Cutting Classes

For the first time ever, the 2009 Fortune list of the one hundred best employers to work for includes an educational institution. Coming in at ninety-eighth is Vanderbilt University, an elite, private institution of higher education. Not surprisingly, a public school system has never been on the list. Just recently, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District announced that in order to help close the budget gap, teachers will have their pay cut for the rest of this year by a half percent.

Being benevolent, the pay cut also gives teachers ten flex hours. However, they can only use them between June and December – meaning teachers will suffer the pay cut starting now, but not get the small token gesture until next year. Did I mention CMS is cutting a significant number of teachers before next year? Estimates have been tossed around and range from three hundred fifty to one thousand teachers who will be given pink slips at the end of the year. Sorry y’all, no flex time for you.

According to a Charlotte Observer article, Superintendent Peter Gorman, has sacrificially showed his concern for teachers and students by forgoing any performances bonuses that he or his top staff members earn this year, but with his base salary of $267,150, don’t expect to see him in line at Wal-Mart any time soon. Not only that, bonuses for teachers and principals are also potential cost-saving cuts. Some defend Gorman’s salary, saying if he were working in the private sector, he would be making a lot more with a lot more perks. However, Mary McCray, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators, poses an equally challenging point that many corporate executives have taken large pay cuts to save jobs, so why can’t that happen here, too?

I know that teachers are naturally underpaid and I’ve heard the excuse of the intangible rewards of teaching. Yes, on good days it can be incredibly rewarding when the kid struggling with a concept finally gets it. However, intangible rewards only go so far. Imagine if a customer came into your store and when the grocery bill rung up, he wanted to get a fifty percent discount because of the intangible rewards that you would reap from knowing that you helped someone feed his family.

What better illustration of out country’s priorities than where money goes when times are tough: when big banks fail, the government bails them out and allows them to use bailout money for bonuses. In a TIME article, Joan Zimmerman, a Wall Street career coach justified the bonuses because even though the firms have had “an extremely difficult year…they can’t afford to lose talent either.” While the government is off bailing out banks, it’s cutting education budgets. It’s bad enough to see that whether students learn is dependent on the economy, but it’s even worse that the government wouldn’t even honor the one year contracts that it signed before slashing pay.

I guess retaining talent isn’t a high priority for public school systems.