a Journal Sentinel story<\/a>, \u00a0put the question squarely to the union last week of whether it is going to stick by the second\u00a0response. The board asked that the union to agree to have teachers pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions. Although that is technically\u00a0the way the system works now (with\u00a0MPS paying a matching amount), MPS\u00a0and many other school districts have paid both shares of the pension payments for many years.<\/p>\nThere is no indication I know of that the union is going to budge on this, even in the light of the School Board saying almost 200 teaching jobs could be saved with the expected savings (more than $19 million next year).\u00a0<\/p>\n
I got a strongly worded e-mail from an elementary school teacher who said teachers had made big concessions already, saving MPS more money than\u00a0the Walker plan for increased health insurance and pension payments would\u00a0save. I’m not so sure about that claim, but even if true, the pension cut proposal is a major test of the\u00a0union and of teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The teacher wrote,\u00a0“So essentially he (Walker) just wants to cut as many services to public school children (50% plus poor)\u00a0and to take more of our salary.\u00a0. . .\u00a0 We have already signed a contract where it is not necessary to take that much from our salaries to save more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“No art, no gym, no music, no library, no nurse (I have a student who has severe diabetes and has to have his levels drawn 2x a day in school and given insulin as needed), no help running the school – one principal with NO support for 540 students, para professionals cut, no vice-principals anywhere, no math team leaders, no curriculum generalists, no literacy coach.\u00a0 33 children in my class next year. And oh yeah, computerized tests for 4 YEAR OLDS and older.\u00a0 4 YEAR OLDS.\u00a0 Unbelievable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
I certainly understand what people, especially teachers, are saying when they look at what the cuts in the state budget mean to the daily life in their schools. It’s a bad climate right now. I also agree that what the board is\u00a0asking\u00a0 is a lot. The pension payments\u00a0would mean\u00a0more than $2,300 a year for any teacher making more than $40,000 a year.<\/p>\n
That said, I’m also deeply concerned about the staff attrition the teacher described at her school and at many other schools.\u00a0If agreeing\u00a0to pay the pension share could mitigate that in a\u00a0significant way, would it be worth doing? What would it mean to students? What would it do to teachers? In most school districts in Wisconsin, teachers are (not very willingly, I grant) going to make that concession, along with bigger contributions to health insurance costs than MPS teachers are going to pay, and, in some cases,\u00a0along with zero increases in pay. There are pay increases built into the pay scacle in the MPS contract for next year, and a large number of teachers will also get “step” increases for having one more year experience on the salary chart.<\/p>\n
Politically, where does it leave the MTEA if it refuses to\u00a0make concessions that teachers statewide are making?\u00a0I suspect many (maybe even some teachers elsewhere) will take it as proof that the\u00a0Milwaukee union and its members place their\u00a0pay and benefits\u00a0above their students well-being.\u00a0As much as the current circumstances are upsetting to many teachers, I kind of doubt that very many other people\u00a0will see it as a rightful and\u00a0wise response to what is going on. My guess is Scott Walker will think, if the union\u00a0turns this down, that it’s proving his point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’m not aware of many teachers who regard this\u00a0as a good\u00a0time for the profession. And I can’t think of any evidence to regard\u00a0the current administration in Madison as friendly to MPS. It’s easy to believe they are looking for MPS to wither.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What can teachers and the MTEA do to respond to that and to\u00a0proceed in a way that is best for the students in MPS, as well as best, in the big picture,\u00a0for themselves? That’s a pretty important question right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, the union for Milwaukee Public Schools teachers, had two lines of defense against making\u00a0 concessions as the financial squeeze on MPS tightened. The first was that, due to langauge in the bill backed by Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators, if the MTEA agreed to any changes in\u00a0its contract, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,47,99,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-law","category-milwaukee","category-milwaukeepublicschools","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}