KIDS THESE DAYS:Teachers abandoned

Once in a while there is a letter to the Daily Pilot that is priceless. Last week, there were two that are worth noting.

The first was from Janet Lowry of Newport Beach, who offered an analysis of the Daily Pilot’s new look. Toward the end, she wrote, “Columnist Steve Smith’s new emphasis on youth is well overdue and certainly pertinent.”

I could not agree more.

The second was from Stan Winter, a retired teacher who said about the recent teacher sick-out, “I think [the teacher sick-out protest] was absolutely inappropriate. It’s not fair to the students.”

That is precisely the attitude I warned about not long ago — that teachers are exempt from protesting their job conditions and are not allowed to demand more pay, particularly if it means leaving the classroom to do so.

These “not fair to students” protesters fail to realize that if the school board and other civic officials had taken leadership positions on teacher compensation years ago, we wouldn’t be discussing the issue today.

On the Daily Pilot website, the discussion has touched on merit pay and treating education teaching more like a business. The theory in the business world is that those who show results get rewarded more than others through raises and promotions.

The temptation to make comparisons to the business world is great, however, the apples-to-apples rules stop at the classroom door. I want my kids taught by someone who has time to teach, not someone who is overloaded with district paperwork, too many tests and far too much curriculum to teach each year.

Those business comparisons are bogus on another level, too, for we have seen chief executive after chief executive lead a company down the drain while he collects a fat salary. Then, when he “resigns,” he is given even more money.

For example, United Airlines chief executive Glenn Tilton collected $3.4 million in compensation in the year leading up to the airlines’ 2002 bankruptcy.

William Clay Ford Jr., who has stepped down as chief executive and is now executive chairman of the struggling Ford Motor Co., did not take a paycheck but was compensated with millions of dollars in stock and stock options during his reign.

There are many more examples.

But even if the business comparison were relevant, we should be paying our teachers more. After all, the school board has been telling us for years how great things are.

Teachers see what I see. They see a school board that doesn’t put its money where its mouth is. They see a school board and a community that believes they are dispensable. They see one City Council with no leadership or vision; one that would rather spend $500,000 for a useless bridge over Placentia Avenue than use the money to establish a housing subsidy program to attract and keep good teachers. And they see another City Council which, by its silence on the issue, has told us all that they just don’t care.

I will close with the last line of Winter’s letter: “If [teachers] want a higher salary, apply somewhere else where they pay more.”

I’m sorry to say that a significant number of teachers in our district are doing just that.