East Baton Rouge teachers sick-out and then get big raises

[Chomskyite]

About three hours after I wrote this in my blog, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system voted to raise their base-pay for teachers with B.A.s by $2,900:

The public school teachers' "sickout" day today was a resounding success. They have virtually monopolized local media coverage. Even the otherwise Bush-loving, union-busing Ed Buggs gave them hours today of sympathetic coverage. He's worked in the classroom a few times, he's said.

Meanwhile the moron Bill Profita whose page is at http://www.wjbo.com/billprofita.html, who makes most of his living as a PR man for the airport here, is on the air using the "tactic' of the sickout and how inconvenienced parents might have been by it to say that "professionals" should never be in unions. I thought his most unintentionally hilarious moment came (after I called him to point out his union-bashing) when he said, "Teachers shouldn't be doing this stuff. They're looking like coal miners!" Then in a later exchange with a rather ungrammatical caller, he said, "What if all surgeons were to say one day they weren't gonna do any surgeries!?!"

Yep, your kid's teacher is letting people die, in order to ask for a pay raise.

You really couldn't write this stuff yourself. If you did, you'd be lambasted for being unrealistic.

Update: I have emailed Mr Profita a link to the blog-entry I wrote on this. You can tell him what you think at [e-mail]

[bluedonkey]

1. Sick-out

Was about time the teachers did something about their siyuation.They've been screwed around long enough.
I don't think raising taxes on cigarettes is right.Years ago,I remember,we approved gaming in the state in order to pay the teachers! What happened to that money??And why can't these revenues now be used to pay the teachers?

We all should take a sick-out!Perhaps then we get a decent wage.

[funkybutt]

2. Way to go teachers!

I too have been wondering what ever happened with that gambling money that was supposed to be used for the teachers. Was Edwards the Gov then? Apparently all the benefitial parts of that deal have fallen through the cracks. I remember they vehemently denied that a hotel would ever be part of the Harrahs deal and sure enough, there's a Harrah's hotel going up as we speak.

I personally support a tax on cigarrettes, alcohol, and gaming. I think the cigarrette tax should be used to help the state recover from all the medical expenses it's incurring as a result of smoking related health problems. I say tax the hell out of em! Let the smokers see how expensive smoking is to our system.

[AnnInLa]

3. the gambling money went into the general fund

instead of being dedicated, by law, to teachers/education. Personally, I never saw a dime of that money in a raise, or in my classroom.

As a smoker, and as a teacher, I am conflicted about the proposed sin tax. Guess I would rather pay the increase in cigs, in the hope that it will cut-back my smoking habit.

The proposed teacher raise is $1,000 per year. Every time we get one of those $1,000 per year pay raises, our health insurance goes up big time, and our association dues go up. So, we never get a raise that matches the rise in the cost of living. Our bring-home raise usually turns out to be about $30 per month. We keep falling behinder and behinder!

When you read in the newspaper that the average teacher salary in this state is about $37,000, don't you believe it. I have been teaching over 22 years, and still haven't gotten up to that "average." The average is taken from school personnel who have teaching certificates. This includes all school counselors, principals, vice-principals, supervisors...all of whom make big bucks compared with classroom teachers, but whose salaries bring the "teacher yearly average" up to @ $37,000.