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Ie. the departing 10 year teacher:  what about the pension?  That’s what’s supposed to convince people to stay — the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

In reality, no one is grateful for it, until they are gone.  They complain about their cash pay.  And better retirement benefits than everyone else only attracts those who, from their first day on the job, look foward to not working.

Of course the city now has a new plan.  Or rather a reinstatement of the old plan.  Lower pay and retirement benefits for new hires, higher class sizes, and less support, to offset the retroactively enhanced pensions of those cashing in and moving out.  This is a UFT victory, but somehow I don’t hear any teachers early in their careers cheering.

Once again the city is bilked out of million$.  I don’t understand the constant loss of so much money ever since the mayor4life has changed the number of no-bid contracts.  What is the total amount of money the city has lost either through waste or bilk since Bloomberg has in office?  The biggest loss was the CityTime project.  What was the outcome of that shameful travesty?  Money was supposed to go to hiring more teachers.  Did it?  http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/04/settlement-of-citytime-scandal-will-pay-for-teachers/

While I think the Master Teacher positions were a good idea, I can’t say a feel very comfortable knowing that those positions were filled by people like Ms. Wheal. The Master Teachers were supposed to be people who were actually interested in being teachers and were so good that they had something to offer their colleagues by way of profoessional improvement. This wasn’t supposed to be a step on a career ladder. It was supposed to be a vehicle to help improve instruction at difficult schools. Ms. Wheal sounds more like someone who is interested in advancing her own career -to the point where she’s willing to walk away from her own students- and less like someone who is interested in bringing change to schools through the position of teacher.

I’m not at this point very sure what else to expect from yet another E4E person asking to be published in the press, but when I read lines like “By all measures, I’m succeeding -but it’s no longer enough to sustain me in this profession” and “I feel like my career is stuck in neutral with no clear path of advancement”, I feel a particular type of disgust a person can only feel when he’s forced to listen to someone else’s selfishness. 

Who twisted this person’s brain and made her think that being JUST a classroom teacher was tantamount to remaining on the bottom level of a career ladder? How did that person make her forget that the work we do as teachers is among the very best work there is -all by itself? Or had she never known that to begin? Why is she more interested in her own career than in the product and reward that her work as a teacher brings? I don’t know many veterans feel this way in person -and I’m stunned at the thought that being a teacher -a teacher- isn’t rewarding enough for someone.

(And given their track record with smart uses of the press, it’s only fair to ask this); how much of this piece was an advancement of an E4E bullet point and how much was actual expression of frustration with a system? 

 Here is something I never understood: I’ve been teaching close to 20 years. In that time I can literally count on one hand the number of my teaching colleagues who made any attempt whatsoever to “advance their career” by becoming a master teacher or administrator. I think this fetish for “career advancement” is really just a code word for newbie teachers who want to get out of the classroom and join the ed-deform bandwagon. After all, it is a lot easier to sit up in some air conditioned, office building with your corporate buddies complaining about evil teachers and their unions than to actually stand in front of a classroom of 30 rowdy middle school kids every day. Lastly, I am going to be laughing my self to sleep in a few years when folks like Ms. Wheal, Evan Stone, and Sydney Morris are out of a job because the the suits in the ed-deform movement decide that the school reform battle is not worth fighting anymore and they try to go and privatize the military, hospitals, and prisons. 

 Yes we are reminded several times a day about the agendas of Exhibit B and Exhibit C above, however I refuse to apologize for earning a pension after working over thirty years making an average salary with a Master’s Degree in an honorable profession.  If we had it your way, I would either work until I died or retire with minimal or no benefits and I would have to live in my son’s basement because I couldn’t afford to live on my own. 

Or you could try to add up the numbers yourself in a careful way and see what the damage is.  Don’t wait for GS to make your arguments for you.

Last yeaR, under the academic coaching of the E$E spokewoman and “master teacher” only 10% of students passed the ELA exam at her school where she was a “master teacher”.  Now she is going to tell everyone else how to improve.