By SJ Otto
Never in the history of Kansas
has a state government been so determined to beat down and humiliate Kansas public school
teachers. From new laws to make it easier to fire Kansas teachers to new attacks on their
union, our legislators and our idiot governor, Sam Brownback, have made it
painfully clear how badly they dislike those in the teaching profession.
There is a law to make it easier to fire teachers, with the
idea that they should have no more protections than any other worker in Kansas . It lets them
know that they are just doing another low paying job, nothing more and nothing
less.
Susan Wagle said it all in a statement to WIBW
News, “When you have a teacher
that is impeding that system I believe an administrator should be able to let
them go. That’s what happens in private schools.”
So teaching our future citizens is just business, like any
other business. That is probably why they are working so hard to get rid of
teacher's unions.
"Even the folks
who fire teachers in Kansas
aren’t sure what to make of a law change that would make firing teachers
easier.
For generations, the
state promised that before getting canned teachers could get an appeal. If a
hearing officer disagreed with the teacher’s bosses, the instructor stayed in
the classroom.
In eleventh-hour
logrolling in the Legislature, that tenure-lite protection was wiped out by
lawmakers venting the conviction that such safeguards intended to protect
teachers from ax-grinding bosses serve mostly to coddle the lazy and
incompetent."
This should surely let teachers know what the Kansas legislators think
of them. Then there are the attacks on their unions. The Wichita Eagle had an
editorial pointing out that no teachers came to support a new bill that
teachers have to vote every three years as to weather or not to keep their
unions. The
Wichita Eagle found there were plenty of teachers against such a
measure. Unlike other union workers, teacher face a constant challenge, with
parental complaints of all kinds, from presenting material that one or a few
parents find insulting to their own personal beliefs from unfounded accusations
that a teacher has presented something inappropriate or pornographic (usually
by a parent who felt insulted by something that went against their core
beliefs). Other workers don't face this kind of danger. Teacher unions are
their only protection.
There is also a bill to allow teachers
to be prosecuted for presenting materials deemed harmful to a minor. Again
this is just an excuse to punish a teacher whose points of view may offend some
parents or legislators. There is little evidence to suggest that any teachers
are presenting pornography or anything like it in the class room.
But this fits in with attempts to make teaching like any
other job. Groups that backed this new bill, such as the Koch brother's own
front group, Americans for Prosperity, Kansas Policy Institute and the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), want to destroy all unions. They want a
work place where all workers are afraid of being fired. They want Kansas workers, all of
them including teachers, driven hard, lacking any kind of benefits, low wages
and a constant fear they can be fired at any time for any reason. They want
them to feel as valuable as and similar to oxen.
According to the Kansas
National Educational Association (NEA):
"Claiming that
the school boards speak for the teachers, Rep. Marvin Kleeb tried to justify
his behind closed doors meetings with superintendents and KASB which have
resulted in a unconscionable attack on teachers and their right to a voice in
the workplace.
Kansas Association of
School Boards, the Kansas School Superintendents Association, and Rep. Kleeb
believe that teachers must be silenced and their beliefs are apparent in Sub
for House Bill 2027, rammed through Kleeb’s House Committee on Commerce
yesterday without any opportunity for input from those most affected by the
bill — classroom teachers.
Frankly, we are
surprised and shocked by the positions taken by KASB and KSSA. In our
experience, most individual school board members and superintendents have more
respect for their teachers than is reflected in this proposal. We hope that
more school boards will act as did Lawrence
and publicly oppose bills like Sub for HB 2027."
It should surprise no one that Kansas teachers are being
driven away. Of course a lot of this has to do with low pay and a constant
shortage of state money to pay for more teachers. But I for one have completely
given up on getting full-time teaching job here in Kansas . Kansas ' leaders really only want those
teachers who are willing to give up all their dignity to work for sub-standard
conditions and pay. To that I say "NO WAY!"
Teachers pay is too
low.
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