I was watching The Agenda with Steve Paikin last night on TVO and was intrigued by the debate on the ongoing bargaining between the provincial government and Ontario's teacher's unions. As a teacher, I am well informed on the issues am going to weigh in with my 2 cents. Here goes:
*Students need to come first in all of this. Both sides of the bargaining table need to remember that in their negotiations. Teachers need to be given the tools they need to provide the best education to our children. That means that classrooms can't grow too large. I can live with a small growth to 23 students in a primary class, up from 20 or 21. But if they get bigger than that, students will suffer because teachers can only focus on so many students at any given time. At the same time, I have seen many junior (grade 4-6) classes that have between 29 and 33 classes, which is much too big as it is, so they need to be capped or lowered.
*I agree with an email that was shared on the show that teachers do indeed work in a "germ factory". There are hundreds of kids carrying a plethora of viruses, bacteria and parasites running around in every school, affecting pupils and educators alike. Some years teachers get lucky and they need to use hardly any of their 20 allotted sick days. Other years, like this one at one school I have worked at, a bad stomach flu causes a teacher to be sick for a whole week. This would be a massive problem for a lot of educators if the Liberals get their way and reduce sick days from 20 down to 6. Teachers legitimately need to have a number of sick days because they do get sick more employees at most jobs because of the environment they work in and their youthful clientele.
*On the other hand, I am willing to bite the bullet and accept the loss of accumulated sick days. This would save the government millions of dollars and it's better than raising class sizes or freezing wages. That being said, I don't think that accumulated sick days can be taken away without some kind of compensation, whether it be financial or whether it be paid in added benefits etc. You can't just take something away that has been fairly negotiated and in place for years without some sort of compensation.
*I would rather not see salaries get frozen, but I would prefer a salary freeze to taking away the ability of teachers to move up on the pay grid. Right now, teachers start at about $42,000 a year. That salary goes up every so often based on experience and the additional qualifications educators get by taking courses at night, on weekends and in the summer. If you freeze salaries, it wouldn't hurt students as much as taking away their motivation to receive more training and get better at their job. Why would anyone waste a thousand clams on getting an AQ if it won't help them move up the grid? In any other job, ANY other job, added experience, training and qualifications entitle an employee to a higher salary. And why shouldn't it? You are spending your time and hard-earned money to get better at your profession or job. Teachers, in my opinion, could survive with a salary of between 42 and 92 grand a year, which is reasonable pay for the stress and hard work they put in, but to say their experience and additional qualifications make no difference is total nonsense.
*I have some better ways to save money in education. First, as mentioned in an earlier blog, full-day kindergarten doesn't work and could be scrapped. The other biggie is killing the standardized testing. It costs a lot and isn't a realistic or fair indicator of student ability or teacher competence. These are the two places I would start.
This is an explosive issue and I would love people to weigh in on the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment