Teachers deserve better deal than they're getting

Spectrum, by Michael McCartney

I am a third generation Alaskan whose family moved to the Mat-Su Valley in the 1930s. I was born and raised in Palmer and graduated from Palmer High School in the late '80s, after which I went into the military and stayed out of state to continue my education. I have just this year moved back to the Valley area with a wife who is a schoolteacher and I am dismayed at what I have come back to.

Now I have heard both sides of the argument from both the teachers and from those representing the school board, and I must admit I was having a difficult time deciding who was right and who was wrong. Were there lots of greedy teachers unhappy with a pay that most teachers throughout the nation would be thrilled to have or was there an unreasonable school board at work unwilling to negotiate with requests for a new contract from the teachers?

To be totally honest, when I first moved back and found out that my wife would be making more than $40,000 a year, I was more than thrilled. We had just moved from a state where after three years she was making only $32,000. I figured that this more than $8,000 a year would really help to combat the cost of living changes that we are now really noticing. I also did some research and found out that though Alaska ranked number 10* on the rankings of states with the highest average teacher pay, it ranked first in the starting teacher salaries category**. Needless to say, I was definitely beginning to side with the school board on the teacher's salaries issue, but then I did more research.

I don't know how many people know that from the decade 1989-90 to 1999-2000, 24 states and the District of Columbia saw declines in pay-to-cost-of-living ratios. Alaska leads this with a drop of (-16.9 percent)***, the nearest states to that abysmal ratio were Wyoming, Maryland and Arizona, all at (-8 percent). The cost of living in Alaska has changed so much in the past 15 years that many salaries, teachers included, have not kept up. Out of the 50 states and D.C., Alaska is ranked 49th in the percentage of salary increase in the '90s with the only two places that had less of a pay change being Montana and D.C.

Alaska used to be in the top three of average teacher pay in the nation and we have steadily dropped down that list as other states keep up with inflation and Alaska does not. Though we are 10th on the list of average pay, states like Michigan and Illinois are ahead of us when the cost of living in Alaska is much greater than the average cost of living in those states. The teachers are asking for a 1 percent raise this year and 1 percent raise next year, and in the light of this information that seems much more than reasonable. Of course these are not the only issues that are keeping our school board from the negotiating table.

One of the other major sticking points is the fact that the cost of health insurance has increased so much in the past year. This is a universal problem, not just one that the schoolteachers are faced with. According to an outline handed out by the MSEA, the district wants teachers to absorb the entire increase in cost over the next three years. Not only have they lost nearly 17 percent of their pay in the past many years, now the school district would have them lose another large portion of their pay. How many people would stay with a job when year after year you take a virtual pay cut? How many people would stay with their current job if their employer came to them and said, "hey, we're going to need you to take a $300 a month pay cut, but please do not complain about the raise that your boss just took."

The last point I am going to bring up here, and to my mind the most important, is the elimination of preparation time proposed by the school board. For those who do not know, middle school and high school teachers in the Valley have six periods per day. Most teachers teach five classes per day and have one hour for prep time, and now the school board is trying to get rid of that time. At the recent school board meeting a teacher mentioned how her kids, in preparation for school, said, "we're not going to see mommy any more." If I was not married to a schoolteacher I would not realize how much work is involved.

My wife spends an average of two to three hours, five days a week outside school grading, writing note, tests, reviews, and researching anything that she can to make her class more enjoyable for the students. I would not be exaggerating by saying that we spend more than $2,000 a year on things for her class to give the students and supplies not provided by the school. She gives willingly of her time and our money and asks for only a little appreciation for her efforts. Now the school district is asking her to take on more work by teaching another class instead of having an hour for prep, and giving no compensation for time or extra work.

Checking on the Department of Labor Web site, under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Suffer or Permit to Work, it states that, "…time spent doing work not requested by the employer, but still allowed, is generally hours worked, since the employer knows or has reason to believe that the employees are continuing to work and the employer is benefiting from the work being done." The school board knows that teachers are spending many hours outside of school doing work that is completely voluntary, and yet show no appreciation but instead act more like it is mandatory. According to the DOL, unless it is stated in the contract, it is actually illegal for an employer to benefit from work that the employees do outside the contract unless the employer is compensating the employees. Of course teachers have been working without a contract since June, and are continuing to work.

The school board was asked to come back to the negotiating table at the last school board meeting but they have refused. Instead, they would rather waste money on a nonbinding arbitrator, after which they will probably disregard his or her suggestions as they did with last year's, and demand whatever they wish, which is their right according to state law. This will leave the teachers with two options, to get treated in their and my opinion as unfairly, or to strike, after which time the people really getting hurt will be our children. Many people will blame teachers, unfairly I think, when teachers are pleading for the school board to come back to the table and come to a fair and equitable agreement.

If the school board really thinks that waiting for an arbitrator will conclude in a fair solution, why not agree now to go forward with whatever the arbitrator decides? If they are unsure that arbitration will result in a fair agreement, then why the stall tactics of waiting? Why not try now to get done whatever can get done before an arbitrator is necessary?

* (Computed from NEA Research databank)

** (http://www.aft.org/press/

salary/downloads/SalarySurvey-AK.pdf)

*** (http://www.nea.org/

nr/nr010515b.html)

Michael McCartney is a Wasilla resident.