Why do teachers’ unions oppose merit pay? Why should someone who did not join the union still have to pay its dues? Why should the state have to collect the dues from employee paychecks on behalf of the union? Moreover, when these questions are posed amid a landscape of teachers skipping classes to protest, urging students to join them, and soliciting fraudulent doctors’ notes to cover their cancellations of classes — while their supporters in the legislature hide out to prevent a quorum and thereby subvert the democratic process reaffirmed last November — the public becomes further estranged from their cause.
Contrast teaching to, say, farming. In farming, almost everyone is constantly hustling — welders, independent truckers, contractors. There is no guaranteed income for the day, let alone for life, no pension other than Social Security, and no health benefits of any kind. There is no sick leave for the self-employed. A day with the flu means the amount of work to do the next day doubled.
For me, teaching was the antithesis of everything brutal in the private sector. Yes, there were hours spent in the evenings correcting papers, staying long after class to advise students, endless committee work, class planning well beyond the eight-to-five grind, and research over the summer. But all that said, there were benefits, lots of them: guaranteed retirement with a defined pension; generous medical, dental, and vision coverage; and most importantly time off from the classroom. We taught about 16 weeks a semester, counting finals and introductory orientation, or 32 of 52 weeks a year. The other 20 weeks were ours to spend for “prep.” Some did, some did not, especially those who had been teaching the same classes for five or six years.
So what I remember most was our constant rationalization of our lot. In self-righteous fashion we reminded everyone that we were paid only for nine months’ work and that teaching was an art, a noble profession, not a mere job.
I think that we forget how fortunate teachers are in the 21st century, in terms of compensation, hours spent at work, and the general absence of physical danger, at least in comparison to the lineman, the garbage collector, or the interstate trucker. I have met hundreds of teachers who have had only one steady job: teaching. I have seldom met a land-leveler, company field man, or tractor mechanic who had not worked at a half-dozen jobs over his career — and rarely by choice.
Yes, teaching is a noble profession upon which the future of our youth rests. It is not easy, and it is not as lucrative as the law or medicine. Yet in comparison to most workers in the private sector, teachers are, in terms of working conditions and compensation, blessed.
NRO, On Teachers and Others, February 25, 2011
The Homa Files 