Teachers Unhappy With Markell

Teachers statewide are not very happy with Governor Markell. The governor is proposing an 8% pay cut for teachers and forcing them to take 3 furlough days that were previously paid days off. I find all of this humorous because these are the same teachers that campaigned for Markell. They were running around telling teachers if Bill Lee was elected as governor they would have to take pay cuts and be forced to take furlough days. Now their beloved Democrat is doing exactly what they said the mean nasty Republican would do.

I have a friend who's wife works for the state of Maryland. She has long been a flaming liberal. She was all excited when O'Malley was elected governor of the great state of Maryland. Now that he has forced all state workers to take a mess of furlough days she has changed her tune and now says she thinks she is really a Republican. Its amazing how your bleeding heart gets all capitalistic when its your pocket book that is affected.

Wake up people. We in Delaware need to get our heads screwed on straight and start voting for the people that are going to build our economy. Markell has to deal with the last 8 years of the Miner administration. No matter what Obama says money does not grow on trees. Markell has to make up for the tax and spend habits of Miner and someone has to take some cuts. This time its the teachers unions that have long been democratic supports.

I always say you get what you ask for. You people asked for Markell and you got him.

Enjoy!

Social studies teacher Dave Bradley usually gets to Mount Pleasant High School around 7 a.m. and leaves after 5 p.m., using the time on either side of the actual school day to give students extra help, grade papers and make lesson plans.

But this week, as a way to show how many extra hours teachers put in, Bradley will work only what his contract requires him to -- 7:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.

In every school district across the state except Delmar, teachers and other school employees are participating in a "Bell to Bell" demonstration to protest Gov. Jack Markell's proposed 8 percent salary cut for all state employees.

"We're really unhappy with Markell's proposal. Cutting salaries isn't the way to go," said Bradley, president of the Brandywine Education Association. "Honestly, I feel betrayed. We worked hard to put [Markell] in office."

Instead of the salary cuts, Bradley thinks the governor should consider raising the state income or the corporate franchise tax.

"We aren't saying that we shouldn't be affected by this recession because clearly we should, but we want it to be fair and equitable," he said.

In addition to the 8 percent salary cuts, Markell has proposed raising state employees' health premiums by 50 percent as part of his plan to tackle the state's $800 million budget deficit.

Since the state pays only 70 percent of teachers' salaries and districts pay the other 30 percent, the reduction in the state portion will result in a net salary reduction of just over 5 percent. Three days that were previously paid teacher in-service days will be converted to unpaid -- or furlough -- days for all teachers, which will bring their total reduction to 8 percent, like that for other state employees.

Many teachers don't know how they are going to get by next year.

Barbara Raught, an English teacher at Mount Pleasant and a single mom, is worried about her mortgage payments once her pay is cut.

"I bought a house last year, and I bought it based on my salary at the time," she said. "I honestly don't know how I'm going to make ends meet."

Diane Donohue, president of the Delaware State Education Association, said the Bell-to-Bell demonstrations are meant to show the public and lawmakers how much time school employees put in beyond the normal school day.
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"The amount of work that is done beyond contract hours is absolutely incredible, and to ask them to take an 8 percent cut when we're already not competitive with other states' salaries will not help the education profession in Delaware," she said.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland all pay their teachers higher salaries, Donohue said.

"I'm afraid that if an 8 percent salary cut is implemented in Delaware, many of our teachers and public school employees might choose to go across the line because, while they might be driving farther to get to work, they are going to be compensated better," she said.

As part of his education reform plan, Markell has said he wants to attract high-quality teachers, but Bradley doesn't understand how he plans to do that when he's cutting their pay.

"If I was a [young] teacher, I would leave Delaware," said Bradley, who has taught in Brandywine for 32 years.

Vicki Seifred, a social studies teacher at Stanton Middle School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, has had her pay frozen several times in her 29-year teaching career but never had a pay cut. Seifred said she would rather see teachers take more unpaid leave than face a salary reduction.

For Kim Eroh, a physical education teacher at Mount Pleasant, the 8 percent pay cut will reduce her salary to what it was 10 years ago. Eroh and her husband, David, who is a science teacher at Brandywine High School, have started to cut back because they both will face pay cuts. They're trying to refinance their Wilmington home. They've purchased a rental property to make up for some of the lost income, and they're cutting back expenditures such as on summer camps for their two children .

"We're just not going to be able to do as much," she said.

The story above is courtesy of www.delawareonline.com and can be found HERE.