As reported on NPR, there comes details of the Detroit area teacher's conflict with their school district (as represented by their "LABOR" union and as celebrated yesterday on Labor Day). It is quite revealing where our priorities as a country lie exactly and, coming from the world's supposed richest nation, we should all be ashamed. Quoting from the NPR story:
"teachers have been buying their own supplies....teachers are used to buying things like pencils, pens and crayons and basic things like that...but in Detroit ' the situation has become so bad teacher's have been buying toilet paper for their students because there's not enough toilet paper in the schools. "
Let me just repeat that: "...teacher's have been buying toilet paper for their students!"
Teacher's wanted an approximate 5% increase in wages. The district, however, wanted teachers to take a 5.5% pay cut. I confess, I haven't followed through to see how or if this dispute was resolved. But that's not the point I'm concerned with here.
When we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars for pork barrels, kickbacks and no-bid contracts to political donors but can't give educators of our kids a crack at staying up with inflation, nor the funds to provide toilet paper for our kids, we have finally come to the bottom of the barrel.
So I have a better idea. Instead of teachers using their own money from their shrinking salaries to buy toilet tissue for their school's bathrooms, how about the the benefactors from Bush's healthy tax cuts who think toilet paper comes from their maids who have closets full someplace down in the basements of their mansions, how about if they all chip in and buy our school kids toilet paper? Seems the least they could provide them until they've finished dismantling public education.
2 comments:
and people wonder why I homeschool ????
Should our teachers have to be focused on such things- yes...
and here in Cleveland- 50% of the children here live in poverty- they go to school and they have no supplies and no books and so supplies, the buildings are crumbling and falling apart, including toilets, and limited heat- but the kids are susposed to accept that...cause after all- they're poor...The No Child Left Behind actually means ALL children suffer- and then they get recruited...
Really really disturbs me....
Oh enigma....everyday I get up and plan to blog about northern NM; about something I love. But inevitably, I'm consumed by bullshit stories like this and the passion I have for something I hold dear is put off for another day. And then another and another.
Thanks for putting your boy in the finest private school available. (BTW, we're still looking forward to one of his limericks. ~grin)
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