Move to Outlaw teacher's strikes in PA (Upper St. Clair, Fox Chapel: luxury, public school)

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

The city-data forum DOES NOT represent the majority in the PGH metropolitan area, especially the eastern suburbs.

No kidding. I'm going by polls, both directly with respect to how people feel about teachers and public education, and indirectly with respect to the crashing ratings of the politicians who have led the charge against teachers/public education. And it turns out I am quite right about where the majority sentiment lies.

People without children and people on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, can't continue to sustain the school systems with constantly rising property taxes and they are the majority whether you choose to believe it or not.

So people without children can handle the property tax rates fine, provided they have an appropriate income given the value of the house in which they live.

But you are right about those on fixed incomes. Of course that isn't really a problem with property tax rates per se, it is a problem caused by increasing average incomes and home values in the areas where fixed income people are living. And the only solution to that problem is to shift more funding of public education away from local property taxes and toward other sources of revenue, including state-level sources of revenue. Which happens to be a good idea for a number of other reasons as well.

And again, we know what the majority thinks: the majority does NOT agree the best solution is to defund public education.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

Frankly, I feel this is more a convenient excuse to chip away at labor unions (especially in places like my home state of Ohio) than an honest attempt at "fixing" anything. I'm not in a union, and there are a lot of things about them I don't particularly agree with, but come on--people should at least be honest about what their goals are with this . . .

I think it is even more conspiratorial. I think all this public employee and union-bashing is intended as a distraction while the relevant politicians use the current budget crisis to reward their political supporters with net wealth transfers from large metros. Basically, they are punching public employees and unions in the face, and then while people are dealing with that issue they are raiding the cash register and emptying the safe.

[hornet67]

Amazingly, the usually roll over and play dead Upper St. Clair School Board recently asked the teachers union for a wage freeze ( not a cut) for those at the upper end of the pay scale. The union refused to accept the freeze.
Gee, I'm shocked; I thought it was ALL about the kids.

[gg]

Originally Posted by hornet67

Amazingly, the usually roll over and play dead Upper St. Clair School Board recently asked the teachers union for a wage freeze ( not a cut) for those at the upper end of the pay scale. The union refused to accept the freeze.
Gee, I'm shocked; I thought it was ALL about the kids.

Just normal practices in our region. Work over two months less than the private sector and make more. The power of unions and strikes is the trump card. Hope they can break this stuff up to stop the bleeding a little at least.

I was talking to a family member about the pay scales around our region and she couldn't believe the pay around here. Imagine working 180 days, well they can work even less with personal days and who knows what else, and getting paid over $70K and live in Pittsburgh area. What a dream job. If you took all the days off they can, I suspect it would be working under 160 days a year. Oh and what about a 7 hour work day? They do have it as good as it gets... well it might get better and better because every time I turn around they are getting paid even more and our taxes are going up even more.

[gg]

Originally Posted by hornet67

Amazingly, the usually roll over and play dead Upper St. Clair School Board recently asked the teachers union for a wage freeze ( not a cut) for those at the upper end of the pay scale. The union refused to accept the freeze.
Gee, I'm shocked; I thought it was ALL about the kids.

I think all school boards are roll over types. They just rubber stamp what the teachers want and raise taxes. That is what they do.

[hornet67]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

I think all school boards are roll over types. They just rubber stamp what the teachers want and raise taxes. That is what they do.

Well, I'm fed up with it, and very angry about their incompetence and cowardice in the face of the teachers unions. The bloody BUS drivers in USC accepted a modest pay cut, but not the $ 80k + teachers!
The clueless school board next door in Mt.Lebanon has royally screwed up the high school rennovation project, in which the actual cost has still not been determined.
How do these bozos continue to get elected?

[robrobrob]

This is an interesting article. With school disctricts struggling to balance budgets, not just in Pennsylvania but in every state, the question at some point becomes should all of the districts teachers take a pay cut or should the district lay off teachers in order to balance their budget. Put another way, should all of the teachers in the district take a pay cut to preserve the jobs of teachers with less seniority.

Teacher Implores Union to Renegotiate - voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled: The Education Blog

I found it interesting that the writer has been a teacher for six years. I would think that this is the exact type of teacher that you would want to have around.

[gg]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I found it interesting that the writer has been a teacher for six years. I would think that this is the exact type of teacher that you would want to have around.

That article doesn't apply to us Rob. Our school board just raises taxes every year to keep up. I don't think there will ever be an end to the raising of taxes in our district. It sure hurts places like Sharpsburg. Sharpsburg will always have slum lord owners because they would never want to improve there places. It would kill the bottom line if they started to improve anything. Blawnox is probably similar because there are lots of rentals there as well. Aspinwall has more money and seems less effected.

It is what it is. Oh, I forgot we have that great reassessment coming up in July correct? That should be fun.

[kovyman1127]

A few things to keep in mind people:

1. Teachers are in a "public sector" union....meaning their contracts are negotiated by people NOT paying their salaries. The people whose salaries are paid by the unions (taxpayers) aren't present to negotiate. They were negotiated by gov't officials who, usually, used the union deals to buy votes.

2. Throughout the entire history of America up to and including today, neither labor unions or public sector workers have ever been granted the legal right to bargain collectively by Congress, the Supreme Court or the People of The United States.

3. President John F. Kennedy gave federal employees, by Executive Order, the ahem 'right" to unionize in January 1962.

[gg]

Originally Posted by kovyman1127

3. President John F. Kennedy gave federal employees, by Executive Order, the ahem 'right" to unionize in January 1962.

Did this guy do anything good? Vietnam, tripled military spending and embargo against Cuba. Goodness.