As QCSD anguishes over its never-ending budget crisis - and outgoing Business Manager Sylvia Lentz's admission that we will be facing an additional $15 million shortfall next year - local families should take note of everything going on around us. Neighboring districts. Neighboring states. And the neighborly feds, who are again bailing out the wrong people.
Our school budget this year looks to be somewhat north of $91 million, up from $81 just three years ago. And that doesn't include a penny for the badly-needed $50 million high school renovations/replacement, or the millions of dollars necessary to fund the upcoming teacher pension shortfall. The usual way that our school board has dealt with such problems (often of their own creation) has been to raise taxes. The current proposal will be more than four percent, IF we slash the rainy day Fund Balance, and IF we don't address any of those looming issues.
But, in The United States of Bailout, there is a Wayout. If we can bail out the banks, and bail out the insurance companies, and bail out the automakers (actually, the United Auto Workers union), and bail out the credit-card deadbeats, and bail out the subprime mortgage defaulters, we will certainly bail out our schools.
Well, not exactly. Twenty US Senators, including PA's Arlen Specter, are co-sponsoring legislation bearing the patriotic official name of Keep Our Educators Working Act of 2010. It is indeed a bailout, which is the hallmark of the current administration. But a more accurate title comes from the prior administration: the No Teacher Left Behind Act. And those hosannas you hear are coming from every teachers' union in the country.
The NTLB calls for creating a $23 billion Education Jobs Fund that could bring about $900 million to Pennsylvania, according to a National Education Association (national teachers' union umbrella organization) analysis. The money would spare or create more than 256,000 teaching positions in kindergarten through Grade 12, and nearly 51,000 higher-education jobs.
We're not bailing out the schools - we're bailing out those who, at least in QCSD, need it least - the teachers. The funds granted through this program can be used only for compensating and retaining existing staffs, for training on the job, for hiring new employees and for careers that are related to education. It specifically can not be used for what we need most around here, to refurbish facilities and maintain programs.
For anyone who has been living in a cave (perhaps having lost their home from our outrageous school property taxes), QCSD teachers receive an average of about $75,000/year, plus guaranteed raises, plus a shared $375,000+ bonus, plus pension, healthcare, paid education, and three months off. It is their "defined benefits" pension plan, which we all guarantee no matter what happens to the economy, that is, in large part, creating the future budget debacle. But they are the ones being bailed out. Not our deteriorating high school. Not Haycock Elementary School, which is about to be closed because we can't afford to keep it open. Not our debt for building Pfaff or Strayer, or renovating Richland Elementary, or roofing Milford. Not our sports, or arts, or band.
And while certain QCSD directors resist the tragedy of having to play some football games in the afternoon, rather then at night, to save electricity dollars, the National Education Association is predicting that nearly 152,000 education jobs - including 6,500 teachers and more than 3,400 school staff in New Jersey - could be lost this spring. In New York, a state education cut of $1.1 billion is expected to include the loss of about 14,000 teaching jobs. One of Illinois' largest school districts, northwest of Chicago, is projected to have its state per-pupil aid halved. A thousand employees, including 700 teachers, have received layoff notices.
But not in PA. Another one of those lovely perks enjoyed by our unionized educators is legal protection for their jobs. Unless enrollment drops precipitously, or programs are terminated, they can't be laid off. And, unlike most states, they can threaten the community with a strike. But we don't have to be afraid....
There's a strike going on in North Penn. Teachers have been working without a contract since September, because the school board has famously refused to cave in to the fear of a strike. It has been inconvenient for students, who want to finish projects, and graduate, on time. But the law requires that teachers work the 180 days necessary for a full school year. They picketed, and postured for the television cameras, but in the end a judge ordered them back to the classrooms so the year can be completed. The school board even stood up for the community by rejecting a contract proposal offered by an arbitration panel, saying it would increase the budget by 17.3 percent.
Let this be a lesson to those QCSD directors who would again give away the store at contract time to avoid any hard feelings from their bosom-buddy teachers and administrators. When it comes time to negotiate, put the community first, as North Penn's board has - and as you were elected to do . Remember Franklin Roosevelt - "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". And remember our PSSA's and SAT's - "We have nowhere to go but up". If our teachers want to strike, let them. "We have nothing to lose but our mediocrity."
There will be plenty of those laid-off New York and New Jersey teachers who would be thrilled to work here.