I haven’t been updating lately but will start again! I’m currently watching the issues in Ann Arbor. Do they have a contract or do they not? The saga continues.
One thing I’m pretty sure of is this. Reporting these days is terrible. There is not one place to go to get unbiased information. I don’t feel like mlive actually does any digging. They seem more like a mouthpiece for the district superintendent and BOE.
Mlive commentators are also very anti-teacher and think teachers should be paying to work instead of being paid, spending more time with other peoples children than they do their own, and that teachers should only be there for the children. Basically do charity work for the state. Never mind that one might want to actually go on a vacation, buy a new car now and then and maybe live in the town where you work.
I have many teacher friends… I’m not going to do their stories justice but in a nutshell……
One, is newly employed in AA. She and her husband have a 1 year old. She is a product of AAPS. She worked for charter schools for 8 years before getting a job in Ann Arbor. She cannot afford to live in AA. She and her husband live in Ypsi Township. To support their income, they have started to flip houses. She pays 500+ in student loans every month in addition to child care and a mortgage.
Another is just 25. She and her husband have a one year old and one on the way. They lived east of Ann Arbor and have now bought a house in Grasslake. They cannot afford to live in Ann Arbor. She was literally in tears the other day when the Superintendents nice note to parents came out, basically saying that there would be another wage freeze. She made more money bartending. This teacher works with our most vulnerable kids who are in a classroom for the cognitively impaired. She too has a student loan. She was thinking of leaving teaching and starting an in-home daycare where, if licensed for 12 with a full time worker would make close to $120,000/year.
A single mom of an 8 year old, and a military veteran, and a product of AAPS, this woman has worked in Ann Arbor now for 3 years. She is now applying to the Department of Defense for a teaching position where she will be given a housing stipend, not have to spend a lot of money and therefore can save her paycheck. Her daughter’s father recently died. She too lives outside of Ann Arbor, unable to live in the city due to the high cost.
Another friend just did a phone interview for a job in Colorado. She had been teaching in Ann Arbor for close to 20 years.
To add insult to injury, my daughter, all of 22, works at Costco. In 5 to 10 years, if she stuck with Costco and moved up the ladder into managerial, she would be making more than any of these woman even if they were at the top of the pay scale with a masters degree and 15 years in Ann Arbor ($79,199). My daughter has a college degree but it was just a perk and wasn’t a condition of employment for Costco.
So anyway. The anti-teacher folk could care. They look at all of these people as expendable. The teachers have been called part-time, low skilled labor. Their mantra is, “If you don’t like it, leave it”. And I am sorry to see the BOE and superintendent taking a similar tact. I expected more from them. I thought they might model themselves after University of Michigan who handled the anti-union legislation by not taking the bait, but honoring the union and it’s employers. If your BOE and super aren’t going to treat you like professionals, then why would anyone else?
A Place to Start 