The Detroit teacher strike has ended with a whimper, not a bang. We voted to return to work and formally vote by ballot on the tentative agreement. This has been a draining day, so hang in there if my style flags and typing/spelling falters.
At 8 a.m., teachers and support staff began glumly filing in to Cobo Arena. We were handed the details of the tentative agreement. The mood was as grim as I’ve every seen it. The faction that always pushes for a longer strike unless we get everything we want was hard at work. I do not mean to question their sincerity. What they want is great. Ideally great. Sometime back there in my 20’s or 30’s the quest for ideal was lost in the struggle with the real. But I digress.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. The hall was filled with angry muttering and occasional angry shouts as people read the tentative agreement. There was something to anger everyone. Young, Old, Elementary, Secondary. There was also a key feature that I believe turned the tide. The steps that had been frozen last year were restored. This means that for the newer teachers that had less than 10 years seniority, they jumped up two steps. I’m too tired to say exactly what that equals, but it is close to $3,000. (I’ll check this later and correct, if needed.)
The restoration of the steps help dull the edge of another year with no raise. We have not had a raise since 2003. For people like me, at the top of the pay scale, we slide back in purchasing power yet again.
We will get a 1% raise next year, and a 2.5% the following year. But few people expect this to happen. The mistrust of the administration is so profound that it is widely expected that the district will attempt to renege on these paltry raises. There is a possibility that we get a larger increase if the K – 16 Initiative passes.
One possible important victory is the creation of a “Financial Review Committee” with union and administration participation. This committee will meet monthly to discuss:
1. The District’s use of special purpose state and Federal funds.
2. Teacher Service Formulas. (Sets staffing levels based on school student counts.)
3. Means to eliminate missed preparation periods. (Many principals abuse this.)
4. “Any other subject which the parties agree could result in financial savings to the District’s general fund.”
If this last point is aggressively pursued by the committee, it could yield real benefits.
I’ve wandered away from the meeting itself. The meeting was the angriest and most divided DFT meeting I ever been part of. It was angrily pointed out that in 1968 Detroit was the 3rd highest paid District in SE Michigan. Now we are closer to 73rd.
People want language on reduced class size. We have that already, but it is ignored. People are angry that they do not have textbooks or materials. Last year there were
approximately 5,500 crimes reported on school property.It’s too disheartening to go on.
The final vote to return to school and formally vote on the contract was, I’m estimating here, 60% -40% in favor of returning. Maybe 55% – 45%. (It was a “standing vote.”)
We are going back, but there are a lot of angry, frustrated teachers in Detroit who feel that the they have been kicked in the teeth yet again by the central administration.
We can’t stop fighting, but we need new tools. I will take the many good ideas you’ve shared with and see what we can do with them. I will watch the “Financial Oversight Committee” and see if I can help there. I doubt I’ll be selected to be on the committee (my temperamental resistance to joining groups has keep me out of the Union spotlight), but I’ll give it a try. If not, there are independent ways to work.
Thanks again to the many people who have shared their good ideas and warm feelings.
thanks for informing us all and keeping us updated on the strike. It fit right in with the other labor diaries.
No problem. Thanks for this interested and interesting community. I’m going to start expanding my investigations into the state of education in America. I hope that the many informed Booman members will keep throwing their good advice my way. But not today – 12 hours of first day at school with a brand new principal who is showing signs of self-annoited divinity. It might just be a very long year.
So the good news is you’ve got a job for another school year, while the bad news is you’ve got a job for another school year? My sincere and heartfelt congratulations/condolences.
This is the third year our county employees have gone without a raise while our governor crows about balancing the state budget. They did it by shoving a lot of costs down to the local governments and school corporations. Its infuriating. Thanks for keeping us up on the labor front where you are.
The cost shuffling you mention is a real problem. A new phenomenon in education is for administrators to retire and then be rehired into the same job as “Contractors.” This shifts the cost of benefits (primarily health care) to the state retirement funds. This is an accounting trick that obscures the real cost of education. It also hides the number of administrators.
Also, the economic policies of this administration have driven so many people, especially children, into poverty. Public schools then become the scapegoat for problems linked to poverty.
Thanks Teach. Your efforts to tell the story to the rest of us is much appreciated.
We are all so far-flung, we need these personal stories to keep us connected.
You have inspired support from all across the country.
Far-flung, but surprisingly close. I’ve been struck by how Tribbers rally around pond dwellers who are facing bad times.
I’ve gone through 2 teacher strikes and I know what you’re going through. In my case, the school board, after refusing to negotiate in good faith, turned to its’ bully pulpit, the local media, who ate up their lies and spin like it was a new flavor of burger at the local BK. It’s tough, and no one wins in a strike. There should be rules to force both parties to negotiate, and better rules about binding arbitration. There is a push in Pa to outlaw teacher strikes. Without those other pieces in place, that will make a really bad situation much worse. Teachers are a favorite punching bag and I don’t think that’s just local. Eventually, who in their right mind will go into teaching?
Who in their right mind will go into teaching? That is the real kicker. Teachers are a favorite target of so many because we can all think of one or two teachers we had while going through the grades that we didn’t like. We might associate developmental issues (like getting picked on in the 5th grade for example) with the teacher we had at that time.
The criticism that always drove me crazy had to do with only working 8.5 months a year, for six hours a day etc etc. No one that I know ever wanted their kids to go without the traditional summer break. So call 45-15 plans that utilized school buildings the year round did not catch on, because few families wanted their kids in school during the summer. Catch 22! No one wanted to know how many hours a week I really worked either.
Hmmm, let’s see. I got to school around 6:15 and started right away. I am the Student Council Adviser and Homecoming is next week, so we ran the elections right away. I worked through lunch (supervising the election), and worked at school until 4.
After Andrew went to bed, I graded and recorded papers for an hour. If this English teacher calculates that correctly, that is an 11 hour day. This is completely standard for me.
You know, I don’t think we get paid enough.
I hesitate to speak this aloud among my fellow teachers, but summers off is an anachronism that needs to be put to a well-earned rest. None of my students help out with the crops during summer. The agraian-based school calender needs to go. We need a schedule that spreads 2-3 week breaks at regular intervals through the year. The schools need to stay open year-round. The buildings should be community centers, with health care, including dental and mental health, pre-natal counseling, a geriatri health center, a neighborhood police station, a branch library, a small social work office, etc. The short breaks should be used for remediation (of smaller units of material) and enrichment in arts, PE, of other areas of interest. The inter-session breaks should be staffed with qualified recreation people, as well as teachers, and healthy breakfasts and lunches should be served. If a child qualifies for a free-lunch, why should he/she only get it on school days? There’s more to this, but I’m tired and rambling.
Oh, yeah. Let’s try taxing the top 1% God-Awful, Ain’t it Shameful, Rich a reasonable amount and cutting the odd billion from defense. We’d be rolling in money for some good uses.
I happened to notice that my spelling/typing has gone kabooley tonight. It noticed it when my wife fell out of her chair laughing to my posts. She’s had a great time mocking me erors. Once she stopped laughing, she persuaded it was tine to go to slepp or lern to spell. I’m going to slepe.
I hear ya teach, but it is not going to happen anytime soon. You are talking about 45-15 plans that were all the rage (in concept) twenty or so years ago. A few districts actually went to that type of calendar. I don’t believe many or any are left in Michigan, although I do not know this for a fact.
You can have school year round, but not with my kid has been the response I had been accustomed to hearing. Throw in financial hard times, extra wear and tear on the district’s buildings, lack of time in the year to maintain/repair the buildings and you begin to see some of the most obvious problems with the concept.
YES!!!!
The 2-3 week breaks also would provide flexibility. People could suggest different ways of doing things from content intensity to organization – put it into practice and then revise during the next break.
Instead, as you well know, schedules, organizational structures are written in stone, regardless of what anyone says. So by day two when someone recognizes problems or difficulties or “this is not a good idea and now I know why” – they know they are looking at what they will be living with for the whole year.
Burnout is, imo, not about earning too little money, it is the result, in part, of being told what to do (especially when one thinks what one is is to do is not very worthwhile), with too little support and too little time to do it all.
LOVE YOUR IDEAS!
We haven’t even talked about the bus schedules! In the district I worked in for nearly four decades, EVERYTHING that was/could be done with students in the district revolved around the bus schedule.That will be too early, too late, too long or just toooo much for our buses to handle. (Winter in Michigan does not provide many hours of daylight either!)
Understand I am not trying to be a wet blanket here, just trying to let you know that wheel was invented, but at the time few wanted to buy it.