Kansas state Rep. Greg Smith thinks schoolteachers should accept pay cuts to "help the students," as he put it in a recent e-mail. Smith was responding to an e-mail from a teacher and coach at Shawnee Mission East High School, who complained about state budget cuts.
Smith, who also teaches in the Shawnee Mission School District, is knowledgeable about public education. But his 16-point answer to his colleague omitted one crucial piece of information: Teachers in Kansas are already among the lowest-paid in the United States.
Smith's "take one for the team" message coincides with the arrival of an update on teacher pay by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on the economic condition of low- and middle-income Americans. The study indicates that Kansas teachers on average make $804 a week, bettering educators only in Oklahoma and Mississippi.
In February, Smith, a Republican, voted to reduce funds for schools by $75 per student. Districts are figuring out ways to manage the reduction in state aid. Earlier this month, Shawnee Mission school superintendent Gene Johnson recommended $8.3 million in budget cuts and fee increases. Johnson's announcement led Chip Ufford, a wrestling and football coach at East, to reach out to Smith. In an e-mail, Ufford asked Smith if he had participated in extracurricular activity when he was in school.
Smith said yes, he did, and went on to defend his decision making. He noted that 53 cents of every tax dollar the state brings in goes to K-12 education. He criticized the school-funding formula, which takes tax dollars raised in Johnson County and spends them elsewhere, calling it a "travesty." He said he offered an amendment to raise the ceiling on the amount of money that school districts can raise to supplement state aid.
All good points, but Smith does lean a little hard on the jerk button. He mentions twice that he's not receiving wages or benefits from the school district this semester. Of course, he's not teaching, either. He's in Topeka, receiving the salary and benefits that come with being a state lawmaker.
Smith closes his e-mail by asking Ufford:
Are you willing to put some skin in the game like I have? Are you willing to take a pay cut to help the students? Or are you an NEA neophyte that believes as the NEA president does when he said, "I'll care about students when they are old enough to vote?"Smith was apparently attempting to quote Albert Shanker, who is neither alive nor the president of the National Education Association. Shanker ran the American Federation of Teachers, a different union. Here's the quote that's attributed to him, which is not as cold as the one Smith presented:
When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.At his death in 1997, Shanker was remembered for being obstinate as well as a "champion of rigorous educational standards," as The New York Times wrote in his obituary. Shanker, the Times said, "called for a national competency test for teachers, pay increments tied to teacher quality and more rigorous requirements for high school graduation."
Sheesh, sounds almost like a Republican.
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I took at class from Albert Shanker when I was at Harvard Graduate School of Education (1986-87). He stressed the importance of strengthening the professionalism of teaching, following the medical model of Board certification and peer review. Shanker worked to protect the quality of public education from the volatility of partisan politics, of the likes we are experiencing today in Kansas. While Rep. Smith may have an authentic view of a public school system, I would not characterize his knowledge as comprehensive nor particularly accurate - as evidenced by his email. For example, let me start with the first erroneous statements:
MISCONCEPTIONs 1-5. “… school finance formula is a travesty… fundamentally flawed”
REALITY 1-5. Our state funding formula was determined by non-partisan experts to be essentially sound, but rather grossly underfunded (http://www.kansas.gov/postaudi... and in need of correction to weighting inequities (e.g., at-risk, special education - http://www.kansas.gov/srv-post... The reason Johnson County pays more is due to the differential property tax base, particularly in comparison to districts with large low-income populations like KCK, Wichita, and Garden City as Rep. Grosserode misrepresented at the April 14 Forum. Most states across the country rely on this Robin Hood approach to ensure that all communities are able to adequately education Kansas youth, including those without the property wealth to generate enough foundation funding for their local schools. The flaw is not with the rationale of the policy, but in the political process of its application. Separate from the constitutionality of pre-1992 school finance formula, failing to education all youth to compete in the global market will cost us all a lot more money in the long run (search Henry Levin Cost Benefit, Google Scholar).
Mary F. Sinclair, PhD
Kansas PTA Legislative Chair
Greg Smith starts his email response by asking if the teacher had "drunk the NEA Kool-Aid" and goes on from there with a condescending attitude toward teachers. Thanks to David Martin for pointing how low paid Kansas teachers are compared to rest of the country and about how the budget "crises" of many states are being blamed on low-paid teachers and other state employees - only in America.
Honey, fat-faced, lard ass Greg Smith spends enough time already in fast food restaurants, going down on double cheeseburgers and committing fellatio on french fries.
Smith writes, "9. I receive no pay and no benefits of any kind from SMSD for the second semester of the school year. That money is retained by SMSD and is a budget savings."
So I guess nobody is teaching his History classes at Shawnee Mission East?
When we shortchange our teachers, we shortchange our kids. Raise the damn taxes, I'd rather pay more for our kids and live with less than end up with a bunch of dumbasses!
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