Gene Ponder, a teacher at Spanish Fort High School gave me permission to reprint his article. It was printed in the Mobile Press Register March 27,2011.
Beat the Teacher:
After having read numerous editorials and sound-offs in the Mobile Register the past two months, I have concluded the following: “Everybody is born ignorant but it takes extreme effort to remain stupid throughout one’s life”. Many opinions printed in the paper state numerous absolute falsehoods, such as: The AEA (Alabama Education Association) is a union, public employees are overpaid, their benefits are excessive, teachers are incompetent and the reason for high dropout rates, teachers should earn a free-market wage and pay a free-market health insurance rate, and tenure should be abolished.
As a public school educator, I hope that I can help you understand that this anger and frustration is misdirected, but most importantly not constructive in resolving the many problems which exist within our educational system and our local, state, and national economy.
Fact: Alabama is a right-to-work state. The Alabama Education Association in not a union. Public unions are illegal in a right-to-work state. Teachers are salaried employees. Teachers are required to work eight, nine, ten, fourteen hours a day with no overtime pay. The average number of hours worked in the free market is forty including time- and-a-half or double-time if working over forty hours.
Fact: Teachers do have a superior retirement system and a great benefit package. Alabama educators are required to contribute five percent of their income toward retirement. Teachers must work twenty-five years before becoming eligible to receive retirement. The average free-market retirement eligibility is twenty years of service. The free-market laborer is not required to donate one dime toward a retirement system. Therefore, the free-market nets five percent more in income than the public sector. Teacher’s low cost health insurance is due to a large pool of teachers under one insurance plan. The State of Alabama contributes less toward health insurance than the average employer contributes towards a free-market health care plan. The cost difference is the size of membership not the amount of money contributed.
Fact: Teachers cannot be incompetent due to the fact that they are required to obtain college degrees from accredited universities. Very few jobs within the private sector require four or more years of higher education which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. College certified free-market jobs pay two to three times the wage paid to teachers. Teachers are not in the business of failing students. Parents are one-hundred percent to blame for failures and drop-outs. High drop-out rates are a direct result from a self-defeated culture of incompetent and apathetic parenting.
Fact: Teachers are required to work three years before they have any resemblance of job security. Tenure simply means that a reason must be presented in order to fire a teacher. A teacher can be fired without any reason given within the first three years of employment. Once tenure is attained, teachers can be terminated for the very same reasons as private sector employees. Most free-market jobs grant job security after only ninety-days of employment.
So, who is to blame for poor and failing schools? Federal bureaucracy has and will continue to destroy the quality of public education. Why is the private sector all of a sudden attacking public sector employees? The economy is in the dumps while hundreds of thousands of good paying private sector jobs have been outsourced overseas leaving many private sector workers laboring for minimum wage. Blaming public employees will not end free trade agreements and bring back private sector jobs. Federal bureaucracy created a collapsing free market wage. Instead of blaming and attacking public employees, we should be putting our heads together and work to return a sense of nationalism and American pride. Federal bureaucrats have outsourced the private sector and have over regulated the public sectors ability to serve. Together, private and public employees must stand together and retake control of our federal government. Together we can protect our standard of living. Divided we will certainly fall into poverty together. As trickle-up poverty continues to spread throughout our nation. Only a renewed sense of unity between the private and public sector may be our last hope to save our nation and ultimately ourselves.
Gene Ponder
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