size, or to cut programs -- which basically means to lay off teachers, unless it means you are cutting non-educational programs like sports, which we would prefer if anything has to be cut -- rather than to cut salary and benefits. See, in my experience (I explained to the school board's negotiating team), increased class size has less of a negative effect on education than does a teacher who is unable to concentrate on the job because s/he has to worry about paying bills that month because the school board cut five days out of the work calendar last week. I've taught classes of 30 and 35 students, and the difference between 30 and 35 is less important than the difference between knowing I have enough money to eat until my next paycheck, and knowing that I don't. Five more students don't keep me up at night: the whole no-money-for-food thing does. And when I don't sleep, I don't teach as well. Seems pretty obvious.
I explained that, and all around me, my fellow teachers on my negotiations team and in the audience were nodding. Because I'm right, you see. Cutting teachers is not a good thing, but it is a better choice than cutting salary and benefits in order to retain teachers and reduce class size by some small number. Teachers don't get much in the way of compensation, but we need to make enough to survive, or else we are no good as teachers, and you might as well fire us and let us collect unemployment while we look for another job, and let fewer teachers do a good job, if not a great job, with more students. That's the truth.
And what was the board's response? They said we simply have a philosophical difference on the best way to handle the budget shortfall and still offer the best education we can to our students. They also said they don't want to cut days, but that was doublespeak too: they have to make up the budget shortfall somehow, and they think the least painful course is to cut days. Sure, they don't
want to do it, but that's like saying I don't
want to live without a wad of $100 bills as big as a beach ball. I'd love the Ball o' Benjamins, and they'd love a fully-funded district, but just as I can go on without my money-ball and be perfectly satisfied with my life, they can cut days out of the calendar and be perfectly satisfied with what they did. Because when you get right down to it, they think either A, teachers make too much money [The internet says we make $100,000 a year, on the average. It also says there's a pill that is guaranteed to make your penis larger.], or B, we should be grateful for any job we can get even if it doesn't actually pay enough to live on in this area -- or C, they just don't give a shit what happens to the teachers as long as we do what they say. Take your pick. They didn't say any of the rest of that after the not wanting to cut days thing; just that we have a philosophical difference, and we teachers have to accept that the board is probably not going to change their minds about what they think is best.
Yes, that's fine, but the thing is: if you disagree with me on the best way to teach, well, then you're
wrong. This isn't a philosophical difference, this is me knowing what the fuck I'm talking about, and you having not the first goddamn clue. So
listen to me, okay? I know it's hard to give up your cherished beliefs, but when you're wrong, you need to let go of what you thought was right. Because it's wrong, and doing the wrong thing is a bad idea.
They wouldn't listen. And after we regretfully turned down their one-time offer, which we couldn't accept without modification, like they demanded we do (And let me note as well: they picked the one day when our legal counsel wasn't there to throw this surprise offer at us. Coincidence? Nope. They tried to scare us with legal mumbo-jumbo, too, though we were able to get our lawyer on the phone and find out that the threat they were making was, quite simply, a steaming mound of bullshit. This is how you negotiate in good faith, apparently: with ambush offers and implied threats.), they gave us this "Well, we don't know if the school board will be able to agree to anything after our kind offer was turned down. Though of course we are happy to listen. And if we can't agree to anything, as we keep saying we won't, then you always have the option to strike."
And that's why I'd rather spend the summer with my students than continuing these negotiations (Though of course, I will continue negotiating. And I will listen, and I will compromise. Because I mean what I say when I agree to bargain in good faith.) with my school board. And if those people knew the first goddamn thing about my job, they'd understand what an insult that is.
Good thing they don't, huh?
