Submitted by Larry Littlefield, Apr 3, 2007 08:31

(Still, from where we sit, what is stunning is how formidable is the power wielded by the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten.)

As I've documented for years, NYC teachers have been underpaid relative to those in the rest of the Metropoolitian area and, if the cost of living is accounted for, the national average. They have been paid less than those in low-cost Upstate New York without such an adjustment. This despite teaching a large number of kids who aren't receiving the proper support for education at home, in an environment where in some years they don't even have teaching supplies.

This is stunning and formidable power?

The fact is, that in exchange for this the UFT has gotten things that have reduced the quality of education. Fewer options for parents. Richer pensions. A retirement incentive in the mid-1990s that allowed thousands of teachers to depart early even as enrollment was rising and a teachers shortage was underway, leaving the city's neediest children to be supervised by a series of uncertified rookies. The ability to live outside the city, in places with good schools. A deal, in the early 1990s, that held that principals were not permitted to look at a teacher's teaching materials, after which one third grade teacher down at the local elementary school decided he wasn't going to bother teaching math anymore. Etc.

These are the benefits teachers have gotten. None provides any help at all for those, the majority, who really care and want to do a very difficult job.

But the interests represented by the Sun have benefitted as well. Where are the articles analyzing why public schools in the rest of the state spend so much, and demanding cutbacks? The Sun, like the Post, is perfectly happy to call for lower educational funding in NYC, which then goes to help pay for richer funding elsewhere in the state. Put all the blame for the consequences on the teacher's union.

They deserve their share of the blame. But so do those the Sun caters to.

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