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Honoring the inspirations of a new generationSome people never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The statesman Abba Eban made this observation many years ago. He was referring to the wreckers of the Middle East peace train, but the subversive shoe fits Chancellor Joel Klein, arch- nemesis of New York City's public school system.
Once this system was the envy of the nation. But Klein has eviscerated every dove, thrust every olive branch to the winds, and snapped the saplings of teachers' trust. Klein insists that teachers are "professionals" rather than clock-watching workers. Work ethics are not inherently superior in either of these groups, but if he was suggesting that by virtue of their high level of education teachers belong in the category of doctors, attorneys, accountants and others who establish their own terms of business, set their own standards, and police themselves, there would be no argument. But he calls them "professionals" when he wants to wring unpaid productivity from them while treating them as menial wage slaves otherwise. For instance, Klein is furious that not every hour of the day for which teachers are paid is devoted to classroom instruction. He expects them to set aside a thousand hours of every year for free service to their employer. That's what it is when an English teacher with at least 100 students must grade almost 200 days of daily homework from each of them, process weekly essays and tests, plan lessons for classes of different grade and ability levels, and hound parents in the evenings. Is the chancellor implying that necessary work done on company time is wasteful, or that the same labor is legitimized only when it is not out of the boss' pocket? Does his philosophy of practical professionalism extend to principals, whom he considers CEOs? Principals pocket a huge chunk of overtime every year. The more severe the Department of Education's claim of austerity, the more generous is its largess dole out to management. Payouts have greatly increased in recent years. Cashing in on the windfall is like stealing candy from a baby, only easier, if you are the boss. The principal earns per-session monies by "supervising" after-school programs, which abound. Most schools have them. Many are self-perpetuating and are renewed without regard to their effectiveness, courtesy of the taxpayer and corporate grants. Just as whale sharks, those gentle giants, effortless and without motion in the deep, jaws opened blithely, welcome the krill floating accommodatingly into their mouths and becoming food, so principals suck in the jumbo shrimp of pensionable "overtime." Even as teachers are called "professionals" only when it suits the DOE, principals are also deemed managers capriciously. Overtime for managers is almost unheard of in the private sector. Begrudging the stress-intense job of principal is not the issue. But why do they receive bonuses, even when their school's test scores go down? Why are principals entitled to financial dividends because more than 1,000 students, most of them unknown to her, walk the halls, yet a teacher gets no bounty for having a room densely packed with students almost to the point of a fire department violation? If teachers have the nerve to pursue a middle-class existence, they are reamed for being unprofessional. Most of them sacrifice hundreds of hours of pay each year for decades out of devotion, but they don't get called heroes, which they are just as much as any first responders. Let us search our souls and set an example for the chancellor by honoring the inspirations of a new generation. |
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